String Theory

It feels like a real, tangible thing. Sitting here, alone in Islamabad, thinking of my family, it feels like I could pluck it like a guitar string.

I was getting accustomed to being away. That in itself was sad and scary in a way, but on the other hand I was glad to be rid of the constant longing. But something snapped. I was in line at the airport and everyone was cutting. Well, I suppose they weren't cutting since they could not articulate any such concept. They were engaged in the behavior Americans would call cutting. Being American, I waxed righteously indignant. But I couldn't stay in front of the "them" unless I also cut. So I tried to block. Tried and failed.

One especially flagrant cutter got ahead of me and motioned for his brood to follow but I cut them off. It was too late to beat him, but I could stop the bleeding. Then he pulls ten passports out of his pocket and the customs officer motions all of them to come forward. And I lost it. Not outwardly. Not in the middle of the airport surrounded by people with no concept of my moral universe in which jumping the queue is an affront to human dignity. No, I lost it in my head and in my heart.

I don't understand them. And they are very "them." They could not possibly be more "them." I am me and they are them. I am alone. I want to be with us. I want to wrestle with Caleb and Henry. I want to have a dance part to Kidz Bop 13. I want to watch Maddie go off the diving board.

It feels like a real thing that I could reach out and touch--a telephone line perhaps.