One week since my last full day in Oaxaca. Since Eugene, Ann, and I spent the night downtown on the rooftop of a restaurant by Santo Domingo with Tammi and Nash. It is hard to believe that something so long awaited as my visit back to Oaxaca feels like a dream. I think that is what I find most difficult about visits home and being so far away from home. At least that is what I have found in the past to be the hardest. That changed this time. This time that was only part.
I never considered that, after spending three years away, I would return to Oaxaca and feel so distant. The place that use to feel just right, so familiar, felt like something I was watching through binoculars.
I know that usually when I return home it takes me about a week to re-adjust to being there. I have to remember to put the toilet paper in the waste basket, not the toilet, not to drink the tap water, and to get use to being whistled at/cat called frequently. Interestingly enough, those things weren't nearly as prominent this visit.
Perhaps it was the busy-ness of the time there, or the fact that Eugene came along, or the fact that we were in a different neighborhood and not even in the house with the parents, whatever it was- I remained in something of a dream-like state the entire visit.
But what I found most surprising was that I would find myself thinking about Tucson a lot. At first it was more stress of having to return to a crazy schedule but then it turned into an actual missing, a longing, to be back in Tucson. Something hard for me to admit and to actually recognize because Oaxaca is home, isn't it? While I'm here I shouldn't be missing somewhere else.
I started to come to terms with that, as much as I love Oaxaca, it is becoming more of my past. Not that I won't always want to return there, for I could never not love Oaxaca. And not that I don't still miss it and will frequently long for its streets, smells, and tastes. But rather, as I have changed and moved on in life, such has my relationship with the place I used to call home. It is difficult for me to describe exactly what this change is, all I know is that it is somewhat uncomfortable and I feel rather resistant to the change.
Only time will tell what this change will bring. I feel hopeful though. Part of me is saddened but another part of me feels freed to not feel quite so tied to Oaxaca.
I'm curious as to what your feelings/reflections of your time in Oaxaca!
wow. this post surprised me. You seemed so close to Oaxaca that i didn't expect for you to say a lot of what I felt about visiting oaxaca in the past years. For me it's not so much about coming home, although the familiar bits feel really good (like being able to walk around downtown and then eventually end up back home) but about returning to a place a love as a childhood home and then am also curious about learning from my adult-eyes. There is so much to oaxaca I didn't see as a child and that is what to want to know more about. But I also relate to the sad feeling of realizing Oaxaca is no longer home, home -- I think that happened to me when I came back from Peru and didn't really have any friends to connect with anymore.
ReplyDeleteLove you dear and enjoyed your thoughtful post.
Love you too!!! and ya, I know how you feel about there being so much we didn't experience. Although I feel torn, part of me feels freed to be able to let go of that part of me and to see Oaxaca with new adult eyes :-)
ReplyDeleteI resonate with this post. I found myself missing Portland at times. I wasnt sure if it was the rhythm of my life, my comfortable home or the actual city. Maybe all. I find visiting Oaxaca as a dream too. It is as if I'm trying to step back into my childhood or step out of it. I feel an emptyness of knowing my childhood is over and gone. It is as if part of me has died. Yet it is as if it really is still alive and I am able to connect to that part of me by visiting past places. I'm there for me in the past. The hard times and good times. And the young me reminds me of my wonder of the world and allows me to appreciate my freedom of choice that I so craved as a child. But it is sad. I think too because I never felt that connected. I also have felt like an outsider. For me living as allowed me to pick what about oaxaca is important to me- the food and warm evenings. I try, unsucessively at times, to leave the angst of poor spanish, gringa. Yes thanks for the post. It took me almost a month to read it but I'm glad a finally did. (The craziness od returning to life I find hard as well- work, school, sickness. Thankfully it should slow down for us soon.)
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