On Homesickness and Nostalgia
How many of us couldn’t wait to get the hell out of Jordan? But what happened when we did? We couldn’t wait to go back there. How many of us bitched about how things work in Jordan? How many of us bitched about taxi drivers? (ALL of us I’d guarantee you that).
But I’d also guarantee you that you’d love it if you got in a taxi cab in New York and it turns out that the driver is Jordanian! I bet you’ll even invite him over to your house, to reminisce about mansaf and other things only you two would relate to.
I ache for a reminder of home, even the smallest things triggers homesickness. The other day I heard the VERY silly tune of Jordanian oven gas cars, some guy set it as a ringtone, how homesick can that guy be? But even THAT reminded me of good ‘ol Jordan.
I heard an old man coughing the other day and his cough sounded exactly like my late grandfather’s cough. It brought a chilling wave of sweet memories and a warm sense of familiarity.
I wish he’d cough just one more time. I really felt like going up to the old man and ask him “Sir, do you mind coughing again please?” 
And one day I … OK enough … this is becoming too depressing for me and for you.
So I’m not going to post anymore depressing posts here again … well maybe one or two more 
… but I promise I’ll bring in something lighter next time. Having said all that, no one said it better than George Eliot:
Even people whose lives have been made various by learning, sometimes find it hard to keep a fast hold on their habitual views of life, on their faith in the Invisible—nay, on the sense that their past joys and sorrows are a real experience, when they are suddenly transported to a new land, where by beings around them know nothing of their history, and share none of their ideas—where their mother earth shows another lap, and human life has other forms than those on which their souls have been nourished. Minds that have been unhinged from their old faith and love, have perhaps sought this Lethean influence of exile, in which the past becomes dreamy because its symbols have all vanished, and the present too is dreamy because it is linked with no memories.
Here’s to home!
