The Metamorphosis

No, I am not dead. Although, I am quite sure I am not the same. I am dead in a way. Maybe I am slumbering in a cocoon a part of me having passed in a sense and I am preparing to be reborn. That sounds right. I am in pupa metamorphosing and will emerge imminently as something new, possibly entirely unrecognizable. I am hoping a butterfly. But it could be a monstrous vermin.

I have in fact arrived back in the States. Strange at first it seemed the acclimation process escaping me, maybe it a wives tale passed down through wild back-packer legend and imagination. How is it adjusting? People would ask seeing me for the first time to which I would inevitably respond it wasn’t a problem and boy was it nice to be clean and have consistent electricity and hot running water and, oh yes, it's also wonderful to be with old friends and family, fury and not. And maybe because I soon thereafter contracted what appears to be shingles and because soon thereafter my family and I flew from Cali to the Chi and rural Indiana for a reunion, maybe because of these reasons - sickness and constant change - I have been feeling a little not like myself, suffering from all sorts of time and space and cultural adjustments, from deficient civilization to Californication to White Sox Nation to Survivalist abomination, now I am just craving hibernation.

I don’t want to see a movie, I don’t want to visit the mall, I don’t want to drive my car, I don’t want to go too far. My world was so small for so long. Me waking in the morning to a quick wash from a basin of cold water, throwing on a shirt, one of a handful of choices, putting on some pants, one of maybe three choices, and walking a short distance to town and helping at the snack shop and looking after the kids and walking through town some more as all the townspeople spied me knowing where the muzungu was at every moment and all the while I had little to no idea what was happening on the outside, Michael Jackson’s death filtering down to me and every village in the world, and I heard about a health care package and Lady Gaga, but besides this and incessant reporting on the English Premier League (a Ugandan fixation) I didn’t have the first clue. And having been a news junkie up until about a year ago, and now again blessed (or is it cursed?) with constant awareness from an impolite 24-hour news cycle on television, internet, radio, and podcasts, I find myself not really wanting to pay attention, the world still something other, something outside my cocoon, spinning far too fast like an out of control toy top, making me dizzy and anxious and so I prefer to look away.

And I look away and ahead wondering when I will be ready to face things as I once did: jobs and news channels, malls and movies. And when, especially, will I be able to deal with choice? So many butters in the market and pastas and breads, and ice creams and juices, and dressings and jams, and chocolates and cheese, and Asian sauces and Mexican chilies, and gourmet mushrooms and packaged spinach, I almost can’t believe it, my grocery store exactly the same as it was a year ago, me very well remembering its contents and their locations, but it all a bit overwhelming after frequenting Ugandan shops with usually one choice of offerings, necessities like cooking oil, rice and beans.

And so I sit in my cocoon wondering, but not really worrying (as I am quite Africanized and Africans it can be said generally don’t waste their time worrying), wondering when the world won’t feel like it's spinning so madly and I will be ready for reentry, emerging maybe as a fluttering butterfly, or possibly a scuttering beetle; I am still not quite sure, but I have had much practice and learned quite well this past year how to wait patiently.