homesky

Even for five days only, it was good to be back where the sky is framed by evergreen branches.

I bought a plane ticket on December 19th, on something like a whim. I'd decided a month or two earlier that I couldn't afford to go home this Christmas. But the calculus changed, somewhat: I got a raise, I realized that I'm unlikely to be back there next year, and I got progressively more maudlin at the thought of not being home on the 25th. I am not generally at all sentimental about holidays; I've spent Thanksgiving in all sorts of odd exiled ways over the years, passed at least one birthday totally alone in a foreign city, and otherwise been happy to resist the hallmark script for familial gatherings.

But somehow Christmas turns me into a homing pigeon, despite the often rocky nature of familial relations. Only once have I not been with my mother and sisters--when I was eighteen and living in Scotland, too poor to even buy a proper warm coat until the post-holiday sales, let alone a transatlantic ticket. Instead, I went to Dublin with some random people I'd met the week before; we sang at a midnight mass and drank whiskey and popped Christmas crackers and watched Kevin Smith's Dogma, a suitably blasphemous activity for a Christmas in that most Catholic city. It was bearable precisely because it was so entirely different from any way I'd spent the holiday before.

Anyway, I bought a ticket at the last minute, and I didn't tell anyone except the middle sister. I flew in late at night on the 24th, and rang in Christmas at the ferry terminal (all the bars were closed! and I was shocked, which is surely a sign of acclimation to New York) before arriving in the wee hours. She smuggled me into the house and I hid in her room until morning, before bursting out to surprise my youngest sister (who thought the surprise might be a new pet) and my mother (who was so pleased that she cried). I've always wanted to pull off a trick like that, to sneak across a continent without telling (almost) anyone. Later that day, with the extended family at my aunt's, I got to see all my Seattle-side cousins (a delight) and managed not to have any political fights with anyone, though a couple of anti-Muslim comments got me close.

And I made the most of five days at home, despite the rain: ate lots of seafood, drank good coffee and northwest microbrews, saw a marvel of an exhibit at SAM that deserves its own post, attempted to sweet-talk my favorite cat into tolerating me again, and spent a few precious peaceful hours in Elliott Bay Book Co. (where I bought Sherman Alexie's newest, among others). I also saw AR and Nck, two of my good friends from college (all of the women I was close to in college are now lawyers and/or future law professors. Hmmm). And of course I managed to squeeze in a visit to several of my guardian angels from JSIS, and renewed contact with another of my mentor's former students, who is now a leading young scholar of Turkish Kurdistan.

My only regret is that I failed to have a bowl of pho bo tai (cream puffs inclusive) at Than Brothers. Next time, whenever that may be.