returns.

I am back to the world of multiple spoons, a consistently dry bathroom floor, and pulp in my orange juice. 

It was a long journey home. And I don't mean in the metaphysical sense. I mean in the hours-in-the-air-and-time-spent-in-airport sense. I was in two different countries and three separate states. I spent extended portions of time at multiple gates, and extended amounts of money on unnecessary things. I waited on a runway for Delta to unload something they loaded, so that they could unload what was behind it, only to reload it all over again. I didn't wait for Seattle's Best to put the espresso in my soy latte. They forgot. I drank a cup of steamed soy milk instead. 

This was my first extended stay in someone else's country. There was a moment on my last bus ride, headed down town, where I felt a profound sense of gratitude. There was no room to move on the bus, unless you were willing to elbow someone in an awkward place. It smelled of teenagers, as they were just leaving school, many on their way to another, I would presume. There were mothers trying to corral their kids, men in suits loosening their ties, and ajumas holding tightly to the bar on the seat in front of them. I was standing, hovering, and glanced over the crowd of Koreans, out the back window of the bus, at the orange sky and the glowing reflection the setting sun was leaving on everything in my view. That moment brought to surface the gratitude, and I said a silent thank you to the people around me for allowing me to come and stay with them for a while. It was gratitude coupled with a little disappointment, because of the funny nature of timing. I was just beginning to arrive at a place of comfortability with this place and it's culture. It was Tuesday, and I was going to begin my airport marathon in a mere three days. 

When I arrived in LA, after walking through a mazed line of weary travelers to get to the front, I arrived at the man in the box wearing the uniform that would give me the stamp I sought. He looked at my passport, did his inked action, handed me back my paper, and said "welcome home". "Hmmm," I thought. Home. 

It wasn't until I began to board the plane in Atlanta with the tall man in tall jeans, a starched shirt, shining belt buckle, and perfectly shaped black felt hat that I began to feel closer to my familiar version of home. After my last plane landed, I glanced out the window and noticed a patrol car that was actually a Ford pick-up truck. I wished the man in the uniform from LA had been next to me, so that I could explain to him that this, actually, was home.