Things haven't been the same since Africa. It's been over a year since the end of that trip. The whole trip, too, not just the portion that took place in Africa. The fact that almost a month of travel through Turkey never made it onto the page is a little distressing. Not to mention the rest of the stories from the first leg. I meant to post in retrospect but I haven't gotten around to it. To be honest, I don't think I've done anything productive since I returned. I know it's trite, but the difference between the pace of life in Africa and here at home is huge and I have yet to truly swing back into the hectic life I left behind while I was overseas.
It wasn't just the way that life is lived by the residents of Botswana which contributed to the pace of my life there. It was also my place in the universe while I was there. I was a traveler, tripping out on the beauty of existence in an unfamiliar place. There, all I had to do was wake up, then my day was planned- wherever we went and whatever we did, I was fully booked for an itinerary of awe-inspiring discovery. What had to be done was less the point to me than what we would see in between the productivity. There was always something to see.
Now, back here, where I have so much to do, it feels like I'm trying to watch the world go by through the opaque steel of a windowless train. I can only imagine what the blurs of the scenery outside look like as the train speeds by. I imagine money and college credits being circulated like leaves through the pumping pistons, then kicked back out into the slipstream around the train and then on, out into the desert. The other passengers have funnels that catch the money and the credits and spit them out onto their laps. When they have enough of either, the passengers give them to the conductor and he lets them into the car ahead of ours. Here I am though, with a faulty credit catch, a constant stream of money that some guy saying he's from the utility company keeps swiping from me and a caboose seat that is becoming very familiar with the impression of my ass. The one thing I want is to jump off the train but in this seriously transient metaphor I think that may be killing myself...so nevermind. I'll have to look for an emergency brake and hope that I can pull it before the train crew stops me. Wait, crap, I think that would be me destroying the world. *sigh* Even in my metaphors, my head is spinning...
I'll be okay, if I can just figure out a path. Figure out what I want to do with myself. I've inherited a delightful existence, I just need to aim it at something. Perhaps, the question of want is preceded by the question of need. What do I need to do? I should address that first. Maybe it seems obvious to you, reading this from the outside. To me, it really did take three paragraphs and that speeding train metaphor to figure out. Panoramic vision becomes extremely claustrophobic when we try to zoom in. I can see the whole of my situation but when I try to focus on a part to sort it out, I don't know what I'm looking at any longer. So, I guess all I've got is the train thing for now. That's the big picture. Now, I just have figure out how to read it more closely.
Scares the shit out of me to hand my life over to a metaphorical train but it's the only forward motion I can identify in my life at this point.
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