Tale of Two Minds

Flew into Santa Barbara yesterday. On the descent, the beauty below was both strange and familiar. Golden hills, jagged mountains, lanky sea. In Seattle and Vancouver BC, the ocean and land are all entwined with each other in all these inlets and outlets and islands. In Santa Barbara, the ocean stretches and curves around the land that juts out here and there, reaches into a lagoon, a harbor, then rides down a very long coast.

I stare into the landscape from the sky and feel like my ten days away were more like ten months. How does that happen? The plane lands, we disembark. I stand on the tarmac of Santa Barbara's little airport and still feel a little out of place.

So much alters in my life when I travel, so many shifts and new people and new understandings that things look different when I return. I feel different.

Now I am trying to muster enough sameness to get ready for work. Remember that place? They're expecting me today. Same same same same work work work work, okay, here I go.