Ah, America. It was good to be back. JFK was as bustling as it always was. The Dirty Dancing soundtrack blaring from the speakers reminded me of the summer afternoons in high school I used to spend cruising around my Connecticut beach town in my little silver Jetta. Kim Kardashian and Lady Gaga blanketing every magazine cover reminded me how woefully out of touch I was with le smut du jour. Babies were screaming from their thousand-dollar strollers, cell phones were bleating like an electronic symphony, everyone—even barely walking three-year-olds—was tugging those little wheelie suitcases behind them, creating a candy-colored, movable minefield as I made my way from the Air France terminal to U.S. customs. This was the same sensory overload that had appalled me when I made my first trip back home only a few months earlier. But now, surrounded by people sporting velour tracksuits, fake tans, and tattoos—such a long, long way from the slim jeans, ballet flats, and perfectly painted lips back in Paris—it was like a big, warm, chubby hug from America.
