I hopped off the plane at AUS

https://tinyletter.com/grahammoliver/letters/i-hopped-off-the-plane-at-aus

Observations of the United States, from someone who has been Absent for two point five years:

I knew from the internet that most people would not be wearing masks when we arrived. I knew this would be disconcerting from the last two years, where we’re on our fourth semester of teaching and learning while wearing masks, where even people on motorcycles on quiet roads wear masks, where a coffee shop involves masks and sanitizing spray and a temperature check and a QR code. So I was not surprised by the 50–80% mask wearing rate by the general public in airports (SFO > AUS > ORD > IAH in terms of compliance). I was pleasantly surprised by the enforcement on the planes but then in the cockpit neither the captain nor copilot were wearing. In San Francisco, the second customs officer we saw was wearing their mask below their nose, and it got worse from there. At the first restaurant we went to, we asked for an outdoor table, and not a single employee was wearing a mask. Not the hostess, not the waiter, not the bartender, and presumably not the cooks. In Taiwan, many food service employees wore masks before Covid. In the Chicago airport, a man’s mask reads, “This Mask is as Useless as Biden.” In Kentucky grocery stories, mask-wearing is limited to the elderly, a smattering of employees, and a handful of oddballs. In a Kroger, a man stopped me and asked if I was working there. When I said “No sir,” he asked “Then why are you wearing that?” We get looks, which is consistent from Taiwan but for much different reasons.

There was no tearful reunion with our dog, who has gone deaf and become my sister- and mother-in-law’s dog since we left; she acknowledged us and seemed happy yet unsurprised to see us, as if we’d just been gone for a day and not a guilt inducing-sized segment of her life. When I see that she gets a sardine mashed in with her kibble every day I say, “She is so spoiled” but I mean “I am so thankful she is so loved.”

I remember driving as a cesspool of anxiety, but I’d forgotten just how much shoulder gripping, headache-inducing stress it really was, sitting on the highway being passed by trucks going fast enough to obliterate you with a few degrees of shifting of their steering wheels. I am not sure if this anxiety has been amplified by 2.5 years of not driving, barely being inside cars or in traffic at all, or if it’s amplified by having reduced the amount of anxiety in my life as best as possible since no longer teaching high school, or if it’s actually the same amount of anxiety as my long I-35 commutes used to provide and I’ve just forgotten.

The stuff that used to be in our house is now strewn across three houses and I can’t stop saying, “Hey, I recognize that.” It’s surreal and heartwarming. There’s our coatrack, the bowl this soup is in used to be ours, two of our four giant bookshelves are still completely intact. I simultaneously fully feel happy that we’re living our lives in a way where material possessions are taking a backseat AND miss having the comforting blanket that being surrounded by possessions can bring. Knowing that at least some of them are out in the world fulfilling a purpose in the homes of our loved ones, provides, like their memory, an echo of that comfort.

There was a small worry before this trip that visiting home would radically change our perspective on our current life situation. I have never felt like we were squandering these two and a half years but I worry a lot that there might be a moment where I do, where I feel like the time spent learning Mandarin and making friends in Taiwan will not amount to anything because we suddenly decide or are forced to move back. I worried this trip might trigger that kind of thinking. But, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that the facts on the ground in America and the peeking into what life might be like for us here does nothing but make our Taiwan-based lives a little more appealing. Yesterday I had a pretty severe stomach ache (I have been eating a little heavier than usual!) and hammering through my brain was the repeated thought that if this was actually something bad and I had to go to the hospital, what would be the financial consequences of that? We are theoretically insured by our credit card for this travel, but if push came to shove I doubt that insurance would cover much of anything. And can you believe that we live in a world where I need to worry about that sort of thought, but not only that, the amount I need to worry about it is so much less than millions of other people who have fewer options and resources than me also need to worry about it.

There is a new plan from the supposedly left-leaning American government to help defray the costs of Covid testing by having insurance companies reimburse them when they buy tests, because we can’t do anything without corporate involvement. Even the UK’s Conservative government provides free tests.

Sorry. Calmer observations. Every single space is incredibly loud, but true quiet is also easier to find than in Taipei. The only foods I’ve tasted and said, “Oh my God I’ve missed this” have been HEB’s freshly made tortilla chips and spiced+spiked apple cider. The difference between a seven-year-old nephew and a nine-year-old nephew seems much smaller than the difference between a ten-year-old niece and a twelve-year-old niece, but your mileage may vary. 512 Pecan Porter has bottles now, and their packaging indicates the reason they didn’t before was environmental concern, yet their bottles come in fully cardboard-encased four packs instead of the typical thin cardboard six-pack carrier, which doesn’t quite make sense to me. Oh my God food is expensive here. The new Buc-ee’s in Katy, Texas would take up a full block in Taipei, maybe even two.

Further reading:

• Not much about Covid and its paraphernalia can be said to be “hopeful,” but Helen Rosner’s conversations with a group of young kids getting the vaccine manages it well.
• Although Taiwan is open to people who are already residents and citizens, it is closed to everyone else, including people who are newly married, or people who were in Taiwan for the last two years as students and are now ready to accept a job but can’t change their immigration status, or family members whose paperwork wasn’t finalized before the lockdown. The Instagram account loveisnottourism_tw highlights the stories of couples separated by the policy in a beautiful, heartbreaking way.
• I’m sad to report that despite the original being one of my favorite shows of all time, the new Cowboy Bebop hasn’t grabbed me beyond a few still images, and part of the reason is the awful dialogue, dissected thoughtfully by Gita Jackson here .
• In September, Carolina and I were sitting in a hotel room in Chiayi when a familiar restaurant popped up on the television. 品鱻100元熱炒 is our favorite 熱炒/rechao-style restaurant near our apartment, the kind of restaurant where you order a ridiculous number of tapas-sized plates of food and drink beer and sit on low stools around a low table that takes a lot of getting used to for a tall, poorly postured person like me. Anyways, the profile of the restaurant is also on YouTube, and you should check it out to see the food we love, especially 老皮豆腐!
• The flash fiction “A Contest” by Amelia Gray from her collection Gutshot was the best thing I read on the airplane. Here she is reading it for Dinner Party Download .
• I loved this essay in Granta by Jessica J. Lee about returning to her mother’s hometown of Taipei and navigating the tiny alleys of the city.
• Warm bright spot of the internet, Saeed Jones has a newsletter about a topic central to my life: online friends .
• Over in the Austin subreddit, user /u/trabbler is a home inspector who posts pictures/videos of their more noteworthy finds. It’s surprisingly entertaining and vaguely informative.
• I am very happy about the news that Stacey Abrams is running again for governor of Georgia, news that showed up in my feed from two very disparate sources: The Bitter South and romance author Courtney Milan . (If you weren’t aware, Stacey Abrams herself is also a romance author .)

In the yard behind me right now, through the window, a giant Golden Doodle is staring me down, begging me to get up so that he can deliver a slobbery tennis ball into my hand and get me to throw it back into his yard. He is the best neighbor I have ever had.

I hope your winter is everything you need it to be. Don’t forget your Vitamin D supplements.

-g