full circle

So what is it like to be here after all? To be in New Jersey, near New York, after so many years in Los Angeles? Does it feel like home? Is it good? Great? Scary? Freaky? How does it feel?

I'm not sure I can answer. I thought I could. When you look forward in time, when you imagine yourself in a place, in a time, doing an activity, the future you has a very specific emotion, knows how that feels. But when it's here and now and real, it's far more complex. In a way, it feels right and real and normal to be in this living room, to be surrounded by trees, to have friends nearby. To hear people speak with New York accents. To be here. In a way, we slip into this new life as if it were our only existence. In the way that life is an eternal now and this is us. Here. Now.

In another way, though, it feels like an extension of our two week trip across country. Another pretty town, another city with so many activities awaiting us. Another hotel, this one a cabin among the trees. And yes, this one has more of our stuff, not just a few suitcases this time but an entire truck-full of furniture. But still. It's new enough that I fumble for light switches in the dark on the wrong side of the doorway and I marvel one morning when I get up and look outside and the trees are shrouded in fog. It's all so new, even my vision. Like when you travel and you notice more than you might at home, that's what this is.

And yet I do know. And sometimes, like last Thursday, sitting on the commuter train heading into Manhattan or a bit later, sitting on the subway watching the bored faces, the New York faces, listening to the clack-and-roar that rushes through my bloodstream and is now surrounding me, sometimes I do know with a shock of surprise that we're home again, only in this new configuration. And I feel again how strange that is.

I know the feeling will fade, this bemusement with moments of renewed shock. But right now this is my reality, inside and out. Newness and oldness combined. Family, friends, comfort. Searching for fish markets and home furnishing stores and where was that damned post office again? The general is familiar, the specific town so new. Much to explore. Much to do.

Home?