Turbulence Upon Reentry

America is really weird, and that's not just because the sun is lower and colder in the sky right now. I've been home for about 48 hours now, and culture shock is getting a bit more melancholy. It started out as a really subtle thing, surprising after the repeated slaps to the face that I was receiving last September in Bali. But home will always be home, even if you've been chilling in Indonesia for almost four months, and that was the scary part: how easy it was to come home. Parents smiling at the airport, familiar banter on the ride home, same old house smell, same dogs, same food, same room, same bed. Apart from odd jolts (like first thing the next morning, waking up to a new room), it was almost like Bali was just a dream. The next day proceeded in a similar vein, just kind of letting my day wander me around town, sort of confused and sort of mistrustful, all the while occasionally stopping to remember the Bali analogue of this or that. It was just so weird because this was the promised moment, the end result of all the daydreams and fantasies that kept me afloat during the dark times. Now... I don't even know. It's not like I'm sobbing in a corner every five minutes wishing to go back, but I'm definitely remorseful.

What it is, I'm guessing, is the challenge of moving on. I've unpacked all my stuff and am trying to assemble the Bali things in my room. I no longer immediately reach for my Bahasa when I meet a stranger. It just seems so final, and I don't really want to move on and become an American yet. The people on the street won't say hi to me when I smile (let alone the fact that my hair is long and my beard scruffy), fine. I actually almost don't want to say hi to them either, because they seem so conceited and self-absorbed. Who cares what you're doing? Is it really more important that the communal act of living? Where are the people for me to sit and talk to? Why must we all be busy all the time? Thus the reverse culture shock (probably with a hint of jetlag) takes a turn for the nasty today.

But I can't spend the rest of my days grumbling and castigating my fellow men, just because they don't conform to my Bali values. There were plenty of things that I was happy to get away from in Bali- leering young men and their catcalls, burning trash, casual violence, all those ills and evils. I've just got to find a way to take my Bali learnin' and somehow turn it into a new brand of Americanism. Because I was pumped to be an American at points on the trip- reading The Oxford Book of American Short Stories, Cold Mountain, even old New Yorker articles really jazzed me up. I was living the dream all those expat writers and artists discovered way back when, that when you leave home you get a totally new perspective. From the porch in Bedulu, America seemed kind of flawed, but oh so exciting and interesting. The people! The possibilities! Our own national heritage! I was so proud to be a part of it, it made me kind of feel like sharing with my host family: "We can be pretty great too! It's not all chickenhawks and overconsumption out our way!" And then I came home.

I suppose it's just a matter of time. But this seems like kind of a downer final final post for such a rollicking good adventure. I think, and probably can predict with some accuracy, that in time I will come to ignore the various minor cultural evils of my country. I will stop thinking that everyone is putting on a show of stupidity to be cool, and I will be re-enamored by the wonders of American camaraderie. I should hope, though, to continue to rail against vast societal evils, too many to name here, and to do so with Balinese practicality. But above all, I hope to retain one of the things that I learned in Bali that touched the deepest, namely the basic principals of human decency. I jokingly mentioned to my friends there that I had realized that "girls are people too" (ha, because I had to spend the entire trip with them! Oh the wit), but it's true. Girls are people, as are boys and morons and launchpieces and all the other detestable elements of this world. So it's important to recognize their humanity, and maybe smile a bit, but most importantly to, for lack of a better phrase, be real. Bali was a real place- people spoke their minds when upset, but without offending others. They lived for the sake of living, took breaks, solved problems in a no-nonsense manner. And that's admirable, in any culture. It's time to start living life with a bit more reality, and maybe (by the next time I post some more post-Bali thoughts) that'll lead to a less crotchety and happier me. We'll see.