Homeagain
I'm home.
Newport was fun, if tiring. My feet still hurt.
I did eventually get some contact lenses, so I didn't have to do the balls blind. Yay. I did contrive to forget my hoop skirt for the mid-century ball, but Mrs. P. had an extra in her vehicle, and was able to lend it to me.
Lots of dance stuff to assimilate and process, lots of references to check. More later, because if I start writing it all up now, I'll never get to sleep, and I have to go to work tomorrow.
I'm dreading work tomorrow.
Sigh.
There's a sadness in coming home, as well as a comfort in being in my own place with my cats and my books. Every time I land in Toronto, I feel the memories of every other landing, every other homecoming, as if all homecomings are the same homecoming, their differences overlapping and blending into an endlessly recurring airport scene.
The details change. Sometimes I stop at Customs and Immigration. Sometimes I'm coming from elsewhere in Canada, and I don't visit the bored, laconic, blue-uniformed officials. Usually, I walk right by the luggage carousels-I tend to travel light-but sometimes I stop and wait for my big backpack, or the green bag I purchased at Marks and Spencers in Cardiff. Mostly, I walk through the big doors to the public area, and head down to the bus stop on my own. The Voice used to come meet me. Once, after we got back from St. John's, Mrs. Pub met us. Every so often, one of my parents will come to pick me up, though that hasn't happened since I visited Medicine Hat a couple of years ago; still, I half expect to see them waiting to pick me up, like the did when I travelled as a teenager, their eyes scanning, waiting for me to emerge from the sea of travelling teenagers. In another layer of airport history, someone else met me, and that meeting is layered under every arrival too.
Usually, I find the bus stop, and join the eternal shifting cast of subway-bound travellers. Every so often, I take a cab, or get into someone's car. At the moment I emerge from the passengers-only area, anything is possible; the potential routes home resolve themselves into one path when I go downstairs to the bus stop.
Then home, through my own door, and into my own present, away from the layers of arrivals.
I think I should go to bed.
It's good to be home, in a lonely, dreading-going-to-work, looking forward to my own, comfy bed kind of way.
Newport was fun, if tiring. My feet still hurt.
I did eventually get some contact lenses, so I didn't have to do the balls blind. Yay. I did contrive to forget my hoop skirt for the mid-century ball, but Mrs. P. had an extra in her vehicle, and was able to lend it to me.
Lots of dance stuff to assimilate and process, lots of references to check. More later, because if I start writing it all up now, I'll never get to sleep, and I have to go to work tomorrow.
I'm dreading work tomorrow.
Sigh.
There's a sadness in coming home, as well as a comfort in being in my own place with my cats and my books. Every time I land in Toronto, I feel the memories of every other landing, every other homecoming, as if all homecomings are the same homecoming, their differences overlapping and blending into an endlessly recurring airport scene.
The details change. Sometimes I stop at Customs and Immigration. Sometimes I'm coming from elsewhere in Canada, and I don't visit the bored, laconic, blue-uniformed officials. Usually, I walk right by the luggage carousels-I tend to travel light-but sometimes I stop and wait for my big backpack, or the green bag I purchased at Marks and Spencers in Cardiff. Mostly, I walk through the big doors to the public area, and head down to the bus stop on my own. The Voice used to come meet me. Once, after we got back from St. John's, Mrs. Pub met us. Every so often, one of my parents will come to pick me up, though that hasn't happened since I visited Medicine Hat a couple of years ago; still, I half expect to see them waiting to pick me up, like the did when I travelled as a teenager, their eyes scanning, waiting for me to emerge from the sea of travelling teenagers. In another layer of airport history, someone else met me, and that meeting is layered under every arrival too.
Usually, I find the bus stop, and join the eternal shifting cast of subway-bound travellers. Every so often, I take a cab, or get into someone's car. At the moment I emerge from the passengers-only area, anything is possible; the potential routes home resolve themselves into one path when I go downstairs to the bus stop.
Then home, through my own door, and into my own present, away from the layers of arrivals.
I think I should go to bed.
It's good to be home, in a lonely, dreading-going-to-work, looking forward to my own, comfy bed kind of way.