After a week sitting on a bus, spending a total of about eight hours on it, I’ve come up with nothing. I trailed off on a couple of whims – fantasies worth nothing but the minute they filled, ideas no bigger than a water melon. I sat there, or stood when too crowded, and pushed thinking into my forehead, but nothing really. The ‘thinking’ at some points seemed to push the skin from my head down into furrows like a deformed dog. In fact, if I’m honest, ‘the thinking’ killed off any thinking. I really need to jump in to some Kerouac freefall and live with the bruises and the laughing.
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Almost eleven years ago I sat on my suitcase, as I’d read that’s what Russians did before embarking on a journey. I did it too. I’ve done dozens of times more since, yet not one of them felt as grave and serious as that one in Scarborough. Within thirty-six hours of saying to my friend ‘at worst it’ll be like six months in prison’ I was standing in the middle of Red Square in Moscow. I had no idea. No idea at all.
Well, suitcases are not chairs any more. Airport lounges a much less frequent venue. Hardly any more situations wondering how to pose my face at passport control – goodbye to the odd sense of guiltiness I feel when the official looks at me and then thumps a stamp on my passport. No more of that because I’m back.
And, so, because I’m back, I’m back here too. Back in England. Not a foreigner any more, but feeling more foreign than I’ve felt in years.
I’m back, with my six dashes – I’m back.
