Time Travel to a Parallel Universe: RE-ENTRY

After twenty hours of travel and 48 hours without sleep, I have landed in what feels like a parallel universe. It looks like a place I remember: there are people, cars, paved roads – places I recall. I’m supposed to know this place, but it feels alien. Describing this sense of disconnected-ness, a friend related it to time-travel and that fits except I’ve crossed cultures in the process. Having sold my house, I am “homeless,” in a way that is both exhilarating and unsettling. I’m incredibly blessed to have friends who have taken me into their beautiful and extremely luxurious home. I feel like Alice in Wonderland must have felt when she fell down the rabbit hole.

It’s a strange new world: soft bed, no mosquito net, down pillows and comforter, a bath TUB, a toilet! More importantly a toilet that doesn’t require a two-foot long mingling stick to flush … and fridge that works full time and is stocked with things like cheese and pickles and… and… and. I went to wash clothes and discovered twin stainless steel monoliths facing me. Adorned with control panel to rival that of a space shuttle, blinking blue lights with 20 possible selections of how to wash I wondered it they might also orbit. Does it speak? Well – not yet anyway.

Gulu laundry room vs Austin Laundry room

Next, there is the car and I am allowed to drive it. Ah! no key but a button that begs pushing. I like keys. They make me feel safe and grounded. Well – get over it. This car is push button and when I do (push the button) my seat glides silently and ever-so-smoothly into exactly the right position and the car hums to into action. Windshield wipers think for themselves and come on when it begins to sprinkle, mysteriously speeding-up and slowing-down to match both rain intensity and car speed. Said car locks with a mere swipe of the finger… I have to check the back seat door to convince myself it’s locked, because if I touch the driver’s door, it unlocks and we have to start the verification process all over again. So-long to my long-standing compulsion to double check the door by pulling on it. Foiled again. Last night I discovered that the headlights also have a mind of their own – I had them on bright at one point and they dimmed when I was at a stoplight.

Jet lag and realty shock play strange games with the mind. I lose things or forget where I put them moment to moment. The storage locker I so carefully organized before I left was not quite as well ordered as I remembered. The boxes I thought were in front so I could access them were “not there.” Had to completely unload an 8×10 storage room to discover that a box of critical items as far from the front as they could be: back wall – half way up. Now I have found most of my clothes, but keep losing them in the room I’m in because—well just because. Yesterday, I was late getting somewhere because I’d lost my underwear by putting it in alogical place that was SO logical I couldn’t find it in my mental fog. So now I’ve relocated the essentials – for the moment. I’m sure they are moving themselves around in the night. At any rate, SOMETHING is waking me at 3:30 in the morning. It’s the biorhythm thing and it sucks.

have eaten my way into the new world: Mexican food, BBQ, toast made in a real-honest-to god toaster, eggs with yellow yolks, cheese, pickles, Torche’s tacos. There are stripes down the road, stop signs and red-lights and people know what to do with them! There is a startling absence of cows, chickens and goats on the road – where are they? Bicycles don’t have live chickens handing from the handlebars and waiting to be sold.

Today it’s winter. Last week it was summer and will be again soon, if it doesn’t snow. This must be Austin…

To exacerbate matters, I’ve suddenly become very aware of my age… In Uganda it is revered – since most people don’t even this long! I’ve now crossed the threshold where I can no longer pretend: I have signed up for Medicare and Social Security. Oh what a event. And you thought 30 was a threshold! Well – well is all I can say. I’ve navigated the health care minefield and am glad to say I found it to be curiously devoid of explosives.

Melt-downs are reducing in frequency. It’s a new world for a stubbornly independent woman of a certain age to suddenly become dependent on friends for shelter, transportation and good will. And fortunately for me I have an abundance of saints in my life who are sharing their lives, resources and especially their love and good will with me. This makes me even more exquisitely aware of the contrast of my life here and that of my friends back in Uganda. In Uganda, I was constantly infused with a deep sense of gratitude for “all that I have.” All it took was stepping off the plane in the States, to instantly be sucked into the mode of awareness of “what I don’t have.” All this in the face of the incredible generosity of friends: I am aware that I have no job, no house, no car. And yet, it is the very absence of those things that affords me the libert to create a new chapter. My goal is to once again opt for a simpler life-style – one consciously chosen, not just fallen into as a result of stepping into the mainstream. So, I’m taking some time this time – to reconnect with my friends and family and explore options. My kids are grown and happy and self-reliant on their own paths. So – the up side of “no job, no house, no husband” is incredible freedom to create and that is my next adventure.

It may not be Africa, but I hope it will stay fresh. I hope to continue to be wide-eyed with discoveries and it is my full-intention to age-backwards. One of my sons still tells his friends: “My parents are still trying to figure out what they want to be when they grow up!” And so on that note… I don’t know if people will be interested in the next chapter, but since even I don’t know what that will be – maybe there will be something worth reporting but I sure hope so.

Thanksgiving: Yesterday – what a day – and so many things, foods, people and circumstances for which to be thankful. And I am – I simply have not enough time, space or words to convey the true magnitude of this gratitude that overwhelms me to the point of tears some moments. My hosts are both professional chefs and the experience would have been stunning in any case, but coming from Uganda – it was a spiritual, orgasmic, full-body-mind-spirit indulgence extraordinaire.

What a season to enter upon re-entry: embarrassment of riches, of friends, opportunities and open doors.

The adventure continues but in a totally different way – rediscovering the “ordinary.” And so may you rediscovery the ordinary to live it in a non-ordinary way… because it’s only ordinary here. May your days be filled with tingling excitement and a sense of anticipation for moments as they unfold to remind you of the blessings in each breath.