The memories rise unbidden – they are always rising, bubbles of air surging from the depths to the surface of the sea; or stones borne skyward in similar offering, caught in the slow and seasonal currents of frost in farmer’s fields – as if by some anti-gravitational magic, the memories rise out of some ancient volume of a life and appear as a surprise, a bubble to burst, a stone weighing the open hands of the mind. 

The beauty of the subtropics – as I experienced them for years in Brazil, and on other journeys far and away…

… and now I understand that I was making a home of the Earth, not a home of 

- Spencer, New York, where I was born at the foot of a minor tree-crowned mountain; 
- or Ironwood, Michigan, where the winter snows drifted to the eaves of our house; 
- or friendly Saint Paul, Minnesota, whose lakes were diamonds in the summer sun; 
- or tiny Souris, North Dakota, an islet adrift in a sea of green; 
- or jazzy Chicago, Illinois, its colors and its black and its white; 
- or halus Yogayakarta, Java, its ancient gods and modern desires; 
- or Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, where my adulthood was born; 
- or Boston or Byfield, Massachusetts, where my affluence came and went; 
- or Auroville, Tamil Nadu, whose galaxy of energies called as if by gravity…

A litany of grounds that received my footprint, but were places on a larger map, one with fewer constraints on patterns of thought, and which tries to cover a globe of human understanding, human reaching, and human almost-attaining…

The traveler knows: departure is the front side of return. Those who stay behind see only the farewell; and hope for the wave hello.

For those who are here, on this side of the journey, I leave our travel information. My regrets to a couple of colleagues, to whom I gave an incorrect return date.

21 Oct - 21:05 British Airways BA 0214 from Boston to London 
22 Oct - 14:05 British Airways BA 0119 from London to Bangalore