I
used to find it very disappointing to see there wasn’t as much change in the things I left
behind as there’d been in the person who left them behind. I returned home just after my 19th
birthday having spent four months in the States. I looked out the window of the taxi, so much
more aware of all the little English idiosyncrasies, big yellow rear number plates, narrow roads,
pedestrians and terraced houses. Although they all seemed novel and quaint they were also
familiar. I was looking for change; I couldn’t have described the 10 mile drive to my parent’s
house in every detail if I was challenged to. Still, I knew it like the back of my hand, and the only
noticeable difference as the taxi drove into the village I grew up in was, my dad had painted the
garage door. That was it, everything else was the same. I’d seen so much, grown in experience
and wisdom, I’d leant that fridges didn’t fill themselves and if you blew Fridays pay at the
weekend you couldn’t buy fuel to get to work on Monday to earn more. And the little village I
grew up in, and away from, was just the same except for a chocolate brown garage door. Now 30
years later the same is true, my tenant vacates and after a year of vagrant wanderings, other than
thicker weeds and taller children; the biggest news on my street is that they have changed the
dustbin collection day.
Condensed into the travellers away time was strangeness at every turn, new experiences with
every mile travelled. Apart from that enigmatic feeling of Déjà vu, every corner revealed a new
reality. Time becomes the counter of new occurrences; there is no routine anymore, no
absentmindedly going through the motions of comfortable familiarity. On the road even putting
sugar in my chai activated an awareness of supply levels and mental lists of renewable energy
related products. Same with filling up the tank, when will be the next opportunity? At least that's
my active mind set as I don't rely on a sat-nav to take the challenge and surprise out of the trip.
So the point is, the only thing that really changes is the person that has been away. And that, I
think, is what makes re-entry so difficult. You come back to all the familiar things you left behind
but you are not the person who left. That can make being back so hard, back in that rut that took
so long to leave, the one you filled so full of dreams that you were able to climb out of and
escape from, and now you have willingly ridden straight back into it. Combine this with the
frustration of your stories that don’t penetrate distracted ears, or can’t be comprehended, told to
the defensively uninterested. Your dreams have become a reality, and now your memories can be
both a comfort and torment when dealing with the mundanity of the existence you tolerated so
much easier before you left. You feel you can’t voice your tales for fear of becoming the
ostracised travel bore. So it’s with a mute and solitary protest that you decline back into the rut
and the rat race.
If I could quantify the power of memories I think they wouldn’t have as much motivational drive
as dreams and desires, because the latter can stimulate and the former can debilitate. Discontent
and directionless the captive traveller concludes that the only option is to go away again, and it
works, but the return is even worse. Then one day with all the experience you have gathered you
learn how to re-enter gracefully and with gratitude. Revelling in what was missed and tolerant of
what you didn’t, like explaining to call centres you didn’t ask for the contract to be ‘renewed
automatically for my convenience’ and disproportionate fines from expired SORNs ‘it was locked
in a shed, of course it wasn’t on the bloody road’
I got used to keeping my stories to myself and feign interest in commonplace conversation, of
growing families and new washing machines. Now I just sit and write my stories, the benefit
being that day by day I relive my journey, have one get one free. The other benefit is, only
interested people have to listen to them. I exorcise my need to tell, and only the receptive have
to hear it.
The traveller puts so much time, effort and research into going away, every aspect, visa’s,