there are some days as an expat, when you just wake up with your head in the wrong country.  you feel yourself moving through the time and space where you are physically present, but it feels like floating in parallel universe – there is a disconnect, a doubling of vision that you just can’t seem to shrug off.  a bout of wrong country-itis, like a feverish dream.  i’m gliding through my regular workplace, and when i catch a glimpse out the window, am genuinely surprised to see a london skyline instead of a boston one.  my brain has slipped into a different groove, like a record player needle sliding sideways with jarring effect onto a different track.  perhaps it’s a symptom of the similarity of big cities that allows your mind to play tricks on you – all the samey-sameness of crowded pavements, grey buildings and public transport, so that on any given morning it feels i could be heading to work in any generic urban setting.  or maybe it’s something about the light that morning that reminds me subconsciously of a particular previous life, and creates an alternate reality if only for a few seconds.  i’m not sure why it happens, but it’s disconcertingly random, and is the only true twang of homesickness i generally get these days, so it blindsides me with the intensity of it – the force of here and now crunching up against the mental holiday.

and as much as i keep shaking my head to try to clear the fog and bring the picture back into focus,  no matter how hard i try, i can’t seem to shake the hooked pangs of longing that have gotten under my skin and into my veins, trailing along behind me with the mist of memory, for the rest of the day.

blindsided – bon iver

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