(Photo borrowed from GoofyAsians.)
I’m often asked about my first impressions of America…
The beginning
(William Gibson wrote Pattern Recognition, a story where, after a long flight, the main character usually has to wait for her soul to join. Souls, they travel on a different frequency.)
My soul waited for me in Washington. She traveled one very long day. Early in the morning, she went with mom and dad to Split’s airport, from where she jumped over the Atlantic with no problems, and found herself on that same morning in line for immigration in New York City. There, together with the parents, she started documentation of her new life, met a refugee family from Kiseljak also going to Washington (city, she found out, not the state,) and for the first time saw someone of another race. After a short ride from first to second airport through streets of wild New York, all found themselves on a small plane. While mom and dad hurried to plan for new and prosperous future, she sat and watched New York disappear into the night, only to quickly be surpassed by Washington lights.
Washington’s runway was so close to the river that soul grabbed a parchment of mom’s blazer and pretended it didn’t. After all, she was already at an age when mom’s reassurance was not in style. Soon after, she crawled out of the plane, and for the first time stood in her new city. Impatiently she waited for the luggage, which was supposed to pass through the belt any minute. Those bags lived through peace, and war, and Sarajevo tunnel, and in their rusty orange-ness were the only living evidence of their past.
Uncle’s hair grayed since the last time they saw each other. Wearing a most beautiful suit and a bow tie, he came hours before time as if waiting for a delegation. As was custom, everyone kissed each other, and reminisced of their last most preceding encounter. Later they all sat into a car called ‘Spirit’, with whom the soul struck up an immediate friendship, and went on a tour.
Washington was a strange creature: never ending streets, valleys of politely cut grass, Roman buildings, quietness, and the smell of August. A tall building with a dome and marble white stairs tricked her. It was not, as European post cards would have it, the White House, but Congress. All in all, the soul was content that the White House resembled a villa more than a castle; a warm center of the world. Everything here to the soul seemed attractive, and approachable.
Only one moment killed the idyll, when a few very loud cars passed by, honking incredible sirens. She ran into Spirit, and hid her head in mom’s lap. She forgot she grew up, but she remembered all the war’s sirens that sent them running for underground. She relaxed soon after, even crossed the street by herself. Looking far in the distance, she was satisfied that Washington had no mountains; possibility of snipers, then, was smaller.
She still felt a little unusual.
But that midnight, while traveling through Crystal City, city’s suburb of tall buildings that drank the sun during the day, so at night it looked like a field of flashing carnations, I was ready to jump into my soul. Melting into each other, we joined mom, dad, and uncle and planned our new and prosperous future.
when do we get part II..you know the one where you begin your glamorous jet setting life style?