As the irregular nature of my postings to this website would cause all who have been following my travels to realize, I have not gotten into a rhythm since leaving Albania. This is true for my mind, body, spirit, self, soul, core, energy, all of me. I have had a number of people ask me “Are you having culture shock?” And while I insist that I can not know the answer to that question, the answer can only be “yes.”
I have come home to a world transformed a little, to people transformed a little. My friends Dana and Leigh had a little boy on Christmas day of 2011. Yesterday I saw that baby Jack is walking with sure, sturdy steps. The Metropolitan Market on Queen Anne Hill in Seattle is gone. It, and some of the surrounding businesses have been removed root and stem to make way for new. I didn’t know any of the people working at the Starbucks on the corner of Boston and Queen Anne Avenue North. I knew the person I walked there with, however. I am grateful that Hannah has not changed so much as that.
These changes are not what has caused the shock. The shock is coming mostly in the form of how I perceive the conversations I overhear in the coffee shops and restaurants. Are the concerns of the average Amerikan really as mundane as YouTube clips and bacon strips? Isn’t there more going on in the world than those kinds of things? Don’t we have an empire to expand and create? And do we not long for connections with roots?
I will say that I know in my heart that we are longing for those things. We need to remember what we are building, and who we are building for.
albaniacalling 