dream

It feels like I dreamt it. The whole thing, the entire two years. This is a phenomenon I was not expecting, this incredible distance, both physically and emotionally, from the place I was living in just days ago.

Before I left, it felt like there would be no end to tears, to this ripping at my heart as I left a small piece of myself in a home I loved. And now, honestly, I feel as if I woke up, and here I am in the house where I grew up, in a comfortable bed, fans blasting back the summer heat, endless entertainment of a cultural language I understand, a fridge stocked with food I know, and my flesh and blood family right here, hugs with whom feel as natural as breath.

Armenia, where did you go? I can hardly feel anything but panic when I think about people who were just within arms’ reach, a whole world that I swear I had in my sights a minute ago and now seems to have puffed into smoke. I might just believe it never happened if it weren’t for a Facebook chat with my Armenian counterpart or a phone call from a fellow volunteer, these faint whispers that my life there actually existed.

Why the distance? My friend and fellow volunteer who landed in Maine the same day I landed here, she and I talked about it over the phone. We thought that perhaps the absolute ease of such a familiar life might be distracting us from the change. We thought that maybe it would take some time to realize everything that had happened and all that it meant. Or perhaps we’re just in some kind of shock so severe that to take stock of the whole situation might be incapacitating.

Maybe there’s just so much to miss that I can’t grasp it all just yet.

Tomorrow, early in the morning, my mother and I are driving to the Louisiana bayou to visit her parents. There will be no internet or pool or gym to distract me. I am going to take my blog friend‘s advice and start quickly digging deep into memory and taking some notes on that Armenian life I was living. Perhaps I’ll start with names like Gayane, Artur, Arpine, and Liana and then work my way to memories from there.

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when you return home you notice things

After five days I still haven’t finished unpacking. Armenia feels like a dream I keep trying to sleep my way back to. The world won’t stop spinning long enough for me to get my bearings, but slowly I seem anyway to make my way through the day in this familiar and yet unfamiliar small, Texan hometown of mine.

Here are some of the first things I noticed:

-Hot. So hot. If in the near future you can’t find me, just look around for puddles.

-My sister is tall. She hid from me at the airport, then tapped me on the shoulder mid-other-brother hug. I turned around to see this beautiful, young woman standing where my little sister should have been. Still, goodness if she isn’t the same, bright star I left two years ago, same smile, same laugh. She was just passing by my room and walked in simply for another hug.

-The shiny, heavy silverware. It’s pretty how the end of forks and spoons tapers into leaves and roses, how the edges are rounded, how clearly they reflect my face upside-down. I do the dishes and handle them a little slowly just to look at them.

-The whirring of fans in the morning. In Armenia, my house’s only morning sounds were birds singing outside the window and my breathing. Now I hear the air conditioner and the fan in every occupied room.

-The colors. The dark green of trees, the Arizona Cypress, the Ashe Juniper. The crushed, stalky yellow of dried grass in yards too heat-blanched to give more than some spots of faint green. The blue of pool water. The comforting, deep brown of a cup of Armenian coffee.

-My Texan accent. It is coming back. It is coming back strong

-My Armenian accent. I keep un-aspirating my T’s and saying my vowels funny. This is based on reports from my mother who keeps asking me to repeat things I’m fairly certain I said in plain English (whatever that is).

-My need to kiss. I keep forgetting that a kiss on the cheek is not an American tradition.

-General awe. There are certain times I find myself looking all around with my eyes wide and my jaw open, thinking, “I’m sorry; am I here, like actually HERE, right now?”

Then there’s the new dog, the vertigo, the shiny gym equipment, the sound of tires on paved roads, etc., etc.

There will be more. I wish I had made a similar list in Armenia.

 

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globally loved

I’m back.

After a week of tears and hugs and the kindest words said to me by the kindest friends, I have arrived in this tiny town in Texas.

I took three flights, two with one of my fellow Peace Corps adventurers, and then a third alone. I followed that up with a missed connection which resulted in a very disappointed family and a slumber party for me in the Atlanta airport with very friendly strangers. I finally arrived two mornings ago to the hugs you see above (thanks for the pic, Mom!) and a bag of Shipley’s donut holes.

There was a party that night with so many of my very favorite things like tostada fixings, chips and dip, pulled brisket sandwiches, watermelon, and fresh fruit and veg galore. It was quite the fatted calf. And goodness did I ever feel so welcomed in my life. Moments before the first guest arrived I threw up my maps of Armenia, Yerevan, Stepanavan, as well as pictures that so recently hung on my Stepanavan cottage wall, and then it was five hours of talking with old friends from church and down the street, new friends that  have heard about Armenia through my mom and dad, and teenage friends of my sister, who like her, were just the tiniest little people before I left.

At church the next night I was asked to talk about Armenia and Stepanvan and World Vision and my dear friends that I carried here in my heart. And those kind Texas people asked all the right questions and before I knew it I’d already talked about Privolnoye and my World Vision crew and Meri and Greta and sights and sounds and tastes and dreams I have about returning to that place.

This morning I woke up in a room that my mom and tiniest sister spent hours preparing for me. The drawers are waiting to hold my newly machine washed clothes, and the walls are ready for pictures. My older sister and our oldest brother were both here for the party, hugging and smiling, refilling my glass and making sure there were helping me land, and when they left to go back to their houses I wanted to beg them to stay. We’re all here now, and my family is helping me land with ease. While I haven’t got all my emotions together I find myself not wanting them to leave my sight because believe it or not a whole world seemed to just blink out a few days ago, and my subconscious fears are wanting to scramble and hold on to everything I love.

And there it is, I just named the unnamed tension I feel in my chest. I just had a realization in this very moment that there Armenia went, and in a blink returned a world I love, and it just feels like the world is spinning faster than I remember it.

So happy my family is helping me adjust to this new whirling world. So much missing the rhythm of my life in Stepanvan.

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