MIAMI - I'm back home... sort of.

Week 17
February 19, 2002 - Miami
"Surreal"

Dear Thor:

Greetings from Miami!

Once again, my Life has taken me to places that I never expected to go. This time, I'm in Miami, Florida, in the good ol' U-S-of-A. Yes, I'm back home - sort of. (I'm not really sure if Miami counts for "home" since I've never been here before.) When I first left the States four months ago, I thought I might be returning "home" in late February or perhaps March. However a colleague asked me to help her with a project, so I'm back a little early, directing a shoot for Cadillac in Miami, Florida.

Needless to say, everything feels a little surreal.

It all started on Valentine's Day. That's when my return trip to the States began with a four o'clock wake-up call in Auckland, New Zealand. This kicked off a 36-hour marathon through three countries, more than a dozen time zones, and four international airports. By the time I hit the "finish line" in Denver, Colorado (still on Valentine's Day), I was dead. In fact, the only thing I could say when I saw my house was, "So when did I get hardwood floors?"

That's actually a pretty silly question since I've had hardwood floors since I bought the house nine years ago. However the floors looked strange to me. In fact, this entire week has been surreal. Not overtly surreal, like a David Lynch movie, but more subtle. It's as if everything looks the same, but is different.

It's hard for me to explain, but it's as if I'm seeing my Life from a whole new perspective. For example, I opened up my closet the other day and was astonished by all the clothes I have. For the past seventeen weeks, I've survived with three shirts and two pants. That's all I really needed. So when I was confronted with an entire closet of clothes, it was overwhelming.

NEPAL - This morning I saw a man digging a deep hole for a palm tree. It made me flashback to moments like this when I helped Nepali homebuilders dig holes.

I'm also having occasional flashbacks. In fact, I had two today. The first happened this morning while standing in line at the hotel's breakfast buffet. I flashbacked to Japan and actually expected to see pickled fish and rice on the menu. The second came when I saw two men digging a deep hole for a palm tree. It looked a lot like a scene from the Habitat build in Nepal, so for a brief moment I was back at the building site in Surkhet watching a Nepali worker digging a hole.

I've been experiencing these flashback moments for several weeks. I didn't think much of them when I was in Australia and New Zealand, however now that I'm back in the States, they seem more pronounced. It's so jarring to be suddenly whisked away to a foreign land, all within a heartbeat.

And speaking of being whisked away, I'm now in Miami. My stay in Denver amounted to little more than a sleep-deprived, extended layover. So in four days, I've traveled from Auckland to Sydney to Los Angeles to Denver to Houston to Miami, (and later today), back to Denver. I'm so exhausted that I can't even sleep. I'm sure that adds to the surreal nature of my experiences right now. And when I do sleep, my dreams are filled with overseas images, which is why I think I'm still in New Zealand when I wake up.

By the way, the Auckland photos that I took of the two of us turned out quite nicely. I was worried that the exposures were too long, but the pictures look great. I especially like the one of us standing together in the Museum!

Anyway, I hope you are getting more sleep than I am. I'll write you next week, when I'm finally "home" for good. Please be well, be present. And Namaste!

Scotty