Chronicles Of The Return

My first week home was, while not exciting, pleasant. Hanging out with my Mom, seeing my sister, old friends, catching up, all a part of the return. After staying at my Mom’s the first week I headed out to Williamson County to stay with a buddy until my flat is ready. He’s got a wonderful house, spacious, with two dogs that are sweet–if one is a bit to exuberant in the mornings, you know, I just don’t like being licked (cue the peanut gallery)–but it’s out in sub-urban hell. The last several days after waking up and eating breakfast I drive into town to spend my day writing in a local coffee shop. I greet each morning with a smile, the promise of a new day. But the moment I pull the car out of the subdivision onto Anderson Mill Road, my mood sinks. I look around me. I see blue skies, a warm sun and concrete big boxes in all directions. Home.

“Where is the wonder,” I ask myself? I know it’s silly. Austin isn’t Istanbul. It’s not Muscat. It’s not even Singapore. And so I drive thirty minutes into town, sit down at a table and fire up my Mac Book Pro. The blank white page and the blinking cursor reflect back on me the emptiness I fell.

“How can I have gone from being so full of life and feel so empty now,” I ask?

Perhaps I expect too much. But as I drive around, I see, keenly, painfully, what Guy Forsyth sings about: “[our streets are] clogged bumper to bumper with stinking SUVs and two-story pickup trucks that can drive over anything except the two-story pickup truck right in front of it. Not even the highways look the same, Starbucks and 711s and Walmarts jam the feeder roads. We don’t live around this mess, we live under it.”

And so each day is a struggle to climb out of the rubble. A struggle to see the beauty, the wonder here. After a year away I expected to come home with ‘new eyes.’ And I did. They aren’t jaded eyes. But they aren’t happy eyes, either.

And there is an uncountable measure of beauty in Austin and the surrounding Hill Country. Clear streams tumble down the limestone hills, Cedar trees, Live Oaks, Pecan trees, and the skyline of Austin? The city has changed. It’s a lovely city, now. If I knew nothing of this place and were visiting for the first time I would find inspiration here.

And there’s the rub. Each day has been a struggle to find some kind of inspiration. I know my expectations are out of line, unrealistic. After the daily barrage of stimulus I had traveling I should know better. And I do realize I’m ‘coming down’ from a magical year.

I stare out the window into the glaring sun, wondering, my mind wandering back East. These are the first words I’ve written in two weeks. A writer who doesn’t write?

“Settle down,” the voice in my head says, “it’ll come. It’s only been two weeks.”

I miss the world. I knew this would happen. And I’m glad it is happening.

I just have to remind myself to document it. Too many people write excellent books about the journey and yet forget the most important part is the return, how it shapes us, how we adjust and sink back into the compromises that set us off into the world in the first place.

“Patience,” I hear, that whisper on the wind that followed me from Toba to Sivas, Istanbul to Nyborg.

Patience is trait I never acquired. Probably never will.

Today I might be able to make peace with the changes. I can feel it, bubbling up, but it’s dropping slow. The sinking feeling in my stomach isn’t a strong as it was yesterday, and less than the day before. Blue skies and the warmth of friends surround me. I’d forgotten how hard it is to be alone.

Home does have it’s rewards.