Going Home

The first flight I ever took in my life was to the Philippines. I was three.  I don’t remember much about it except that I remember it being an adventure. My mom let me sit next to the window.  There were nice people who were really smiley and helpful.

Other than that, it’s a blur. I remember pieces. I remember feeding the fish at my aunt’s house in her courtyard. I remember her carrying me every morning, asking me what I wanted to eat (every answer was, “mangoes”, they were magical and tasted like heaven).  I remember going to the house my mother grew up in. Getting to sleep under mosquito nets were the coolest thing. I remember the little lizards that climbed the walls and I remember being in love with meeting my family for the first time. 

Growing up a first generation American and not having any of my actual family around, I guess I never knew what I was missing. Until I went home.

Thirty-three years later, I am going home.  I was fortunate to go home often; to visit almost every five years after my first trip.  After college, the visits became more infrequent. But after my stepfather died, I went home often; for three years in a row and then again about 3-4 years ago.  Search me for the actual date. 

This is the first time I’m going home without my mom. It is a big deal.  And I get to go home for the wedding of a cousin who is the closest in age to me. From our first meeting back in 1983, we became fast friends, writing each other often as children.  We have lost touch in the years that have followed but have managed to keep tabs on each other thanks to the wonders of the Facebook.  In fact, it's probably the only way you can consistently keep track of each other. Before, you had to send each other letters and drawings and when we'd ask for my cousins' shoe sizes to send them gifts, we'd get outlines in crayon of their feet.  Now, you can just hop on the intertubes and poof, you're together.  Which should remind me that we'll have to definitely do that after I leave...

It signals an interesting moment in our family; where the next generation are coming up. I mean, yeah, we get older. It’s natural. But it’s really interesting to have such a marked moment signal it. I guess it was inevitable.

I sit here, ruminating, as one is wont to do on hour 10 of a 13 hour flight. There is always a bit of catharsis as I return east. I mean, what else do I have to do?  More than anything, it is very exiting to go home for a celebration, rather than a funeral. It’s made even more exciting that Pete is joining and I get to usher him around a place I barely know myself. So it’s an adventure for us both: a new world for him and a rediscovery for me.

But going home always feels like a little celebration. It’s amazing to me how foreign, yet complete it feels to go to the homeland. I suspect I will be dissecting that for the rest of the week.  So you, my faithful readers (all three of you?) have that to look forward to.

Almost to Narita. And getting closer and closer to the home fire. I can’t wait.

Pete is not as much a fan of the airplane selfie.
Come to think of it, he's not much of a fan of
pictures or selfies in general.