My government job* of the past six years involves a lot of trips to places in Europe and Latin America, an occupational requirement that has turned me into a well-oiled business-traveling machine. I’ve got my routine down pat: pack only enough as will fit into my NY&Co** roller suitcase and black backpack; get to the airport two hours before my flight and breeze through check-in and security thanks to my Silver Medallion status***; isolate myself with my [ipod/laptop/trashy romance novel/silent judgment of parents with unruly children] until it’s time to board the plane; eat my crappy vegetarian mean; pop two Tylenol Simply Sleep, drink a Dewar’s on the rocks, and wake up on the other side of Atlantic. If I’m lucky, I get to head to my hotel for a few hours of actual sleep; if not, I go straight into meetings.
But this experience is completely, totally, unbelievably different that of my previous life as a traveler. Today I travel while armed with my laptop, itinerary, and corporate Amex card; back then, I traveled while Dominican.
From the time I was a few months old until I hit my late teens, I accompanied by immigrant parents on their yearly trip back to their homeland, the Dominican Republic, usually around the Christmas holidays. More than any other memory of those annual pilgrimages, what sticks most in my mind is the experience of the journey itself – the physical displacement from our Manhattan apartment whatever house we were staying in the Santiago. Year after year, it proved to be an exercise in frenzied, overstuffed, stressed, anticipatory sensory overload.
The night before the flight was spent watching my mother and aunts finish packing the 12 suitcases stuffed with all manner of gifts (clothes, deodorant, Avon bubble bath, school supplies, Tang juice mix, whathaveyou), one of them sitting on top of the case while the other two struggled to get the zippers around. All the women in the family gotten their hair done earlier in the day – straightened and shined and styled for that one minute of perfection before the Dominican humidity curled it all back up. We set out our “airplane clothes” before going to sleep for a few hours (to this day, I feel like I’m betraying my dad whenever I wear jeans on a plane), waking up at 3AM for a 10AM flight. Somehow we managed to fit ourselves, 12 suitcases and the three pieces of carry-on bags per passenger into two cars, speeding off to the American Airlines terminal before the sun had risen.
And that air, that smell. It hit you as soon as the terminal doors opened onto the Dominican Republic proper. It was the country itself wrapped up in wall of a sweetness, humidity, heat, ripe tropical fruits, and gasoline fumes. It was unmistakable, hard to describe, a tangible sign that we were home – or at least home as our parents conceived of it.
And after three or four weeks**** of family reunions, of visiting hours, of rekindling relationships with the neighborhood kids, of visits to el Monumento, Panchito’s Pizza, El Pez Dorado and other touristy highlights, of eating freshly picked mangoes, of rides on our uncles’ ancient Yamaha bikes, of cold Presidente beers, of showers-by-garden-hose, of happy parents in familiar geographies, we would make the trip in reverse. Our suitcases would be emptier and we’d be crying not in excitement but in sadness. Our parents hugged their families tight, taking in every last sensation so that it would last them until next year’s trip. On the plane we’d bundle up for New York in January, and then we’d pick up our flaccid luggage and pile into a Manhattan-bound taxi, getting reacquainted with the city through the dark windows of the cab. Next year: Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
*Meaning my real life job, not an actual job with the US government.
**Oh yes, my luggage is the height of luxury. Whatever. I effin love NY&Co
***Don’t worry – I still fly exclusively coach class.
**** I missed a lot of January school days.
© Chommo, 2009.