Tails of Autotomy...

With travel comes the inevitable return home, which is always somewhat of a shocker. Oh, this is where I live? OK. Wait, why do I live here? It takes a few days to "reactivate" the turf, to reacqaint yourself with the place, and the self who was so ensconced here.

These are the best days to carry around a pad and pencil. You will be having some strange thoughts. Familiar things will look very different. How might you interact with your hometown BEFORE the old habits kick in? What strange neighborhoods will you wander through? In what random shopping mall might you take a life-altering sociological tour? How does the place open itself up to you when you don't try to compartmentalize its vast chaos into small slices of routine? At which street corner should you plant yourself for an hour, just observing? Whom might you strike up a conversation with? And you catch yourself... Wait, this is not my home, for my home never had all of these new things in it.

When all the familiarities - the dusty knick-nacks around your desk - look small and lifeless, and somehow unfamiliar, maybe it's time to let go of a portion of yourself, to autotomize that salamander's tail caught in the past and grow a slinky new one.