As I said, I got rested up in Ardmore, and probably put on a few pounds. Most of the time it was just me and my parents, but one day both Leslie and my older brother Kevin came to visit. It was the first time in umpteen years that the five of us had been in the same room, and it was wonderful to see everyone together again. Everyone behaved, both at home and at the catfish restaurant where we stuffed ourselves. It was a great day.

But Leslie had to leave that evening, and Kevin left the next morning to go see his daughter in Dallas before flying back to his home in Kentucky. I’d actually shaved off my goatee after days of protests by my mother, but it had turned out that Kevin was sporting one as well. Mom told him he should shave it off. “Not gonna happen,” he said.

But I had to leave as well; I got on a train bound for Norman, this one running a little late, on Monday evening. My parents saw me off, and almost immediately I regretted sitting in the first car, as the train’s horn was rather annoying at such a close range. Still, I did enjoy the sunset ride up into the night. Leslie and Kelly picked me up in Norman and took me back to the old house where I’d been staying. It was unused to me, but still not too spooky. I didn’t sleep well. I’d set my iphone alarm, but it has been known to misbehave, especially as my phone is old and struggles to keep up with modern apps. But I was ready at the door when Leslie arrived the next morning. We got to the airport in plenty of time, as I was wary of shenanigans. They started almost immediately when I was going through “security” and they told me to step into the controversial Rapiscan machine that I’d thought been discontinued due to worries about radiation. “Can I, uh…not do that?” I said.

The woman at the machine sighed and yelled out, “MALE OPT OUT!” to roughly everyone in the state. I was taken over to a corner after going through the metal detector and patted down. It wasn’t entirely unprofessional, and I didn’t mind having to take off my shirt, but I did wonder if they knew how useless and actually dangerous those machines are. If not, they should; they’re standing next to them all day, every day. And of course, there’s that name…Jesus.

I got to my flight in plenty of time, however. As we flew west over the increasingly wrinkled landscape, we began to pass just under what looked like the contrails of other planes. I know those don’t last long, and wondered how close they plan these routes. An answer came not long after when I spotted another small jet flying towards us at 11 o’clock, just a few hundred feet above. Due to our combined speeds, it had passed before I could do more than startle the people around me with a quick “Holy shit!”, but if had been just a little lower and over a bit, I wouldn’t be here writing this. If I’d been quicker I would have gotten a photo, but alas, I wasn’t.  I did get a shot of another jet that passed much further overhead, but that was probably a bit more normal.

Eric Kim had wanted to meet up for coffee in San Francisco, but he messaged, saying he had horrible jet lag as he’d just gotten back from Northern Europe and couldn’t make it, so I bummed around the airport instead, while the city beckoned from over the hills. If I hadn’t had my luggage I would have gone out and back into it for a bit, but I also wasn’t enamored with the idea of taking my chances with “security” again, so I stayed put, having some sandwiches for lunch and buying some snacks to take with me.

The waiting area slowly filled up with passengers bound for Beijing before we lined up to board the big 747 across the Pacific. I was lucky and had just one empty seat beside me, enabling to lay down and soothe the headache resulting from watching three Marvel action movies in a row, before we arrived. It was late afternoon in Beijing, but it felt like morning to me. Falling night convinced me otherwise as I was dropped off at the actual hotel I was supposed to have been staying on my trip over. This hotel was actually nicer, though they didn’t provide water, and the wifi didn’t seem to be working.

I didn’t feel like revisiting that particular sordidity, so I hailed a cab and had him take me to the Wangjing area, where I had some nice Korean food. The roads around Tiananmen were the site of a big parade earlier that day, so I avoided that area. Instead I walked to Sanlitun, past trendy bars and massage parlors, people sitting on the street staring at their phones, and dance clubs hidden in old hutongs. I wonder about living in Beijing; I’d think the bad air alone would put me off. Surely there are much better places to live. I’ve heard good things about Chengdu from Prince Roy. Perhaps I should visit there some time. But Beijing…no, I don’t think so.

I got another taxi back to my hotel, arranged my luggage, and slept. The next morning I got to the airport early, so early that I was sitting at the gate two hours before it opened. But better early than late. I sat and watched the planes and passengers as the airport woke up around me; a group of three young Chinese people took a picture that would have been surreptitious except for the fact that they’d forgotten to turn off the camera sound.

Another flight and I was back in Taiwan, skirting the immigration lines to pass through the electronic kiosks practically without stopping. After previous trips to the U.S., I always felt a certain amount of fresh surprise, but not this time. This time I was immediately and indisputably back home in Taiwan. Everything felt normal and welcome, but at the same time, I didn’t feel even a little bit a part of the fabric of American society this time. I couldn’t even fake it. I was simply an outsider. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad, but it is different. Many people thought that a certain level of paranoia was not surprising after 9/11, but it seems as if the general Fear of Things is escalating regardless. It’s self-sustaining now, I suppose, or at least some people seem to want it that way.

So that was my trip. Now I’m getting back into the swing of things. The fall semester is approaching, and I’m gearing up for the start of the photography course I teach at the Zhong-zheng Community College. This will be keeping me quite busy for a while, but it should be fun.

Leslie, her husband Keith and I had breakfast at the Diner before they took me over to the train station. I’d gotten tickets online, which was fortunate, as I don’t think the station technically even needs to be there any more. It’s something more like an art space, and only one woman showed up to tell people trains still stopped there. I didn’t see anywhere one could actually buy a ticket.

A few people were waiting there, including one white guy with a confederate flag on the back of his shirt. The handful of black passengers-to-be ignored him, but I can’t believe they didn’t notice it. Perhaps they’re used to such things, but it put a damper on my mood.

The train arrived right on time, and the conductor scanned people’s tickets before letting us on the train. They’d said we’d need picture ID, but nobody asked me for it. That was just as well, as I’m sure my Taiwanese passport would have resulted in more questions than answers for them. Instead, I got on, stowed my suitcase downstairs, and walked up a flight of steps to the upper level, where there were plenty of big, empty seats, complete with electrical outlets and wifi. I waved at Leslie and Keith as the train departed, blowing its horn in what I’m guessing is an attempt to avoid lawsuits should it hit anyone on the tracks. Few people realize that trains can sneak up on you, but they totally can.

It was a really nice trip, gliding southwards towards and through the Arbuckle Mountains, stopping only a couple of times and not seeing anyone else get on or off the train. Fields, cows, red rivers and stone cliffs, an occasional factory, all flashing by. I love travel by train. I’d like to do more of it. I wish the American people were more into trains, it would be better for many people if they’d just realize it.

My parents were just pulling up to the station when I got off, and they took me to their house. On the way we passed a man in a white pick-up truck who was installing a huge confederate flag on the back of his truck, place, apparently un-ironically, next to the U.S. flag.

Over the next week I got a lot of much-needed rest, as they take a lot of naps and watch whodunnits in the evening on Netflix before turning in at around 9 p.m. Ordinary television has become almost unwatchable in the U.S., full of “news” anchors shouting at viewers about whatever threats are the order of the day, occasionally interrupted by “medical” ads shouting at viewers in a threatening fashion about whatever symptoms will let them sue someone. Scaremongering and appeals to idiocy, mostly; I don’t know how anyone can stand it.

Occasionally, tired of the constant televised haranguing, I would take walks around the neighborhood. One day I decided to walk down to where my grandparents used to live, in the house my grandfather built. I had to walk by the side of the road most of the time, as nobody had bothered building sidewalks. I can see why; nobody there seems to walk anywhere, and anyone who does is viewed with suspicion. Just how much suspicion I quickly found out.

I was used to hearing cars approaching and passing by, many of them slowing down for a better gawk at me as they passed, but as I walking towards a convenience store I heard a car drive up and stop just behind me. I turned around and saw not one, but two police cruisers behind me. One officer was quickly out and calling loudly, “You want to tell me what you’re doing?” I could almost hear the mental …boy? at the end.

I was surprised, to say the least. I knew Americans are paranoid these days, but I never imagined how paranoid, or that it seems to be increasing for no reason. “I’m, uh…walking around?” The policeman approached me and told me they had gotten calls, reports of someone “taking pictures.” I wanted to ask if that was my crime or was it just walking around, but I held my tongue. Too many images of recent police violence were running through my head; it wouldn’t take too much imagination on their part for me to become some foreign-looking insurgent on a surveillance mission or whatever they chose to believe. The cops were both stocky young white men, and another cruiser pulled up almost immediately, this one producing a white woman officer. Three police cruisers and officers, all for little old me. I would have been impressed if it hadn’t been so depressing. I wondered how long they’d been looking for me. An hour?

“You have any ID we can see?” the cop asked. I didn’t; I hadn’t imagined I’d need any, but at the same time I was glad I didn’t think to bring my passport, which surely would have raised entirely too many questions. I did show him my Taiwanese driver’s license, but he just shook his head in incomprehension at the Chinese text and handed it back to me. I could see this wasn’t going well, and told him what I could of my family history in Ardmore, that I was visiting my elderly parents, I wanted to see my grandparents’ house, etc. “So you’re taking pictures?” the cop said, looking at the camera hanging on my side. His blonde hair was in a short crew cut.

“Yeah,” I said, and adding, because I couldn’t resist, “…I like to take pictures…but I’m not from Google Streetview or anything like that.”

Thankfully the cop didn’t take this the wrong way. I’m not entirely sure he even understood what Google Streetview is, or else he would have seen the irony of people reporting someone “taking pictures” in their neighborhood to the police. The police went over and called in the information I’d given them in. Perhaps they were looking up my grandmother. Whatever it was, eventually they came back and told me that, even though I didn’t have a real ID, they weren’t going to arrest me. I had the idea that had my skin been even a shade or two darker, things would have gone very differently; it was a close call as it was.

I walked away before they could change their minds, as the fellow in customs in San Francisco had done, heading towards the convenience store to get out of their line of sight. Once inside, I felt more like a person again, and bought a candy bar to calm my nerves. I kept the wrapper to remind me that, though America is full of open spaces, it is also full of walls, most of them invisible, and far more damaging for it.

I didn’t stray far on my subsequent walks. I guess that’s the idea.

So after San Francisco I flew to Oklahoma and spent a few days visiting my sister Leslie, who lives in Norman. As I mentioned, the flight was delayed, and the pilot told us that he would go as fast as he could. “We’ll put the pedal to the metal,” he said, which I found alarming; I just wanted to get there in one piece. The sun was shining in my window onto my tray in a fashion similar to the way it did in one of my favorite photos by William Eggleston, so when the drink cart came around and the stewardess asked me what I’d like, I said, “Something red.”

“Apple juice?” she asked, puzzled.

“No, something where the liquid is actually red.”

“Bloody Mary?”

“Close, and uh, tempting, but I’d like it to be transparent.” She would have been excused for backing away and calling the air marshals or whatever they are at this point, but she remained determined to get me the drink I wanted.

“Cranberry juice?”

Bingo. “That’ll do, thanks.” When I got my drink, I put it on the tray and took a few experimental shots. Thankfully the seat next to me was empty, but the people in the adjacent seats were sending curious looks my way. I tried putting my hand in the shot as Eggleston had, but it just didn’t work, so I just had the drink on the tray and the window. The planes of Eggleston’s day apparently had either higher trays or lower windows or both. When the stewardess passed by and happened to see one of my shots on my iPad, she smiled.

“So that’s what you were up to,” she said, nodding. “It’s nice.”

I’d gotten the arrival time mixed up, so Leslie had to come to the airport twice, and then I’d forgotten about the security barrier, so that she had to wait even longer until I recalled that ordinary people can’t get anywhere close to gates these days and walked out to the arrivals hall. I can be a very trying traveller if you’re the one stuck trying to pick me up.

I was fortunate to be able to stay at the home of her friend Kim’s elderly mother-in-law, who was moved into a nursing home nine months ago. The house, a 40’s rambler that was apparently the scene of decades of family life, felt slightly spooky when I first arrived, as if I was violating someone’s most intimate chambers, but over the several days I stayed there it grew on me. All of the stuff, the furniture, accoutrements, knickknacks, abandoned toys and other inexplicable yet obviously personal paraphernalia are still there, as if parents and children could burst in at any minute. Wistful signs of the elderly woman’s final days dotted the house as well, i.e. rails on beds, abandoned wheelchairs, furniture moved out of the way, etc. The way the midwestern sun peeked into the house in the mornings and afternoons, illuminating the bright 40’s turquoise-and-blue bathroom tile and dusty shag carpet from the 70’s aroused my interest, and I couldn’t help but take a few photos while I was there. The house may be haunted, but the ghosts are largely welcoming once you stay with them a while.

Leslie took me to places like IHOP for breakfast, which was a real change for someone whose breakfast tends toward a simple piece of toast and an apple. While we were there a huge ambulance pulled up outside, lights flashing. EMTs walked calmly into the kitchen in back, but nobody batted an eye. We also went to a little place called The Diner on Norman’s Main Street, for breakfast a couple of times. The food was good, and the portions, as seems to be typical these days in America, were simply too much. There’s just no reason for that amount of food for one person. We also went to an alcohol store, which was stunning in its range and variety, and a farmer’s market, which was somewhat less stunning in those respects, but still interesting (They did have quite a variety of retro sodas. And squash).

Leslie’s friends who let me stay in their mother’s house were for some reason suffering from several minor calamities. Kim had twisted her ankle, and her husband and son had to push his boat to the dock when the engine failed. Nonetheless, they threw a nice little get-together for me in their backyard one evening, with good music, food and conversation punctuated by train horns. Later we played Cards Against Humanity in the living room, which was fun and evil.

One day we went out to Blanchard, Oklahoma, a small town where another of Leslie’s friends, Kelly, lives with her family in an old house and two small, molecule-like dogs bouncing around inside and out in the yard. We had dinner in a dining room decorated with a lovely old green mixer, and then played CAH into the night. I was slightly abashed to win so handily, but I’m sure it was beginner’s luck. Right?