Somehow it never fails that these moments of sitting with my laptop amidst open books and notes inspires me to do nothing else but think about what I’d write if I were blogging instead of writing something intellectual, researched, and/or grammatically correct. Oh and to think about things that have nothing to do with “education”, “at-risk youth”, or “best-practice”.
It’s been a while since I’ve dedicated much time and effort to this blog and I'm not entirely sold that I'll be posting more than one or two posts per month for a while. And it has nothing to do with not wanting to write. It just hasn’t been happening. Which is partly a result of the day-to-day of my life and partly a result of the amount of processing I appear to be doing about my life and my future and all the things you think about when you begin the steady approach to the end of your “twenties”. Most of which I'd rather not share with the intrawebs, for now.
And I keep going to Africa. Which just disrupts everything.
I started this post the other morning at the ass-crack of dawn (I was still experiencing jet-lag), and am just getting around to finishing it (and posting it).
I'm awake early. Again. I just want to sleep. And not just the act of sleeping, but the other parts, too. Where your body slows down and your shoulders relax and you sink deeply into the bed and take a deep breath. That’s what I want, too.
As much as I labor over getting ready for these trips, and spend hours shopping and packing and evaluating my color-coded and coordinated lists, coming home has become the hardest part of these adventures.
The first time I went to Ghana, it took me months to "recover". Within a week, my sleep had returned to its normal pattern, but there are other things, deeper things, that can’t possibly escape your system that quickly or that easily. Things you can't shake from your psyche immediately. And each trip, I expect it will get easier. And for the most part, yes, the emotional readjustment has become more manageable. Now a culture-shock veteran, I know what I need to do to feel better when I get back. I know what to avoid; which conversations to ignore; places I shouldn’t go within three weeks of coming home. I know how to take care of myself. But I can’t help but cling to the experience for as long as possible and feel overwhelmed by everyone and everything.
While we were traveling, I wrote a few letters to my students. I followed the blogging tradition of so many of my "mommy blog" idols and wrote them letters that contained bits and pieces of my own experiences over the years, mixed in with some motherly advice and some suggestions on how not to panic. I know it sounds unbelievably nauseating to think that I wrote a group of eighteen adults “mommy letters” while we were traveling, but you gotta understand a few things about how emotionally draining these experiences can be; how utterly exhausted one can get while simply trying to experience everyday life, let alone process it in any intellectual capacity. And how much I really can't help but mother the shit out of anyone and anything I encounter.
A few nights before we left I wrote them this:
As we come to a close, take the time to absorb what you've seen and felt and heard and smelled. Bring it all home with you. Unpack your suitcase slowly. Save some of the dirt. Don't try to make sense of it too quickly. As best you can, allow yourself some space before you jump back into real life.
And I’m finding myself struggling to take my own advice. Unfortunately, the reality of my life mandates that I re-immerse myself as quickly and efficiently as possible, despite my own natural resistance to such nonsense. Despite my hostility towards this place I call “home” where everything seems unnecessarily large and shiny and clean and the food tastes bland and sweet and like chemicals.
It's almost become comical with my family and friends. They've learned to handle me carefully in these tender weeks, knowing that I'm at risk of crying or bursting into laughter, or some insane combination of both, at any moment. Almost to the point that I feel mildly abandoned. Why aren't they calling me!?
And while I work hard to not be too obnoxious about the whole thing, I’m just not sure there is anything I can really do about it. At this point, this place has become a part of me. It's in my blood now. Literally. The Red Cross won't even look at me. What I've seen and felt and tasted and explored in Ghana and Benin is an inescapable part of who I am as a person. I've been traveling back and forth to these places since I was 19. The person I've become at almost 28 has most definitely been shaped by my experiences abroad; by the people, the food, and the customs.
Despite my love of using words to describe impossible situations, I can rarely find the words I need to describe these trips. Sure, I could (and probably will) tell you stories about football games where riots break out and feeding monkeys bananas and walking to waterfalls that are enormous; I can share experiences about feeling overwhelmed by my own identity as a white American or the way that my curves are celebrated, and not feared, by the locals, but without knowing the sting of the pepper sauce on your pounded cassava or the way the heat seeps into your bones as you sink low into your hips and dance and sweat until you can barely breathe, I sometimes find it requires too much explanation. The quick exchanges in the market; the expressions of strangers that sear into your heart; the small hands of children exploring your face or hands or arms, curious to see if you feel as different as you look. These are the experiences I can’t quite name. I can't put these thousands of moments into simple enough terms to truly do any of them justice for just how meaningful they all become as you begin to unpack your suitcase.
So my desire for sleep is deeper than a REM cycle. It's about really resting. Really absorbing. Really transitioning back to life in Baltimore. And though several days have passed since I began this post, and my sleep pattern has returned to normal, I still have those moments where I don’t really even believe the things I was doing two weeks ago. Where I say, "Hey, I was in Africa last week." Where I can’t even make sense of the things I'm doing from the moment I wake up to the moment I fall asleep because it all seems so mundane and routine in comparison to where I've been and how alive I felt. And it's more than just answering the "how was your trip" question. It's bigger than that.
Tonight I met with a large group of our students who have just returned from being abroad for a semester and I couldn't help but feel at home with this group of "displaced souls". Resonating with their stories about being uncomfortable and unaware of the silent social cues of a new culture. Listening to them share stories about foods they'd kill to be eating from the dining hall again or people they wish they could see again. This room full of young people who have just found themselves and lost themselves all over again. Who have just tested their boundaries more than they had ever imagined to be possible. And lived to tell the tale. Well, if they could find just the right words to tell it.
And I could see the bags under their eyes, because I have them too. The lack of "sleep". The resistence they had towards the "routine". The hesitation in their voice when they answered that question we all ask with, "it was amazing. Really." Not because it wasn't, but because it's just too hard to explain.
