Home Again

After eighteen hours of flying and sitting in airports, canceled flights from New York to Pittsburgh, hastily rearranged flights to Cleveland, and more waiting as the rearranged flight continued to be delayed and delayed and delayed, I made it back to Ohio much much later than I expected, but made it nonetheless. Jetlag is pretty much destroying me at the moment, so even when I think I've got good sleep and rest I crash at odd hours of the day, but hopefully that won't last too long. Maybe it's me trying to operate on my Japan internal time clock. Anyway, I am home, and delighting in the friendliness of American strangers who, when they find out I've returned after a couple of years, welcome me home, but am aghast at the chaos of our groceries stores. The tofu selection is disgustingly poor, the cereal and snack selection is beyond excessive, and everything is apparently flavored like something other than what it actually is. Have almost had several heart attacks thinking my mother was making gigantic driving errors that would get us killed--driving on the wrong side of the road, taking a right turn on a red light--because I'm still operating with the driving rules in Japan. Wondering why everything appears so small and low to the ground and spread out. Everywhere I go, someone knows my mother. The post office, the bank, the grocery store, the bookstore. Yes, I had my mom stop at a bookstore and I wandered around with an iced coffee trying to take it all in. Failed. Information overload due to understanding absolutely everything that was printed on covers. Eventually left in a harried, hurried manner, my mother asking why I didn't want anything, though couldn't quite explain to her how it felt too overwhelming at the moment. Lots of hugging with my nephews and nieces and family members. That is good. Today, lots of laundry and arranging of my room and hopefully locating a gym and an Asian food market so I can eat a bit more healthier and happily.

I'm here. Somehow. Though it feels a little bit like America and I have become strangers to each other.