Coming
Home
Waking, I turn my thoughts to my immediate travel. Why? Because for me, the fun of travel is in the rumination,
anticipation and preparation. Part
routine, part departure; together, elements of the experience.
The routine involves dozing off during
take-off and awaking at some later stage of the journey; facilitating the dream
like state that typically accompanies my travel. Yet, this trip is different: no advance planning or consideration. In fact my accommodation isn’t booked
and my flights were confirmed a few hours prior to departure. I haven’t savored over details that may
or may not lie ahead. Except for
my iPhone, I haven’t even brought a camera. Worse than leaving without completed plans, I’ve left my
daughter and wife with our home in utter disarray.
Why? Because my mother emailed that there
was an emergency. My father had died
suddenly. So now, somewhere over
the Pacific Ocean, I am contemplating what this journey holds, as I fly to
Florida to be with my mother.
It’s
not the destination but the journey... So then, I had better begin my planning
hadn’t I? Any preparation of the
journey involves understanding the destination and points you’re travelling through. My destination? Points en route? There had
been tension between my father and I for years; except for periodic Skype
sessions, I haven’t seen my parents since moving to Australia; my brother I
haven’t spoken to in years; and my sister, well, she won’t be attending the
service at all.
Although I have the unquestionable support
of my wife, I was on this journey alone; an adventure, which was going to be
long and arduous in so many ways.
“How long was the flight?” I
would be asked. Well, I saw
sunrise in Brisbane, then again in LA, sunset in Charlotte N.C. and then
arrived at my hotel shortly before midnight, all on 28 February. I realized that I was going to achieve a
rare experience of having 30 days in February. Looming as a storm on a distant horizon, Tampa waited with ample
challenges, distance covered by my flight perhaps the least.
First on the agenda was a 9am meeting with
my mother, brother and an uncle at the crematorium to discuss my father’s
service. I thought that I could
feel the earth spinning beneath my feet as I tried to reconcile emotions, being
in a different time zone, the travel and the responsibilities that required my
attention. Could I really feel the
effect of Coriolis pulling me differently in the northern hemisphere or merely
the weight of my own expectations?
Life
is a journey... And so here I was, on a journey to say my farewells, or was it new
greetings? Was I simply in a large
crowded terminal with other travelers?
Looking across the expanse of faces, some
of relatives and family that are familiar and others family friends whom I’ve
only just met. My itinerary only scheduled
me as far as the airport and there is no GPS to guide me now. So like Lewis and Clark crossing the
Mississipi River, I had to look within myself for direction and resolve.
With the challenges and experience met,
piling around me like unclaimed baggage upon airport carousals: interactions
with my brother; my grieving mother and uncles; those who turned to me to lead
the service or speak on their behalf.
Surveying the landscape of faces during the
memorial address that I realized that I am gaining new experiences. Travel doesn’t always include answers, merely
opportunities and fodder for contemplation. How can I cope with my surroundings? Where do I want to go? Who do I want to be? How can I affect the world around me?
We
are all travelers... Disembarking always the false finish for travel. Only after clearing immigration,
collecting luggage and seeing my daughter running towards me, am I home. Home isn’t the familiar night sky of
the northern hemisphere or a familiar skyline, as I had thought. It is where my wife and daughter become
as much of my environment as the soft humid Brisbane air that I understand that
my journey will always be completed by them and their words, “welcome home”.
