Different flesh, same sweetness.

Sometimes I feel so effective, I swear I could make a watched pot boil; with sheer will and tenacity alone, I might compel pasta to cook in a flash or beets to soften at a fork’s first spear.  And then there are the other days. The many, many other days when that iron will just skulks back into oblivion, leaving me with hardly enough wherewithal to reach the stove when the kettle whistles to pour my cup of tea.  Now,  after two years of employing a survivor’s need to self-motivate, I’ve begun to long for the protective confines of an office cubicle once again. It seems near treason to admit it, but I could really go for a 401k and some dental these days.

Return to America and right away you realize how closely we hold some things.  Like cars, for example, and knowing the best route home.  We left the farm as in a caravan of old: Cal in his claw-clad farm vehicle, Eric in his pick-up (Ma in her kerchief, Pa in his cap…) and me in my Mom’s silver Honda Civic.  Three humans setting out for the same place – same coffee machine at the same filling station – separate but as one.

Ever since leaving for Ukraine two years ago, I’ve been sliding around in a car-free existence. Walking and timing my travel by the height and comfort of my shoes.  And I’ve gotten a little high and mighty about the whole American love affair with automobiles.  Public transportation – having kept me mobile, having afforded me what small bursts of independent travel I’ve been allowed – has become an inspiration.  So grateful am I for the existence of buses and trains that I had trouble understanding why a person might want for their own automobile at all.  Mom kept reminding me that American culture is deeply rooted in our ability (and desire and demand) to just pick up and go someplace new at the drop of a hat. I accepted her reasoning but continued rallying for high speed light rails and more frequent bus services.

One short week in America, though, and my affection for the automobile increased exponentially.  Without it, how could I have celebrated the most beautiful Autumn wedding, picked up the most excellent wedding date from the airport, visited with my most excellent brother, two grandmothers, a grandfather and a whole host of childhood friends? Time may not be money but some days it really does seem priceless. The gift of presence, in an age when emails are epistolary and gift cards good enough, has become an ever appreciating currency of value.

*   *    *   *

Lately, I’ve had this recurring dream where I slip into a borrowed car and purchase the following things:

Yoga mat, book light (itty bitty, or otherwise), Finances for Dummies, temperpedic pillow, terrycloth robe, Le Creuset omelette pan.

Seamlessly, I drive from one store to another picking out these long sought-after items and listening to WFUV. I am America, I am the automobile!

But it’s another month yet until I make it to the mall.

(Oh lord, did I really just admit that I might be planning a trip to the mall?)

I guess that’s just one of the ways I know it’s time to go home.

This morning’s chatter was indeed another.

I’ve been struggling this past week to get used to the time difference, staying up till 4 a.m. sometimes even convincing myself that I could live in this warped American timezone for the rest of my service without much trouble.  I wonder whether, when standing in the American Cemetery at Normandy, you are standing in an Eastern Standard existence. Might I create such an EST outpost here in Eastern Ukraine? I mean, it really hasn’t been so bad! I’m up for evening phone calls and I have plenty of time to watch bad television.  Rationally, in the (late) morning when I wake, I know that this is not possible but in the wee hours of morning, I take it into serious consideration.

This morning was an improvement. I woke up around 9 a.m. and watched (sadly, did not help) my two octogenarian roommates pluck chickens at the dinner table on the verandah.  Determined to socialize, speak Russian and remind myself that I’ve still go another month to go, I put the kettle on and stood around for an hour as they plucked. I drank my coffee and listened to the range of conversation, adding a few non-inflammatory comments every now and again.

An acoustic version of «Tears from Heaven» played on the national radio station but we might as well have been plucking chickens in 1963, so clearly were Luba and Anya describing to me the Soviet version of history.

First, we discussed the bandits in the Ukrainian government.

Next, the Bulgarian seer who, blind and blessed with the power of foresight, correctly identified the location of American submarines during the Cold War.

Then, how Hitler gave all the gold that fell out of Jewish mouths to the capitalists in West Berlin. (A frightful but accurate translation, I assure you.)

The Bay of Pigs came next, Luba’s eldest sister laughing about how the fear of detonation had Kennedy up all night.  When she started in proudly on Krushchev’s epic shoe-banging, I had to walk into the other room.

The only thing that shocked me back into the present was their support of the Occupy Wall Street protests. They were glad to see Americans communing to combat capitalism which, they reminded me, was the root of all Ukraine’s problems. That and the fact that Hitler didn’t give the Jewish gold to East Berlin.

Now, I’m the first to admit that America has made and continues to make some mistakes.  But just now, so homesick am I for those stars and stripes that it’s hard to remember all of the American missteps that I’ve railed on in history papers. What I remember most in these moments is how free I feel in America to be and support anything I choose. I am, more than ever, grateful for the freedom of speech and expression and purpose that supports my actions (most of the time).  I am proud of the people who fight and protest every day to ensure a better country, a more perfect union.

Feeling all of these things, as well as the sting of insult, I know it’s time to go home.  I realize that my willingness to accept the propogandized history of America all in the name of supporting my motherland means it’s been too long since I’ve been home, really home.  America has become my dreamscape where the Bay of Pigs is nothing more than Kennedy’s first presidential challenge and success.  And where I believe, with every nerve and sinew, that if he did stay up all night it was because he was ambitious, committed and compelled by a greater good to help keep America safe.

I mean, this is Kennedy we’re talking about – the father of Peace Corps and a Catholic!

Sure, there are plenty who suppose that going home in such an idealized state of mind is dangerous. That it’s ripe with the potential for grave disappointment.  That I may not make it in the cold, harsh winter of American discontent.  Indeed, they’re likely to think that I’ve lost all bearings on the realities (and struggles and inequalities) of American life.   They’re out there fretting and tsking and saying, yet again, «Well, if that’s what you think, then, at your peril, Miss Peace….»

As perilous as it was to leave, so will it be to return.

But fear not for the lass who has been sometimes known to make the watched pot boil!

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