I spent part of Thursday talking about the States. It's been 11 years this week that I've been abroad. 19 October we landed one day late in Japan. For three months, I was homesick: I dreamt of going back, having the final year of college that I had missed. Every Thursday night, all my friends on that side of the world were listening to jazz at the Cherry St pub, and I was looking out over the north suburbs of Fukuoka. It didn't stop until February. Eleven years on, whoever I was in Galesburg in 2003 is gone entirely, but the feeling that I am not where I should be comes back now and again. I deal with it in different ways. I look at impossible Christmas flights from BHX to ORD. I put on my Twins cap, browse the American candy kiosk at the mall, and now, think of Japan too, Imazu Bay where I took pictures and slowly turned over the past in my mind.
