The return home – always the same. An ambivalent feeling. On the one hand, the joy of the pleasant aspects of coming home to a country where everything works. The comfortable life. Where you can drink water from the tap without running the risk of a gastrointestinal disease. Where the power supply works reliably. And everything else as well.
Does that sound a bit boring? For me it does.
In addition, there is also the melancholy of having to leave the new homeland that I have just come to know. All the people who have shown me friendship and openness. The places that have given me new insights into other worlds. All those experiences, most of them small and insignificant, which have changed and expanded my view of the world in their own way.
For the moment - past.
Until next time.
But hopefully not for long.
The Look ahead
Because the look goes forward again. Into the future.
The flight to Europe – first to Singapore, then back to Zurich, inspires a lot of thought. But before we land, the system is already up and running again.
The look back in melancholy fades, the look forward is full of possibilities. The world is big and offers a restless spirit like mine an infinite abundance of destinations. Mysterious places with magical names.. Mandalay. Iguaçu. Ladakh. Kailash. Sucre. Teotihuacan. Madurai ...
There's nothing you can do about it. Because this virus is not treatable. It is a wonderful lifelong disease that hopefully will never be cured. Maybe when I am old. Much older than now. When walking is no longer possible. Or seeing. Or hearing. Or all at the same time.
Then I will remember. Indulging in the experiences of the past.
But I'm not there yet.
That's why the thoughts fly. To the next magical place.
Maybe Vietnam. Maybe Burma. Or ...
We will see …
The world is waiting …
I would like to end this journey - for whatever reason I don't understand myself - with the greatest death monologue in film history.
The dying replicant Roy Batty delivers the lines to Rick Deckard, whose life Batty has just saved, despite the fact that Deckard was sent to retire him. The scene occurs during a heavy downpour of rain, moments before Batty's own death. Reflecting on his experiences and imminent mortality he says (with dramatic pauses between each statement):
I have seen things you people wouldn't believe.
Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.
I watched C-beams glittering in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
Time to die.
P.S. Matching Song: Johnny Cash - Hurt
Next stop - Southeast Asia
