Neither Here Nor There

Last night I dreamed I was waiting for bus 62 at the Jincheng Garden stop. It was both vivid and fleeting; more memory than dream. I’ve been home for three weeks last Monday, and I am still adjusting.

I am well adjusted to Spears farm stand produce. Yum.

I’ll admit I scoffed at the idea of reverse culture shock. It didn’t really affect me my last return home, after my Beijing semester. Perhaps that is because it was a shorter stay, or because my overwhelming emotion at that time was homesickness. Yes, I missed China, but it was the same ache of a good past vacation. This time, I have already caught myself, annoyed to the brink by some mild matter, tripping that internal switch that says “enough of this! I want to go back to where it is comfortable and normal and I feel in control.” Well, that place is supposed to be here at home, not far away in China. And, it’s a little scary to not feel entirely comfortable at home.

This little guy is making himself right at home.

I remember sitting on my parents’ couch days before leaving for Guangzhou, thinking about how short a year really was, and predicting that I would be sitting in the same spot before I knew it, wondering if anything had changed. I’ve spent a lot of the past three weeks sitting on the couch (or falling asleep there at 7:30pm – jetlag is no joke). I don’t really feel changed, but you know what? You can’t see your own face without a mirror.

Poor man's meditation mirror.

A few days ago, I was fighting with a certain member of my family about something. It could have been anything – so far, I’ve managed to fight one or the other of them about everything from educational reform to society’s intolerance of gender variance to exactly what “get really for the yard sale” means. In this argument, ze said to me that ze felt like I wasn’t the person ze’d said goodbye to a year ago. In response I slammed my door in zir face like the emotionally mature, 24-year-old that I clearly am not and proceeded to cry into my pillow for a while. Then I stared into the true darkness of a rural Maine night for an hour or two and wondered if I really have changed; if so, how; and is that a good thing or a bad thing?

These blueberries are feeling blue. But they're still delicious.

To zir, no, it’s not a good thing, because what ze meant is that I have been cranky, contrary, and argumentative and frankly impossible to get along with. As much as I want to blame this dark mood on other things, it’s lasted a little too long for other things, and I must face the fact that it’s just me. I’m struggling with repatriation and I’m taking it out on my family.

Cranky duck is cranky.

This post was originally going to be a light-hearted look at the quirks of being home after time away. There was perhaps going to be a joke about how hard it is to not be insanely pleased by public restrooms that supply toilet paper, soap, and hand driers. Then maybe an anecdote about how easy it is to remember how to drive, but how hard it is to remember that people can actually be polite when driving in traffic. I thought I’d throw in a few quick photos of blessedly underpopulated midcoast Maine in late summer (did I mention I’m handwriting this post in a cottage by a lake with no internet access? It’s sunny and lovely and the sky and water are as blue as a newborn’s eyes. Oh, I just looked up and saw a loon).

You wish you were here.

Of course, I expected to write this post three weeks ago. But, the first Wednesday back, I was asleep most of the day. The next Wednesday, I was busy getting ready for the reenactment in Oriskany (it was good, even with the rain on Sunday. I hand sewed a new shirt for my dad, with flat-felled seams, in three days. Also, I finally found an alcoholic beverage that the Second Mass won’t drink [moutai]). Last Wednesday I was occupied excavating the storage eaves behind my closet in advance of a family garage sale. This week, I have no excuse (save lack of internet access), and so I write. I’ll post this as soon as I find some internet.

Finding internet? I'll get right on that. After a quick paddle.
Maybe a swim, too...

So this is me, three weeks home from Cathay. I’m perpetually irritated, paralyzed by uncertainty about exactly what to do now, and already forgetting just want it was about Guangzhou that I disliked so much. I want to blame all of this on reverse culture shock, but I have to pin a significant portion of it on my deep discomfort with change, as well. This too shall pass, I suppose, and I will settle in eventually. New goals: take a breath and calm down. Don’t start fights just to scream out loud. Find a new way to fit into the puzzle of my family life. I’ve changed, they’ve changed, but we’re family and we’ll find a way to get along, even if it means taking each other’s edges off with a cheese grater. Yes, it’s deeply painfully that someone might think that it’s okay that society doesn’t accept non-binary gender identities, and I'm never going to see eye to eye with everyone on the topic of school reform. But, that’s okay. They’re family. Shut up and let it go. (Anyway, changing someone’s opinion is best done via siege tactics, not frontal assault).

Really, shut up. I'm trying to relax.

This post is getting long on melodramatic introspection, so let me leave you once again to contemplate some beautiful photos of glorious Maine in the flush of summer. Blueberries are in season and I’ve put in my order for 10 pounds from the farm. Zucchini, sweet corn, and pickling cucumbers are overflowing their bins at the farm stands. The weather is gorgeous, even when it rains. The whole of it is so beautiful you don’t even mind getting stuck in traffic with the tourists. But really, enough talking. I’m going for a swim in the lake. Until next time (and who knows when that will be?).

Sunset over Damariscotta Lake.