1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
|
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html
class="detail single" dir="ltr" lang="en-US">
<head>
<title>Homeward - by Scott Gilbertson</title>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<meta http-equiv="x-ua-compatible" content="ie=edge">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
<meta name="description"
content="How do you come home after traveling the world? You don't. So what's it like to be home? I don't know, I'll tell you when I get there. By Scott Gilbertson">
<meta name="author" content="Scott Gilbertson">
<link rel="alternate"
type="application/rss+xml"
title="Luxagraf RSS feed"
href="https://luxagraf.net/rss/">
<link rel="stylesheet"
href="/media/screenv9.css"
media="screen">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/media/print.css" media="print" title="print" />
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="/favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon">
<link rel="manifest" href="/manifest.json" />
<link rel="dns-prefetch" href="https://stats.luxagraf.net">
<link rel="canonical" href="https://luxagraf.net/jrnl/2006/06/homeward" />
<meta name="ICBM" content="33.975160060264834, -118.42903373977045" />
<meta name="geo.position" content="33.975160060264834; -118.42903373977045" />
<meta name="geo.placename" content="Los Angeles, ">
<meta name="geo.region" content="-">
<meta property="og:type" content="article" />
<meta property="og:title" content="Homeward" />
<meta property="og:url" content="https://luxagraf.net/jrnl/2006/06/homeward" />
<meta property="og:description" content="How do you come home after traveling the world? You don't. So what's it like to be home? I don't know, I'll tell you when I get there. By Scott Gilbertson" />
<meta property="article:published_time" content="2006-06-09T11:05:34" />
<meta property="article:author" content="Scott Gilbertson" />
<meta property="og:site_name" content="Luxagraf" />
<meta property="og:image" content="/media/images/post-images/2008/trappedmoth.jpg" />
<meta property="og:locale" content="en_US" />
<meta name="twitter:card" content="summary_large_image"/>
<meta name="twitter:description" content="How do you come home after traveling the world? You don't. So what's it like to be home? I don't know, I'll tell you when I get there. By Scott Gilbertson"/>
<meta name="twitter:title" content="Homeward"/>
<meta name="twitter:site" content="@luxagraf"/>
<meta name="twitter:domain" content="luxagraf"/>
<meta name="twitter:image:src" content="/media/images/post-images/2008/trappedmoth.jpg"/>
<meta name="twitter:creator" content="@luxagraf"/>
<script type="application/ld+json">
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "Article",
"mainEntityOfPage": {
"@type": "WebPage",
"@id": "https://luxagraf.net/jrnl/2006/06/homeward"
},
"headline": "Homeward",
"datePublished": "2006-06-09T11:05:34+04:00",
"dateModified": "2006-06-09T11:05:34+04:00",
"author": {
"@type": "Person",
"name": "Scott Gilbertson"
},
"publisher": {
"@type": "Organization",
"name": "Luxagraf",
"logo": {
"@type": "ImageObject",
"url": "https://luxagraf.net/media/img/logo-white.jpg"
}
},
"description": "How do you come home after traveling the world? You don't. So what's it like to be home? I don't know, I'll tell you when I get there. By Scott Gilbertson"
}
</script>
</head>
<body >
<div class="wrapper" id="wrapper">
<div class="header-wrapper">
<header class="site-banner">
<div id="logo">
<a href="/" title="Home">Luxagraf</a>
<span class="sitesubtitle">Walk Slowly</span>
</div>
<nav>
<ul>
<li><a href="/jrnl/" title="Stories of life on the road.">Jrnl</a> & <a href="/field-notes/" title="Short stories, snapshots of daily life on the road.">Field Notes</a></li>
<li><a href="/guide/" title="Advice, Tools, Tips and Tricks for Full Time Van or RV Life.">Guides</a></li>
<li><a href="/newsletter/" title="The 'friends of a long year' newsletter">newsletter</a></li>
<li><a href="/about" title="About Scott">About</a></li>
</ul>
</nav>
</header>
</div>
<ol class="bl" id="breadcrumbs" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/BreadcrumbList">
<li itemprop="itemListElement" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/ListItem"><a itemprop="item" href="/"><span itemprop="name">Home</span></a> →
<meta itemprop="position" content="1" />
</li>
<li itemprop="itemListElement" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/ListItem">
<a href="/jrnl/" itemprop="item"><span itemprop="name">jrnl</span></a>
<meta itemprop="position" content="2" />
<meta itemprop="position" content="2" />
</li>
</ol>
<main>
<article class="h-entry hentry entry-content content" itemscope itemType="http://schema.org/BlogPosting">
<header id="header" class="post-header ">
<h1 class="p-name entry-title post-title" itemprop="headline">Homeward</h1>
<div class="post-linewrapper">
<div class="p-location h-adr adr post-location" itemprop="contentLocation" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Place">
<h3 class="h-adr" itemprop="address" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/PostalAddress"><span class="p-locality locality" itemprop="addressLocality">Los Angeles</span>, <a class="p-region region" href="/jrnl/united-states/" title="travel writing from the United States">California</a>, <span class="p-country-name" itemprop="addressCountry">U.S.</span></h3>
– <a href="" onclick="showMap(33.975160060264834, -118.42903373977045, { type:'point', lat:'33.975160060264834', lon:'-118.42903373977045'}); return false;" title="see a map">Map</a>
</div>
<time class="dt-published published dt-updated post-date" datetime="2006-06-09T11:05:34" itemprop="datePublished">June <span>9, 2006</span></time>
<span class="hide" itemprop="author" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Person">by <a class="p-author h-card" href="/about"><span itemprop="name">Scott Gilbertson</span></a></span>
</div>
</header>
<div id="article" class="e-content entry-content post--body post--body--single" itemprop="articleBody">
<p><span class="drop">N</span>ew York, New York. John F Kennedy airport 1 am date unknown, sleepy looking customs guard stamps a passport without hardly looking at, without even checking to see where I had been. A light drizzle is falling outside and the subways extension to the terminal never looked so good. Concrete hiss of tires, parabolic freeway ramps, a moth trapped inside an airport bus, the sodium yellow glow of subway lights, the gentle rocking of a train car, the green boarded fronts of a sixth avenue newsstand, shoes still leaking, still tired and still not looking back.</p>
<p>Just off Bleeker, around the corner from Minetta where I once lived for a few weeks, there is a small coffee shop totally unremarkable in nearly every way save one distinguishing characteristic that drew me to it initially and draws me to it still — it doesn’t close. Faced with a thirty six hour layover and nowhere near the cash to pay for a hotel (don’t even ask about the credit cards) I figured good old Esperanta cafe was the ideal sort of place to spend the night.</p>
<p><break></p>
<p>I would like to say that I got off the plane ready to kiss the ground and mumble something about home at last, thank god home at last, but that isn’t how I felt and isn’t what I did. soon after I arrived in Los Angeles to see my family, friends started to email and call, which was wonderful, except that nearly everyone asked what it was like to be back. </p>
<p>I’ve had three months to ponder that question now and I still don’t have a definitive answer, which is at least partly my own fault because I’ve never asked exactly what you mean when you ask that question. Sometimes people ask that as a sort of loaded question, some people seemed to be waiting for me to bad mouth America. </p>
<p>So let’s start there. I could say a million bad things about America, but the truth is people, things are no better anywhere else, like Tom Wait’s said “I know I know, things is tough all over.” There are things America does better than the rest of the world and there are things we could do so much better. </p>
<p>I could be critical of America’s corrupt, inept and lying politicians, but I could just as easily be critical of France’s politicians, Cambodia’s politicians, India’s politicians, Laos, Thailand ad nauseam. We are no better and no worse. </p>
<p>Then there’s the other side of that coin, some seem to expect that I would be overjoyed to finally be back in the U.S., but the truth is I didn’t miss it. I missed a lot of people here in the States, but the country itself never much crossed my mind. </p>
<p>So what is it like to be home? I don’t know, I’ll tell you when I get there.</p>
</div>
</article>
<div class="nav-wrapper">
<nav id="page-navigation" class="page-border-top">
<ul>
<li id="prev"><span class="bl">Previous:</span>
<a href="/jrnl/2006/06/cadenza" rel="prev" title=" Cadenza">Cadenza</a>
</li>
<li id="next"><span class="bl">Next:</span>
<a href="/jrnl/2006/12/give-it-or-turnit-loose" rel="next" title=" Give It Up Or Turnit A Loose">Give It Up Or Turnit A Loose</a>
</li>
</ul>
</nav>
</div>
<div class="comment--form--wrapper ">
<div class="comment--form--header">
<p class="hed">Thoughts?</p>
<p class="subhed">Please leave a reply:</p>
</div>
<form action="/comments/post/" method="post" class="comment--form">
<input type="hidden" name="rder" value="" />
<input type="hidden" name="content_type" value="jrnl.entry" id="id_content_type">
<input type="hidden" name="object_pk" value="67" id="id_object_pk">
<input type="hidden" name="timestamp" value="1596833473" id="id_timestamp">
<input type="hidden" name="security_hash" value="c1cf2f6330f4800e0b2708cd7adb8b9ce1cdcb2b" id="id_security_hash">
<fieldset >
<label for="id_name">Name:</label>
<input type="text" name="name" maxlength="50" required id="id_name">
</fieldset>
<fieldset >
<label for="id_email">Email address:</label>
<input type="email" name="email" required id="id_email">
</fieldset>
<fieldset >
<label for="id_url">URL:</label>
<input type="url" name="url" id="id_url">
</fieldset>
<fieldset >
<label for="id_comment">Comment:</label>
<div class="textarea-rounded"><textarea name="comment" cols="40" rows="10" maxlength="3000" required id="id_comment">
</textarea></div>
</fieldset>
<fieldset style="display:none;">
<label for="id_honeypot">If you enter anything in this field your comment will be treated as spam:</label>
<input type="text" name="honeypot" id="id_honeypot">
</fieldset>
<div class="submit">
<input type="submit" name="post" class="submit-post btn" value="Post" />
<input type="submit" name="preview" class="submit-preview btn" value="Preview" />
</div>
</form>
<p style="font-size: 95%;"><strong>All comments are moderated</strong>, so you won’t see it right away. And please remember Kurt Vonnegut's rule: “god damn it, you’ve got to be kind.” You can use Markdown or HTML to format your comments. The allowed tags are <code><b>, <i>, <em>, <strong>, <a></code>. To create a new paragraph hit return twice. </p>
</div>
</main>
<footer class="bl">
<ul class="footer-nav">
<li><a href="/blogroll" title="Sites that inspire us">Blogroll</a></li>
<li><a href="/contact/" title="contact luxagraf">Contact</a></li>
<li>Follow Along:
<ul>
<li><a href="/jrnl/feed.xml" title="RSS feed">RSS</a></li>
<li><a href="/newsletter/" title="Luxagraf Email Updates">Email</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.instagram.com/luxagraf" rel="me" title="luxagraf on Instagram">Instagram</a></li>
</ul>
</ul>
<div class="support">Support luxagraf:
<div class="donate-btn">
<form action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post" target="_top">
<input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_s-xclick">
<input type="hidden" name="hosted_button_id" value="HYJFZQSBGJ8QQ">
<input type="submit" name="submit" title="Donate to luxagraf via PayPal">
</form>
</div>
<div class="donate-btn">
<a class="liberapay-btn" href="https://liberapay.com/luxagraf/donate"><span>Donate</span></a>
</div>
</div>
<p id="license">
© 2003-2020
<span class="h-card"><a class="p-name u-url" href="https://luxagraf.net/">Scott Gilbertson</a><data class="p-nickname" value="luxagraf"></data><data class="p-locality" value="Athens"></data><data class="p-region" value="Georgia"></data><data class="p-country-name" value="United States"></data></span>.
</p>
</footer>
</div>
<script>
document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function(event) {
var leaflet = document.createElement('script');
leaflet.src = "/media/js/leaflet-master/leaflet-mod.js";
document.body.appendChild(leaflet);
var lightbox = document.createElement('script');
lightbox.src = "/media/js/lightbox.js";
document.body.appendChild(lightbox);
leaflet.onload = function(){
var detail = document.createElement('script');
detail.src = "/media/js/detail.min.js";
document.body.appendChild(detail);
detail.onload = function(){
createMap();
var open = false;
}
}
lightbox.onload = function() {
var opts= {
//nextOnClick: false,
captions: true,
onload: function(){
var im = document.getElementById("jslghtbx-contentwrapper");
var link = im.appendChild(document.createElement('a'))
link.href = im.firstChild.src;
link.innerHTML= "open ";
link.target = "_blank";
link.setAttribute('class', 'p-link');
im.appendChild(link);
}
};
var lightbox = new Lightbox();
lightbox.load(opts);
}
});
</script>
<script>
<!--
// Register our service-worker
//if (navigator.serviceWorker) {
// window.addEventListener('load', function() {
// if (navigator.serviceWorker.controller) {
// navigator.serviceWorker.controller.postMessage({'command': 'trimCaches'});
// } else {
// navigator.serviceWorker.register('/serviceworker.js', {
// scope: '/'
// });
// }
// });
//}
//-->
<!-- Piwik -->
var _paq = _paq || [];
_paq.push(["disableCookies"]);
_paq.push(['trackPageView']);
_paq.push(['enableLinkTracking']);
(function() {
var u="https://stats.luxagraf.net/";
_paq.push(['setTrackerUrl', u+'piwik.php']);
_paq.push(['setSiteId', 1]);
var d=document, g=d.createElement('script'), s=d.getElementsByTagName('script')[0];
g.type='text/javascript'; g.async=true; g.defer=true; g.src=u+'piwik.js'; s.parentNode.insertBefore(g,s);
})();
<!-- End Piwik Code -->
</script>
<noscript><p><img src="//stats.luxagraf.net/piwik.php?idsite=1" style="border:0;" alt="" /></p></noscript>
</body>
</html>
|
