My all too brief trip to USA

 And just like that, the trip was over and I am back where I started ...

A trip to the USA, more importantly, a trip to visit my sister in the USA that was years in the planning finally happened and before I could say George Washington it was over... sigh!

A lot of water has flown under the bridge since my last trip to USA in 1984 -  life happened. There was a bittersweetness about this long overdue trip. The grey overhang of COVID that had cruelly taken my dear old dad a year ago,  the dreadful 2nd wave of the pandemic, the lockdowns, travel bans and thousand other exigencies including my full time job and  that delayed our plans. My 86 year old mother and I finally flew out after mid November. 

        

Not the best time to be travelling, I admit, as it meant we had to pack for the cold weather and so with sweaters and shawls, socks, gloves, caps, we landed in Dulles International Airport one deceptively sunny morning. Was so good to go from my intense whatsapp relationship with my sister (me constantly calling and texting her all the time, often to moan and vent) to in person interactions and to be with her and her family in what is now her home ground. 

We gave thanks American style on Thanksgiving Day for this opportunity to be together after ages.  

Spending time together as they all clucked around us to ensure that we had a good time helped to bring some closure to the trauma and grief of our loss. We reminisced about our father and grappled with my mother's unravelling mind. 

My 20 something year old nephews' expert granny-sitting skills had me totally gobsmacked, as they played Ludo with her and helped her choose colours for her adult colouring book sessions or put her into coat, cap and shoes and bundled her into the car to drive her around. One nephew  is a computer science expert and a systems whizkid and the other is a talented sportsperson and a walking encyclopedia on all things soccer and football, just charting his career in the world of sports and fitness.

The days flew by as we quickly tried to tick the boxes of seeing the sights, visiting museums and monuments, and eating American-style pancakes with bacon and maple syrup! going to outlet malls, meeting up with cousins, chilling and watching movies and tv shows together and calling and catching up with school mates and old friends. 

I even managed an all too short, Amtrak trip upcountry, to meet dear old friends in their simply beautiful house in suburbia, for precious relaxing 'adda', and got so lucky with the bonus of catching up with my son and daughter in law who were also visiting USA briefly.

By the time I got used to the time difference between India and USA and shook off the jet lag, and stopped nodding off on any comfortable couch or chair, it was time to turn around and head back and run the gauntlet of testing, arduously filling up forms and taking the long flight back to the husband, home and work.

As I sit back and reflect and recount the trip to my husband and sift through my photographs, I am trying to recall the special moments and memories of the trip, in no particular order. 

I think it was the the crisp cold wintry, but very fresh and unpolluted air; the fading fall colors on the nearly bare trees in the dense woods all around, the wide roads and orderly traffic! I learnt to stop bracing myself for the mad unruly and uncivil traffic of India, and got used to the respect for 'right of way' that makes driving a pleasure rather than a pain; the pretty, neat and orderly houses of Maryland with Christmas and Hannukah lights; the amazing displays at the aquarium in Baltimore and the pretty harbor area; the deafening silence in the evenings in the suburbs; spotting deer grazing in the woods or sauntering through the gardens and lawns of the houses in the neighborhood; the light switches that go up to go on and the huge large portions of food in all restaurants; the largely accessible and barrier free streets of DC; the anticlimax of the size of the White House and the Christmas tree outside;  the awe inspiring national mall area with its monuments, especially the Lincoln memorial;  the grand and magnificent federal buildings and the moving Museum of African American History; the colorful food trucks offering a wide variety of cuisine to eat on the go; the neat and orderly metro rides; the famed Union Station of DC lit up in the evening; the scenic countryside whizzing past the train windows;  the native American names of the rivers - Potomac, Susquehanna and the iconic Manhattan skyline; the Hudson river and the manmade waterfalls and pretty forest trails around Croton-on-Hudson and the quaint small towns along the way.

All too soon, I was being driven back to the airport, hugging my mum, sister, and nephew goodbye in the terminal and gazing at the ground below as we winged our way over the North American continent and headed towards the Arctic to find our way back to the southern hemisphere and home.