I don't pretend to understand the workings of the heart or mind. My own seem so unfathomable that what I might say about others' would seem guesswork. Although this is not to say that I don't pretend to try to understand the workings of others' minds and hearts. That is my job after all. What I feel I can say about myself is that while my heart and mind might sometimes broadcast a thousand channels at once, I can only seem to write about a few of them at a time. So I thought this entry could focus on some of the more beautiful aspects of the return from travel.
Three weeks after returning I finally feel like I am home. What I have returned with are memories, experiences, insights, and a new appreciation of familiarity and of small moments. I sit here on my balcony sipping black tea (some things you can't let go of), the music from my CD player competing with the street noise below. Every now and then, as I listen, I find myself somewhere else as a tune that was on my MP3 player comes on. Suddenly I am no longer on my balcony but in a restaurant in Rishikesh flicking through the TZU catalogue to find something Silfan might like; or I'm half asleep in a taxi watching the first rosy tips of dawns fingers touch the hills and tree tops sliding by while listening to Bron-Yr-Aur after giving Jess the first listen; or I'm alone on the balcony at Manu House (hi Manu!!) listening to Boards of Canada while the sun comes into the Bhagsu valley, like some mighty god.
These tunes, and so many others, are now rich with memory for me. Their music now blends with that of my own memory and the emotions associated with it, playing and resonating their own piercing and beautiful harmonics. You can't purchase the ability to have such reactions to what are essentially groupings of tonal sequences with the odd bit of language thrown in, but I'm so glad to have them. They are sonic landscapes of emotion for me, deeper and more meaningful than they otherwise could have been.
I find I have a similar reaction when I look at my photos. They speak of moments more than of places; a sunny morning's walk to Swarg Ashram with a beautiful human being from Australia to get some cash from the ATM; haggling for a good price for a cycle rickshaw and then realising just how exposed one is when on the back of one in Delhi; or a sun drenched afternoon in Bhagsu sharing a goodbye meal with a wonderful man from Norway. The pictures take me back to the point of view they portray. When I look at them I am again behind the lens, feeling again the breeze or the rain, or smelling dinner in the kitchen, hearing the voices of friends around me. I'm so thankful for such technology (you really see why photography took off as it did) for the way it helps me to access these memories in that way. Now that I'm home I often feel more touched by the small moments and random images that I captured than I was at the time. Now I see their deeper meaning and influence on me.
But I think it is home itself that I find most beautiful and enchanting. It may seem odd in contrast but I can't get over the peace of quiet. I find it so fascinating, and in a charming way quite amusing, that four million of us can live in this city in such comparative silence (although I write this to the music of some verbal disagreement occurring on the street, including the magically Australian line, "get out of here ya fuckin' cunt" - how's the serenity!). Walking through the Sydney streets I am constantly reminded, and flawed I suppose, by what an astoundingly beautiful city it is. I don't mean the CBD per se, but the town-housed and terraced tree-lined streets that wind around the little hills and ridges of the suburbs. The aspect is sunny and spacious, the air is clean(ish), the temperature pleasant, but mostly it's the people I'm in love with. But it's strange... I think of Sydney as a city obsessed with trends and fashion, with money and property, and generally getting ahead of other Sydneysiders. But walking around town I mostly see people enjoying life in whatever way they can. I'm not really sure what to make of that contradiction...
The street noise, the bats in the evening, the heated arguments outside Oxford St clubs, the kids playing in the park. These are things familiar to my soul. I've lived here long enough to be able to know them inside myself. But that they are familiar and known makes me happy (again the contrast). I find now, after returning, that the familiar is really not that familiar after all. It is actually full of romance and mystery. Who are the people that emerge from those townhouses to go to work every morning? How do they do life? Who are these strangers? Where do they come from, and to where do they go? Who is the old woman across the road that I see walking her two tiny dogs everyday? What are her stories of life, of pain, of love? I guess I don't see repetition now so much as I see uniqueness. Maybe that's the benefit of getting to interview so many great people, I'm not sure. So I now find myself asking again, and that makes me happy (sigh of thanks).
So I guess the best thing about coming home is seeing and living again the poetry of everyday life.
I'm home :-)
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