Home again

     We are home.  That seems simple enough.  I don’t think it’s as simple as it seems though.  I find the kind of travel that we engage in to have an emotional component.  I don’t mean a casual emotional component as in isn’t it nice to be home, or what a nice place we visited.  I mean a profound emotional element as in missing the places and people who were part of our adventure, and a bit of shock at returning to the rat race.  The last few days I would find myself thinking of the people and places we had been and the tears would start to well up.  It was a very intense feeling.

Leave her, Johnny

Oh the times was hard and the wages low
Leave her, Johnny, leave her
And the grub was bad and the gales did blow
And it's time for us to leave her

Leave her, Johnny, leave her
Oh, leave her, Johnny, leave her
For the voyage is done and the winds do blow
And it's time for us to leave her

     Kristi and I first started singing this song to ourselves as we listened to Kimber’s Men sing it on a CD we bought from Joe Stead.  We never did really learn the song, but the sentiment of a journey that has been hard, and trying yet somehow rewarding, and difficult to let go of has stuck with us when we hear this song. 

     There are some definite perks to being home.  Our kingsize bed is one of the most immediate, and pleasurable.  It is nice to be with our “stuff”, although I have grown unaccustomed to using my stuff over the last month.  It didn’t take long.  We didn’t watch much television while we were gone, but then we don’t watch television when we are home.  We didn’t watch movies while we were gone either, and maybe we’ll do some of that now. 

Kristi, Val, Jimmy and Steve at Jiva's home in Blyth, Northumberland -  One Last Picture

     For me there is always an element of wondering where the illusion ends, and reality begins when evaluating the journey of life.  I hypothesize that most of us have a lot of romance in our perceptions, and I thoroughly believe that all of us, without exception, have something we believe that is absolutely, unequivocally untrue.  That’s a pretty easy thing to say, as there is new knowledge coming into the world all of the time, and beliefs are being crushed, and dismissed daily.  Most of us probably don’t think about that, but I’m certain that it’s true.  On the other hand, that may be the thing that I believe that isn’t true. 

     I have always been the kind of person who is entertained by almost anything that I don’t understand.  Maybe it’s more true for me to say that I’m entertained by things that I only partially understand.  That means that travel in a foreign country is immensely entertaining to me all of the time that I am there because I only partially understand so much, and thoroughly understand so little.  I also feel the struggle of people everywhere I go, and have a great empathy for them.  At least this is true in the best of circumstances where I understand enough of their language etc. to be able to take in their life stories.

Does being on an airplane change how I look?

     We were asked a number of times whether we would be coming back on another tour.  This was always asked with a  hopeful note.  We have been better performers, and I have had a better repertoire of songs every tour.  We are currently thinking about beginning to book another tour.  We may begin the process soon. 

                                                                                 

 

Kristi at a B & B in Airdrie, Scotland

FROM KRISTI

Home again.  It always serves my sagging spirits now and then to, as my mother would say, "count my blessings".  So before I even left Tacoma for this trip I began to savor the moments of my life here.  That is to say, I anticipated being homesick by drinking in what I knew I'd most miss.  Parting was such sweet sorrow.  I trained my eyes to drink in the unrivalled beauty of the snow-capped Olympics and Cascades from every elevated distance.  The towering heights of the evergreens looked more precious than anyone else's trees in the world.  The rugged and forbidding wilderness beyond my views made me appreciate what's left that is yet untouched by human cultivation in this state.  I treasured my usual treat from my neighborhood chocolatier, Johnson’s.  I luxuriated in my pillow-top king-size bed with down quilted covers.  I roamed around my rooms feeling the roominess of them, and felt queenly with my very own appliances and furniture.  The very straight-ness and width of the city streets beckoned me with their simple stoplights and ample curbs.  Not to mention all my peeps!  The safety and familiarity of everything seemed precious, not boring.  And now I'm really home after all the stress of getting here from those tens of thousands of miles of distance, the ordinary never looked so extraordinary.