Homeward bound...

(Okay, obviously I'm publishing this from La Roda, but I wrote it as I was homeward bound)

I’m currently on the train from Albany, NY to NYC writing in Word.

This has been a really wonderful visit, although very surreal. I’ve been here in mi tierra but a full continent away from the places I know and love. I’m extremely grateful that my mom was able to fly out here to meet me. I was able to be with some of the people I love most in a place I don’t know, which is really a nice thing because it felt more like a “vacation” in the sense that I was exploring the place as opposed to being at home.

And explore we did! My mom and I took full advantage of Miriam’s little car. I do believe it’s true when Miriam says we know the area better than she does now! It was a lot of fun just driving around and seeing these quaint, quintessentially New England towns. As M put it, they’re almost caricatures of themselves—brick bank buildings, pointy church steeples and little wooden or stone houses with shuttered windows.

Winding through the Berkshires and coming upon these “villages” was lovely and strangely reminded me of Spain. I’m not really sure why that is except perhaps the winding roads and small towns…which could really be anywhere, but somehow, if I imagined that the buildings were white washed stucco with tile roofs, it was Spain. Silly, I guess.

Perhaps it has to do something with the way that this part of the country really does reflect our European roots in a way that the West Coast doesn’t. The prevalence of brick in building and the many beautiful churches remind me of Europe a little bit. In general, it just looks so different from the Sierra Nevada or the Pacific Northwest. It’s beautiful and very different.

This time of year the hills (mountains as they call them) are covered with bare trees. There are really very few evergreens, so the hills take on an eerie skeletal quality that highlights the contours of the terrain in a way you can’t fully appreciate, I’m sure, in other seasons. It’s a very bleak, stark, beauty. The description from Frost’s Birches comes to mind:

When I see birches bend to left and right

Across the lines of straighter darker trees,

(...)

Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them

Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning

(...)

Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells

Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust

Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away

You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.

I haven’t seen any trees bent as he describes, however; still, it’s not difficult to imagine.

I do think New England is appropriately named. It seems that linguistically this part of the country has clung to the motherland in ways we Californians never have. The Vermont police cars read “Constable” on the side; we came across a “reduce speed village” sign (really? Village??); and the guide at the museum referred to a man’s “trousers”, not pants. So maybe that had to do a little bit with reminding me of England and Europe by extension.

Another part of the relationship with Europe, in my mind at least, is the amount of history (American history) to be found on this coast and this area in particular. It’s similar to Europe although at the same time quite different, in that just going from town to town you’re very likely to stumble upon Revolutionary War memorials and historic figures’ homes: constant reminders that these states had approximately 100 years of history as a united nation by the time California joined the Union.

Even though the US really is so young compared to Europe, you get a sense of history here similar to that which you experience wandering around Rome and stumbling upon ruins in the middle of the bustling city, or seeing the ubiquitous Moorish fortresses dotting the hills of modern Andalusia. Here in New England it's all much more recent than that, of course, but the feeling is the same: this place has visible remnants of things that were significant, important or pivotal through the course of history.

This has been a good trip to be the first to make in a year. I feel as though my country and I have been rediscovering each other in this week. I’ve explored a region of the US that I never had before, and I am a very changed person since I left. So as I’ve been discovering a new part of the country and remembering aspects of America that carry over state lines, parts of who I’ve become since leaving are simultaneously being revealed to me.

In a nutshell: one week of culture shock, but not necessarily in a negative way.

...Then again, some things never change!

Love from a weary traveler.