At Home in the World

This book came out this spring, and though I almost never buy a book rather than borrowing it (because I would bankrupt nations if I had to pay to feed my reading habit), and usually if I do buy it, I'll wait stubbornly for the paperback to come out, I pre-ordered this one.  I've read some short pieces by the author that I've liked, and I thought she might have some practical tips about where to go and what to do when traveling further afield with kids.  I was also in the midst of spending a lot of time thinking about what defines home, and it seemed like this book might be kind of destined for me.

If you're interested, I'd probably give it four stars out of five.  It's interesting and thoughtful and heartfelt.  I'll happily send you my copy if you'd like (and if you're willing to wait a few weeks for it).

I read about half of it before we left in in June, and I picked it up today because I've finished my library books, we don't have wi-fi or tv at the moment (!?! I know.) and I didn't feel I had the mental bandwidth for either a history of the Opium Wars or a1200-page end to a zombie trilogy, go figure.  I just wanted something light to read to pass the time until dinner, to keep me from scrolling too deeply into the dark alleyways of Instagram.  I had forgotten, having spent the morning with grown-up friends and possible-friends-to-be, that I'm still a little tender when it comes to thinking about home as a concept, which is why I had laid the book aside back in May. A few pages in from my bookmark, the author asks a friend who has recently moved to Uganda how she's adjusting to life there.  She's surprised when her friend replies that she loves it; "I've simply chosen to love it...I don't think it's wonderful, and I really miss Indonesia and Oregon.  But there's a lot to love about Uganda, so that's the stuff I'm choosing to focus on."  

I had to stop reading there because I couldn't see the words because I was suddenly crying all over the place.  And then I had to write, because that idea just too true, for me at least.

Naturally, I think, the stuff I post here and on social media are the publicly appropriate parts of life (except the bits about toilets, of course).  I try not to stray into sanitizing stories for the benefit of an audience, but I'm also not interested in writing about days that I woke up grouchy and homesick and the kids and I watched MTV and ate peanut butter sandwiches in our pajamas and I wished I were somewhere else, any more than you would find that interesting to read about it.  I would say that I kind of Pollyanna my way through life; I do love to loll around in feeling morose, when I need to, but then I get over it and get on with what I need to do (in the interest of scrupulous honesty, I'll verify that I don't think everyone in my household would agree that my natural state is on the half-full end of the spectrum.  But I think it is).  Laundry doesn't care if you're homesick.  So six weeks in, it's still true that I wake up every day, blind and fuzzy without my contacts, with no sense of where I am at first.  It's true that despite bringing all of my homemaking skills to bear in making our new place feel truly like our place with comfort objects and good food and plants, I still feel like a guest in a vacation house.  And it's true that I miss my home with an actual physical feeling of loss; I keep wondering why I'm so ravenously hungry all the time and then realize that feeling is really a heart-emptiness rather than a tummy emptiness. 

But every time a taxi driver or concierge or mover asks how I'm finding Singapore, I reply without lying or even fudging a bit that I love it.  I love it like the lady in the book loves Uganda, because I have to; I'm here, and I'm going to be here, and it would just make me miserable to dislike it, so I'm going to choose to like where I am.  I get mad and tired and frustrated when things are weird or hard, and then I get over it, because dwelling on that stuff is just poison.  There IS so much to love here.  I feel as though I've fallen into a fairy land, sometimes, albeit a fairy land where I still have to grocery shop.  The flowers and the trees and even the air here, the pervasive scent of growing things all imbue even ordinary activities with a feeling of being in a special place.

So this is what I'm loving about Singapore, right now, even through the homesickness and the missing-people sickness and the seasick discomfort of nothing being familiar.

1.  Singaporean people.  So I've established I'm a bit of mess, right?  I'm barely at the point where I can grocery shop correctly, and generally, if you were to see me doing something, you could guarantee that I'm doing it wrong.  Yet no cashier has been eye-roll-y or snappish with me.  Every clerk has been smiley and kind and patient with my raging incompetence.    Every delivery person smiles indulgently when I come out of the wrong elevator for the third time.  Every taxi driver goes out of their way to get me where I'm actually going rather than where I mistakenly believe I'm supposed to be going.  Dudes, I held up the grocery line the other day with general idiocy and instead of sighing conspicuously, the lady behind me helped me out.  That alone is evidence of strange amounts of good in the world.  I saw this sign at the bank, and I think I must reflect an actual ideal here rather than a hope for improvement:

Singaporeans, in my experience, are spectacularly kind.  That buys a lot of my love.  As a bonus, everyone seems to really like children, and they charmingly address mine as "boy" and "girl" and happily greet them and talk to them and listen to them (and slip them sweets whenever possible.  Yes, sealed ones! Nice, not murderers).  So that also buys a lot of love.

2. F-15s.  You heard me.  Singapore is a nation, remember?  It's a city and a country at the same time.  It's a small country, and young, and it has some nearby powerful enemies of varying volatility, so quite reasonably, it has a pretty strong military.  It's well-staffed, as EVERY male citizen is required to serve two years in the armed forces after high school, and well-equipped.  And it seems they like to practice a lot, as good militaries do, because we have F-15s flying overhead pretty much every day at sunset.  Some of you may be wondering how I know they're F-15s, but some of you were also in third grade when Top Gun came out and know that we all can spot those guys by the unmistakeable awesomeness of their silhouette in the sky (and they might be F-16s.  Po-tay-to, po-tah-to).  

And some of you may be wondering why I would possibly care that F-15s fly over my apartment every day, but I hope not.  Because if the combination of the unthinkable scientific achievement/miracle of supersonic flight and the bravado of young pilots and the thrill of patriotism and the unmistakeable roar of those fantastic Lockheed-engineered engines doesn't raise the fine hairs on the back of your neck, I'm not sure you're actually alive.  Smashing my face against the glass with my son looking for these beauties every evening before dinner brings me a lot of immediate joy.

3. The food.  Singapore is famously a foodie paradise, and you probably already know that.  Having been a trade hub and melting pot for hundreds or perhaps thousands of years will do some spectacular things for local cuisine, and I don't think I've sampled enough to write about the food in general, yet, but I'll say that any place with an abundance of good fruit is ok by me.  And a place with rich spicy sauces and luscious chili condiments for every kind of food would win at least my grudging affection, even if I were otherwise inclined.  And to be sure, if I can grab a pack of fresh, hot, teeny whole crabs to pop in my mouth like popcorn at my grocery store, I can for sure love that.

4. The weather.  Do you remember when I told you that I thought it would be kind of miserably hot here, since it's pretty much right on the equator?  I was kind of wrong.  I may change my tune by December if the weather still hasn't softened and I'm in need of a cold snap, but I'll take Singapore's summer over Houston's forever.  As I'm writing this, it's 8am in Houston, and weather.com tells me it's already 90, and feels like 96, which sounds pretty typical, if not a little mild, for Houston in July.  I think we've had a few 90 degree days (32 celcius) since I've been in Singapore but most days it gets to be in the upper 80s in the afternoon, and it's pretty pleasant in the mornings and evenings.  And there's always, always a breeze, because we're an island.  And there's so much shade, because there are big lush trees literally everywhere, not to mention the cooling effects of the gorgeous understory plants and wide swaths of grass.  It IS supernaturally humid, and I didn't know it was possible to sweat this much, but even being sweaty is relatively pleasant when there's a breeze.  I walk a lot here, even in the heat of the day, and while it's not my favorite thing to walk several miles in sweatiness, I can do it and come home and go on with my day.  If I walked so much as a few blocks at 3pm in Houston at this time of year everyone would need to clear the room when I returned because murder would have entered my heart with the the unbearable heat.  I've lived through summers in the South for 30 years now, and there's no way to make a day not miserable when you wake up to the air conditioner already keening with the struggle to keep up and the cicadas making the sound that only accompanies the flat still air of the outdoor oven and sunshine that feels like a weapon.  Sweet tea and watermelon aguas fresca and swimming pools go a long way toward endearing even Houston summers toward those who have no choice, but I'm going to revel in the reprieve this Equatorial weather offers.

Also, it rains a lot.  Almost every day.  I love the rain (as much as I love sunshine? More? They're both great).  I love being caught in a swirl of warm fat drops or the cool mist of an incoming storm (as long as it doesn't matter that I get soaked, of course); I love shiny pavement and the earthy mineral smell of wet everything.  I love being cozy inside and reading (sleeping) to the rhythmic not-rhythm of rain on the windows; I love sitting on a sheltered porch and watching a storm move in and sweep by and clear again.  Enjoying those things in this place, this garden city, from a 30th-floor balcony, just heightens the joy of a rainy day. 

I love this weather.  I miss my home, my places and my people, but I'm going to focus on these things that make up the solid foundation Singapore is building in my heart.