coming home

melaka, malaysia

with regard to 'proper travel', i believe that one mentally prepares to be away for the exact amount of time they will be gone. they set an internal alarm clock, as it were. there is the initial honeymoon phase where the accumulated baggage from life over there is unpacked. one can make sweet, blissful love to the distance they've put between their stress and their self. toward the end, there is the preparation for reintegration phase where one rearms both defensively and offensively. were i to use a simile or metaphor here, it would be football and/or battle related. in between these phases, there is this thing called living.

the theory states that if you tell yourself you'll return in three months, you'll be ready to return a little bit before that point. over- or under-staying that time frame feels exactly as such. there grows the sensation that you're missing out, be that at home or on the road, case depending. it is my own theory, and according to it, i am ready to come home right about now.

i'm not. sure, okay, i really want to see some people. i miss my family. i can't wait to receive hugs from so many great friends. one of the greatest thrills in life is seeing someone's face light up when they're genuinely excited, and i mean excited, to see you after a prolonged absence. i foresee several instances of that in the coming month and that feels very good.

i miss americans. what a far cry from several years back, but i've determined that we are the funniest and most fun people to be around. i want to hear some new music and spend hours watching and rewatching every vietnam movie. i want to take my time in a great bookstore, catch a baseball game, drink a fat tire, and overdose on mexican food. the friends and family deserve another mention. and another.

but it's not lost on me that i'm closer to jakarta than new york. ditto yangon. shanghai. dhaka. lhasa. geographically, at least, and if i really press two fingers to my spirit's pulse, there are a few other senses as well. a lot of that you would already know. i travel and i write on a blog about how i like to travel; you get it. it's probably lost on nobody that i enjoy seeing new places. but it's bigger than just some desire to take some more photos, collect some more sun, challenge my gastrointestinal system with some new street food. the reason is that i'm good at this. some guys can throw a baseball, others have the patience to care for the infirm, i have talent for travel. they don't keep score on bus ride tolerance, map reading, tuk tuk bargaining, food finding, local experience locating, and they don't have target practice for kindness killing. these are skills, i tell you, and i have them.

in the west, we have personality tests and buy self-help books; we attend seminars and shadow people who are "in the field." we are supposed to add value to some supply chain and be grateful we don't have it as bad as the other guy. i've done that and i am grateful for everything i've got, but it's getting to where i don't see the point. finding a job after traveling is like casually dating after being in love. eating stouffers for dinner after a five-star brunch. it's like that ex-ballplayer in the broadcast booth or selling cars. there's somewhere we'd all rather be and we've been there before. and we were really, really good at it. we are the living, breathing, ruined for everything after.

the after, for me, for now, comes soon. before the after, come the realizations and the bargaining. the anticipations, good and bad, and the nearer i get to that 747, the worse they get. i don't want to perform solidly at a job i'm apathetic about and i don't want to politic. i don't want to spend hours on query letters and be all "professional and shit" around some literary agent. i want to network like my ass wants teeth. i don't want to get into a routine and i don't want to accept things as they are, simply because they are. and, yes, frankly, there are some things about america that i'm less than excited for. i don't want to be asked fifty times in a day about how i am doing and have none but a handful mean it. i don't want to eat across from someone on their cell phone and i really don't want to witness aggravated entitlement. i don't want to hear romney and santorum try to out-cro-magnon one another in their high-wire act for low-lying fruit.

if you're telling me to grow up, you're partially correct. this is all par for the course and one that must be navigated, even if we have to plug our noses for a stretch every now and then. and there is something really beautiful about a normal life. dorothy was right: there is no place like home. it's just that for some of us, saying those magic words and clicking the heels of the ruby slippers is a nice journey that soon has us looking for the songthaew back to oz.

so that's what it shall be: home for now and a "hello kansas i missed you so." appreciate the small stuff, spend some time with auntie em and uncle henry and remember to never take a precious moment with a great person for granted. i'll take toto for a couple spins on the bike, lend a hand on the farm, and make sure i've got my backpack on standby: it might not be today, it might not be tomorrow, but there will be another twister.