Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
“Where do you feel at home?”
I laughed as I looked around the mechanic's shop, a snapshot of Greek life. Finally, I
replied, “I'm still trying to figure that out.”
Once our respective vehicles were ready, Anna asked if I needed a place to stay for the
night. As she explained, “I don't really do this, you know. Let strangers stay with me, but I
think what you're doing is really brave.”
Most days I didn't feel brave. But I was happy to pretend if that meant I had a place
to sleep. I followed her up to her house in the hills high above Thessaloniki. As we had
dinner overlooking the sparkling city below, I told her about my journey: “I have a lot of
experiences. I meet a lot of people, like you for instance, but it's very, very draining. V ery
draining.”
And then I found myself saying more than I had to most people I had met along the way.
I found myself telling her about Lina, “I know she'll still be there. Well, I guess I hope
she'll still be there. Lina said I was just running, but . . .”
She smiled warmly from across the table, “Well, are you?”
I finally said the words that I had wanted to say to Lina, “I don't think that following my
dreams has to be the same thing as running from reality.”
Anna leaned back and asked, “Have you ever read The Odyssey ?”
It had been a while, but I remembered Homer's tale of Odysseus who spent twenty years
at sea, fighting to find his way home. How his wife, Penelope, rejected suitor after suitor
waiting for him to return. And I remembered that there were many times on Odysseus's
journey when he wasn't sure if home was where he really wanted to be.
“Maybe you just need to complete your adventure,” Anna said. “To really appreciate
what you have at home.”
Anna continued, “I think we change by meeting other people. I can only imagine how
much you've probably changed.”
I wasn't sure what to say. As I thought about it, I realized that every time the trip had
gotten too daunting, it was Lina I had called. It was our home in Los Angeles that I ima-
gined returning to. Was I really just repeating a story that had been told so many millennia
before?
And yet here I was on the other side of the world, once again finding that wonderful
connection that marked the map of my journey just as surely as any city. But what happens
after Odysseus goes home? Homer failed to write about that part!
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