Back where I belong, or something to that effect. I am jetlagged, strung out, exhausted, confused, and having frequent panic attacks, but besides that, I'm great.
The kittens look like cats. The flat looks less like an impermanent residence and more like a home. The weather is, thankfully, still rather pleasant. I don't even need the fan yet.
As I prepare for another year here, S's family is making their final preparations for moving to Amrika (err, America). It's strange, a bit, to consider the global movements of people I am close to. For example, India is hard for me to grasp, still. S's little brother, P, is one of the most protectionist, patriotic Indians I know. As he goes for his final police clearance, I can't help but wonder what America will mean to him, whether it will make him even more dogmatic, or whether it will soften his views, make him more understanding of who and what I am.
It's hard to believe that S has never been to "the West". Most common question, when I tell people that I am fake married to an India Indian, is "Where did he go to school?" When I respond, "the art school at Punjab University," they're a little taken aback. As if he should be a chemistry major at Harvard, a fan of postcolonial literature at Oxford.
Do these boundaries matter? Are the lines beginning to blur for everyone else, or are we caught in our own increasingly segmented, apportioned lives? Am I crazy for having stepped out of line, or am I just one of millions who will renounce their pasts to discover the future?
(End philosophical, sleep-deprivation driven soliloquoy.)
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