My last post was lame. It was lazy and weak, and for that I apologise. Don't get me wrong, I am fond of a nice list, and it was all true, but it wasn't the truth. The truth involves me hitting my first wall.The truth is, emigrating is hard work. You expect it to be hard, but that doesn't make it any easier, and the daily grind has begun to take its toll on me. I am not bored, but I am frustrated. There is too much to do to be bored. I have the luxury of having the time to read, to write, to blog, to cook, to people watch, to walk and to explore the city for free via random shuttle rides.
I have a real opportunity here, the advantage of a foreigner; the amazement of seeing things with fresh eyes, totally differently to everyone else. I can be awed by the mundane, I can witness the remarkable in the unremarkable. It is a privilege, and I am lucky. I expect it will wear off soon, as life normalises and I integrate. While it lasts though, the downside is I am an outcast. I look different. I speak differently. I think differently. It is lonely.
The other day, someone stared long and hard at the skirt I was wearing. Her mouth was agape. She actually had to stop in her tracks because she found that she couldn't walk and be that astonished at the same time. Like witnessing a car crash, she had to watch, even though she didn't want to as it was too horrific for her.
I bought a hot chocolate in a coffee shop and when I declined the whipped cream on top, I was interrogated by an astonished girl. I said that I just didn't feel like it (I could have said, it is bound to be so sweet already that extra sweetness may make all my teeth fall out on the spot, but I refrained) and the girl actually shook her head in disbelief, like I had just admitted I respect George Bush, or something equally as outrageous^. The shock was visible on her face. We were talking about cream, and apparently I was a one woman freak show.
I grow tired of not understanding the simplest transactions, and reiterating myself repeatedly, trying to quickly work out which words I have said which have been misconstrued. I still automatically look the wrong way when crossing roads, and then look every way about a million times just in case, even though 'federal law states that cars must yield to pedestrians' and irritatingly they do yield, sometimes when I haven't even reached the kerb, sometimes when I am in fact nowhere near. As I am too cynical to believe in such gallantry and law abiding, I do that 'sorry and thanks' half-run, half-walk, mistrusting that they won't suddenly just change their minds and run me over after having to wait so long. Rather than be pleased a car has stopped for me, I find it intensely galling. Do these people have all the time in the world? Do they have to look so smug about it? Do they have to smile with their glittering white teeth? Are these people ever sad? Do they get angry? Do they in fact feel any real emotion? So far, all I have seen is a whole lot of fakeness. The emptiness of the greeting "Hi, how are you?", the inane gibberish which passes for conversation - a constant stream of small talk from people who are real friends, not strangers. The constant, loud but ultimately hollow talk. Talking is big here. People are glued to their phones. They recently passed a law which forbids drivers to talk on their phones whilst driving. People still do, but before the law, all you would see was a mobile in one hand, can in the other. I still haven't worked out how they were holding on to the steering wheel.
I spend my days alone, and isolated, in a lonely and isolated place. I have a long way to go to get used to this entirely different culture. According to our brochure on culture shock, I am in between stages 2 and 3 of 4. Stage 2 is "Problems! School, language, shopping — everything is difficult. Things that were simple back home require more effort in the new country. It seems hard to make friends, and at this point, foreign visitors may begin to believe that the local people are unfriendly. Homesickness begins, and along with it complaints about the new country."
Stage 3 is "Recovery. The foreign visitor begins to use the language more fluently, so communication with locals becomes easier. Customs and traditions become clearer, and slowly the situation passes from impossible to hopeful. Minor misunderstandings which were stressful in stage 2 become manageable."
My goal, apparently, is stage 4 "Stability. Eventually foreign visitors begin to feel more at home in the new country. What they do not like about their new country no longer makes them so dissatisfied and unhappy. Life has settled down, and they are now able to find humour** in the situations in which they find themselves."
These stages don't quite fit me, surprise, surprise. I don't believe that the locals are unfriendly. It is hard to make friends wherever you go, in whichever country you are in, full stop. The situation has never been impossible; it was and is, manageable. Language isn't a barrier, differences in phraseology are dealt with. Life feels settled down already, the dry cleaner remembered my name after one visit, and we have a routine. I guess it is just the routine which sucks. Home to the library to Safeway to the other campus to home again, peppered with the odd shuttle ride. There will only be so many times that I will be impressed with Vern driving, listening to comforting classical music when a just-married cable car comes by, ringing its bell, with the passengers heckling and shouting at cars at the tops of their voices.* [In the same journey, we passed the Danielle Steele cafe and I witnessed someone in a car park drive over a bright orange cone, and watched as it crumpled under the wheel, the person try to reverse the problem away. Wonderful]
My stage 4 involves meeting the city half way. The really difficult stuff is yet to come; saying goodbye to our visitors from the UK, knowing that they get to go home and we don't, working out which shop is going to sell a bra in my size, figuring out what shoe size I am in America (research thus far is conflicting), having to live with US TV, starting work...
Still, the day I can write a backwards date first time, without having to stop and think hard; the day that a slight twang appears in my accent, perceptible only to family; the day that I go into a sandwich shop and are not intimidated by the thousand questions and options before me; the day that the fakeness doesn't bother me, will actually be a very sad day. I will be as integrated as a foreigner can be. I hope it isn't soon, but maybe that is just what a stage 2/3 dweller would say.
^ naughty, naughty me...
** I am not at Stage 4, and nowhere near. This is proved by the fact that I had to add a u into humour. I had to.
* This is not strictly true, I will always be impressed by that.
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