A stiff breeze brings welcome fresh air through my open windows as my mind slowly rises to greet this new day. I can hear the wind chimes hung high in several nearby trees welcoming me home. It is still dark, but dawn can’t be long in coming. On the bedcovers, the sleeping cat presses with obvious contentment against my thigh. My bed, after weeks away, is cozy and familiar.

I laze, and think back. Last time I woke up in a bed, I was 7,200 miles away in Shimla, India. Traversing space becomes a matter of duration. Arriving home was a 41-hour gauntlet of driving and waiting in airport lounges and hiking through terminals to the four flights (one for 16-1/2 hours) that brought me home. At a certain point on such journeys, I begin to feel as if I am walking through oil. It requires mindful attention not to do something regrettable, such as losing a carry-on bag or miscalculating the time needed to reach the departure gate.

Signing up for a long-distance trip means agreeing to the part about the hefty bump to the body’s biorhythms. I know it will take a few days to equilibrate, and it’s nice to have the freedom to cut myself some slack. Last night, my goal was to stay awake until 8:30pm, knowing that exhaustion would likely lead to a time-zone-appropriate awakening. I did, and it has. I have learned that it is always better to avoid the mind-games of what time it is where I have been. Be here now. I know that night #2 is often a more difficult challenge, but experience has shown that I’ll be well on my way to normal again after that.

And so, I linger in bed, enjoying the comfort of home. The unpacking can wait. The mail won’t be delivered until later today. I can just...arrive. Soon, I will try the Vintage Darjeeling tea I carried home. Sweep the deck as I inspect the yard. Revel in the fresh air after so many hours in conditioned indoor air. But now, I just await the emerging light of day, pet the cat, think about where I have been. I can’t wait to curate my thousands of photographs, but not yet. For now, I simply add music to my musing. One of the first tunes is Bill Staines with, “Show Me The Road That Leads to My Home.” Indeed.

Before a trip, the anticipation of what is to come is a thrill. Seeing the calendar depict the weeks away makes it appear like an eternity. But afterwards? It always feels like a blur, like it all happened way too fast. Where have I been? Did I really walk those thirty miles in tiger country? Did our group actually see (from vehicles on game drives) those eleven tigers? And in the cities: the crowded and chaotic bazaars, the traffic, the famous sights and sites? Yes. That happened. What a delicious aftertaste, to conjure up the sounds and colors and movement, all the realities of where I was, just yesterday, just 7,000+ miles ago. It lasted forever, this blink of an eye.

[Thanks to Karan at Pugdundee Safaris (www.pugdundeesafaris.com) and Iain Allen at Tropical Ice (www.tropical-ice.com) for top-notch logistics and guiding! For fun, go to Iain’s blog, which contains some spectacular videos of some of the tigers we saw: www.tropical-ice.com/journal/wild-india-blog-2024]