The Language of Reverse Culture Shock

With the sound of violins and techno beats bursting through the open windows, I drove home drowning out each passing thought, every few beats I snuck a quick peek at the night sky, letting the summer air ripple through my hair. I drove passed my street, and then the next, and the next. I didn’t want to go home, I didn’t want to be alone with my thoughts; I still hadn’t felt anything since returning to the states, and the numbing sensation had begun to take its toll on me. But gas costs money, money I neither had nor wanted to waste, so uncharacteristic as it may be, logic took to steering the wheel and drove me home.
Thirty minutes later and I found myself kneeling on the lukewarm pavement of my backyard, bowing down before the King of Kings, robed in the blanket of stars overhead. My heart sat stone cold, but the beauty of creation spilt over the image of our 4,000 square foot home that my eyes couldn’t seem to reconcile with. I wanted to curl up and fall asleep outside, I could see God outside, I desperately grasped to feel His gentle touch in the soft breeze, to know His embrace in the summer night air that warmly kissed my skin, and to stand in awe of His vastness that the multitude of stars proclaimed. Inside the house I got lost, lost inside my big brass bed and walk-in closet, lost in the many distractions that only forced the numbness down deeper. I choked back a short and passing sob, and slowly stretched out till I lay face down against the cement. Not knowing how to physically humble myself futher, I continued to press my face into the gray beneath me.
I could feel the warmth left over from the long since set sun and I couldn’t help but realize that it was now breaking through the dawn on the other side of the globe. I had set foot on the plane in the middle of winter and had hours later stepped out into a California summer, how strange the grey below felt, its heat continuing to engulf me. My mind began to race with incomplete prayers, “Oh God, speak to me, oh God I didn’t leave you behind in Kenya, where are you, this house can’t possibly be mine, I can’t go back inside, why do I feel safer outside then behind the locked doors of my house, Lord please, would you tell them good morning, would you wake them with a memory of our loving embrace, Jesus would you tell me what to say to those around me, Jesus I don’t understand, I can’t stare at the walls around me much longer.” I had no idea what I was saying, I began to quietly weep, I knew each tear could communicate better than my frantic words. Thank God He speaks more than one language…

Something About Autumn

Crunch..crunch…my brown flats laced with golden florals, half conscientiously, perhaps almost instinctively, tread over the orange and red amber puddles splashed through the green autumn grass. Yes, I am once again maneuvering my steps to the placing of each crisp leaf, like a child in a grocery store that will only step on the black squares or red lines for fear of the lava filled white squares. Its fall and the colors of my favorite songs are beginning to play the first few notes. I recently heard that during the fall, leaves return to their natural colors. The vibrant colors are not the pallet of decay as I once thought, they are in fact the purest reflection of the leaves, free of any outside influence, also known as chlorophyll, but no one’s ear delights at the sound of chlorophyll so let’s leave science to science, and me with my words. They say, or often literature tells us that spring represents birth, new life, growth, but when it comes to the literature of my life it seems that Autumn often steals Spring’s thunder and pours a stirring into the dusty corridors of my mind. The corridors left quenched for creativity by the ever busy and preoccupied Summer. Autumn reflects not only the true colors of her leaves but of my spirit. I always feel more alive when the air stands on that in between of warm and cold, as if finally and for just a moment, vacant of brisk goosebumps or beads of sweat, my skin can finally touch the atmosphere without the fickle temperature of the wind. When the faintest of breezes prompts me to neither put on nor remove my sweater, but to breathe in the breath of that whisper of a wind, and soak in the voiceless and seemingly undetectable touch of the afternoon air. My soul begins to sing along with the gold altos as they harmonize with the sea of amber sopranos floating effortlessly from the branches of nearby trees to the cold pavement. A thousand tiny green drums beat against the branches in never know exactly what about October sunsets or November mornings that can intoxicate me so quickly, but something fills me with an awe inspiring release that turns my eyes into a camera lens tinted quiet anticipation. I feel calm and refreshed, each candy coated color sweetening the waking realization that I’m alive.