I found a couch the other day. My new apartment had seemed kind of bare without one, but being back at work I hadn’t had the time to fill the space. So I was glad when my neighbourhood stepped in to solve the problem.
Fernwood is a community of murals on walls, of posters searching for lost pets and unwanted furniture left on the sidewalk. Walking home from the pub one evening, I found a couch being moved onto the grass outside a house. It was worn but okay, small but comfortable and not possessed of a cat pee smell.
“Is that a couch?”
“Dude, yeah. Do you want it?”
“Dude, yeah.” We had a deal.
This all seemed so far from Asia. Furnishing an apartment?! Going to work and wearing a tie?! What happened?
I’ll tell you.
My flight from Hong Kong arrived at the end of March in rain that spat out of a midnight sky; a familiar chill burned my ears. Welcome to Victoria the Puddle, I thought.
Apart from narcolepsy and oddly-houred food cravings in the first two weeks, life had been waiting for me. I got right back into hanging out with my friends, frequenting all my favourite restaurants, coffee shops and bars.
I found a new apartment a month later, then returned to work.
As these things happened, the bits and pieces from my trip faded to memory. Places I’d been turned to pictures; all but the most important people I’d met on the road drifted out of existence.
The pace of change frightened me: a backpacker and travel writer in March; a civil servant in June. Would I lose touch with the traveller?
Nope. I have an incurable need to see the world, even have a plan to keep travelling. I’m also not the same guy who left the job he’d been in for 4 years. Witnessing poverty has a way of making one grateful for what he’s got.
So I’m back and having fun – working, but having fun! I can be both travel writer and civil servant, and you'll hear from me again.
Posts
