MAY 1, WEDNESDAY

HOME

I didn’t leave the house today. I was home again and everything was just the way that I left it. The same cushions were on the couch, the dining table as empty as when I left. It was as if I had walked out the door and then stepped back in, as if the last month and all the adventures that I had touring France with Mary and Craig, visiting old friends in Aschaffenburg, feeling at home in Winsen, having chaotic train connections, spending two days at Sylt had never happened.

So I sat at the dining table all day and wondered what it all meant. In a way it was me that that is the only constant factor. One moment I am here, the next I step on and off a plane and Geneva surrounds me, then Lyon, then Aschaffenburg, then Winsen. It is almost as if I am stationary the whole time and the scenery around me keeps changing. Every time I look up I am somewhere else. The world whirls past and I stand still and suddenly I am right where I started. I have the same feeling as when I sit still with my Vision Pro goggles on and am listening to medieval music in a chapel in Lyon, or watching soccer in England or feeling Trump’s ominous and sleepy eyed presence as he leaves a courtroom. I have the feeling that for a month I have been floating in the same kind of virtual world, the same feeling as when I am immersed in the Vision Pro wraparound virtual world. And that is why I had to sit still for a day and to get used to being here, touching things to see if they are real. That is the effect of being gone for a month and floating free. Not only does the trip seem a dream, but I feel right here as if I am still floating, not sure if I am here or not, feeling that when I turn around I will be somewhere else.