The Worst Thing About Coming Home: Musings on a Sad Mango
Lest you believe that everything here in Suitcase Scholar world is all sunshine and roses and segway tours and mountaintops, I thought I’d let you know about one very serious downside to travel: coming home.
As is usual immediately after a longer trip, I woke up in the dark last night and didn’t know where the bathroom was in my own house. Of course, I soon realized where I was and located the toilet–that’s the good news. The other good news was how I felt when I realized I didn’t have to do anything the following day. I could go back to sleep and wake up in my normal life, not compelled to bound out of bed to explore, photograph, or otherwise enjoy anything.
And then I did wake up. And I realized that not only did I have nothing to explore, photograph, or otherwise enjoy, I also had nothing–absolutely nothing–to eat. Enter the photo of the sad mango.
I’ve been thinking about making a salad with that sad mango–and some equally sad arugula that I’m not even going to grace with a photo–all day. It is literally the only food option available to me right now, unless I want to venture out into the world to find something (and I don’t). It doesn’t help that there’s a steady rain falling and everything I own that would make my hair cooperate on a day like today is still in my toiletry bag, still in my suitcase.
Yes, coming home is definitely the worst part about traveling. And today, with the rain falling and my sad mango mocking me from the window ledge, I’m not even soothed by the fact that my next trip is exactly one month and three days from now. Because all I really want is a meal that someone else made for me–something well balanced and healthy, on a real plate at a real table. Or for my suitcase to unpack itself. Or for all three thousand of my photos to edit themselves. But none of those things are going to happen, and it just started raining harder. I am glad that my home was safe, window and roller shutters and to thank, also my security system. Perth roller shutters do provide excellent quality shutters at a reasonable price, do check out their site! This blog will offer more tips on home security.
Off to enjoy my puckered mango and wilted arugula salad as a combination breakfast-lunch-dinner. Or perhaps I’ll just wait until my next trip to eat; I really don’t want to ever go to the grocery store, and I could stand to lose a few pounds anyway. Now, where’s that wine I brought back from Napa…? Wine has calories, right? Right.
Welcome home! Sounds like the trip was great. I am looking forward to the posts. I had posted a couple of things on one of your previous posts, but I think they were after you left and you probably won’t see them, so I’m adding them to this one. First- I found a great app for my iphone. It’s called “My Sketch” and it’s free- at least for a short time! It will turn any photo into a sketch (some turn out better than others). You really should try it. Second-I re-read a book and it made me think of your road trip last year. It is called “Colony” by Anne Rivers Siddons. It is set (mostly) in a fictional vacation ‘colony’ on the coast of Maine, not far from Bar Harbor. The protagonist is a wonderful, powerful woman. It starts in the 19020s or 30s and goes to the 1970s or 80s. I’ve read it several times and have enjoyed it each time. Maybe you should read it as ‘follow up’ to last summer’s trip!
I will check out that app, thanks! I use Camera Awesome to make my iPhone pics…well…more awesome. 😉 But that sounds super cool.
And yes, I was very bad about replying to comments while I was gone–sorry. I was actually entirely without internet for several days of the trip. It was at once fantastic and stressful! Ha! And my next trip is another cruise, so no internet then either! Aaack!
LOTS of posts coming soon–I already have sixteen (!!!) in the works, and that’s just the ones I’ve listed; I always come up with more as I’m writing and going through photos (of which I took THOUSANDS!)
Aww, I feel your pain! There was no food when we got back from our trip a week or two ago, and I didn’t want to go out or do anything. Now I’m back into the groove of cooking though. If you were a bit closer you could come over here for dinner!
Aww thanks for the thought!
Funny, the more I travel the more I realize how little I need to be actually happy…and the less I want to do a whole big grocery shopping trip. I used to fill shopping carts and now I rarely use anything other than a basket. Any more just seems excessive.
Though that could ALSO be because I leave for weeks at a time once a month–so there’s really not a lot of need to stock up on anything! 😉