When I first touched down in Mongolia, the view from the airport was something like staring out into an abyss. I hardly remember seeing the city, and can barely recall the people who met and greeted us out on the concrete sidewalk outside the terminal. There was one thing, however, that stuck in my mind and I have no idea why. I remember a raised road that went above the end of the taxi kiosk on the right-hand side. I remember the stone arch-way it created as a kind of exit for the taxis on their way to the city. I remember feeling at that moment that I was crossing something significant, though I was much too caught up in the chaos of the moment to really think about it. And, of course, once in the micro-bus headed to a tourist ger-camp outside the city, I hardly noticed even crossing over that threshold. But there was something about the arch that stuck in my mind long afterwards...
And so I went on transitioning into Mongolian life as a Peace Corps volunteer. I went through the first 3 months learning the language, adjusting to the culture, and sitting in these classes just praying for the end so I could go read my book. I tried to be "up-for-anything" as much as possible, but that shit is tiring when you're already emotionally fragile and physically exhausted. It was in those moments of desperate frustration that my mind would return to that arch. It began to represent the gateway to Mongolia for me. Like the next time I see that arch, I'll be going the opposite way through it. I'll be going home! It was like an illusory finish line at the end of a marathon. You're only about 2 miles in and already praying for the next 4 to 6 hours to be over already.
But it doesn't end, and soon enough those thoughts of the finish line disappear, replaced by insane kind of meanderings of someone who consciously put himself into this holding pattern. You get thoughts about childhood, and walking through stone piles created by giants. You get thoughts about snow drifting through cracks in windows and how they represent some weird metaphor for...wait, what was that entry about, again?
Now here I sit, about 3/8 of the way through, almost able to see the halfway point off in the distance. And suddenly I find myself running beneath that archway again. It doesn't process immediately. Like a double-take, but much more subtle. There's a nice Mongolian word for it...hamaagui. It means something like "it doesn't matter" or "I don't mind". But the Mongolian word doesn't have a subject. There isn't an actor in mind. It's more like that actual thing, that actual moment, has lost its own meaning. Not that the actor sees less meaning in it. So, on my return back from my short vacation, I passed beneath the arch once again. But I didn't feel that I had returned to this place, I hadn't returned to my Peace Corps life. I wasn't re-starting. I hadn't even left. Maybe it was like seeing a first love again for the first time. The positive and negative emotions had disappeared. There was only a last little string that held me to it. And there just isn't an emotion to describe it in English.
