Hard to believe that tomorrow evening will mark one month of being back in the saddle.  That’s been the catch phrase playing like a refrain in my brain, as in doing something you stopped doing for a while.  You know, like working, waking up to alarm clocks, laundry, shopping, dishes, that kind of stuff.  Not meant to be a reference to the Top 40 Aerosmith song (you are welcome for that ear worm) or the Gene Autry signature western.  On that note, it must be said that one of the more entertaining byproducts from writing these entries is the inferential galavanting and traipsing on the internet for references.

A friend pointed out last night that I will have been home now for as long as I was gone.  Just like that.  How is it possible that one unit of time  measured against that same measure can be so remarkably different?

Travel drains the soggy cornflakes of the dailiness, everything is new, you get a clean pair of eyes every day.  For a solid month, my curiosity and gaze were on par with being in a museum, perpetually.  Not surprisingly, re-entering the dailiness has been bumpy.  And the physical adjustments, such as jet lag and digestive tract lag have exacerbated the bumps.  It took a ridiculous amount of time to get over the jet lag, like an annoyingly protracted desire to nap, for weeks.  Despite sleeping on the plane home from Hong Kong, another nine hours once home in my own bed, many hours the next day, and the next, it seemed impossible that this new kind of disorienting was still jet lag.  But, when you come from a place where their day is our night, it just takes time to acclimate.

An insightful friend suggested that there must be a million stories, but more interesting to him was how I felt.  This was a good inquiry.  The answers were complex and contradictory.  For instance, accomplished was in the kaleidoscope mixing with scared (that I won’t make the most out of this life), grateful tumbled with confused, bumping up against lost.

More commonly the questions asked were ‘what was your favorite place?’ or ‘what was your favorite thing?’ or ‘how was the wedding?’ or ‘was it a good trip?’  Answering the questions about favorites has always been a torture, whether it is colors, movies, books, or places on the other side of the planet.

The incomparable favorite is the experiential learning.  The thread from beginning to end of being a consumer of cotton clothing in Mumbai, to reading about Ghandi’s revolution over the textile industry in India, to seeing the cotton mill stack relics turned residences en route to Matunga Market, to our final day of the journey visiting the Patterns of Trade:Indian Textiles for Export 1400-1900 exhibit at the Asian Civilizations Museum in Singapore.  ‘Loved for their quality and their bright and unfading colours, many [Indian textiles] became treasured heirlooms, passed down from generation to generation.’  The Indian textiles were much sought after, well made, vibrant, durable, and came at a better price than any other provider on the market.  It made sense in an imperialistic, sun never sets kind of way why the British moved into Mumbai (then Bombay) in the mid 1800s to ‘own’ the textile industry.  Not sure how long it would have taken for me to extract that arc of discovery from a book.

My appetite for uplifting, hopeful, live-like-you-were-dying material has been insatiable since my return.  It is one Facebook post after another broadcasting words of wisdom from a variety of sources ranging from Harold and Maude quotes to the top five regrets of the dying to Positively Positive.  It is a balm to calm the ache and longing for fresh eyes.

Until I become the change I want to see in the world, that is.  A work in progress… gaining momentum, experience and credibility to start a business that will assimilate all the pieces of me.   The first part of 2012 is already populated with opportunities to disentangle the maelstrom.

This year’s new Christmas ornament, fittingly, is Lord Shiva.