I have been home from my Japan trip for as long as I was there. I can’t stop thinking about it. The other night, I e,
availed myself to the Taco Tuesday special at Webster Cafe and Diner. (It’s really good!) There, I encountered Robert, one of the regular customers.
“Wearya bin?”
I told him about my trip and showed him a few pictures. He, a neighborhood “lifer,” told me he’d been to Japan briefly when he was in the Navy. “Then I got sent to the Philippines.” He said he’d thought about going back—“Japan was great,” me exclaimed.
I nodded. “I fell in love with it, especially Kyoto.” Then I tried to describe how I felt, much to my surprise, that I was in the right place and everything felt right even though the culture is as different from any other I’ve experienced as any culture can be, and I don’t speak the language. “Even when I got lost and Google Map directions weren’t making any sense, I felt I was going where I wanted and needed to go, if that makes any sense.”
“You weren’t just taking a vacation. You were on a journey.”
He understands my travel philosophy, exactly! I nodded again.
Then he reverted to his neighborhood lifer voice. “So why the hell did you come back?”
I’ve been asking myself that same question. Marlee: Any time I travel, I miss my cat(s) more than anything else. Friends. My bikes. And…and..
Four days in Tokyo. Three in Osaka, five in Kyoto and one more in Tokyo. Robert was right: It wasn’t just a trip; it was a journey. Could it have been a prelude to another midlife journey ?
