I had forgotten about this, how beyond the months of summer sunshine lie even more months of dark and cold, how everything is fine until the day when the darkness and rain and cold suddenly matter, how the gloom makes everything wrong all in a moment. I had forgotten how I have to stay ahead of it, how I should be using the happy light long before the moment when I am overwhelmed.
I should have known it was coming when I looked for a last-minute plane ticket to Michigan and had to wait a day because I was overwhelmed. I should have known when the hotel reservations in Vietnam overwhelmed me. I should have known when I tried to plan one outing this week before I leave for Vietnam and was, yes, overwhelmed. I thought I could get through, though, until Vietnam, where the sun and warmth will restore my energy. I was wrong. You have to catch these things before they take over, and I did not.
I was fine in Michigan last weekend. I flew over the Rockies as the sun rose, and showed up at my sister's work in the middle of her shift. She was so surprised at my presence on the wrong side of the country that she was almost angry. She pushed my parents and I out the door so she could work. We meandered over to a coffee shop on campus, the campus where they attended university and so did I, and we stared out at the rain, exclaiming again and again over the fact that I was in Michigan. I was there, really, for my Oma's birthday party, and I surprised her, too. I held my little niece for the first time, and propped her on the table between Oma and me, three of four generations all in a bundle.
"I go on Friday," I caught myself saying, last week, "and I come home on Tuesday." Home, it seems, is now Gone West.
It's hard to live in one place when so many of the people you love are in another. Sometimes it feels all wrong to leave them, but it also feels, arriving here in Gone West, like I'm coming home.
I should have known it was coming when I looked for a last-minute plane ticket to Michigan and had to wait a day because I was overwhelmed. I should have known when the hotel reservations in Vietnam overwhelmed me. I should have known when I tried to plan one outing this week before I leave for Vietnam and was, yes, overwhelmed. I thought I could get through, though, until Vietnam, where the sun and warmth will restore my energy. I was wrong. You have to catch these things before they take over, and I did not.
I was fine in Michigan last weekend. I flew over the Rockies as the sun rose, and showed up at my sister's work in the middle of her shift. She was so surprised at my presence on the wrong side of the country that she was almost angry. She pushed my parents and I out the door so she could work. We meandered over to a coffee shop on campus, the campus where they attended university and so did I, and we stared out at the rain, exclaiming again and again over the fact that I was in Michigan. I was there, really, for my Oma's birthday party, and I surprised her, too. I held my little niece for the first time, and propped her on the table between Oma and me, three of four generations all in a bundle.
"I go on Friday," I caught myself saying, last week, "and I come home on Tuesday." Home, it seems, is now Gone West.
It's hard to live in one place when so many of the people you love are in another. Sometimes it feels all wrong to leave them, but it also feels, arriving here in Gone West, like I'm coming home.
No comments:
Post a Comment