There and Back Again

Watching: Swimming Pool
Pondering: Being away from home gave me the chance to look at myself with a jaundiced eye. I learned not to be ashamed of a real hunger for knowledge, something I had always tried to hide, and I came home glad to start in here again with a love for Europe that I am afraid will never leave me. (Jacqueline Kennedy)

The last two nights I fell asleep while enjoying a view of the Las Vegas strip, with its neon lights and grand hotel marquees twinkling like stars. I could even see part of the McCarran International Airport runway from where my bed was and the vast open space of the runway strip reminded me constantly that Las Vegas and all its glitz, glamour and sinful attractions was still a desert.

Days in Las Vegas or another place or city away from home is always memorable, no matter how short. You become a new person when you are at a different place. Every city I’ve visited has something noteworthy that’s worth revisiting in my mind once in awhile - looking for the Loch Ness monster while rain poured in Scotland, walking from Arc de Triomphe to the Louvre Museum in Paris, sitting on a slope covered by fallen maple leaves at Stanley Park in Vancouver, standing on a boat at Lake Lucern in Switzerland as fireworks burst in the evening sky, taking a late afternoon boat ride from my hotel to Pleasure Island in Disney World, shopping cheap shoes at the outlet stores in Las Vegas, reading Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings for the first time in the patio of my rented bungalow at Paradise Point in San Diego while Mission Bay lay ahead, still and tranquil, and many more. These memories offer comfort when I am lonely, escape when I am weary, and a smile when I am sad.

But for now I am back home. Back to sleeping in my own bed, showering in my own bathroom, eating dinner at the dining table and not at some cafe or restaurant amidst a bustling casino where the air smells of cigarette no matter how deep into the no-smoking section of the restaurant you are. There’s no room service to dial should I get hungry later tonight. No, tonight I am sleeping with Marcus, my stuffed seal from San Diego, next to me. No view of neon-painted skylines or airport strips along the desert.

I am back home now, a few days earlier than expected due to changes in the vacation itinerary, and being home has its comfort feeling too but that comes later in the week. For now, I’m just longing to be someplace else but here.