Feels Like Home Again

I sat in the train today and was just passing Großbüllesheim when I looked out the window. The world was passing by fast, and as I was examining the scenery I remembered the view through another window: It's early in the morning and everyone's still sleepy. Sitting in the back of an old minivan we're bumping along a rocky road, our surfboards tied to the roof. We're on our way to Adi's local childhood spot. A look out the window displays wide fields and tall trees, little houses and Bali people.  

So I looked up and saw the sky, but it was a very different image than the one in my head. The sky was blue alright, but it was another shade, and the clouds looked different, too. They were floating lower above the ground as if they were higher in density, pregnant with worries. There were fields, just like in my head, only were they not rice fields. I saw trees, beautiful trees, but they weren't palm trees. There were houses, too, but they weren't made out of old wood and bamboo roofs. 

Things are different here and being away for a while helps to regard them with fresh eyes. And that's actually kinda fun. Walls you've seen a million times before seem changed, buildings you haven't even noticed anymore suddenly jump into your attention. To look at your neighborhood as if it were a foreign place is quite exciting. And it lasts for about two days. By the third day the rice is already cold again and things are just the way they were before. And that's when it starts feeling like I'm home again.