Airport Reflections

Stuck in an airport (or 3) and a plane (or 2) gives me great time to think. Or, more acurately, gives me too much time for my mind to wander. Yesterday my brain was zooming from one thought to another like an ADHD 3 year old on a sugar buzz. Of course, trying to keep my jumbled train of thoughts far away from the sad reality of leaving just made it worse.

So, I tried to focus on 2 reflections that were made by co-teachers of mine. (We're all frequent fliers, in our situation, so we swap lots of airport stories!)

Comment #1: "I feel like a minority at the Detroit airport!" Well, Dave & I definitely feel more like minorities living in Mexico than in Detroit. But airports are an interestingly diverse group of people. And I really like that diversity. I like sharing the plane with a black family and a rabbi and muslim women in hijabs and businesspeople and little kids and retirees and housewives and students. I like making people wonder which of those categories I fit into ;) I like eavesdropping on Spanish conversations pretending I have no idea what's going on. I like looking at people's shoes and luggage and guessing where they're from and what they do for a living. So I spent a lot of time, this trip, people watching and people guessing in order to avoid any sort of reflection on my own life.

Comment #2: "There's almost never any women in first class." I had never really paid any attention to who was in first class until very recently. I wasn't sitting there, no one I knew sat there, so it was almost an invisible group to me. But then my DH & I started getting upgrades, and so did my parents, and so did a few of my friends - one of whom made this comment about being the only woman in first class. So now I always look. And I always count. Tuesday, there were 2 american women in first class from Detroit to New York. One was half of a couple, and one was clearly a business woman. But, as this flight was barely half-full, it's very likely that both were upgrades from "business class" and had not purchaed full-price first class tickets. There were 4 Mexican women on the flight from JFK to DF, and none of them were "business"women. This was a very full flight, mainly families going on vacation, and I'm pretty sure each of those women were in first class because a man in their family (husband, father, brother) made enough money to purchase those seats for them. Seems very odd that the richer country does not have enough women who can "afford" first class, but the poorer country does. Also very ironic, I was reading a book on both flights about how mothers are pushed out of the American workplace.

Now, back to "real" life. Whatever that means.

Don't Judge Me, but

There are some things that cannot be easily handled sober.

Saying good-bye is one of them.

I haven't been to Heaven, but I've been to Oklahoma...

Dave & I were both raised in small towns. We had great childhoods, but somehow we both chose to live in a suburban/ small urban area of Michigan, and then to live and work in one of the most crowded urban areas in the world! (that's right - Mexico City rivals only Tokyo is size and crowds)

While we're back in the states, we're taking a lot of time to visit with our families. But we're having a bit of cultural shock.

Some of it's good things - roads that are easy to drive, signs that are easy to read, well-stocked grocery stores, fresh air, etc.

But some of the most shocking news was that we have changed in the 10 years since high school graduation.

For example, Dave has aparently developed a phobia of country music. He nearly covered his ears and ran screaming to the car before I could stop him.
Kelly has developed a phobia of germs, pesticides, and genetically modified ingredients. I was shocked to discover that rural gas stations do not carry hand sanitizer.

But it wasn't until the band started singing, "they say I was born here, but I don't remember" that we started to realize we weren't blending in. The small Japanese car in the parking lot. The "imported" drinks at our table. My target cardigan and comfortable shoes. Dave's short, trimmed hair. Hmmm.

We're going to be the crazy people. The ones who demand that the local school curriculum includes diverse literature. The ones who buy organic mac'n'cheese. The ones who carry a "green" bible to church. The ones who rinse out the trash, bc it might be recycled. The ones who speak to their server in Spanish - at a greek restaurant.

sheesh. I'm embarrassing myself.

Nothing

While I've been traveling through Immigration, Customs, and Security at the border a lot in the last year. But since this is always at the airport, I've mentally placed these experiences as airport security, rather than border security. Silly, I know, but since we can't take toothpaste on the plane, I'm not really thinking about whether I could take anything exotic across the border!
This weekend, we drove through Canada to get to a wedding in New York. This meant 4 border crossings in 2 days. And that's when the reality hit me.
I was sitting in the back; Dave & Chris (a friend of ours) were in the front.

After the first few questions to determine our nationality & place of residence, the agent next wanted to know how we were related.
"We're friends from college and she's his wife" with a cursory glace & hand wave towards the backseat.
Agent looks at me suspiciously.
"what do you do?" "we're engineers, and she..."Chris trails off, not sure how to classify or what to say. My husband jumps in: "she does nothing"

oh.

nothing.

I do nothing. My entire job is to... what, exactly? teach students? teach teachers? teach principals? teach board members? plan curriculum? order textbooks? renovate a library? design a summer reading program? learn spanish?

In all fairness, I've been telling border agents the same thing for a year now. It's illegal for me to earn a paycheck, so on paper I don't have a job.
I do nothing.

It must be tatooed on our foreheads

North Americans are used to being around, well, other North Americans. Those who do travel internationally, do so rarely, and don't seem to understand how it is so easy for "foreigners" to immediately guess our nationality.
Also, I have heard a lot of people comment that every airport looks basically the same, and that every big city looks basically the same.
After a day of traveling, and after my last post expounding on Mexico's greatness, let me break it down for you.

Top 10 things seen in the airport that make it, and the people in it, truly "United Statesian" (besides the obvious English):
10. flip-flops
9. women in business suits
8. grannies on laptops
7. babies on cell phones
6. headphones as ear implants
5. black people
4. $4 bottled water right next to a clean public fountain
3. 50-pound "carry-ons"
2. young soldiers flying off-duty in uniform
1. really, really fat people drinking diet coke

Then, sometimes, we wonder why everyone is staring at us.

Also, if you are ever so confused as to be dumped in a city you're not familiar with, here's how to know you're still in the US (except the obvious English)
10. Wi-Fi is everywhere
9. Giant cars on wide open streets where everyone is following the rules
8. Clean air
7. Trash cans are everywhere and people use them
6. Advertisements for banks, real estate, and books (rather than movies, condoms)
5. 4 gas stations on the same corner

Ah, it's good to be home.

Halfway

David started working at Nissan North America April 1, 2008. He came back to MI for 3 weeks in May; I moved to Mexico about June 15, 2008. Since we came at different times, we mentally calculate Memorial Day weekend as the "start" of our time here in Mexico, bc that is between our arrival dates, and is about the time that our moving truck packed up all of our items.

It's amazing what a difference a year makes.
"The days are long but the years are short"

June 1, 2008 - exactly 1 year ago - I was scared and nervous about what the next year would bring. I cried as I said good-bye to my students, esp. the day that they gave me a homemade quilt with personal messages. I fidgeted all day and tossed at night, wondering and worrying. My main worries at the time:
a) what would I do all day?
b) when would our moving truck arrive?
c) which items could I not live without but hadn't remembered to pack and couldn't find in Mexico?
d) how long would it be before I would feel comfortable driving/traveling in Mexico?
e) why did God want us to do this?

We had planned for everything we could think of:
-created an international calling plan with a combo of Skype & cell phones
-studied a lot of spanish
-packed months of can't-live-without medications, foods, toiletries, books, "green" cleaners
- prayed
-visited family

But we didn't know a lot of things.
We didn't know how much we would miss everything: the lovely summer evenings, church outside under the tent, leaves falling, wide roads, taste of Ann Arbor, Whole Foods, Target, Ann Arbor library, directing drama, Indian buffet after church, advent services, handing out candy for Halloween, teaching a subject I actually understand, housework, Home Depot, chinese buffet, NPR in the car, super bowl commercials, voting live and in person, ash wednesday service, unlimited cell phone minutes, and seeing friends

And how many things we really liked about Mexico:
no snow, no ice, housekeeper, portero/car washer/gardener, amazing service at restaurants and stores, full-service gas stations, walking more, farmers market, hand-made shopping, hosting family, vistiing the beach, mango-on-a-stick, corn with lime juice and chili powder, fresh avocado, real tortillas, and about a hundred other delicious foods, more free time, Korean barbecue, new friends, bilingual church, learning Spanish, taxis, parades outside our door, sharing a car, and looking at America as a continent not a country.

In July, when I was watching TV for hours every day, waiting for our truck to arrive, nervous about teaching Algebra, and getting lost on my way to starbucks to use the internet, I didn't think I'd ever feel comfortable here.
In October, when homesickness was starting to overcome me, and I was becoming simultaneously addicted to election coverage and a fictional world, I didn't think I'd ever stop counting the days to our next trip home.
In December, when it looked as if my home state was falling apart, I could think of nothing but going home to mourn.
In March, when I realized that I might be able to teach my favorite subject next year, and lots of family came to visit us here and fell in love with our adopted country, and the sun came out to warm us all up, I started to feel thankful for this opportunity.
In May, when the swine flu threatened to close the border, I almost ran for the safety of home, but instead traveled to the beach and relaxed with the Mexicans.
But then, this week, in June, as I go home to see "my" kids graduate, and visit with my family, and shop for all the items we couldn't find here, I'm starting to accept that by the time we leave this house in Mexico, we will have lived here as long as we lived in our last house in Michigan.

Halfway through, I'm seeing the wisdom of the quote I heard yesterday:
"The days are long, but the years are short."