home.

i’m home.

in my spearmint colored condo, on my bustling little street, in the city of angels.  the temperature is hot, heavy and sticky, my air conditioner is earning its due and the king’s anthem is blaring through the loudspeakers in the park below. it is the golden hour – the sun is soft and red reflected on the cityscape.

from dorothy clicking her heels, closing her eyes and repeating, “there’s no place like home”; to edward sharpe and the magnetic zeros’ addictive refrain, “home is wherever i’m with you”; to thomas wolfe telling us that we can never go home again. the idea and concept of home is filled with nostalgia and has had many interpretations in popular culture and popular wisdom. is home a place? a construct? a matter of presence?

when i left to go traveling when i was 19, my mom gave me a bookmark.  it said, home is where your story begins.  that bookmark has been everywhere. maybe my home is where the bookmark is! when i tell stories about myself, i hear myself talk about where i grew up, and how instrumental my upbringing in ottawa was to the person i have become. i consider myself canadian at heart. when i get on a plane each summer and hear the voices of the air canada flight attendants, i instantly feel home.

in may, on my last night in bangkok before i flew back to canada, i was standing at the top of my soi (street).  i can picture it as if it were yesterday: bags of garbage piled, the rushing sound of the BTS going by, the food carts steaming and motorcycle drivers lingering. i stood on the corner, with my three closest friends/colleagues in bangkok. they had literally carried me through the trauma of diagnosis, surgery and getting my flight booked. we cried. we held each other. i asked, “is this goodbye to bangkok?”

that moment has haunted me for the last 6 months. i left so quickly, and so abruptly…. with just one suitcase. my bed, my pillows, my corner apartment. my car (which i drive on the left side of the road), my motorcycle (which i weave effortlessly in and around traffic) and my fridge (which is covered with photos and mementos like a scrapbook of my life). my job, my favorite saturday morning coffee shop, my tuk tuk drivers. this place – where i had lived small and large moments for eight years – would i ever see it again? and beyond things, or spaces… bangkok also represented my independence. would i ever have any semblance of control or agency in my life again?

over the last months, i made myself at home in ottawa. i did what i could. i felt unsettled as it wasn’t my home of choice, nor did i have a place to call my own. getting back to home to bangkok became very important to me. even though i knew it would be tricky with insurance and complicated with my doctors, i felt compelled to get back to my life, to stand on that street corner again and announce my arrival.

somehow, i have worked through the maze of logistics and i got on a plane last weekend to come back to thailand. it was the right decision while i wait for my scans in march which will determine what is going on with the unusual nodule in my lung.  my oncologist in ottawa will continue to be my primary physician, and the plan is that he will communicate with my oncologist in bangkok so i can have immunotherapy on schedule and continue to be monitored appropriately.  i have returned to work full time, and will see how i manage. i still have lots to sort out. i am by no means out of the woods. i am still on treatment, and i’m still not sure what that will look like here. i am dealing with fatigue, and after a full day of work, i do not have much energy to do anything except for drive home, throw together some dinner and collapse into bed.

now that i’m back home, a place where i haven’t been in seven months, i have so much to do to feel settled. i haven’t yet had thai food, or visited my favorite coffee shop. i haven’t met my new doctors and feel some anxious feelings around what to do if i don’t feel well. i haven’t escaped any of my problems. i still have cancer, i’m still on treatment, i still live in fear that it will get worse. however; let me assure you all: i am taking it slow, i am listening to my body, and i have lots of support.

and most importantly, i feel SO at home: i am energized by the chaotic life force in bangkok, i feel driven by the meaning and purpose in my work, and i get to use my blender every single day. my blender! sigh. who knew such happiness could come from a blender.

i’m not the same person as when i left. just like you can never step in the same river twice – bangkok has evolved (more construction if that was possible!); and i am most certainly not the same.

but: i’m safe. i’m happy. and (for now) i’m home.

 

*this photo was taken at the dharavi slum in mumbai in february 2014. there were no welcome signs for me when i got home last weekend, but my fridge was stocked thanks to lovely friends and i’ve never felt more happy to be home.