Breathes there the man with soul so dead
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart has ne’er within him burned,
As home his footsteps he hath turned
From wandering on a foreign strand?— “The Lay of the Last Minstrel,” Canto VI., Sir Walter Scott
I am realizing that it’s not just that I am glad to be home, after a glorious and wonderful trip abroad. It’s more that I find my mind returned to its fundamental key after wandering about the chromatic wilds of foreign lands and places.
As I write this I am listening to Yuja Wang play Prokofiev #2, which I suppose explains those three musical references. In any case, you get the idea.
Waking up in the morning, reading the Times, doing the Crossword, making that first coffee in my little Bialetti. These sound like mere rituals, yet apparently parts of my soul have become tangled up with them.
This is me at home, rather than me visiting, and it seems that those are not the same. No, not the same at all.