Home (?)

I'm home.  What that means anymore, I don't know.  For years it's been New York City, the Big Apple, Capital of the World (UN kinda proves that), simply "the city."  And that's where I am, but with my belongings tucked away in a storage unit, ready to move.  Think of that science lesson about passive and kinetic energy; that's how I interpret it.  If I'm wrong, oh dear science teachers who tried so hard over the years, then so sorry!  My stuff seems to be loaded with passive energy, just stored up and ready to burst when I set in in motion...waiting for the spark.  Guess my eventual U-Haul provides it.  It's all...up...to...me?

The travels of two weeks (plus) left me drained, jet-lagged and physically sick, as if my body really patched it together as best it could through all-night parties, all-day wanderings, brain-taxing attempts at learning at least a couple words of each new language...while suffering the ravages of a fierce cold which accompanied the early burst of European Winter.  It ends up being one of those experiences upon which I say, "Wait, I survived that?"  And following that, "Why on Earth did I push myself so close to the breakdown brink?!"  To which I can happily say that I'd do it all again...

On the flights back (Zadar, Croatia to Stuttgart; Stuttgart to Frankfurt; Frankfurt to JFK, NYC), I mused on how I've been taking air travel for 30 years now and the only strange part to me -- rather than the old observation that we are but hundreds of people hurtling through an oxygen-deprived atmosphere at 35,000 ft with only a microscopically thin metal skin between us and said atmosphere, propelled by the most dangerous of means we could have in proximity, flaming jet engines -- is that I actually rather like the distinct scent of a (CLEAN) airplane john.  Not the smell after Aunt Hilda is done following up her third meal of wurst for the day, but the still-fresh odor.  Maybe it brings me immediately back to all those trans-oceanic flights as a kid -- I mean, crossing the International Date Line is a mind-blowing thing for an inquisitive eight-year-old!  I was fortunate, plain and simple, to have parents willing to trot our little butts to the other side of the world for a few truly educational years...and will never forget that, nor quit bearing out its vast influence on my mindset as I thirst for more, more, more of the globe in my index of experience.

(Only the last photo, the Lufthansa turboprop I took from Munich to Stuttgart above, is from this European adventure. The others are from a previous return to NYC, a domestic flight -- hence, the Laguardia vista.)