To my family, far and wide.

Hello again after long last,

"Why do I travel? I get hot, exhausted, burnt about the face, frightfully thin. I get covered in fleas, and all the sand flies and mosquitoes in the district come and graze on me. I eat the most awful food and drink the most awful water. If I lie down in the shade, the suns goes swiftly around the tree until it is shining right on me... But I see views, people, places I never imagined existed. I learn new customs and hear old history. Sometimes I am wonderfully lucky and see something very few outsiders have seen before. I make friends with servants, soldiers, and odd charming people in remote villages. I get hard and strong, my mind opens out and becomes more receptive. Birds sing new tunes for me and I smell new scents. And for a short time I am not only independent but completely responsible for my own safety. I shed the aura of civilization and become quite a different person. And everywhere I go makes me love home even more."
This a quote from the 1935 diary entry of an English aristocrats wife while she was traveling through Kurdistan on her own.

When the young man behind the desk returned my passport as I passed through US immigration yesterday, he smiled and said, "Welcome home." The sincerity of his smile warmed me and I was struck with the sudden sense that, in fact, I had never stopped feeling at home. That, rather, as I traveled, my sense of 'home' effortlessly and quite unconsciously expanded to include every part of the world I have passed through, traveled in, and even those I haven't. Maybe that is why it took me so long to come back to California, much to the confusion of some; I was home all along, just connecting with family else where.
I don't know where I am going or what I will be doing today, tomorrow or any of my days. For now, I am connecting one branch of family in one part of my home until the wind blows and I pack a bag to meet others. And whenever the wind blows is always the best timing for me.


Until again.