So my American vacation is over and now I’m back in Brighton, which is a ten-hour plane journey and a whole world away from Arizona. In retrospect my vacation was wonderful, though there were a few rough patches: my mom broke her front tooth about twelve hours after I showed up and was forced to remain toothless for several days, my grandmother didn’t feel well the first few days I was there, I had to work the first few days I was there, I was wretchedly sick the whole second week I was there, my brother pulled a muscle in his back and was in massive pain for the few days that he was there… I was starting to think that I had brought a curse upon my house. But by the last week things were looking up, and everyone seemed to be having a great time.

It was an ultimately relaxing vacation. Other than the little bit of work I had to do, I felt no pressure, no responsibilities, no stress. I went to bed when I wanted, got up when I wanted, did what I wanted, ate what I wanted, wore shorts, watched TV, went to the mall. Most of the time I basked in the Arizona sun - with the exception of the two days when it snowed (no, I’m not kidding). I got to spend time with my aunt and uncle, whom I haven’t seen in many years. We had a gorgeous Easter feast; ten people gathered around our enormous dining room table to chat and laugh and stuff themselves with ham, cranberry sauce, big fluffy biscuits, my aunt’s marshmallow sweet potatoes, my mom’s garlicky zucchini, my Oma’s cheesy carrots, Sara Lee’s pie and my tiramisu.

Food is always a major aspect of my trips home. Whenever I get home, my parents ask me where I want to go and what I want to do while I’m there (see the Grand Canyon? take a trip to Las Vegas?). In response, I rattle off a list of eating establishments that I must visit and meals I must eat before I leave again. La Casita in Sierra Vista, the Café Sonoita in Sonoita and the Café Roka in Bisbee top my list of restaurants; my parent’s marinated, grilled London broil and my granddad’s pork barbecue top my list of food items. In between, I like to visit a variety of sandwich shops, steakhouses and fast food places, and I consume lot of chips and dips, cheese and crackers, cans of chili, and Dunkin’ Donuts. Oh, and iced tea. Buckets of iced tea.

The weather was perfect for the last week that I was home. Jeremy and I ate breakfast on the back porch almost every morning; we had bagels and coffee while watching the countless birds - hummingbirds, quail, orioles, even a cardinal - flock to the feeders that my parents have put in the garden. It was warm and quiet in the mornings, bright and hot in the afternoons. Jeremy would lay in the hammock and play mandolin, or we would go to my aunt and uncle’s pool to soak up the sunlight and splash in the water (swimming is one of my favorite things in the world to do). I got a tan. I taught Jeremy to swim. I felt great. I counterbalanced all the exercise with periodic trips to my favorite Mexican restaurant to stuff myself silly with guacamole and chimichangas (deep-fried burritos, about the most unhealthy thing on earth - and about the most delicious as well). I was completely, utterly, unreservedly content - until I had to leave.

The trips home are never long enough. I usually stay three weeks, and at the start of those three weeks, it seems as though there will be more than enough time to do everything I want to do. But at the blink of eye it’s all over, and I find myself with two days, one day, 12 hours left to go and so much that I still wanted to do. More often than not, I wind up staying longer than I originally planned because the closer I get to the time that I’m supposed to leave, the more intense my dread becomes at having to say goodbye and go away again. But sometimes, like this time, I simply can’t stay longer, I can’t put off the inevitable even for a few more days, so I do the last minute things I want to do, and I pack up my stuff, and I get driven to Phoenix, and I force myself on to the plane, and that’s that.

That’s what I did this time, like every time. And believe me, the knowledge that I was going to have to leave the most perfect weather in the world and go back to cold, rainy Britain certainly did not make it any easier to get on that plane. But even if I had been going to back to tropical beaches, I still would have cried just as much saying goodbye to my family. I was crying when I got on the plane, and I cried even harder after trying to move a coat in the overhead compartment to get my small bag up there while the lady in the seat next to mine rattled on about her coat (“Please be careful with my coat, don’t put anything on my coat, are you going to move my coat?”) before jumping up in obvious irritation to snatch her coat herself and put it somewhere else (which I was in the process of doing anyway). I wanted to throw her and her damn coat off the plane.

But I digress. The joys of airplane travel are another topic for another time. The topic here is going home and leaving home and the incredible homesickness I felt right from the moment I stepped onto that plane. When we landed at Gatwick, it was indeed cold and rainy. The bus we wanted to take had been canceled, so we had to wait 40 minutes for another one. That one showed up, but idled at the airport for about 20 minutes longer than it needed to, by which time I was ready to get out and walk back to Brighton.

When we finally reached Brighton, it was sleeting. It was windy. There were no taxis. We had to wait. I was freezing and exhausted, and I would have given anything to be back in the desert. When we finally got a taxi and got back to our apartment, I walked into our dusty, un-lived-in room, dropped my stuff, sat down on the bed, and sobbed. I cried as I unpacked, because all my clothes smelled of home: clean and sunny like my parent’s house, or like suntan lotion and chlorine from the pool. It reminded me of how everything had been so big and bright and quiet in Arizona, so warm and dry, so different from this windy, damp, crowded seaside town that I’ve chosen to live in. I buried my face in my Arizona clothes and wondered what the hell I was doing in England.

But then the sun came out. We made a brief shopping foray in town, which was loud and busy but not as overwhelming as I had feared. We came back and had tea with Chris while listening to a Beam song we had recorded right before Jeremy and I left for Arizona (it sounded good). Chris and Karin made us quiche for dinner, and we watched a really funny show on TV (“Trigger Happy TV”, in case you’re interested), and then I collapsed in bed and slept for 12 hours. And then the world seemed a bit easier to deal with.

And now, two days on, the homesickness is still very much there, but it’s evening out to its normal, ever-present level. I still get teary when I think of home, but I see the sun glinting off the white buildings here and the shadows of seagulls passing my window, and I realize that this is a nice home, too. I wouldn’t miss my family any less if I lived in Boston, or Chicago, or Seattle - or even Phoenix, maybe. So why not Brighton for now? I’m happy here. I have friends here and a life here. The sea is beautiful, it’s a fun place to be, and the weather really isn’t bad all the time. Summer’s coming, and there’s a lot to look forward to here.

But at the moment, I’m still mostly looking forward to my next trip home.