Visit to India - at the end

I am profoundly struck by this unexpected aspect of my move. Everything about my life in America is new and every new experience is like unwrapping a gift. Along with this privilege of unwrapping the newness of America, I now find that I can experience India anew as well, discovering it afresh with an additional Western perspective. 

Perhaps one day I will visit home with an American friend and witness how it must feel to unwrap India for the very first time with a childlike and breathless excitement — the way I have felt flying over the Mississippi for the first time or watching the thoroughbreds race at Churchill Downs or snapping ice crystals from the branches of the trees on the street where I live. How many people are graced with such good fortune? 

My final day breaks to a chilly morning (never again will the weather in India seem cold to me!) and the skies are grey. My last evening is an appropriate end to my visit home. We walk up to the fort with a cool breeze blowing in our faces, the sun setting in one direction, the almost-full moon growing brighter in the other.

 

My thoughts drift in two directions as well: here I am in the land of my birth and family, but soon I will be back in St. Louis. Or should I say back home in St. Louis?