"The gladdest moments in human life, methinks, is a departure into unknown lands. The blood flows with the fast circulation of childhood."
- Sir Richard Burton
I left my ocean town on April Fool's day for a thirteen day trek into ocean lands on the other side of the world. I got home just an hour ago. My overstuffed bags still weigh down the back of my van, my boys at some unknown location. Home sweet home. Thirteen days might as well be thirteen thousand.
I left home expecting a fortnight of rest and relaxation with spurts of sightseeing, perhaps a little shopping. I should have known my karma requires a side trip into the underworld. I should have known.
I have a folder piece of unlined paper stuck in my back pocket. I carried that paper my entire trip along with a stubby pencil. I made notes under London streetlights, in a church crowded with five thousand mourners, on the nude beaches of the Canary Islands, in a cave house carved into frozen lava, after a magic horse afternoon. Every bit of that paper is covered with words, with postcard memory sketches. I have something else in that pocket, something else folded in ritual. I'll tell you about it, about everything.
But first, I have to unpack, find my boys, relieve my babysitter, feed the birds and reptiles and dog, look in a mirror and see if I still look like me. Somehow I think I don't. I've been away.
8:28:19 PM 
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