Am I home sick for Gofstown adn America?

Am I homesick for Goffstown and America?  The short answer is no, but I have warehouses full of memories – some simple and sensory (the smell of cooking bread in our house on Spring St. on a fall day), some tactile (baseball gloves and bats and even new baseballs in a pizza-size box), and some, of course, are emotional.  I’ve been out of touch with most friends and even family for so long they would be more like strangers if we met now.  And even if I could magically step over the threshold of grief and see lost loved ones who have passed what would I say?  The moment would be cathartic and I’m sure I for one couldn’t stop sobbing or hugging the dead – but what then?  

When I was divorced and working in Saudi Arabia, I use to come back to see my kids.  The truth is, however, I’d only get to see them for an hour or so a day because they were busy with their own lives.  The rest of the time I’d lie on the bed of a cheap motel room looking at the ceiling. This was in a southern town I hadn’t lived in long enough to make any friends - so I just looked at the ceiling and counted the days until I had to go back.  Somehow I think meeting the dead you dearly love might end up much the same.  Dunno.

And then there is this:

Scientist say the reason we do not experience the same fear when we drive as we did the first time we drove a car is because of the subconscious.  Over time the subconscious focuses on the important things: brake lights, intersections, where kids might run into the road – to the exclusion of everything else.  There might be a gorilla gyrating with hula hoop by the side of the road and because the spot light of our subconscious knows it is not important to our driving – we don’t see the gorilla. [You may laugh, but I’ve see experiments doing just this.  Afterwards they ask, “Did you see the gorilla?” and the answer is “What gorilla?”]

Before we were old enough to drive we walked around Goffstown in the middle of such a subconscious spotlight.  We negotiated school, played in the backyard, climbed in the train bridge, walked up to the lemon squeezer all in the growing confidence of our subconscious.  But that light long ago dimmed for me because I have been gone for so long and went out.  If I went back now, I doubt there would be even a glimmer of those old spotlights of confidence.   On the other hand there would probably be a lot of gorillas gyrating hula hoops.

When I was working overseas my son Peter asked me what my favorite country was?   America, I would say without hesitation.  It was a no-brainer, and I would still say the same thing today.  Yet, America is an idea, a state of mind if you will excuse the pun and that idea has “drifted” in the past decades. It may even be dissolving altogether as we watch multi-national corporations take our treasure and move elsewhere.  Once I was sure of what America was and stood for – I’m much less so now.  The saying use to go “Democracy is an awful form of government, but it is a lot better than what is in second place.” I’m less sure of this now than I was at the height of the cold war.

I do have some comfort food issues.  The rural Thais eat the same (basically) one bowl rice-and-something meals they have eaten for a thousand years.  It’s good, but not the food I grew up on.  Still, things are changing rapidly here.  There are two companies selling frozen entrees and some of these are western and pretty good. 

When I first got here there was no bourbon, gin, vodka, or rum just scotch (that’s why the tallest hotel in Bangkok had a 25-storey picture of Johnny Walker on it.) Now you can get these and wine, too.  So comfort food is less an issue.  (When I asked Chunky, who is a good Thai cook to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, she presented me with 1. Bread, 2. Peanut butter, 3. Bread, and 4. Jelly on top.  I just had to add this.)

The Thais don’t play baseball, basketball of American football.  I miss these but I can follow these sports on TV and the Internet.

Would I like to go back to Goffstown if time, money, and health allowed – sure.   But am I homesick? I  think not.