We're back in San Francisco. Since I last wrote, we've explored Northern Argentina, said our final goodbyes to Buenos Aires, and traveled through Colombia and Mexico. I will write about all those later. For now, we are contemplating being back home. How does it feel?
It feels weird. In a way, it reminds me of when we landed in Buenos Aires. We had abruptly changed environments. We had no permanent home. It took us a while to be able to process what we were experiencing. All that is true again, but it feels even weirder.
Our move to Argentina was akin to immigration. We arrived in a new country where we didn't really speak the language and didn't really know anyone. We gradually got used to the way of life there, adjusting to differences that can be collectively summarized as culture shock.
Now we are going through reverse immigration. We are returning to where we came from, and where our family and friends and stuff are. Except our stuff is in bags and boxes all over the place. And we're all over the place too, bouncing from house to house, couchsurfing in neighborhoods we used to call our own.
With reverse immigration comes reverse culture shock: after significant time in a different culture, it can be jarring to readjust to the primary one. I had read about this phenomenon while we were still in Argentina, so I might have been bracing for it when we returned. But I don't think that helped much. The effect is involuntary. When we landed in the U.S. and approached the customs agent, it took all our effort not to say buenas tardes. It had been over a year since we addressed a stranger in English. Or, for that matter, ordered food in English, or not said perdón after bumping into someone. In our first days back, we kept on accidentally saying gracias. It's not like we hadn't been speaking English; that was still what we predominantly spoke when we were alone. But talking to strangers is a different scenario, and our involuntary linguistic urges were an indication of our immersion in the Spanish language. Our surprise at feeling those urges was an indication that we had underestimated our immersion.
To be fair, I often get this feeling when I return from a foreign country, even if the trip was only for a week. It feels new to walk familiar ground, to show a driver's license instead of a passport, to handle domestic currency. The feeling fades in a day or two. But we've been away for 408 days (not that I was counting. Actually my laptop was counting for me—I did a backup to a hard drive the day before we left, and throughout our stay I got periodic updates of how many days it had been since my last backup. Since you cared). That feeling of old being new amplifies and lasts longer. And it also goes deeper than surface interactions.
We'll be sitting in a restaurant and get an uneasy feeling when we overhear conversations about workplace drama. It also feels weird to be able to understand overheard conversations so easily. And when the waiter puts the check on the table while we're still eating...
So, since we've been back, I've been hyper-aware about not starting too many sentences with "In Argentina..." I didn't want to be that guy. But to hell with that. Especially right now, where the whole point is to write about Argentina. In Argentina, work does not dominate conversations, and "What do you do?" is not the first or second question you ask a stranger. In Argentina, they speak Spanish, and it's wonderful, and it's sometimes also nice to be able to not understand what people are saying. In Argentina, they don't give you the check without you asking for it, because you leave when you're ready, and the two hours of conversation after the meal are more important than the meal itself.
 |
| Pingüinos and doodling are also important. |
So that's how it feels when we're in restaurants.
It's not dissatisfaction; it's difference. Because it's also true that in Argentina, a salad this good could not exist, and neither could a sushi roll without cream cheese. In Argentina, we could not eat as well as we do in San Francisco. The negatives just happen to be more jarring because it's easier to remember the positives when we're away, so it's not as much of a shock when we experience the positives again. When nostalgia is on one side, the other side is left blind.
I'm a sucker for metaphors and our flight to the U.S. gave me a good one. The movie options were awful so I ended up in the "Classics" section, which for some reason included Inception. For those who aren't familiar, the movie is about mercenaries who can enter dreams to steal or implant (incept) information. Leo DiCaprio's character and his wife go so deep into dream space that she ends up thinking it's real life, and Leo has to incept the idea that she's dreaming in order to get her to wake up. Except when she's awake, she remains in a funk because she still thinks she's dreaming, and the consequences are disastrous (spoilers). How is this a metaphor? Because in the movie, there's a scene where a plane lands, and that's exactly when we landed in real life!
The dream is over and the dream continues. We are home, and we are finding out what that means.
