The flip side

"Some days in late August at home are like this, the air thin and eager like this, with something in it sad and nostalgic and familiar..."

~ William Faulkner

Only this is just the beginning of August and yet another of life's little ironies happens. Seems like only yesterday when I was choking with euphoria and slathering my joy all over the cyberspace upon finding ilishi in Seattle. That indisputable king of fish, or at least that's what we East Indians think. Now call it preoccupation or mere forgetfulness of the taste buds, we haven't had, or for that matter even searched once for the dear old fish after our return home. Instead, we were on the lookout for our Western favorite - salmon. And what's more, we finally got it! Straight from the Scottish Highlands, although frozen and therefore not at its pretty orangish best like what we used to get in that seafood heaven called the Pacific Northwest, it still tasted good. Just like the ilishi did last year. 

Regarding our little "American" grocery store, I always knew it existed but never cared to visit it. And that was before my life as a foreigner. But now, once back with another world throbbing inside me, continuously reminding me of its riches and beauty, it was a must visit. I can hardly express my emotions, that gush of warm familiarity that rushed through me after stepping into the tiny store last Sunday. Let's just say if nostalgia was a river, I would have been kayaking on it. That's how high I was! Just like I used to be when stumbling upon my brand of curry powder in an Indian grocery store back in the States.

 
Even the once monotonous and ridiculously familiar box of Cheerios made me do a little dance!