Speaking of extremes, this next part may sound extremely flakey coming from someone who was once considered to be among the cream of the up-and-coming rocket science crop, but here it is: the instant that Hobby Airport's double doors slid open to reveal the world that is Houston, I physically recognized it, and a years-long mystery was solved with one breath. Nova Scotia would sometimes become very still and atypically warm in the month of August, and the air would carry a scent that resonated with me, even though I knew it wasn't originating locally. I remember long intervals sitting on the beach staring at bizarre pink sunsets (not the usual orange ones), and wondering why this scent seemed as familiar to me as the inside of my own head. When the doors opened at Hobby, I knew instantly that I'd found both the source and my second home. I later came to understand how this happens: sometimes the late-summer jet stream will develop a mid-continent paunch and the coastal rebound sends air from the Gulf of Mexico directly up the eastern seaboard.
I really WAS smelling Houston during those contemplative times in Nova Scotia. Why I became entangled with it before I'd ever experienced it in context will remain a mystery, but I've never found life to be quite as linear as simplistic mechanical models suggest that it should be.
Every year on this date, on which I journeyed through the biggest life-trajectory shift I ever had, I mentally retrace my entire coming-to-America story step by step. It doesn't feel like 24 years. It all feels like right now.
She is going Proust on us!
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