I’m sitting in Spoons where I just took my last malaria pill. Twenty-four hours ago, give or take, I was in Sasolburg, South Africa. In the past three weeks, I’ve seen Milan, South Africa, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique. (I also leaned out of a boat on the Chobe River and smacked my palm on the soil of Namibia.)
It was one of the best trips I’ve ever taken. Saw four of the “Big Five.” Also spent every lunchtime for the past week watching bare-chested young men work out. Celebrated the first night of Hanukah at the feet of a fake statue of Saddam Hussein. Was wildly entertained by two former Marines who also happen to be two of the smartest people I’ve ever met. I realize all of this will require some explanation.
Meanwhile, as my body tries to process its 24-hour turnaround from summer to winter, who else here gets homesick? Is it a physical ache for anyone? Could you imagine, for example, watching a movie on an airline’s entertainment system and bursting into tears when the heroine proclaims “I love you, Baltimore!”?
Um, me neither.
Laura, each sentence in this post of yours deserves a short story. Or a novel. Or at least a really, really long blog post! Can’t wait to hear all the details.
And welcome home.
I don’t always miss home so much as the rich, tapestried past. The night before last I realized it was the first night of Chanukah this year and I had nowhere to go and no Menorah, and I burst into tears. Who knew I was such an observant Jew? I’m going to have to do some significant advance planning for Purim.
I think we’re just programmed that way. A friend and I both started sniffling and hiccupping in New York while we listened to Hugh Jackman singing “I Still Call Australia Home”. We certainly didn’t want to GO home and we were really thrilled to be on the other side of the world watching a Broadway show. But we still sogged up our tissues!
I don’t get homesick. Perhaps I’ve just never been away long enough, but I don’t get longings or teary-eyed or anything that I know of, so if it is a human condition, well…
In part it’s because I don’t call too many places “home”. I don’t think of my childhood with any longing, nor do I miss most places I’ve lived. Even the one place I loved has changed a lot. I’m not attached that much to place, I’ve noticed. And this time of year (which, sorry, i HATE) I don’t get feelings of homesickness. I’m home where I am. As Stu has said in jest “home is where your stuff is.” But for me, that’s true.
It’s not that I get homesick after a week away. I get tired of things not being in a place where I can conveniently reach for them and just want to get back to a routine. I’m not a rigid person–will changes directions or plans at the mere suggestion, but please, let me have that morning routine with everything in its place and breakfast at my convenience.
How was Botswana? Did you see Precious or help her solve any new cases? She has the same love of home as you have. Sounds like a great trip.
Home…yea, I get feelings like that…right now it’s for Home with my mom and dad still alive, with a bright green Christmas tree in the corner, gifts piled under the tree, my mom’s pecan pie cooling by the sink, my brother shaking his presents, and on the tree, those big fat 2 inch Christmas lights that didn’t blink, just glowed; along with bubble lights, and the radio is playing Bing Crosby and Perry Como, and It’s a Wonderful Life is playing on the TV in the den…on one of the three channels we get on that black and white TV…
Yea, I miss Home…but it’s in my heart…and yea, I did that once…watching an airline movie, when one of the folks was driving back into his hometown after a long time away, looked up and saw the one streetlight blinking (after 11 pm don’t cha know) and grinned with tears in his eyes…and I had tears in my eyes too…
Thanks, for bringing back those memories..and we’re all glad you made it home safe.
See you in Oct 08!
Were the “wildly entertaining former Marines” bare chested as well?
I travel almost every week from Columbus to locales generally east of the Mississippi. I do get a little homesick, esp. when I miss a function involving my 11 year old son or my charming bride. But, I should think that domestic one or two nights out a week travel is much easier than traveling the world.
The secret to travel is to read great books by extraordinary writers like you Laura.
The bare-chested young men are playng Marines in a miniseries, and at least one of them is playing himself. But the two Marines who proved to be such good company in my final week in South Africa are technical consultants who kept their shirts on. They were just very smart and funny, good company for twelve-hour days in which I had little to do but read galleys and try not to get in anyone’s way.
It was surreal, by the way, to proof a book set in the world of film-making while watching a film in its final days of production. Generally, film sets are pretty boring if you’re not working. But the nature of this project, in which a tight-knit group has been working in Africa for almost seven months, is very collegial.
I think homesickness is the essential human condition.
Fifteen years ago, right around this time of year, I spent a couple of weeks in St. Petersburg with a friend who was researching her dissertation. Americans were (and are) targets of crime there, so we wore Russian overcoats and tried not to speak English in public (hard for me, since my Russian was limited to “Here comes my bus,” and “I am going to the post office to mail a letter”). The night before we left, we went to the new fancy Swedish hotel, where we had chili and Doritos and watched CNN International – in English! – in the bar. I nearly cried then.
Welcome home! And tell us more…
Can you tell us why you were watching the filming of a nameless miniseries about Marines while you were in South Africa? Would we be familiar with the assorted people involved in this project?
I’m guessing you were in all those other locales for the pleasure of doing so and hope we will hear more when you have gotten adjusted to the time zone and caught up with your laundry. You certainly did have an adjustment to make between summer and the snow we just had–4 inches out here in Pikesville.
I have been away from home for 8 months in 1973 and 4 months in 1979-80, a month each in 81 and 82 and since then for a week or two weeks at a time in the US or overseas. I have not been homesick- I sometimes missed my kids or wished for my own bed- due to the uncomfortable nature of my accommodations. I am a sentimental crier- despite being Jewish, I cry everytime I see Miracle on 34th Street(I watch the tape several times at this time of year)- when the little Dutch girl comes to see Kris Kringle and I have cried at soppy Hallmark commercials but I have never cried seeing scenes of DC or Philly. Probably I just don’t love my hometowns enough.
I do envy the trip that allows you to watch attractive men work out bare chested at lunch time.
Welcome back, Laura. I’ll bet your trip to Africa was even more exciting then spending a half hour in a South Dakota MacDonald’s. <g>
The mention of IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE, reminded me of how much I hate that movie. I’d like to tell everyone that Donna Reed’s non-Jimmy Stewart existence wasn’t that terrible. Being a spinster librarian can be a “wonderful life” too.
Also admit that I’m always am glad to see my home town after a trip. But no movie has every mentioned how much someone loves Fostoria, OH. Hard to believe, isn’t it?
Waiting to hear more of your adventures, Laura, after you get over your jet lag and climate change trauma.
Doris Ann,
I read a good piece recently in Time about how A CHRISTMAS STORY has displaced LIFE as America’s favorite Christmas movie.
And was South Africa more exciting? Well, I admit that seeing a sleeping leopard was pretty darn cool. I also enjoyed eating lunch near the banks of the Chobe River, while watching a herd of almost 150 elephant stream by, along with giraffes, wart hogs, baboons, zebras . . . But I had your company in South Dakota, which is always fun.
I remember going to see Pink Flamingos for the first time in the late 1970s. I had left Baltimore after the 1968 riots, swearing I would never return to that horrible, hateful city, and in all those years had never missed it for an instant. However, listening to those familiar accents (and seeing a few familiar faces) made me feel a little wistful and curious as to how the city might have changed. Not exactly an “I love you, Baltimore” moment; more of a “Maybe I don’t hate you, Baltimore” moment.
Barbara — would you write me about ’68? It’s going to figure largely into the next book I write and I would love to pick your brain, if you don’t mind.
I’m not unlike Andi. I get homesick whenever I’m away from my family, but not too much for where I live right now. This summer we spent time in the South, and I found the only thing I missed about home was the convenience of knowing where everything is and how to get there.
That said, I REALLY miss the city. Including the one we visited this summer. I grew up in cities, and I just miss the activity, the convenience, the idea that home is where you go when you want to relax. Where I live now is a toss-up between whether home or going out will be more pointless! So yes, I miss what I remember of fun places in Boston, New York, and even smaller cities like Greenville SC.
I totally get it. I just spent a week back in Salisbury and by the end, I was like, “I want to go HOME!” and yes, I definitely felt better once I was back home. I think Sam prefers it on this side of the bridge, too.
And we were only 2.5 hours away from the city, not continents and time zones.
Christa, are you saying that Greenville SC stayed as it was? It has been many a year since I visited there, but the Asheville NC I lived in at that time bears little resemblance to now. Buildings are not what they were. Roads are blocked off or else cut through where they once weren’t. What used to be two lane roads are now super highways with development all around. Then there are the new buildings. What has stayed the same are the mountains. There isn’t anywhere prettier than that area from spring through autumn.
Although I miss people dreadfully, I am always conflicted about returning to the U.S. We have so horribly let ourselves down. I am so often embarrassed to be an American abroad. However, most of my travels have been in easy places to visit. A more exotic and less western-friendly place might be very different. Please let us elect a President to be proud of in 2008.
I think Capote’s Christmas Memory is the best Christmas/holiday movie.
A few years ago I drifted out of a nap (alright it was the annual Christmas overload nap) wondering who was in the house speaking to David in this wonderful storytelling voice.
We now play it in the background throughout the year.
Jeanne