Steve and I didn’t anticipate any major adjustments on returning to the US for a mere two and a half months after just over two and a half years’ absence. Thus it came as a profound shock to us both when we discovered, after the initial flurry of family hugs had subsided, that we both feel a considerable disconnect with the America of 2011. Let me hasten to add this is not because the country or its people have changed vastly between October 2008 and June 2011 but, apparently, because Steve and I have. Many famous men have noted the power of travel to change a person, Mark Twain and John Steinbeck among them; but Steve and I, having only each other as barometers, felt we’d returned in much the same mental and physical shape as when we left, with the addition of a few more grey hairs a few more wrinkles and a lot fewer high-functioning brain cells. How bizarre, then, to find everything here so foreign!
There is no true analogy to how we feel but it’s a bit like emerging from a really gripping, high adrenaline movie to discover that the real world doesn’t feature constant laser gun battles, car chases and dramatic background music. And, just as this realization often depresses the moviegoer, so the flatness of the pace of American life we perceived on our return to the West made us both feel a little blue and more than a little disconnected. Even Steve, an American from birth, didn’t get that sense of ‘coming home’.
One month after our return, things are a little more familiar. I no longer rue the fact that I will not see a brilliantly coloured flame tree, or a Brachychiton, in amongst the sea of Douglas Firs. And I accept the fact that cars stop for me rather than just zipping on by when I loiter by a crosswalk. But some things are still inexplicable and—dare I say it?—a tad abhorrent. One thing I can’t get used to is the ‘waste’ I see everywhere. What I mean by this is not the sight of garbage, of which there is very little in the Pacific Northwest, but the waste of time and energy that I see constantly. Now, when I pass an acreage of manicured lawn mown to within an inch of its life and a millimetre of its roots, I can’t admire the verdant land because I see just the hours it took to produce this masterpiece, the gallons of fuel the lawnmower consumed and the water that is required to keep it green. The effort seems just a futile vanity to me when I compare it to our experience in Viet Nam where every available pocket of land is cultivated for food production. Likewise the scale of the average American house seems unnecessarily large and wasteful. I know Steve and I have led an aberrant existence in our shoebox residences of the last few years, but the size of some of the houses we’ve visited is at the other end of ridiculous.
The other feature of American life that we independently noted as being odd and unpleasant is how dead and lifeless the streets are, at least in the Pacific Northwest. It’s true that Seattle is a bicycling Mecca and we applaud its bicycle friendly streets, but bicycling isn’t often a communal experience. It can be, of course, witness the STP, Chilly Hilly and similar bicycling events but, on a day to day basis, one doesn’t encounter much community on the streets. Now that we are car-less, I witness this phenomenon on a daily basis. Struggling back with groceries along ample sidewalks that would be the envy of Ha Noi pedestrians I rarely encounter a soul. Occasionally a dog walker strolls by, invariably talking loudly into a cell phone. Or a runner pounds past me jogging to the beat of his iPod. But nobody smiles. Most of the traffic is single occupancy vehicles driven by intense commuters or harried mothers. I know I was a coward in Ha Noi and rarely rode a Xe Om (motorcycle taxi), but I do miss the drama of the Ha Noi streets and you have to admit it’s a lot less wasteful to carry your wife, two children, two chickens and a pig carcass to market on one motorbike than yourself and laptop to work in a V8 SUV.
One thing, however, has not disappointed and this is the very generous and warm welcome we have received from our many friends since our return. I honestly didn’t realize we had so many friends and acquaintances in the Pacific Northwest. True, the Aussies are a lot of fun, and the Vietnamese are warm and hospitable, but our American friends have shown us over and over just how generous the American people are. I won’t embarrass individuals by enumerating specific acts of generosity. Suffice to say that we have been the beneficiaries of multiple offers of accommodation and transportation, and have eaten many magnificent meals at friends’ homes. All we can provide in return is our gratitude, hopelessly inadequate descriptions of our travels, and the assurance that all our friends are welcome to visit us should they find themselves cast upon the shores of a country in which we are currently residing (this will be China for the next 15 months).
Let me end with one final comment on the topic of community. The thing we enjoyed most about both Melbourne and Ha Noi was the sense of community we felt as we wandered the streets of these cities, despite being both foreigners and strangers. Melbourne is constantly abuzz with street life in the form of lively street-side cafes, throngs of noisy students of every skin colour, buskers and entertainers, street artists and tourists. Ha Noi is a city that only rests between the hours of 11pm and 7am and is otherwise alive with heavily laden motorbikes, street vendors, street markets, and constantly laughing and smiling people sitting in front of their home (which usually doubles as their business), or jostling each other on the sidewalks (or in the streets, since the sidewalks are often blocked by the aforementioned businesses). Bainbridge, Poulsbo and even Seattle seemed lifeless to us, then, when we first arrived. However, this assessment must be modified now we are on the far side of both the Bainbridge Rotary auction and the quintessentially American holiday of July 4th. These two events have shown us America at its best and have made us finally feel a little more ‘at home’.
Why is this? Why do our fellow Americans seem more alive to us when they are sauntering the aisles of the big market place that is the Rotary auction? Why does the market place bring out the smiles, jokes and camaraderie that are absent in day to day America? And what is it about a parade that brings forth laughter, and energizes an audience? Is there some primordial ‘community’ gene that is activated when we gather in the market place and share smiles at a parade—some communal ‘feel good’ endorphin that is circulated at such gatherings? We are, after all, a social species. Is it this ‘communal high’ that we have been missing and that has made us feel lost even though we are ‘back home’? Have we become addicted to the ‘high’ we receive from being in close proximity to our fellow man? For anyone who knows Steve this hardly seems possible, but I’ve seen him shift from indifference to a state of animation when removed from the isolation of a big house and thrust into activity and society. For sure, one extreme form of punishment is compulsory solitude. Is this the secret, then, to a happier society? Should we abandon the self-isolation of our iPods, quit hiding in our houses, and organize more community picnics? This would be such an easy, cheap way to increased happiness; it couldn’t possibly work, could it?
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