A Trip to Tblisi in Pictures

 

Glimpses of Familiarity

Just when I feel like home couldn’t be any further away, I’ll catch a glimpse of familiarity. The other night I was watching an Azeri news channel with Kaklik. Between news stories about protests in northeastern Azerbaijan and preparations for Eurovision in Baku, the youtube video of Mishka the husky howling ‘I love you’ played, her familiar half-human half-k9 I love youuuu ringing through my kitchen. Kaklik started laughing and repeating ‘I love you’ over and over again, as it’s one of the only English phrases she recognizes. All of a sudden, I was back at home, sitting on the couch, watching Emily come through the back door eliciting homecoming I love you howls from Panda. 

Another time, as I was conversing over Novruz dinner about pop culture with my 20-something year old host siblings, who were home for the holiday, Kaklik chimed in to announce the recent news that the American singer, Rihanna died. One of my host sisters almost dropped her fork as her eyes bulged dramatically. The other’s eyebrows furrowed while my host brother immediately jumped in with a “Mamaaa that was Whitney Houston!” and continued on about how incredibly different the two are. Standing corrected, Kaklik abashedly pushed her food around her plate with a slight smile. “Oh,” she conceded, as all three kids rolled their eyes and shook their heads in my direction. And again, I was right back at home, sitting over dinner with my family, or watching the news, or in the car on the way home from church. There was dad talking about the Fall out Boys, the origin of the Kings of Lee-on, or how he led his co-workers in the electric glide at the company Christmas party. Before he can finish his sentence, the jury’s all over the mistakes: me, as condescending as the next overachieving 17-year old, nit-picking every detail while Emily’s sitting beside me, disgusted, but thankful he didn’t say it in front of her friends. I don’t think there are many universal truths about families, but it’s interesting—the means by which my understanding of family seems to find me. And lucky for me, through these channels, home doesn’t seem quite so far away.