A One-Way Flight

One stifling hot night last September, I couldn’t sleep. I was far from the home where I grew up in North Carolina and homesick for Oaxaca, where I would be returning in a few weeks with the idea of staying to live.

Staring at the ceiling, I realized the day marked three years since I first arrived in Oaxaca. I was ready to get back, so full of anticipation that everything around me made me think: “It’s OK, but it’s not Oaxaca.”

I needed to sleep, so I told myself a bedtime story. It was the story of my first day in Oaxaca.