matching tracksuits

Coming back to the States after a few weeks in Poland requires a few adjustments. Among them:

1. Driving a car with an automatic transmission. My left foot is bored, restlessly searching for a non-existent clutch, and my right hand wanders to the gear shift every time we approach an intersection.
2. Hearing English everywhere. This always surprises me: I get used to having to do a little, occasional mental work to understand what’s going on around me. Hearing rivers of voices that are all intelligible to me initially feels a little intrusive.
3. Hearing other languages everywhere. I go to the grocery store, and I hear Spanish, German, Hindi, and Arabic.
4. Seeing different races. In the passport check line at the airport, I saw all the colors that make America. In Poland, I see a non-white walking down the street, and it’s difficult not to stare.
5. Seeing boys’ underwear in public. On the way back home, we stopped to grab a little something for the Girl to eat because she didn’t eat too much during the journey. Waiting in the check-out line: two adolescent African American boys with their pants seemingly at their knees. I’d mentioned this style in Poland: it seemed incomprehensible to them. It seems incomprehensible to me.
6. An entire row of paper towels in the supermarket. American consumerism is all about choice. What could possibly be the difference among the towels?
7. Having someone bag your groceries for you. Perhaps it’s the ultimate sign that Americans are in some way spoiled, but it still surprises me when I go into any grocery store in Poland and have to frantically bag my own groceries before the next customer’s purchases start sliding down into the bagging area. Why not bag as the cashier working? That’s another thing to get used to:
8. Not having to pay for the bags used in the process. No one provides free shopping bags. The cost is nominal, but the cashier always rings the bags up last. It doesn’t make sense.
9. Not having potatoes with every meal. I don’t want to see a potato, in any form, for at least a month.
10. Being warm. In the early morning, temperatures in Jablonka could be in the high forties. During the first week, the temperature seldom rose to the mid-sixties. The warmest it ever got was seventy-five. Back in South Carolina, it’s almost seventy-five when we wake up. It takes some getting used to.

Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr. made the sentiment famous: bags are packed, and L and I are ready to go, next post from the States, yet mixed emotions linger.

“I want to go home” became L’s refrain a couple of days back, and talking to K on Skype only worsened the situation once. There were variations: “When are we going home?” “Are we going home tomorrow?”

I, too, am ready to go: vacation is great, but returning home is the true heart of any journey. K awaits, as do infected trees await, a likely overgrown lawn, a course to begin Monday, and a host of other things. One can only sit around doing little for a very short time before the feeling of uselessness sets in.

And yet, leaving Poland is always bittersweet. “Would you want to move back?” friends and family asked. Or “When are you all moving back?” Would we move back? Yes, and no. When are we moving back? Soon and never.

I wonder if other countries produce such mixed emotions among its ex-pats and virtual ex-pats?

Today at Boone Hall plantation, an experience I haven’t had since visiting Auschwitz several years ago: to stand in the center of a hell-on-earth and wonder how it’s even possible. We wandered around the plantation while waiting for a tour, weaving in and out of slave quarters.

The irony of America has never been more palpable. We are country that, from its inception, was about freedom. Yet our wealth was created on the backs of slaves. When people exclaim that, as twenty-first century whites, they are not responsible in any way for the actions of their ancestors, they are absolutely right. But for three hundred years, whites in America have built upon the foundation of those very slave holders and, until very recently, had a clear advantage for being on the lighter side of the color divide. Our free country was built, in the first century of its existence, at the expense of others’ freedom.

The fruits of that brutal labor still exists. At Boone Hall, the number one product was bricks. Those bricks went into many of the houses in Charleston and so provide a literal foundation for at least one American city.

And so we made our way through the house and grounds, seemingly free individuals in a seemingly free country. Our chains are less obvious, and less insidious. In fact, I would say most of us don’t even realize we’re shackled to our way of life, our point of view, our idiosyncrasies, our ambitions. Perhaps that’s not a bad thing: after all, this kind of slavery can hardly be called such in comparison. Yet we saw sixteen or so months ago that when our way of life, our point of view, our idiosyncrasies, our ambitions start to sink, we feel the weight.

Some daycare centers seem to attract a certain international clientèle. Every year, the school sponsors an International Day when families can show off their heritage and learn a little about the world at the same time. The kids receive passports; each country receives a stamp. The kids arrive and it’s an endless cycle of visitors and visits.

This year, at Mexico’s booth, seasoned grasshoppers were available. I’m not certain they were a hit with the kids, but I took a handful to try. Salty, crunchy, proteiny, Israelitish. “We use as snacks, for tacos — that kind of thing,” says the host. “Not quite what you find in the typical Mexican restaurant,” K comments later.

While I was munching salty grasshopper, L was visiting her friend. Actually, since I tend to refer to L as “the Girl,” I suppose I could call this young lady, J, the Friend. “We hear L’s name all the time at home all the time,” J’s father tells me.

Not surprisingly, we hear J’s name at home all the time. For a while, L declared that her baby doll — generally referred to as “Baby” — was “J”, but that lasted only a few days. Perhaps it was odd to have a best friend and a baby with the same name.

L sees an elephant — her favorite — at the India and hustles over for a quick visit. This particular elephant is not supporting the world on its back; indeed, it seems to be supported by a soccer ball. I’m sure there could be some kind of symbolic significance, but before I have a chance to think further, L is off, returning to K. As usual, I tag along behind.

Keeping kids in touch with their non-American heritage can be tough. The Girl hears Polish daily, but still rarely speaks it.

Even rarer is the opportunity to dress traditionally.