Home Again, or, Around the World in 40 Days

Home again.

A couple of stories from my last day. I left my bags at the hotel and went out to kill time until my flight. An hour before I was due to leave I was in an internet cafe when my taxi guy from the day before somehow found me. How? He wanted to know if I was going to the airport. You have to be *very* good to make it in the cut-throat world of Mumbai taxi drivers. So he took me to the airport, and on the way there told me of a little shop, where it so happened he got 100 rupees for bringing sucker tourists. Did I feel like a look? I had a few hours to kill, so why not. I was supposed to be looking at Pashmina shawls, but got distracted by some gorgeous hand-carved chessmen, and ended up spending way too much money on a set. Back to the taxi. I showed my taxi-guy my chess men, and he showed me the rice-cooker he got with his kickback. We were both quite pleased with ourselves.

Got my plane home, fleeing the swine flu which was about to strike India. When we reached Sydney the hostess read out an announcement regarding identifying yourself to staff if you had flu-like symptoms. Then, in a nervous voice, she announced that customs officers would be joining us on the plane for "an unrelated reason". I'd been chatting with the youngish traveller next to me for most of the trip, and jokingly said to him, "You don't have any drugs on you, do you?" He said he didn't. And then he started emitting this terrible panic-sweat, and tapping his feet in agitation. Whoops. As it turns out, the hostess was lying - the customs people were totally after swine flu. A passenger in business class had come down with something, but it wasn't swine flu, so we were allowed off the plane. A few hours later, the Australian government brought in thermal body scanners at all the airports - I just made it out in time to avoid that.

Went down to Dad's for the night - my car was there, along with my keys - then came back the next day, called in at Tahlia's to get some more keys - she'd been kindly watering my bonsai and checking my mail for me - and had coffee with her, then went home.

My apartment looked so odd - it took me a moment to work out why. It was evening and the evening sun was coming in through the blinds. It hadn't done that when I left. The seasons had advanced in my absence.

I put my stuff down and sat on the couch. And suddenly felt this horrible lonesomeness, far worse than anything I'd felt on my trip, no matter how far I was from home or how bad the accomodation or how foreign the surroundings. I felt the lure of old habits and methods of distraction, and wondered for a moment whether anything had changed at all.

You see, for a long time while I was overseas I wanted to come home, but also didn't. Home's been part of the problem for a while now. Somewhere along the way I became like a man so afraid of nuclear war that he builds himself a shelter and starts living in it, not noticing that outside the threat has passed and the sun is shining. That's a little too literal a metaphor, actually.

People have asked me, did I have fun? It's a hard question to answer, except to say that I had amazing fun, and at other times none at all; that I was variously really happy, and really sad, and excited and confused and lost and homesick and full of adventure and possibilities. It was an "experience"? Maybe. Seems a little simplistic. It was *something*, and for a long time I think I've been a little too content with mere contentment. I feel different in some crucial, undefined way. I want to do things differently now.

I guess that's the point of travel.

Thanks to all who read this and came along with me. Hope to talk to you in real life sometime soon.