Back in Canada

When we came off the plane in Toronto, the officer asked "So where are you coming from today?". 

 

I couldn't remember. 

 

We had been to so many places, on and off buses and trains and planes and taxis and tuk-tuks and elephants...I just blanked.

 

She looked at me oddly when I glanced at Nathan and he responded "North Carolina". 

 

"So have you been to a lot of other places?"

 

For some reason, I had no trouble answering that question. 

"Yes! We were in Houston before that, and Singapore, and Malaysia, and Thailand, and before that we were in India, and Vietnam, and Laos and Thailand and India!".

 

"Is that all?" said the officer.

 

When we first hit N. America, the thing that tripped me up the most was the light switches.  In Asia, press up to turn OFF.  So there we were, eating lunch at midnight because we were so jet-lagged, but having trouble with the lights because I kept trying to turn them on by pressing DOWN on the switch.  Quickly remedied.

 

Our time in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur was great and relaxing.  We enjoyed the big cities.  We cooked pasta puttanesca and ate Tricuits (at a premium price) and went to movies and rode the metro and window shopped and did all the things that we didn't do while we were more upwardly mobile.  What we did wasn't exactly blog-worthy, but it was great for us. 

 

Now we are back and appreciating North America.  It's great not to worry whether the water is potable.  It's strange to tap my belly and have a jolt of anxiety that my money belt isn't there (I can leave it home now, and I only need my (expired) driver's license for ID, not my passport).  It's exciting and wonderful to see family and friends that we haven't seen since we left.  It's excellent to be here in the summer, for garden season.  We are eating MANY fresh tomotoes!

 

Being constantly around family and friends presents its own challenges.  The nature of the challenge came to me when I was at the Art Gallery of Ontario yesterday, just staring at a painting.  Not really examining the painting, just staring unfocusedly at it.  And then it occured to me that part of the reason that I have such a hard time THINKING in my normal life, and why I got so much good thinking done while we've been travelling, is largely a question of focus. 

 

In normal life, when you have a family, a job, friends, you're cooking meals, you're involved in your community, your focus is outward - it has to be, or your relationships falls apart, your friends hate you, you burn the casserole and the boards you're on fire you for lack of attention.  When you don't have those distractions, you are much freer to focus inward, to allow issues to come to the surface, to examine your own thoughts, to talk about them, to come to terms with them, and then to dismiss them as reconciled. 

 

It's amazing how long it takes to discover things about yourself, how you work, and why.  I can understand why meditation is such a help to some people.  Maybe now that I understand, I'll be able to meditate without all those day to day intrusive thoughts attacking me. 

 

Course, that might take some practice.

 

More later, ACDB