We flew from Colombo, Sri Lanka, departing under the heavy cover of a humid night. We were picked up in front of our house at 8:00 p.m., a white cargo van the only object on the empty, locked down street, reflecting the orange street lights of its steely hide. Despite the late hour, there was an uncommon amount of traffic on the roads. Especially considering the country was still under a government lockdown. The airport, on the other hand was deserted. We were the only people there, greeted at the front sliding glass door by a guard in an aluminum foil hazmat suit and machine gun.
Our flight departed shortly after midnight, sandwiched in between departures to Chennai and Milan. There were only a half dozen or so other passengers on the giant Airbus A-330 to London. We spread out, lying flat across three seats, and slept most of the 11 and a half hour flight.
The Lindon airport was more crowded, but there were still only 20 or so passengers on the second leg of our journey from London to Seattle. I used points to upgrade us all to business class, a rare splurge. It was totally worth it. We dined on steaks, drank IPAs and gin and tonics, watched movies and listened to music through noise-cancelling headphones, and stretched out flat in our automated recliners. I don't know how we'll ever go back to flying coach. Alas, we must.
It took forever to take the shuttle from the main terminal to the rental car pavilion. The airport was packed, reaffirming reports domestic travel in America was on the uptick. We eventually made it to the townhouse we rented in Eastlake around 2:00 in the afternoon on the officially longest day of travel ever.
The first few days were spent in a confused and hazy state outside of time. We slept when we were tired and ate when we were hungry, but our sleeping hours didn't necessarily coincide with darkness, and our meal times didn't necessarily neatly line up with breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The goal was just to....be, and that was enough, a state of content to just be present in America, particularly Seattle and the Pacific Northwest.
The scene was made more surreal by Seattle's long days. The sun doesn't set until 9:00 at night. The kids adapted quickly to the jet lag, but still often fell asleep under a full sun. I laid in bed one night, the Seattle skyline at the foot of the bed through an open window, watching dusk come and go, a violet gloaming accompanied by the not unpleasant rhythm of airplanes on their final approach into SeaTac and the methodical -- but purposeful -- drone of neighboring I-5.
We walked to a neighborhood grocery in Eastlake and bought frozen pizzas, beer, and wine for dinner the first night. Elise and I ran in the morning on the Burke-Gilman trail and past UW, the kids watched cartoons on the Disney Channel. The next morning we made a pilgrimage through a light Seattle rain to Top Pot doughnuts, then walked back to our townhouse, eating glazed doughnuts and drinking hot coffee. We would go back two mornings later.
Being back in America after two years produced a set of wonders for the kids. They asked where the water cooler was when we first walked into the townhouse, then expressed shock and disbelief when we told them they could drink the water straight from the spigot. When we pulled up in front of a convenience store in Cheney a few days ago, Clementine asked, "Why would anyone need packaged ice?" The kids are more fascinated with commercials than the program that comes in between them, already memorizing the Fruity Pebbles jingle.
The kids were slightly unsettled the first few days in the townhouse. We all were. But since we have moved to Elise's parent's home in Cheney, they have mellowed, falling easily back into old habits, old spots on the couch, old, comfortable places to rest, the arms of their grandparents.
The adjustment to a society largely recovering from the pandemic after being immersed in a society still struggling through its most difficult moments of the pandemic has been jarring. Many people don't wear masks on the east side of Washington state. This was to he expected, but still took some getting used to. An initial sense of judgment was quickly replaced with relief, a realization the country is healing, albeit slowly. Not something that can be said for Sri Lanka. We're happy to be here.
No comments:
Post a Comment