The American Culture Shock

7/4/10

What the hell just happened? A week ago, I was ready to walk back to the states, and now, I can’t understand whatever made me want to leave Israel. Most puzzling of all, actually, is not that I miss Israel, but that I don’t really miss anywhere. I don’t know where to call home now because nowhere truly feels like home anymore. I lost my love of the states a long time ago, but I didn’t think I would ever become as apathetic about the rest of the world. I don’t think I am, but my current feelings are so conflicted that it seems as though I’m presently unable to render affectionate feelings unto one particular place. It’s highly unsettling to not belong anywhere. I’m not ready to belong in Israel, but I no longer belong in America. I want to belong at Oberlin next year, but I’m terrified of post-year-course-trauma and the horrible feelings of displacement that past participants have described during their collegial years. I know I’ll eventually adjust, as I always do, as everyone always does, but I can’t shake the itch that something is now so drastically different about me that I may never be able to fully acclimate myself to US behavior ever again. Here’s how break went down…

I flew back from Poland early on the 22nd, slept for most of the day, shlepped back to Jerusalem on the 23rd for the Hadassah interview I mentioned previously (different post on that), schlepped back to Bat Yam, threw clothes into a couple bags in unparalleled disarray, caught a few hours of sleep, hopped in a taxi with my friend Rebecca at 4am on the 24th, wandered through Ben Gurion airport (thank God for travel buddies!), finally got on the plane at 9am, flew to London (Heathrow Airport can go *$%^ itself), relaxed at the bar at TGIFs, flew to JFK on one of the longest flights of my life, ran off the plane, hugged my grandparents, drove to my mom’s apartment, threw my stuff down, snuggled with my kitten, and died. That was travel day.

The next morning, the confusion began. I awoke on the 25th to absolute quiet and had no idea where I was. After seven months of sleeping through noise in the morning, I didn’t understand the lack of chaos around me. I didn’t understand why my bed was so big, or why something fuzzy was nuzzling me, or why I could smell coffee before I was fully conscious. In an odd way, it almost felt like waking up in a five star hotel, which, in essence, is where my conflictions began. The hardest thing about this whole week was how easy everything seemed – or perhaps, even, how fake. I can’t say that seven months completely erased my American mentality, but I didn’t realize just how much I’d strayed from my old environment until I stepped off the plane in New York. Even just driving home, the world looked vacant. Walking through the terminal, instead of hearing the engaging arguments about everything from politics to the prices of vegetables, there were girls complaining about how they only had three pairs of sunglasses. Looking down at my luggage, I felt guilty for complaining that I had so many things to pack. Did I really come from a world where it’s socially acceptable to complain about having too much? Where the quantity of “too little” is really more than most people dream of in a lifetime? When I woke up to the smell of coffee, I was terrified by the part of me that reverted into my old mindset of “oh good, there’s coffee”. No “thanks mom!”, no “oh, I’ll make coffee”. Was I really the girl who seven months ago didn’t even want to bring her dishes to the sink? Who didn’t know how to do laundry? Who never gave a second thought to how much money her parents were spending on her? Was I really that person?

My time in NYC proved fun, scary, and invigorating. So many things sent my mind awhirlin’! My first real day back, Julie took me to the Natural History Museum and I got a NY hotdog from a street vendor (the only way to get hotdogs in NYC). I just have to say, it doesn’t matter how many times I go, the Natural History Museum never gets old. Even though I’ve seen some of the exhibits over 10 times, I still marvel at all the geeky facts one can soak up in a day within those majestic walls. The new live reptile exhibit was AMAZING! I spent a good 15-20 minutes finding all the camouflaged geckos in the Gecko Dome… More than momentary enjoyment though, the thing the NH museum does best is reaffirm my love of biology. I’ve found that every time I flip-flop back and forth between music and science, I have to reassure myself that I still love both of them. Going to the theatre accomplishes the first, and going to the NH Museum accomplishes the second. I suppose I shouldn’t need to reassure myself of either passion, but it can get confusing at times (not going into this saga again, however…).

The next major event, although not too thought provoking, happened on the 27th. Turns out, all these years of being a bad Jew finally caught up with me and now, I’m allergic to shellfish. One meal at Red Lobster and I ended up costing us our closing night theatre tickets and earning Julie and I a stressful (and drugged up) night in the ER. Not fun. At all. Needless to say, I won’t be having shrimp again, although I must admit it was slightly exciting to have my first ER experience! That’s sad…

The next night, we made up for our theatre loss with cheap tickets to “Sondheim on Sondheim”. Essentially, this was my equivalent of the NHM for the music half of my divided self. Some people are just blessed with a type of genius that is unparalleled in any other being. Stephen Sondheim is one of those people. Hands down. The night was a night of amazing music, tear-jerking performances, buckets of laughs, and the amazing chance to meet BARBARA COOK! For those who don’t know who Barbara Cook is, you have some serious googling to do. Alright, I suppose reading this paragraph, America does have some perks…

On the 29th, I braved my first Siskind family seder since 1997. It was slightly terrifying, very yummy, but ultimately, socially disappointing. I enjoyed the company of most of the people there (my cousins, etc), but having not grown up amongst most of my family, I didn’t feel the connection and nostalgia to the whole event that my mom and grandmother did. It makes sense that I would feel this way since almost all of my family members are strangers to me, but I can’t help but feel some sting of regret/guilt that I simply don’t feel the need to be close with my relatives. I love the ones I grew up with (parents, grandparents, and some cousins), but other than that, I’m thrilled to have my surrogate family of tight-knit friends and mentors who I love as if they were my flesh and blood. Perhaps that’s because of growing up with only one biological parent and accepting early on that love has little to do with genetics, but for whatever reason, I’m happy to have the family that I have, and even though it may seem sad that I’m basically forsaking the majority of my blood-relatives, I think for me, it’s an okay thing to do. That’s definitely a decision made by YC Rachel. =D

After a few hours of reflection the next day, it was off to Los Angeles. By now, I’m wondering if half my ramblings are the result of the tremendous amounts of flight radiation I’ve received in the last two weeks…hmm. Going back to Los Angeles was surreal. Stepping off the plane, a part of me smelled the L.A. air and squealed with delight and another part of me went “what the ^&*% am I doing back here?”. By the end of the week, after days of visiting old places, meeting with dear friends, and just having a moment back in my old life, I realized that while it was fun to visit L.A., I don’t miss it at all now. I miss the people dearly still, and I can’t wait to see my friends again in two months, but I really don’t care about going back to L.A. Is that bad? I know that when I was there, I said I missed L.A. terribly, but after feeling the elated feeling of home flying over Tel Aviv today, I think my missing was more memory than present. I’m not sure how I feel about this yet. I don’t know if I’m ready to say that Israel is home yet. Is it even home? Sitting in my apartment in Bat Yam now, and listening to the sounds of crazy Russian and Hebrew arguments outside, I feel more at home than sitting in NYC or LA. For now though, I’m going to try not to dwell on it. I still have two more months in this amazing country, and I don’t want to spend too much of it pondering about spring break. Until tomorrow!