Day 80 And In The End

I am writing this on the westbound flight to Winnipeg, with perhaps a thousand kilometers left to complete the circle. The test has been successful. If you head west and keep going long enough you will eventually return to where you started from. Take that flatearthers. That said, at the gut level the concept still feels abstract as our original departure is now such an ancient and remote memory. This is the thing about such a long journey, the thing that has made the biggest impression on me: time is elastic. It's as if I've grabbed hold of time with mid June in my left hand and early September in my right and then I've pulled it and stretched it, like taffy. A lifetime opened up in that space. Seek ye not the fountain of youth, rather seek ye ever new horizons.

What else can I tell you? I can tell you that it is not a small world after all; it is vast, incomprehensibly vast (although wacky coincidences might blind you to that). And that the world is beautiful, heartbreakingly beautiful. And that it is safe, heartwarmingly safe. The news tells you as much about the world as the cut on your finger does about you. And that people everywhere are welcoming and friendly and fantastically interesting. The world is a freakshow, but the freaks are alright.

Anything else? That dragging your children through the African bush and Istanbul bazaars and Indonesian villages and over three oceans and five continents and on flights of 12, 14 and 16 hours duration is not an elaborate form of madness. (Sotto voce: although there may have been a moment or two where Lorraine and I whispered to each other, "next time, no kids". There may have been.) Even when one of the children has ADHD and flings himself on the ground in Times Square because he is overwhelmed or flips out at a Botswanan border post because he can't take standing in line again or screams every time a fly comes near him. Even then it is not madness, but simply part of the cost, calculated in advance. Perhaps even an investment.

Perhaps. What have they gotten out of all of this? Certainly a packet of unique memories - I saw a platypus and it was cool, I was on a really really big boat and it was cool, I climbed a humongous sand dune and it was cool, and so forth - but I hope some seeds have been planted too. Who knows what seeds and how or when they will germinate and what they will ultimately grow into? It cannot be predicted, but I am an optimist.

And me? And in the end what has it done for me? I have not yet begun to process the experience, but I do know that the inside of my head is a madly spinning kaleidoscope of numberless sights and sounds and experiences, and, if I may be permitted a saccharine moment, that I weep for the beauty of the world.

Now it's back to castrating Chihuahuas.

I know that misadventure and colourful failure is far more entertaining (to a point), so I do apologize for ending on a positive note.

An epilogue will follow.