Imperfect Pieces

25. gold dust

hiraeth (n.) a longing for one's homeland, but it's not mere homesickness. It's an expression of the bond one feels with one's home country when one is away from it.

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Cosima looked out of the little round window. As the plane descended, she began to see the famous city of Los Angeles in more detail: trees dotting the dusty ground, highways weaving around the houses, and an amazing number of cars zooming by each other. She marveled at the sheer amount of blue sky she could see, but after a few minutes she looked away, feeling more and more empty the closer they got to LAX. She twirled a strand of her purple hair and felt like laughing at herself. She had only been gone for 8 hours. It was ridiculous to be homesick after such a short amount of time (they hadn't even landed yet, for god's sake) but then again, Cosima had always been more attached to her home country than most people.

At school when she was younger, whenever the teacher talked about different countries and cultures, Cosima would always feel extra patriotic for the rest of the day. She would go around the playground with the tiny Russian flag she kept in her backpack, telling everyone random facts about the greatest nation in the world. She could go on and on about its rich history, artists, and poets. More than once since her trip started she wondered why did she decide to board this plane, leaving behind the glittering city of St. Petersburg. Cosima sighed but figured she might as well enjoy her year in California. After all, nothing could go wrong in a place with In-And-Out right?

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Cosima was wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong. As soon as she stepped out of the airplane, problems began to occur one after another. There was a mixup with her luggage, the taxi driver had such a hard time understanding her accent that he drove her to the wrong place, the hotel didn't have her name registered and she had to wait in the lobby for 3 hours as they sorted things out. By the end of it all, Cosima was tired, cranky, and not in the mood at all to do anything. So much for an adventurous first day. She climbed into bed despite it being only 8 o'clock in the evening and was just about to take a nap when her phone ringed. It turned out to be the teacher that was sponsoring the foreign exchange student program and she wanted to know if Cosima would be joining a few other students for a city tour. As much as she wanted to say no, it would be simply pathetic to spend her first day in the United States moping in bed.

And that was how she ended up standing on the beach a few hours later, staring into the blue ocean. The sand was like gold dust beneath her, shining and caressing the soles of her feet. I could get used to this, she thought. She hated the aftermath of going to the beach- the salty taste in her mouth for the rest of the day, the sand in her hair, and most of all, the inevitable sunburn that always came with it. It also didn't beat any of the royal palaces in Russia, but in the end she still decided it wasn't too bad.

After that tour (they went to lots of other places, none of which impressed her enough) she started taking walks after dinner. Sometimes she would witness children running down the wide streets, past the palm trees, embracing the wind as they shouted at each other. Sometimes she would see a simple sunset, its vivid colors ingraining in her mind like a piece of art to hang on the walls of her memory, on display for years to come. Sometimes (okay, so maybe more than sometimes) she would walk along that same beach, just soaking her feet in the water. Whenever she padded back to the little path heading back towards her hotel, shaking off gold dust from her sandals, she thought that perhaps she wouldn't hate America as much as she originally thought she would. Just maybe.