All of it was my favorite part.

Somewhere in Spain. 

Location: West Chester, PA (home)

Well, I can tell you that even after 6 days back in the US of A that my heart and head are elsewhere, as expected. Mostly in those times that completely sucked and the times that completely kicked ass.

I still have not read my journal, parts of it, yeah, but not the whole thing. I also have not gotten to listening to all of the voice memos I made when I didn't feel like writing, but I did bang through a couple of hours of them on the drive from Valencia to Madrid.



And mostly the flavor was this: be calm and wait for it. Most of what I listened to myself spouting off about at odd hours of the night and in the middle of lonely dinners was that: wait for the good moments and, more importantly, recognize them when they arrive and slow them down.

There are only a few moments, I think, in each of our weeks that we will have the opportunity to have one of those moments that matters. Like coming around a corner and seeing the sun, which is just on the horizon and ten times as large as normal and orange and as ripe and sweet as a Valencia orange begging for a picking. And we can choose to speed through that moment, or we can stop and we can suck it in.

I like to suck it in. And I have been doing just that these last six days. Sucking in my new environment, my new, strange (old, familiar) environment. I've been seeing friends and family and visited my business and my phone is buzzing again and I also watched a couple of movies, which means I'm sitting on my couch again.

But it's not that bad after all, because I have my favorite pizza place to dispatch the poison on call, and I have my bed, and I have ice, and there is nothing wrong with catching up with what the world has been doing since I left.

Somewhere in Texas. 

No, I am still not watching television or reading news. Good or bad, who knows, but I seem to like the quiet. Maybe one night I'll catch myself watching six hours of youtube videos, and that's ok too. It's all part of the re-entry.

I think the best thing that I have come to admit to myself over the last week is that somewhere along the way I lost my quickness to anger. Incessant adversity and uncomfortable situations and uncomfortable settings will do that to you after a while I guess. I still see the ugliness in the world, but I find myself picking it up and throwing it away rather than hoarding it.

I eased into the part about not being alone anymore. In LA I pretended not to speak English, in certain situations. As in when I would go to a restaurant alone, which is an LA no-no, and it worked perfectly. I'll tell you the trick to being left alone and avoiding the stink-eye: just say "pardon?" a lot and also shrug your shoulders and do whatever accent you know.

I want to want to be here. I do, but I'm struggling. Perhaps nothing is more unsettling than returning to your home and feeling like a tourist still.

Somewhere in Portugal. 

Of course my friends are here, but I also realize that they really do have lives of their own, and with all the technology, they have hardly missed me. Two of my closest friends only saw each other one other time during the time I was gone, though it is possible not even that one time, since neither of them can put it together.

So two of my closest confidants have (maybe) not seen each other in six months, and they live less than an hour away. That raises an eyebrow.

So, it's not over, and this is not my last post by any means. It may be a while until I get some traction again and choose one of the many pathways that leave off from this particular plaza, but I can promise you that it will occur.

I am not built to be in one place. And love and affection and a hand to hold and eyes to look into and all of that gushy stuff that I so desperately crave, well, I have to remind myself once again, to be calm and wait for it.

There is a travel partner for me somewhere, strictly positive of that one.

For now, I'll just ride my bike, put my face towards the sun, slow those seminal moments to a crawl, say yes to every invite, and wait until something strikes me to move again. Maybe towards the owner of that hand that belongs in mine.