I suppose travel writing should be writings about travel. A typical essay highlighting “pristine” beaches, “majestic” mountains or chicken buses, but I have decided to take this essay in a different direction…home. All too often one thinks of the way home as an abrupt ending, an anti-climax. The prep up to the journey is exciting. The journey itself is perhaps the summit, full of several smaller peaks. And if it were drawn on a graph, the trip home would be a quick descent to the x-axis. For me it has seemed different.
I left Africa two days ago, but knowing I would return. Perhaps that is one reason the x-axis is a far off reach for me. There is no anti-climax in this journey but instead just a different summit. The journey “home” in time is merely a month, with a road trip planned from Washington state to Arizona. Stop-overs in Portland, San Luis Obispo, and Los Angeles will be the small peaks, and though they may make this month a bit like a holiday, there is a lot of work to be done. Two houses have to be packed, things put in storage, personal taxes paid, business taxes paid, and well, plenty of people to see, bills to pay, lunches to attend, phone calls to make, the whole deal.
I arrived into Seattle yesterday at 7pm. It was raining. In fact, it rained all night. Nothing had changed and it was a pleasant reminder why the Emerald City could never be my permanent residence. Jet lag hit at about 2am when I awoke feeling ravenous and ready to eat lunch. I pushed through the night, but around 6am, I found myself awake, alert, and ready for my first Starbucks. It was my first Starbucks in four months and my first of the day, as another would likely be needed later on.
I shivered as I got out of bed and quickly began throwing on random layers of clothing. My outfit was sure to impress anyone who was on the street that early…snow pants, a hoodie sweatshirt, and plenty of mis-matched bits and pieces underneath. Basically anything that was in the one box in my closet which wasn’t taped shut. I grabbed my keys and headed out the door.
Seattle in March is frigid. It is a damp wet that makes your bones ache and your body wish to be emerged in a massive tub of hot water. Later on TV there were reports that some areas of town experienced snow. Though it was not snowing on me at this point, there was a light rain that felt like pins cutting into my exposed body parts. I knew I looked a bit homely in my odd dress, and only added to the ensemble by donning my hood as well. I walked five blocks to the coffee shop, ordered my soy cappuccino, and began the brisk stroll back home. It was still dark out and I began thinking what a good feeling it was to live in a safe neighborhood and have the ability to walk by myself to the shop and back. I was loving the little intricacies that make home, “home”. There are the clichéd luxuries like an instantly hot shower, ice cubes, guaranteed electricity, and the list goes on. But I was enjoying other things…like a piece of black fuzz on the carpet that I knew from a distance was fuzz and not a cockroach, no mozzies buzzing around at night, window screens, and tap water.
After savoring my Starbucks, I got dressed in proper attire to hit the streets downtown. With little time to get everything sorted, each day would have to be used in full. Today’s morning would be complete with a trip to the supermarket and a trip to the city center. I had forms to copy, a notary to visit, packages to send, bank dealings, and shopping to do. I stepped outside and only then noticed that my car, which I had just picked up less than 12 hours earlier, had been broken into. And truly broken into. The front side passenger window was smashed into tiny pieces of glass. So small, that the largest piece couldn’t have been bigger then my thumb nail. I tried to think positively on my way walking over to it. Perhaps the rain had knocked a piece of tree down that hit the window and shattered it. Maybe a rock just happened to fly up and smash the whole thing in. And the quicker my thoughts flew, the faster I realized what I didn’t want to admit had happened, had happened.
Apparently someone had felt the need to break into my car. What they took I can only guess as I hadn’t examined the items in the car for over 4 months. The only thing I am positive was taken was my GPS…my little Garmin, “Garmina”, if you will, which used to talk to me and tell me where to drive and how to get to my next destination. I was looking forward to using “Garmina” on my road trip down the coast, south to Arizona. I figured she would help tell me where gas stations are and which highways to take. But she was gone. The one thing they did not take were my maps. The rest of my belongings were spread out and ramshackled through across the passenger seat and on the floor. The glove box was open with a few other things dangling out of it. And the window glass had spread onto every seat from the front to the back seats as well.
For the past four months I haven’t had anything stolen in Africa (knock on wood). There is no doubt that it can be a dangerous place to live, and one must be careful of their belongings. But what did this say about America? Thrilled to come back to the safety of “Obamaland”, I quickly turned cold. Not cold from the weather, I was already that, but cold from the experience. The moral of the story is up to you, but my take on it is this. Learn how to read a map.
