It's amazing to think that so much of my life I daydreamed of moving to the far away places in my books that my mother read to me before I went to sleep, and now, more than ever, I daydream of coming home.
I'm way past the halfway mark
with my service in South Africa, and although I love the warm
temperatures in the summers, the braais that last long into the
night, and the way my students greet me in the mornings, I cannot
wait to get back to Pittsburgh.
I daydream about eating boxes of Mrs.
T's perogies (and yes, I have made them from scratch here in South
Africa).
I cannot wait until I can say something to a new person and
they don't have to ask where my accent is from, and then going
through the whole spiel of “Peace Corps, teaching, HIV prevention,
Pittsburgh, Wilmington, Baton Rouge...” I look forward to walking
my dog down Walnut Street, and seeing childhood friends along the
way. I'm excited to eat at Pamela's, La Feria, Mad Mex, Buffalo
Blues, and so many other places just walking distance from my house.
I am so ready to be able to drive to a friend's house, or even to
just the grocery store.
But most of all, more than anything, I
cannot wait to arrive in Pittsburgh International Airport, and be
transported back in time, to a place that has known me since I was a
toddler. I can almost hear the chimes in the shuttle and woman's voice saying "To gates A, B, C, and D, please hold on." I cannot wait to see my parents greet me at the baggage
claim, the same one we used when we would fly home from Scotland, and
the one my sister and I used the first time we each flew back from
university.
I can picture walking out into the parking lot with my
two oversized bags, and throwing them into the trunk of the car. I
can picture driving home, through the Pittsburgh Tunnel Monster, and
still being stunned on the other side of the mountain of just how
beautiful Pittsburgh really is.
I can feel the way the car bumps
along the potholes as we drive down Fifth Avenue, making only a few
short turns before parking outside of our house. My mother, always
with the green thumb, would without a doubt have planted snapdragons,
pansies, and an assortment of other flowers, and the smell of a
Pittsburgh spring will fill my nose as I climb, two steps at a time,
my front steps to my childhood home...
This is what I dream about now.
