The final countdown

We are going home TOMORROW! I’ve thought about home so much as a mental escape that it has become hard to believe it is a real place, far away, where we will be transported overnight through the magic of aviation.

I guess I felt the same sense of disbelief in the days leading up to September 13, 2012, the day we pushed the sofa bed out onto Jackson Street, handed the keys over to our landlord, and drove to San Jose to spend our first night away at my brother’s place. Even though we had personally emptied out the apartment and packed every remaining item into a storage unit, I still felt detached and dazed. I remember having bagels at a Panera Bread in one of Silicon Valley’s ubiquitous outdoor malls and thinking that nothing had really changed yet.

Returning home from the trip feels much the same way. The van is gone. We took Milo to the vet and got his exit paperwork signed by SENASA. I am engaged in my usual battle of trying to eat all the food products that we have accumulated during our two weeks here in Buenos Aires. And I made my one extravagant purchase, now that I don’t have to worry about van storage: a pair of tango shoes. I called The Airlines again to make sure everything would be copacetic with The Dog. But despite all these signs that the trip is ending following our own decision to end it, I am having a hard time accepting that it is really ending.

Whenever I am on the brink of a big change, I inevitably worry. I don’t tend to take courses of action that I don’t think I can manage, but for me, the key to management is anticipation. I spend a lot of time trying to think about all the things I’m worried about, and then I try to think of solutions. Before leaving, I worried that I would be uncomfortable because I had never camped for longer than two weeks. I was worried that Juan and I–stuck together in a van for the foreseeable future under strange circumstances–would fight. I was worried that I would miss people, that I would get sick, that I would get tired. I even worried, in a strange way, that I would get bored. Some of my solutions were to make myself promises to exercise, to make sure to take some time for myself, and to just keep things in perspective. I reminded myself that travel always involves some degree of discomfort and homesickness. I told myself that I wouldn’t only learn Spanish, but a new way of living. I told myself that no matter what happened, it would be worth it.

I know myself pretty well. All of the things I worried would happen did, in fact, happen. I got sick. I was uncomfortable. We got into some fights. I missed home. Having anticipated all of these things did make them seem less like the End of All Things simply because I had seen them coming and told myself ahead of time that they would not be the End of All Things. I employed my positive thinking and dealt with it. And, of course, it was worth it. But the one concern that I did not have a good solution for was the worry that we would be leaving behind a place we would not return to–and it was a place that we liked very much. I’d felt this way when I first left San Francisco to move to New York, so much so that I was unsure if I should move at all. It is hard to leave any place, much less a place you love, and I wondered if it was worth the risk. But my friend Karim told me: ‘San Francisco’s not going anywhere. It’ll still be here when you get back.’ And I listened to him.

While the statement is true that the city of San Francisco will still (probably) be standing when we return, the spirit of this statement is false. I experienced this disappointment the first time I returned to the city after some time away. Yes, the city was still there, but a lot of things had changed. The city, after all, isn’t made up of the buildings and the businesses, but the life you had when you lived there, and without me, that life no longer existed. At the same time, you change so that the place you left no longer looks the same when you return. In this way, returning home can be harder than leaving it, because you have so many more expectations. In your most rational of minds, you can tell yourself that of course certain things will be the same and certain things will have changed, but it is deflating that the homecoming you’ve so anticipated is always a few beats off of the homecoming you truly desire–returning to things exactly the way you left them. In this way, going home really will be another adventure–and I suppose for that reason, I should be glad.

*

At dinner last night, a friend asked me what my favorite places have been so far on the trip. It’s an obvious enough question, but one that requires constant revision because we are always adding new places to consider. For the first seven months in Mexico, our favorite places were spread across that country: certain beaches along the Sea of Cortes, Guanajuato, Morelia, Oaxaca, San Cristóbal. It was easy to make Mexicans proud of their vast and diverse country because we loved it so much. And even though we have added so many amazing places to our list in the past year, whenever someone asks me what my favorite places have been, I still always think of Mexico.

Even though Mexico is the farthest away from us in terms of both distance and time, those first memories remain some of the most vivid. We have wondered about this. Was Mexico the most awesome place? Or, more likely, was it the most striking because it was the beginning, when everything was fresh and required more attention? Another reason might be that memories take some time and distance to become memories at all, and with time, the highlights of Central and South America will begin to stand out as well. I am already beginning to think more about Argentina after having been here for about seven months as well. Meeting Juan’s family and seeing the place where he grew up were certainly memorable occasions (and getting engaged!) but they are still too fresh in my mind to be relegated to the past. Whatever the reasons may be, I’m glad that we both loved Mexico so much, because it’s the closest to home, and we will definitely be spending more time there with the van in the future.

But aside from Mexico, I have two other places that stand out the most in my mind at this point in time. One is a general category of Everywhere That Was Nowhere. My favorite parts of the trip have been those random mornings when we would wake up just…somewhere…somewhere unnamed and not somewhere in itself, but really a place on the way from one place to another: the middle of nowhere. It is a beautiful feeling to not know exactly where you are and for that not to matter, because that is where you are at that moment, and in a little while you will go somewhere else, so it is important to just enjoy where you are. It is simplicity and presence at its finest and I have never really felt this way before. When we really got into the swing of things, I got this feeling a lot, and in these times I felt less homesick.

The other place that stands out, of course, is home. You never think of home so much as when you travel. Even though I’m sad about ending this great adventure, it’s a great feeling to look forward to going home. We have had some great adventures closer to home that we look forward to revisiting:

I’m so grateful to be returning to such a beautiful place filled with people I love.

And so, to close, here is the first picture I took on this trip. And here’s to many more!