Homecoming

Why is it that every time I come home I'm expecting it to be like one of those "blow your mind" sort of experiences where I see everything in a whole new light and see myself as a whole new person, but it never works out that way? As soon as my parents and I are back in the car and we're driving up 93 through (and now, post-Big Dig, under) downtown Boston, and then I step into my house - same old back door, same old kitchen - it just seems so anti-climactic, like I didn't step out of some airplane, but a time machine that sends me back to shit-town suburbia like I never got out.

This time I think I figured out the anti-climax: flying. I hate flying, hate it! I'm not afraid of flying. Mostly I just hate airports and how you have to give up all the stuff that you deemed indispensable for the next few days of your life and hand it to a complete stranger and assume that they're going to give it to the right person who's going to give it to the right person who's going to put it on the right plane going to the right airport, where it will make the right connection on time to the next right plane that's going where you're going. And am I to trust them that my stuff is going to be there and intact with you when you get there? And then, after paying hundreds or thousands of dollars for the privilege of flying you have to pass through a security check where they make you strip down so they can check every item of your personal effects, walk through an arch that puffs a gust of machine breath all over you to decide not if you smell nice enough to spend hours within 2 inches of a stranger, but to see if you touched any of 1,000 god-knows-whats since your last shower, and then walk around next to angry-looking dudes in uniforms with machine guns. And in this post-September 11 climate they ask even more stupid questions, take more and more stupid shit away from you and treat every passenger like a criminal. And don't even get me started on customs!!!

So, the conclusion that I reached yesterday is that I'm usually so traumatized by getting to the airport on time, being called a terrorist for forgetting to dump out my nalgene bottle, making connecting flights in unfamiliar airports, the reproachful questions by customs officials, and the anxious wait for my baggage, that the only thing I care about when I get back to Boston is that it's all over.

I've had a lot of really bad flight experiences, but yesterday might have been the worst. Delays in Barcelona, getting lost in the Paris airport, rushing through security again, running to catch my flight, and then sitting on the runway for 6 hours in Paris in a fully booked double-decker, 10-seat-across plane with no air conditioning. When we landed in Boston at 1:30 in the morning (local time - 7:30 a.m. Claire's body clock time) the only earth-shattering self-discovery I'd made from the trip was that I'm too stupid to do Sudoku without cheating.

Here are some thing I've noticed today in my first day home:

• God! There's so much crap on television! "Real people solving real murders", is that even legal? It seems like it has "MISTRIAL" written all over it, and I'm supposed to believe this is reality?
  
• Macaroni and cheese isn't as good as I remembered. "French bread" is not good either.
• I heart public libraries, especially the ones where there are more than 500 books and I can read everything on the shelf because it's in a language I understand.
• The back of my salad dressing reads like this: The Great Salad Dressing Balloon Race Across The Boot of Italy. An armada of balloons loaded with Light Caesar. The starters (sic.) gun - Bazoombah! They all rise majestically into the air. Newman's Own Balloon, with fewer calories, more taste, and secretly propelled by charity, flies faster than Kraft (R) and further than Wishbone (R). First across. First on the ground. El Piloto quaffs mucho quaffs of Newman's Own Light Caesar in victory. A medium light Italian starlet, daughter of Butch Cassidini, named Bitch Cassidini, leaps into the balloon basket, kisses piloto, her lips smeared with Newman's Own Light, she murmurs, "You taste of Sicily, of Vesuvius, of Naples, baby", and patting his fanny she whispers, "and no fat".
  No fooling, it really says that. Most of those aren't even real sentences. And that's not even ITALIAN, it's Spanglish! And it says "Bitch", on my salad dressing. Did someone really get paid for this?! This country is weird.
  

This morning, properly fueled and caffeinated I went on a run through the woods and was surprised to find that it's hot out here! I've been scoffing at the bloggers from the northeast who have been complaining about the heat, but truth be told it's as hot here as it was in Barcelona. Given, it's not that "chew the air" humid, but the sun's a lot stronger when you don't have that protective bubble of smog around you! The thought occurred to me for the first time in my life (far too late) that maybe running tights are only a winter thing (long ago was the day I could run in spanky shorts without winding up with some kind of embarrassing and uncomfortable chafing between my thunder thighs).

I went up to the woods where we used to lug kegs in high school to drink where the police wouldn't be likely to chase us in the dark. This small "nature reservation" is conveniently close to my house, it's funny I never run in it. I decided to just run around until I found a road again. But I found a road in about 4 minutes, so I decided to follow some trail indications. Now, I'm not much of an "outdoorsy" off-road kind of girl, so explain something to me: when you see a slash like this \ painted on a tree is it an arrow pointing up and left or down and right? After about 10 minutes I found myself right where I'd started. Then I decided to not follow the "arrows" and just keep the uphills on my right, that way I would probably run a loop around something, right? Another 7 minutes and I found myself in someone's back yard, 5 more minutes and I was back where I started.

This woods thing was getting old, and anyway, all the roots and rocks on the path were threatening to twist my ankle. I haven't run on trail since Lorraine made me barrel down that single-track in April and I couldn't walk for days. So I decided to run back through civilization and see my hometown while moving too fast to stop and talk if someone recognized me. I went through downtown and to my old middle school to run a lap around the track and get an idea of how fast I was going (just like I thought - slow). I realized that my town is actually really pretty if you can get over the Donnie Darko/Heathers/American Beauty-esque cynicism of small rich towns like that. After running around the track I went to get a drink from a water fountain that I remembered was there. I remembered that it was a gift from some graduating class and then when I saw the engraving remembered it was mine. I was really disappointed to see that the thing was busted and the water pipe mashed into its own little throat because I was thirsty. But it was satisfying all the same, maybe this town could let my soul go after all, maybe they'd already forgotten me and I had really gotten out. Then I ran along the river (one of the most polluted rivers in north America and almost fell in, but that doesn't fit into my story so I'll tell it later), through the goose poop, under the weeping willow trees behind the senior citizens center, and to my high school track. The football team has this tradition of painting the nicknames of all the varsity players and their numbers on the walkway out to the field and I felt good knowing that I didn't know who any of them were (I realized they were between 9 and 12 years old when I graduated, weird), and then I went home.

My town really is very pretty, I guess I'd never noticed it before. I was so terrified of running into someone I know, but I didn't recognize anyone I saw while I was running around. It was nice. I'll have to take a camera out with me one of these days and take pretty pictures to remind me of this fact, because I know that pretty soon all I'm going to see is the polluted river, the goose poop everywhere, the SUVs (why on EARTH do you need a hummer in suburbia?), and the snotty yuppies who recognize me but don't wave and I only know they've seen me because they tell my mom later that week when they see her in the supermarket. I'm pretty sure that soon I'll only be able to see all the stuff that more fittingly symbolizes how I feel about this town. For now I'm trying to be optimistic.