reentry shock: euphoria

Waltz Back Home Across Texas

Flight AZ 608 took off from Rome at 10:51 AM on March 22, 2020. Seated onboard and clicked into my seatbelt, I could finally catch my breath and slow down the racehorse inside my chest. The derby was done. My heart would soon resume a slower, steadier beat. I had no idea what to expect once the plane landed at JFK. Would I have to quarantine? Would I be able to board a plane to Dallas? None of these thoughts worried me because I had just entered Phase Two of Reentry Shock—Euphoria.

Euphoria fits the description of what it feels like to board a plane home when the entire world goes into lockdown. Everything on that flight rocked my startled soul back and forth until I was in a sleepy state of bliss: A soft-spoken flight attendant served me a glass of wine. A compartmentalized tray served up a hot dinner of pasta with veggies. My tiny tribe of American passengers murmured familiar words in English. There was even a surplus supply of pillows and blankets. Each passenger had three of everything since they had spaced everyone on the flight to sit in every other row. After dinner, I stretched out across the seats to snuggle up with an extra pillow and blanket. Some five hours later, I woke up in New York City as Lady Liberty welcomed me home.

Excitement is the overarching emotion of the second stage of Reentry Shock, also known as Reverse Culture Shock, as one anticipates reuniting with family and friends. Only there would be no family and friends to greet me when I finally made it home to Texas three days later. I’d just left Italy, the epicenter of the virus as it spread to the rest of the world. And I’d spent the night before in NYC, a hotspot for Covid in the United States. My only choice then was to go into quarantine for two weeks. 

I landed at Dallas Ft. Worth International Airport—the fourth busiest airport in the world—and it was a ghost town. I waited with maybe four or five others at baggage claim while wondering how I would get to the hotel to quarantine. After collecting two suitcases of everything I had to carry me forward for a few months, I surveyed the transportation scene and counted one beat-up heap of a car offering service as a taxi. 

Could it be? Was this for real? Or was it some kind of mirage from lack of sleep? It felt like this was the last taxi on Earth. Everything was wrong with this scene. It had all the characteristics of a gritty true-crime TV show or bad science fiction movie. It was as if the driver and I were the only two people left in the world. There was a sense of comfort in seeing he had shown up to work that day, but it also worried me that he was coated in dirt from head to toe with hair on his head matted enough to mistake him as homeless. His behavior was also quite erratic; he shifted from side to side while his eyes darted down to the ground again and again as if he were tracking something moving beneath his feet. 

He quickly coaxed me over to a car that looked like something from a pile in the pick-n-pull junkyard. Under normal circumstances, I’d logically avoid this man and find another ride. But nothing about any of this was normal. After turning my luggage over to the strange cab character, I collapsed inside the rusted-out wreck. I could never identify the stench inside. Stinky feet? Rancid food? Happy to have a mask firmly covering my nose, I rolled down the window to an unusually hot and humid Texas spring day as the car smoked and sputtered down the empty freeways. The 20-minute ride cost 100 bucks. What kind of welcome home was this? Texas seemed vexed with me. 

I was dropped at the Comfort Inn for a 2-week stay. In the few frantic hours I’d had to plan my escape before leaving Europe, I gave haphazard instructions to those offering to help, “Can you find a flight from NYC to Dallas? And a place to stay overnight near JFK?  Oh, and a place to quarantine for two weeks.” I was overwhelmed with the logistics of getting out of Italy, a country in a state of emergency. I turned every detail from the US side to my family and an ex who had recently walked back into my life. He’d been to visit me in Italy for ski week just as all of this started and knew more than anyone what I was dealing with as I made my escape. 

It’s probably worth mentioning that I still had a job to do throughout this whole ordeal; I was still teaching students in Italy even as I was fleeing the country. Once I landed in Texas, I was teaching from a remote distance of 5,496 miles in the middle of the night when it was daytime there. Part of the agreement for me to be able to return safely home and complete my contract from the US was that I not disclose my location while teaching. The hotel where I stayed during quarantine had a living space, so I taught classes from the sofa. But I had to remember to edit all the American details before going on camera: Angle the camera to get rid of that oversized photo of the Texas Longhorn. Turn on all the lights; it’s daylight in Italy. Cover up the American outlets. Don’t forget to change the time on the laptop screen. It’s 9:00 AM, not 2:00 AM. This middle-of-the-night charade went on for months until the end of June. Some details from my nocturnal American world would become impossible to exclude, fierce Texas thunderstorms and train whistles blowing.

Aside from working 1 AM to 8 AM weeknights, I had some time alone during those two weeks in the hotel. This worked out well because there were a ton of questions to answer. Where would I live? Where would I work? Should I file for unemployment? Is my car still reliable? Reliable enough to commute? Do I have a fever? What happens if I get Covid? Do I have health coverage in the US? Does my Italian bank card work here? How do I get money if it doesn’t? I looked into my insurance coverage and unemployment benefits while staying in the hotel. I found out my Italian health insurance covered everything except Covid. I also found out I was ineligible for unemployment in the US because I had worked abroad. So I could break a leg or get sick with anything other than Covid until I found full-time employment. 

To keep my sanity intact and spirits up in the weeks and months ahead, I focused on another defining characteristic of Phase 2: returning to everything you missed about home. Despite facing a ton of challenges, I was happy to be back in Texas, finding myself blissed out by barbecue and amenities I had lived without, like doing dishes with the help of a dishwasher. There were so many simple things I found to enjoy, even if it would be quite some time before things felt like home again. I set out to experience all of this stuff as much as possible. I decided to stay with my ex-boyfriend in the meantime. We would have a Texas adventure together in the midst of a pandemic.

And so goes this list of fifteen simple things I remember being in awe of upon returning home. 

feet, miles, gallons, pounds, dollars, Fahrenheit, and no more military time – This was an immediate relief upon landing at JFK and a similar joy to finally understanding what everyone was saying. It helps to comprehend basic information when the entire world is shuttered up, hiding from a plague. 

friendliness of strangers – Strangers are friendly throughout the United States, but Texas takes this to another level. I will never tire of being called honey or sweetheart as I pay for a cold drink at some gas station in the middle of nowhere. And if you are checking me in at a hotel after a nail-biting escape across the Atlantic, you can even call me sugar pie. The woman behind the counter at the hotel where I quarantined was one of many quintessential Texas types who greet strangers as if they are desserts. Her daily dose of these sweet terms of endearment helped to take the sting out of the situation. Every morning was something new. What sugary treat will I be today? 

Friendliness isn’t only defined by using the same endearing term with strangers that you do with your family. One could just say “hello” or wave to a stranger on the street to be considered friendly after an American has spent enough time abroad. Once I reacquainted myself with hearing “hello” from strangers again, I started saying it to everyone everywhere, with a big silly grin on my face. My Texas manners were suddenly returning after lying dormant for years: I found myself complimenting a stranger on her neck scarf or striking up a conversation with some random guy about his choice of root beer. I’d be considered a lunatic anywhere else but Texas. 

Wide open spaces – The lockdown in Italy was oppressive. Five words sum up how much we couldn’t leave the house. We couldn’t even leave the house to go outside for a walk. Now, you try that for a few weeks before losing it. Even prisoners get to play basketball. So, going for a walk was the first thing I did after returning home. I walked and walked, day after day, just because I could. It was the most liberating feeling after six weeks locked up in a fourth-floor apartment. I moved in amazement with how my legs carried me forward outside, astonished by the open space all around me. Land and sky seemed to go on forever. I am convinced that Texas has more space than anywhere else on Earth. 

Americans require a certain amount of personal space from others, more so than many cultures worldwide. Truth be told, I prefer the comfortable distance between a handshake compared to kisses on the cheek when meeting someone new. Kisses always confused me greeting people while living abroad. Do I start with the left cheek or right? Are there two or three in this cultural series? American values placed on space can be found in the material world as well. We build spacious homes with measured American distance between neighbors. We drive big cars on freeways that go on forever. We build skyscrapers and fly airplanes up in the space above us. I could go on and on here. 

abundance of AC – AC was a luxury overseas. Most people in the Caribbean sealed off one room, which would be the only cool quarters in the whole house. Moving to Italy, I was looking forward to a country with seasons again and naively thought it would already be cool in Trieste. Alas, it was as hot and sticky as the Caribbean when I arrived, and I quickly learned that my workplace had no AC. I can’t even begin to explain the discomfort. You are one of the lucky few if you are sitting in a cool interior space reading this right now. It’s almost like Americans won the freon lottery at birth.

breakfast – Hotels I visited from Colombia to Croatia would try to cater to American tourists by offering up some parts and pieces of American breakfast on a breakfast buffet. You could always find eggs, toast, jam, or a breakfast potato, but forget about the bacon. Deli meats were served instead, and a few rolled-up slices of ham or turkey just aren’t the same as sizzling strips of bacon. 

One of the first things I remember the weekend after I left quarantine was making breakfast on Saturday morning. Going to the grocery store and walking hand in hand with someone to buy ingredients for making breakfast the next day is something I will never take for granted again. If you can push a grocery cart full of food across a parking lot and head home to make a meal with someone you love, then you’ve got everything you need in this world. 

cereal – Good luck finding cereal outside the United States. If you do, you will pay a fortune. You will not find a box of it at all in Italy. Italians eat cookies for breakfast. And in Aruba, they eat pastechi. These are fried pastries filled with unidentifiable meat. I thought it foolish to recreate my American life abroad; I lived like the locals as much as possible. So it was cookies and pastechi for breakfast for five years. I woke up euphoric for the first few weeks after returning home, knowing I could pour myself a bowl of Cheerios indefinitely.

shopping list – These are products that are impossible to find on grocery store shelves when shopping outside the United States. I would sometimes pack bottles of Cholula inside my luggage after visiting for the holidays, but I lived without the rest of this stuff for much too long. I was over-the-moon delighted to drop these items in the shopping cart once again. 

avocados

Topo Chico

Cholula

salsa and key ingredients for making it

corn products (chips, tortillas, popcorn, etc.)

ranch dressing

Kraft macaroni and cheese

breakfast cereal

American candy

peanut butter

tater tots

graham crackers

cream cheese

Dr. Pepper 

kale

ketchup

books, movies, and music – This will come as no surprise, but it’s really tough to find books in English once you leave the country. Those who prefer reading bound books with paper pages will be at a loss. In this day and age, one would think Americans abroad should be able to find anything they want to watch online, but try to stream an anticipated TV show or classic film on Amazon or Netflix, and you will get the much dreaded this video is not available outside the U.S.  Spotify will quickly become your only source for music because you won’t be able to get tunes in English over the radio except for Casey Kasem’s American Top 40 Countdown. 

I landed in the right spot after enduring this kind of famine. Suddenly, here I was, residing with another American, and we shared all the same interests in books, music, and movies. I found myself sheltered in place, knee-deep in books I wanted to read and vinyl records that encompassed the entire history of music. And with one click, a big screen streamed any movie ever made. Quarantine in the United States was so much easier to deal with than in Europe. I synced up records to accompany daily activities. We watched a different film every evening. We read classics aloud before falling asleep. There was so much to choose from besides the one paperback of A Tale of Two Cities that I left behind in my apartment in Italy. 

dryers – I used a line outside in the backyard to dry clothes in the Caribbean. Some may envision an idyllic tropical scene, but hanging laundry to dry outside on an island is no paradise. First, the sun annihilates most fabrics, so clothes will disintegrate between your fingertips after enough cycles. Secondly, timing is everything, and if you don’t get the clothes off the line soon enough, they will be coated in sand or drenched in an intermittent island downpour.

The clothes-drying situation was even more troublesome in Europe. My apartment came with a drying rack that I used for everything, including bed sheets and bath towels. This drying contraption was the centerpiece of the spare bedroom. Reserving that kind of space in your home for drying clothes is not unusual in European apartments. It is considered perfectly acceptable there to drape clothing over furniture and radiators. Even after being back for a year, I am still thankful every time I take a load of laundry from the dryer. The same goes for loading and unloading the dishwasher.

cuisine –  Some types of regional cuisine are impossible to find in other parts of the world. And the food will taste terrible if you do find a restaurant that claims to know something about how to make it. These cuisines include southern comfort food, soul food, fried chicken, barbecue, Tex-Mex, and Mexican. And the only foreign country that can make Mexican food as good as it is made in Texas is Mexico. 

barbecue – Besides indulging in some of my favorite cuisines above during the months after returning home, I had this nostalgic yearning to take in as much Texas culture as possible by rediscovering my Texas heritage via barbecue. We began researching the best the Lone Star State had to offer so as to assimilate some level of normalcy back into our lives. This quest began what we termed the Texas Town Square initiative. We would travel to small towns to sample the award-winning barbecue takeaway. Our first stop was Hutchins BBQ in McKinney. We ordered up ribs and brisket along with all the yummy sides and then found a nearby park to sit down at a picnic table with glass bottles of Dr. Pepper to wash it all down. I was starting to feel like a 5th generation Texan again.

From Jefferson to San Antonio, we’ve discovered that each Texas town square has its peculiar flair, yet they all share some of the same characteristics. Each tells a chapter from Texas history. They all have a courthouse at the center to stroll around. Most have a BBQ joint located on the square. There are always at least one or two antique stores. They also tend to have independent shops with names like Jeans, Jewels, and Jesus Boutique. 

sinks, toilets, and tubs – After being unable to flush paper in the Caribbean and trying to figure out an assortment of apparatus attached to European toilets, I can’t emphasize enough the jubilance an American feels when dealing with a regular toilet and reliable plumbing. Equal elation is experienced when turning on faucets that give you the option of choosing hot water. Even better if that hot water cascades into a bathtub. There are roughly 1825 days in five years. That is 1825 bubble baths that I could have taken and missed out on in life. Having the luxury of taking a bath nowadays feels like staying in a five-star hotel for the rest of your life.

closets – Closets are not a guaranteed feature in many foreign homes. I bought a few rolling racks in the Caribbean and an IKEA wardrobe in Europe. But the walk-in variety we enjoy in the US doesn’t exist elsewhere. Now, my closet is bigger than both bathrooms I had combined in Aruba and Europe. And I am slowly building back a wardrobe after leaving all my clothes in Italy. 

Target – Americans are consumers to the core. Target exemplifies the specific consumer culture that defines us: the markedly convenient one-stop-shop Mega-store type. I went to Target yesterday because we are leaving on a road trip that involves a lot of outdoor adventure through the wilderness of Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico. I filled the cart with the following items: camping chairs, Igloo cooler, SPF 90 sports sunscreen, dishwashing detergent, cellulose sponges, sports bra, tank tops, socks, underwear, pajamas, makeup remover, shampoo, conditioner, razors, SD card, eggs, English muffins, Prosecco. Americans can’t tackle that type of shopping list efficiently with just one stop anywhere else but home. 

drive-thru – I’m still trying to decide if this belongs in the Stage 2 post over Euphoria or the Stage 3 post over Alienation. The indecision stems from the discovery that chicken seems to dominate all drive-thru businesses in the US these days. Or maybe just Texas? Who knows? Not only that, the amount of cars lined up to order all this chicken far surpasses anything I remember. One line does not suffice anymore, so now drive-thru restaurants have two lines that often snake down the street and block traffic. I’m shocked and confused about how many people eat so much chicken and how long they are willing to wait to get it. But I will save those thoughts for the next post about what it feels like to be an outsider in your country.