Culture
shock’s a bitch. When you dive into a new culture, everything is new and
unfamiliar and a blur of faces and names and symbols seem to blow past your peripheral
in the first few days of being abroad. It’s exciting, but exhausting. You know
what’s even more exhausting? Reverse culture shock (the term used for
re-adjusting to home after being abroad); it sneaks up on you, luring you home
with love and warmth, then cutting your well-traveled feet out from under you,
making you wish for the familiar, distant world of ulcer-causing food and constant
misunderstandings. I’ve heard it described as a U-curve. At first, being home
is exciting as you parade around, seeing all the people you’ve missed, eating
at your favorite restaurants and catching up on the important news and gossip.
Then starts the suck. You don’t fit into the box you once fit into. Strange words
pop into your head, and sometimes a foreign phrase fits a situation so much
better than English. But you can’t say that phrase without seeming like a
pretentious asshole. You miss people and events from your ‘other life’ on the
other side of the world. Time zones and international calling fees don’t help
the fact.
In
the 13 months I’ve been away, very little has changed in Farmington, New Mexico.
In the 13 months I’ve been away, everything has changed.
It
was the supermarkets that first took me off guard. I spent my first couple days
back in America walking around various supermarkets and convenience stores in
awe of the selections, flavors, and new products. There are SO many!!!! It’s a
lot to process when your mind has been in survival mode for so long. “Okay, I think I saw a crinkled bag of chips
in the back of that supermarket. If we borrow some cheese from the café and put
them in the toaster oven, we’ll have something that resembles nachos. OMG I’m
excited!”
I
know, I know. Anyone who has traveled the distance with me knows that my
incessant whining about missing the comforts of home while in China cannot
possibly result in any sympathy for the struggles of adjusting to home. After
all, Zhongshan and Farmington can’t be THAT different, can they? I know what
you’re thinking. You’re thinking, where
the hell is Farmington, anyway?
When
I go somewhere unfamiliar in this world, New Mexico is known only as “the meth
place” thanks to the popular Albuquerque-set TV series, Breaking Bad. But let
me tell you- it’s not just “the meth place”. It’s the meth place and so much
more.
Farmington,
New Mexico is a town of just under 50,000 people and lies 15 minutes east of
the Navajo reservation. If you drive an hour north or west, you’ll find
yourself in a new state. This is an oil field town with high desert landscapes
and old money. It’s home to the Pinion Hills golf course, which amazingly stays
green in the middle of the desert. We have our own “Harvard on the hill”, San
Juan College, where I’m signed up for two classes this fall.
Farmington
hasn’t been completely stagnant since I left. This little town has imported a
few more chain restaurants, including a Freddy’s Steakburger fast-food joint
and a Buffalo Wildwings, a new place to grab a brew and watch a game. This adds
to the two other bars in town, 3 Rivers Brewery and the regional airport bar
where once, in college I took my shirt off in order to win a competition and
$250 (I won……..and lost).
Coming
back to a place like Farmington is kind of like going back 20 years to a time when
leaving the country was abnormal and you couldn’t say ‘fuck’ in public without
getting dirty looks. There are no taxis and you have to make the hour drive north
to Colorado if you want to talk to someone who believes that organic farms and
recycling are beneficial to the earth.
Yes,
Farmington is a gem of a place. And it’s my home again for the next year.
Again, I know what you’re thinking- But,
Darrah, aren’t you going to that pretentious school for brilliant people out
west because you were accepted for this fall because of your brilliance?
What
I’m learning, slowly but surely, is that life doesn’t tend to bend over
backwards to grant our every wish. I know…this shocked me, too. The humbling
truth is that I need rest. My body and mind have been pounded into concrete for
so long that I hit my final wall upon returning home. It took two trips to the
emergency room for me to finally get the message that my body is sending: rest.
These
days when people ask me what I do, the answer is complicated. “I just got back
from a year in China” I hear myself neurotically justify. Then, in an attempt
to be seen as a legitimate human being who just happens to live with her
parents at the age of 24, I explain how I was PLANNING on going to graduate
school but it didn’t work out. “So I’ll go next fall. Believe me! I WILL!! I’ll
go….You JUST WATCH! I WILL!!!” I scream, as the stranger I just met
uncomfortably wishes she hadn’t asked.
Despite my neurosis, I know being here is the
right choice for me right now. And I know epic things will happen this
year….eventually. So here I am. In good ol’ Farmington…..resting and breathing
the desert air into my nostrils (a nice change from China smog). For now, it’s
an enchanting place to be.
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| NM sunset. Photo cred https://lookingglassstories.wordpress.com |
