Home

My body is back in Toronto, but my mind is suspended somewhere between home and India. I hope it doesn't take too long to follow.

On the way home from the airport, the Toronto highways were traffic free, the air smogless, the roads quiet. The sky was slight cloudy, casting that muted light on everything. After Delhi, that calm felt a bit surreal, like we were the few remaining survivors post apocalypse.

It's mid-Autumn here. Today, we stomped on carpets of yellow wet leaves outside while bare branches poked through most trees. I wore my down-filled jacket. The Boy had already turned on the furnace. Half a world away where my travelling companions are, and where I was two short days ago, it's 30C, noisy and dusty. You haggle through every exchange, elbow your way to the head of a queue, and jump out of the way of cars, buses, rickshaws, bicycles, cows and dogs.

The strangest feeling was using the keys to access the different parts of my life, like putting a key into my front door - I wasn't sure which key to use, like putting a key into the car - I had to think twice before knowing which way to turn to ignite the engine.

I have been welcomed home by family and friends, I have shopped for groceries, I have made The Boy get a haircut, I have identified a stench in the kitchen as dead onions on a shelf and cleaned out that cupboard, I have cleaned out moldy food from the fridge, I have exchanged e-mails with some of the people I met, I have had dinner with Sis, I've scrubbed one of the bathrooms clean, and I went to Joe Fresh and bought a red hoodie. I have much to do to prepare the house for winter. The Boy has said several times, It's good to have you home although I had a great time while you were away.

Yes, I am home.