After two months of India’s lush cacophony, I return to Minnesota in mid-February. It is unseasonably warm: the temperature hovers around freezing. Coming from the tropics, this is unbearably cold. Attempts to leave the house result in a whimper of pain and a dash back indoors. I sleep a lot the first few days, play Zelda, call my friends.  I mope around, unmoored, askew. My senses feel dull. The world is muted and sepia-toned: fallow tan fields, dark-barked empty trees, monotone houses. People dress in black and brown and navy blue. I open my suitcase and plunge my hands into shimmering turquoise, gilded copper, bright, bold red. The scent of India rolls over me as I pull out packets of cardamom, saffron and nutmeg; bottles of attar of roses, musk, and sandalwood.  I nibble on a piece of cinnamon. It’s so intense my mouth cramps, my breath catches.

Why does this happen to me? I’m American, born and (mostly) raised. I never get culture shock when I travel. I save it up for when I come home. I feel disoriented and lethargic. Things that were once ordinary seem odd and inexplicable. Objects in my house appear to be imposters of the objects I left here. Everyday tasks seem overwhelmingly complicated, or pointless.

The fridge is barren and cold. We go to the grocery store. Stacked shelves reach heaven. The lighting is bright, the aisles wide. Besides shining piles of fruit and vegetables, and plastic-wrapped hunks of cheese, there is little actual food in sight. Instead, food-things are presented in jars, boxes, bags and cans; brightly colored words and pictures describe the alleged contents. The whole store looks like a children’s book.

I push a clean, well-maintained cart around, occasionally tossing something in, but mostly just peering around trying to figure out what’s what. I cannot remember what I used to eat. Everything looks unlikely. I feel myopic, easily startled. From a symmetrical blur of identical objects, one will suddenly leap out, manifesting as a gigantic loaf of marshmallow-like bread or a tiny, adorable, poppyseed Bundt cake. I consider each carefully (grimly squishing the bread until it forms into a dense, boot-like shape) but put both back with their brethren.  I move on, pushing my cart before me. I feel stoned. There are other shoppers in the store, but they seem far away. Or maybe I am freaking people out with my bewildered, bread-mutilating ways, and they are steering clear.

There is a song playing that I vaguely recognize. I think it’s a remake, but maybe I never paid attention to the original, so now that I’m hearing it, it seems peculiar. I try to remember the name of the band or the song, but the music has changed to Toto’s Africa.

That’s when I notice the peanut butter.

There are many varieties of peanut butter: chunky (has lumps), creamy (no lumps), extra chunky, low-fat chunky, low-fat creamy, low-salt chunky, low-salt creamy, low-sugar chunky, low-sugar creamy, no-sugar-added chunky, no-sugar-added creamy, organic, natural, natural organic, natural with oil on top, natural with no oil on top (No Need To Stir!); there is peanut butter with honey, peanut butter with honey nut (what is that, exactly?),  and peanut butter with a gooey helix of grape jam suspended in it.

There are different sizes of peanut butter in jars, and small plastic disks containing “individual servings.” You have to buy six “individual servings” together. I think about this for awhile, and try to articulate why that feels wrong, but I am distracted by how many companies make the same kinds of peanut butter as other companies. I look to the left, then the right: yup, it’s peanut butter as far as I can see.

What is the purpose of so many minor modifications of the same thing? How does one choose? Is choosing (as choosy moms do), an expression of something? Does selecting one variety of peanut butter over another mean something? If so, what? If not, then why do we make meaningless choices? How will I know the difference? Although I do not need to buy peanut butter, I am deeply, wretchedly, confused by this. I do not have peanut allergies, but my throat seems to swell shut and for a moment, I cannot breathe.

To sum up: there is too much peanut butter in this store.

I walk into an area dedicated to piles and pyramids of fruits and vegetables: everything is plump, bright and scentless. The vegetables are svelte and well-groomed: runway models of the botanical world.  I pick up a glowing purple eggplant; it is smooth and cool in my hand, handsome and self-assured. I gently replace it and look around at the softball-sized oranges, bunches of grapes, ruffles of kale, huddles of squash, graceful spears of asparagus, berries disciplined into clear lidded containers. There are lots of apples. Each apple—every single one—has a small sticker on it, identifying what kind of apple it is, where it’s grown, and the company that grows it. A mound of blushing, waxy mangoes seems braying and false, Photoshopped.

Here, before me, is the bounty of every season, and no season. How do all these things exist at once? If choice is meaningless (see: peanut butter), what about time? There is snow on the ground and strawberries on the shelves. How can this be? More to the point: why? I feel myself unraveling.

After being somewhere where most people struggle to obtain the bare basics of nutrition, this grocery store, with its hallucinatory choices, seems absurd.  After eating what’s in season, purchased from a roadside cart by the woman who planted, tended and harvested it, this unseasonal mélange of time-traveling produce looks obscene. After awhile, I will readjust, and this will all seem normal.

Either way, I have to eat.

I gather onions, tomatoes, mushrooms, avocado and some extremely shiny apples. All my fruits and vegetables must be segregated by type into plastic bags, as if to stop them from fighting or otherwise causing a ruckus.

I cannot take anymore. This grocery store, with its distorted perspectives, repeating motifs and omnipresent but invisible food, seems to be out of a Terry Gilliam movie (If you haven’t seen his dystopic classic Brazil, please do so now). We go to the check-out. We’ve been away for two months; the cart is piled high. It comes to around $200. I automatically calculate the cost in Rupees, and envision what that much money would mean in India. For a minute, it’s hard to breathe again.

That’s so much, I think; then: We have so much. Why does that thought suffocate me?

When we get home from the grocery store, I look in the cupboard at our peanut butter. I cannot remember how or why I chose this particular brand and variety, but obviously, at some point, I did. There was a time that I could make these choices without consideration of what they meant.

Familiarity is a mild sedative. When I leave, and return, my comfortable way of seeing is stripped away. It’s not that America is horrifying (or, not any more horrifying than anywhere else); it’s that I see it as if for the first time, but of course it’s not the first time. This is my home.  I feel like I ought to fit, but I don’t. I feel as if things ought to make sense, but they don’t. They never did; I was just (mostly) inured to it. Everything is the same as when I left, but I am different: I am lucid. My vague, everyday alienation has taken on form and substance. The question is: do I want to retain the discomfort of this clear vision, or do I want to be able to go into a grocery store without it causing me pain? Do I have a choice?

We put on some music and unpack the groceries until our fridge is full and friendly. I cut up an apple and eat it. It’s juicy but completely flavorless. This does not trouble me; I know that eventually, I will acquire its taste.