i'm from the east

...the east coast is where my parents (and some cousins and an aunt I am honored to be named after) live, northern Virginia, to be exact. And its where I spent seven years of my childhood, not all at once but in spurts. I have friends there I've returned to, again and again. And places--shopping malls, schools, highways, museums--that I've revisited over and over. It happened again last weekend. I flew home and spent a few days with family and friends, who, in my everyday, are faraway people I know through telephone calls and photos posted on the internet. And it was great. I baked a raspberry-peach crumble with my sister, a finale to one of my mother's famous dinners. I got a good haircut at a cheap Vietnamese place, and my mom bought me a pair of sweet shoes. Took a drive south with my family, meandered some back roads, ate a satisfying yet unimaginative lunch at an old downtown inn. We are cosmopolitan folk, not overly impressed by ranch dressing and ice burg lettuce. I was jealous of my mom who ordered the crab cake. Lumps of amazing fresh meat smashed together on a toasty bun. The weather there was humid, and hot, strangely so for mid-October. The humidity made my hair curl and frizz, and my face broke out in a constellation of unsightly pimples. I felt like a teenager, which is inevitably how I feel when I am in my parents' house. Not necessarily a bad thing, I think. None of the leaves on the trees had turned color, as they normally do this time of year. They told me they heard that the drought means there will be none of that this year. The leaves will immediately turn a crisp brown and fall away crackling. A warm winter is in store. What is a warm winter? My mom and I saw an incredible film for free at the Smithsonian, a documentary about women in Afghanistan that followed the lives of three very different women from that country over a number of recent years. Amazing lens with which to look at the insanely unfortunate history of that country, as well as the rise of Islamic fundamentalism. "View from a Grain of Sand." Watch it if you can. I drank sangrias and ate amazing sandwiches with three friends I've known since kindergarten. I visited another friend who has been very sick. It was late on Sunday and we couldn't/didn't want to drink and so sat outside a 24-hour Taco Bell sipping sodas and talking about how much cooler it is in San Francisco. And at my house, eating fruit after dinner as we've always done, I complained to my mother the orange she peeled for me (my mom loves me!) was dry and she had a piece and said it was fine. "But they are so much better in California!" And the strawberries were pinkish and were Driscoll's, the same brand name and farm as the juicy, red ones I buy here. And then I flew back to San Francisco.