Holiday Wishes

December 25, 2007 | Laughing Knees | 16 Comments 

Like Hiro from “He­roes” I closed my eyes and the next thing I knew I was stand­ing down­town in Man­hat­tan, the yel­low cabs bustling past and all the noise and hubub of New York all around me. I was back in Amer­ica! It’s been a long way since all the crazi­ness of the tragedy and my re­fusal to have any­thing to do with this coun­try. But fam­ily is fam­ily and you can’t be an­gry for­ever. It was time to re­turn and take stock. So here I am at my mother’s apart­ment in up­town Man­hat­tan, try­ing to get over jet­lag, but joy­ous at the emp­inada I ate yes­ter­day evening and the friend­li­ness of all the peo­ple on the streets, but most of all to see my mother again. Liv­ing across the ocean from her re­ally makes dis­tances hard. And such a re­lief to open the door and see her stand­ing there.

The big sur­prise was im­mi­gra­tion at Kennedy Air­port. In­stead of a reen­act­ment of the hor­ror sto­ries that every­one around the world is grum­bling about, go­ing through im­mi­gra­tion and cus­toms was ac­tu­ally plea­sur­able. The im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cer was play­ing Christ­mas mu­sic on his iPod, with lit­tle speak­ers to fill his cu­bi­cle. He gave me a big smile and was a friendly as can be. He asked about Japan at this time of year and won­dered if it was cold and peo­ple cel­e­brated. Then a song came on the iPod, one by Josh Groban, and the of­fi­cer lit up like a Christ­mas tree candle.

“Have you heard of him?” he asked. “Man, a voice like an an­gel! You’ve got to lis­ten to this.” Then, in spite of all the ex­hausted pas­sen­gers wait­ing on line be­hind us, he turned up the sound and closed his eyes as the mu­sic flooded the im­mi­gra­tion hall. I stared at him as if I had en­tered Won­der­land. This was the fear­some Amer­i­can immigration?

Within fif­teen min­utes we had made it out to the ar­rival lounge. Ten min­utes later a shut­tle bud dri­ver drove up and asked us if we wanted to go to the city. Two other pas­sen­gers, a Japan­ese woman trav­el­ing alone and a Colom­bian who lived in At­lantic City were hud­dled in the van to­gether, head­ing for Port Au­thor­ity in Man­hat­tan. Bob­bing to Salsa on the van CD player we all laughed and shared sto­ries of Japan and work­ing there. I had for­got­ten how eas­ily Amer­i­cans speak to each other.

With a quiet night of sleep be­hind me and a rather warm, sunny Christ­mas Eve morn­ing to wake up to, the start has been won­der­ful. I guess as al­ways it is im­por­tant to just take the steps out of your door and let things come as they may. My brother ar­rives from Boston this evening and then we can re­ally start laugh­ing and en­joy­ing each oth­ers’ company.

I wish all of you a very Merry Christ­mas and Happy New Year. I hope you have warm and mem­o­rable time with your own fam­i­lies. Deep peace and quiet hearts to everyone.

love,
Miguel

Be the first to like.
Un­like