By Pablo Lock. Peninsula 360 Press [P360P]
I'm going to the town
Today is my day…
They used to sing Los Panchos.
Even though I was already sitting in waiting room number A18 at the airport more than half an hour in advance, having already gone through the stress of packing my bags, checking my passport a thousand times and having checked in at the airline counter, I still had that feeling of apathy.
And even though I tried to force some emotion, I couldn't feel the slightest enthusiasm. I felt a great disappointment at feeling so listless, and it was no small thing to return to my country after almost 20 years.
And it was that I had spent so much of my life longing for this moment, daydreaming about these moments of supreme emotion, of excessive delirium, and today, although I tried, I could not muster the slightest enthusiasm.
It is true that when I first emigrated, the idea of my return was not a priority, nor was it even a half-present thought, just a distant desire.
I saw friends, coworkers or relatives returning to their countries on vacation and I tried to avoid that shameful feeling of envy and, on many occasions when I had said goodbye to someone at the airport, I felt that sensation of being locked in a prison without bars.
Years of mentally planning how my trip would be, from the moment I bought the tickets, the gifts I would bring, what clothes I would wear off the plane, whether or not I would let people know I was coming back. Always thinking about returning made me happy and although I was aware that it was a deliberately fictitious happiness, it helped me a lot to escape my daily stress.
Even though I had already achieved relative economic stability, the many years of effort left me with a permanent fear of insecurity.
My story was not very different from so many other immigrants who arrive with more doubts than convictions and who finally discover that the "American dream" turns out to be a vulgar utopia. The meaning we give to the word success could well have been invented by some clever real estate salesman.
They were already starting to call for boarding, and I hadn't felt the slightest bit of emotion up to that point. Maybe I'll feel something when the plane takes off, maybe when the plane lands, or when they announce that we've arrived at our destination. Maybe I'll feel something beyond the customs line, when I pick up my bags. Possibly when I get the unmistakable scent of my city. Maybe when I see the raised arms of those on the other side of the terminal, effusively greeting those who arrive.
But he remained inert and, although he maintained the hope of feeling something, it was increasingly distant.
The hugs with relatives, the cloudy sky, the filthy streets, the delirious smog and the precariousness of the houses did not help to cause me the long-awaited commotion that I had idealized for years.
I walked through so many streets that I no longer recognized, through memorable places that now seemed strange to me, and I came across so many insipid affections that made me lose once and for all the hope of finding the long-awaited feeling that I had been harboring for so long.
Back in San Francisco Bay after a month of vacation, I returned exhausted from my vacation, hit by so many memories. I take a taxi from the airport and suddenly I begin to breathe better, my dizziness fades away and I glimpse my house in the distance. Bewildered, I begin to feel again, just now, the long-awaited emotion, authentic, genuine.
-Dad? Is that you?
Redwood City, May 2022.
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