There are moments

I usually try not to take myself too seriously, especially when blogging, so I'm going to have to ask you to humor me for a few minutes here in my ruminations.

There are moments when a travelling memory floods over me. It's often triggered by a smell or phrase, but other times, it's just some fleeting thought racing through the neurons in my brain, flipping switches and firing impulses, that makes an unexpected connection, uninvited and illogical.

Today I was opening some drawings on my computer and then I was walking down the sidewalk in Kathmandu. It was Nepal, our Nepal, not full of beautiful mountain treks, majestic snowy peaks or weeks of relaxed exploration as we might have liked, but the hot, smelly, dirty, stare-filled streets of its largest city with demands and requests and inquiries for tour guides, for money, for food, the unexpected poverty, the unending haze, the excruciating bus rides. The beautiful temples, intricately carved wooden lintels supporting multiple stories of red-brown brick over nearly-thousand-year-old windows, feet shuffling through marigolds, rotting fruit, candle wax, red paste, all the human detritus of temple worship, peppers and spices drying on woven mats on the streets, the baby in a cardboard box, her grandmother crowding over to coo and smile then leaning back to let us admire, the woman knitting the wool hat, the layer upon layer of color, texture, spice, smell, history. It's the joy of my family after months of separation, the laughing, the carefree-ness of holidays, the awkward readjusting for other people, even familiar ones, the hesitancy that comes with separation. Trying to get pages added to our passports, watching my parents deal with Chinese politics and failing- the disappointment of a missed opportunity, no Tibetan train, no Tibet. Squatting as my sister, mother, father, almost fragile in their relative paleness, play a game of little metal tigers and goats with a browned, leathery man, his face a more vibrant translation of his faded opponents'. Will they buy the woman is wondering. They'll buy the man is thinking. And the freedom of travel. Being free. Weightless, not responsible- is that the same as irresponsible?- yet weighted. Where will we stay tomorrow, the next day, the next month, we have to buy tickets, they don't understand, please don't snap at me, do you want to barter for an auto or should we just walk, he cheated us, my bag is heavy, so heavy, but surely there's something clean in here.

Movement on the monitor demands attention from my absent brain.

The drawing had loaded on my computer (my computer is slow), and I was back in Newcastle. Still an adventure, I suppose. But isn't every day? Can't everywhere be?