The Long Way Home

Snow Would Be Nice

Leaving India did not happen the way we had planned. To be fair, the first few days of entering India did not go as planned either.

This time, the surprises were external – global disruption brought on by conflict in the Middle East vs. the internal disruption that took place on the way in.

So with bombs and missiles being lobbed in the area, Dubai airspace was suddenly shut down. Our carefully designed return completely unraveled.

What followed was a detour across continents, across oceans, across time zones. With so many others making the same last-minute scramble, finding smooth connections was challenging. This left us with super-long layovers and sleepless airport time spent in no man’s land in Thailand and Taiwan.

Long flights tend to dull the senses, but one thing remains vivid even now from that journey: a small plate of mango sticky rice at a Bangkok airport café. Sweet mango, warm coconut rice, a moment of stillness and pleasure between flights. Even now, the taste lingers.

But beneath the travel fatigue, something else was surfacing for me. After so much time away, I felt an unexpected hesitation about returning.

Part of it was the long journey. Part of it was the health challenges that would surely be my burden to bear. And part of it was simply the feeling of stepping back into a life that had continued on without me while I was away.

When we finally landed in Seattle, something sweetly special happened. There were no complications. No sniffer dogs inspected my bags. Just a heart-warming phrase from the border control agent, “Welcome home, ma`am.”

And outside the airport doors, our friends were waiting to pick us up. Grey Seattle rain fell gently on the windows of their car. When I remarked about it, they laughed and said winter had been unusually mild this year. Not a single snowfall.

I chuckled and said, almost without thinking, “Snow would be nice.” Seattle obliged.

Within the next three days, the weather delivered rain, snow, hail, and even one bright sunshine-y day.

After months of hot, humid weather, the beauty of that first snowfall was unexpectedly welcome. Like a breath of fresh air.

When I was finally able to step outside again after the snow melted, I noticed the cherry blossoms already nearing the end of their brief season. Petals drifted through the breeze and gathered along the sidewalks.

Only a few days earlier, I had been standing beneath the pink trumpet trees in Bangalore, experiencing their version of cherry blossom season.

Different trees. Different continents. Same fleeting beauty.

As the petals fell around me in Seattle, I thought about the moment in Bangalore when I stood beneath those pink canopies, wondering when and how we would make our way home.

Spring had been blooming in both places at once. And now, standing here, watching the last cherry blossoms fall, I felt something settle inside me too.

My journey had come full circle. I’d returned to where I started, and along the way, I’d grown so much. The unexpected resilience of managing health conditions and of being open to receiving treatment enriched my awareness of the depths of compassion and caregiving. About how it can affect the giver and the receiver, too.

I also learned that joy can be found in unexpected places, in unplanned experiences – and this improvisational joy can be just as beautiful as carefully designed joy.