Or shall I say who? Well, turned out the person that I walked right into performing that night at Nuforico's was a good ol' backpacker mate we last caught up with in the chaos of Bishkek, Travis - the Chicago trained legal eagle with the deft strummers working the double bass he called his fingers. Hard-core smoker (think Camel, none of those filtered lights) and one to hold his drink beyond his palm.
It was such a surprise and what a performance too. Seeing Travis was like pinching your cheeks and confirming with a solemn nod that those crazy days up in the Sakura Inn was real. The dingy kitchen with the small turning radius and rotting basket of ginger and garlic was all not a figment of my imagination. That guy with the weird MJ hat who spoke perfect Tokyo-centric Japanese was a living creature. The lime green empty pool which the inn's owner's drunk husband spent his sober days scrubbing off those barnacles (they looked like it, so I decided to call them Chlorine Barnies) was well, very lime green and very empty.
We had established contacts with friends and rushed through a hectic drive down to Singapore, ate heaps of funny versions of the usual served fresh by our cousins from across the bridge, cringed through pedantic traffic and parking rules, survived the constant threat of fines, and ran through the "So, how does it feel to be back home after all these time?" with so much grace that I reckoned we would impress the Pope himself.
"You must have travelled around the world, huh?"
"Aren't you afraid of starting all over again?"
"So what are you going to do now?"
"Do you have a job yet?"
"Are you going to do it again?"
"Well done!"
"I admire you guys"
It's been one unbelievable page turner and seeing Travis, sharing messages with our mates who had concluded and / or continuing their adventures (thanks Facebook!) really led us to grasp the intensity of what we had done and also understood the bewilderment from the response to what we had done.
I suppose my short answer to the range of responses / questions (open-ended or otherwise) is the spirit of the travel is very truly alive even today. With the series of events that popped their heads into our weeks back I had gone through my own tumultuous path of rediscovering new facets of myself, learning new ideas, weaning off old ones (yes, you thought you would have shed them all behind when you were collecting visa chops on your passport!) and working through the at times, tiring but satisfying journey of making our way to Australia. It's one way of knowing that I am not zipping off an old life away for the new. This is very much a new me that's embracing the excitement of moving into a new phase of my life, redefining womanhood and the impending role of motherhood and the maturing of being a wife, getting a new opportunity to learn in a fresh career, finally hunting down that nest, sort of taking a slow enjoyable time pacing out the layers of paint of my favourite canvas while standing in the middle of a blooming poppy field... oh yeah, and my personalised picnic basket two steps away.
So, it all actually did happen huh?
And soon enough, who knows, maybe that poppy field picnic basket can happen too.
And soon enough, who knows, maybe that poppy field picnic basket can happen too.
