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After four and a half months in Europe, and ten days in Toronto, I was almost ready to go home. Caught my breath, rested up with dear friends in a Vancouver high-rise and sightsaw for a week. Then flyaway home.

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The approach of journey’s end

Strange
Being in English speaking world
After months of European tongues
Seems like I belong
But I don’t

Bailed up in a bolthole
Overlooking the blue glass city
Disengaging from the voyage
Preparing for return to the mother ship

Locked in traveller’s limbo
An ever-present suspended Present
Waiting to close the circle
Back home to the starting point

Thoughts and emotions tumble
Flickering through the past

Language and upbringing challenged
As defining factors of a person
Attraction to a culture and its people
Can override ingrained pathways

Sometimes

Until, maybe, lassitude and habit re-form
Turning experiences and immersion
Into fading shadowy dreamscapes

Hope not

The challenge of familiarity
Confronts the homebound traveller
The comfort of complacency
Waiting in the wings

Occupational melancholia threatens
No job no money no love life
Banks and shares in freefall
Bad timing for a voiceover man

Then

Friends assure me of my worth
The value of my creations

If I could live on love alone
A stout fellow I would be

This is powerful comfort

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