This eight weeks of vacation is part of a Congressionally-mandated
home leave, a required period off between overseas assignments in which we are
to become reconnected with American culture and society. It ends up being a
nice sabbatical in between jobs, though made logistically complicated by the
fact that we are essentially homeless. The townhouse we own in Florida is
occupied by annual renters, so we are relying on the warmth, kindness and
hospitality of our parents after we scrubbed plans to spring for a monthly
rental when I lost a small fortune last summer when said townhouse suffered a
massive water leak not once, but twice.
Though I cannot thank my mom enough for hosting our collective
chaos for three weeks and Elise’s parents in advance for five weeks of more of the same, and our accommodations and the
service have been five-star, it will be nice to have our own roof over our heads
again. Even if it is for only nine months, it will be every bit the home as our
home in Brazil was and our home in India will be.
I can see home leave becoming obsolete at some point. Due to
the ubiquity of American culture, due, in large part, to the internet, reassimilation
is hardly difficult. That being said, it was much easier to avoid the ugly, current
political dialogue in Brazil than it has been here, though Elise and I have
made a pact to avoid television. In the end, home leave, becomes all about the
food.
Without being anti-American, Elise and I have decided the
true purpose of home leave is to encourage you to get back overseas. A few
mornings ago, we made a stop at Dunkin Donuts on the way to the library. Elise
ordered coffee, one of the first opportunities she has had to do so since we
returned, “May I have a tall iced coffee, please?” The women behind counter
barked back, “I don’t know what you’re talking about! ‘Tall’ is Starbucks! You
mean ‘small’?!” Well, obviously this woman did
know what Elise was talking about and made the conscious decision than rather
than politely correct her and serve her a small iced coffee, she would make a
spectacle of herself. A few minutes later, in an exchange with a co-worker, she
proclaimed, “I don’t speak no Spanish!” Obviously. Ignorance and idiocy know no
national boundaries, but we were both happier not being able to understand when
ignorance and idiocy were uttered in our immediate vicinity. By way of example,
as we were walking into Publix the following morning to order a sheet cake from
the bakery for the boys’ birthday party, we suffered through a telephone
conversation the youth behind us was having on his cell phone that began, “Dude,
we are partying hard tonight!” The conversation lasted five minutes. If that
conversation had been in Portuguese, it would have been very easy to ignore. In
English, it was audible spam, and we will never get those five minutes of our lives back.
We don’t worry about going over the “fiscal cliff”; we are
about to go over the “exhaustion cliff” spawned by pre-5:00 a.m. mornings with
Clementine. In truth, everyone is faring better than expected. After an initial
rocky week, Peter’s disposition has improved. Perhaps, he thinks, this America
place isn't so bad after all, with your bounce houses, choo-choo trains,
libraries and Chipotles. The boys go down easy for naps and at bedtime, though
they are sleeping on twin mattresses on the floor of my Mom’s room in an
L-configuration so there heads nearly touch. Pete’s screaming has gotten
better, though he may be hitting more, unfortunately. At least it is slightly
more subtle. I know a terrible thing to say as a parent.
Clementine has just been off her usual nap schedule the past
few days and has been too exhausted to stay up much past 6:30 p.m. which means
she wakes waaaay before the sun even
thinks about rising. I scoop her up from the pack ‘n’ play and we lock
ourselves in the bathroom so as not to wake the rest of the house and we play
in the fluorescent glow off the under-cabinet lighting. As each older brother
wakes and joins us in the tiny bathroom, Clementine crows like the rooster
taking credit for the sunrise. Doubting the sun would ever rise, I downloaded
an app to my iPhone telling me when the sun will rise and set. It gives me hope
that, indeed, the sun will come….eventually, though it’s not quite as useful at
5:30 a.m. as Youtube.