There's No Place Like Home

It was a few weeks after we arrived in India. I was sitting in the back of a rickshaw, squeezed between Reid-ji and Willy. I put my arms around their shoulders for the sake of friendship and space. In front of us, a faint beam of light peered through clouds of dust, casting the night in a dying yellow and a dull brown. We had just had dinner, but I don’t remember where. We should go home, I said over the horns and “hello, friends!” coming from the streets. Florida was a world away, and Galesburg was just a bit farther. No, I wasn’t thinking of them at all. I was thinking of a white hallway, a burning stick of jasmine incense, and a daybed. I was thinking of a monastery.

In that moment, I was thinking of home.

Over half a year later, I’m in my dad’s living room wearing only a pair of old boxers and a Homecoming shirt from high school. Needless to say, things have changed.

A small recap of my readjustment: the first time I bowed to someone in London, I didn’t think twice. The second time was in Barcelona, and I tried to make it look like an awkward wave and laughed it off.

The bike lanes in Europe confused me, and fixed prices were frustrating, especially when the conversion rate worked overtime to destroy my checking account. Now, I’ve reached an inner peace where I can buy a $7 sandwich and not physically assault the Subway worker over and over again in my imagination. Welcome back to the West.

When I stepped off the train into Galesburg, it was like India never happened. Uncle Billy’s bakery was still a few doors down on Seminary (delicious as always), and there were small patches of snow that marked Illinois’ early attempts at winter. I walked down South Street, got my keys from KPD, and ten minutes later, opened the door to my apartment. Without further ado, life went on.

Winter term passed in a familiar flurry of observation hours, Carl Sandburg, and candlelit pledge meetings. I had my place, and I fit into it again perfectly. A long time ago, I had to let go of Florida, family, and friends and go to college. Then, I had to let go of Knox to study abroad. Now, I have to let go of India and return.

No street vender is going to sell me a veg samosa, and if I end half of my sentences with “tik,” people will start wondering why I joined the wrong fraternity. Galesburg is not Gaya, and no amount of rabbit feet or shooting stars is going to change that. But after three years, this small midwestern town has become my home too, and that is all I could ask for.

The beautiful thing about a home is that it is always there. Of course, every year there are new students, new professors, and new cereals in the Fat Cave. Change is inevitable, but so is consistency. Whether it be a year or a decade from now, the sugar maples will still burst with red in the fall, and the faint smell of blooming magnolias will mark the beginning of spring. And I will remember.

Eventually, Odysseus sailed his way back to Ithaca, and Dorothy tapped her bougie heels back to Kansas.  In accordance with heroic tradition, I turned on Solitaire and watched as India disappeared down the runway. I left, and that is a reality I need to accept.

So this is my resolution: let go. A journey means nothing without the return home, and if India is to mean anything, it needs to mean something to who and where I am now. On some mornings before the sun rises, I take the pillows off my bed and sit half-naked with my eyes half-closed in meditation. My mala beads stay on my desk next to the alarm clock, and my notes from Robin Metz’s lectures mainly consist of Om signs and the lyrics to “Bloody Sunday” in Devanagari. Somewhere an ocean away, a Burmese vihar stands right where I left it. But what happened there is still embedded in my head and my heart. For that, I am incredibly grateful.

Maybe one day I’ll find myself on the streets of Bodh Gaya again, waving down a tuk-tuk and giving the driver instructions and a 20-rupee bill. Maybe not. Either way, for a small amount of time, I called a village in northeastern India my home. Some things never change.