homecoming 

Being 35,000 feet in the air can be daunting. We sit in close quarters with potentially hundreds of strangers, waiting with anticipation to reach our destinations. Stuck in a sandwich of clouds, passengers exist in a time and space of silence; a purgatory between old and new experiences. Some may be returning home, some are beginning a vacation, some may be traveling for work, and others might just be caught in a connecting flight. My family and I are headed to my abuelos’ house in Monterrey, Mexico. Every passing second feels like an hour as my feet sporadically tap on the plane floor, bouncing with an eagerness to place them on a ground they’ve kissed so many times before. There I sat, my stomach dropping not from the changing pressure or the eeriness of the airborne setting, but from a glee I’ve recognized within my first year of life.

As we began to descend past a layer of ominous clouds, I began to see it: home. The mountains enveloping the city, the desert valleys, the curving highways placed perilously close to cliff sides, and the blazing sun swallowing the landscape whole. Even from so high above, the sights send waves of electricity through every nerve in my body. The plane could not descend any slower.

Meanwhile, my abuela stands in the kitchen, carefully preparing our favorite dish: red enchiladas. I imagine her chopping the onion as swiftly as the clouds pass me behind the glass of the small airplane window. She crumbles the queso fresco with diligence achieved from years of cooking this dish. I wonder if she cries over the diced onions, whether from the release of chemical compounds or from the pure joy of being able to cook for her family for the first time in months. I often shed tears of joy on the plane; perhaps we cry in sync.

The second the wheels of the plane hit the runway, I imagine the faces of my abuelos, the embraces I will soon be held in. I know they are already waiting outside the gate, always showing up nearly an hour before we land. As we pass through customs, the continual sound of passports being stamped reminds me of tortillas frying. I picture those red tortillas and my abuela standing there in the kitchen, placing and flipping one tortilla after another in a pool of sizzling oil. The customs officer takes my family members' five passports and stamps them, one after the other.