Home

It's almost inexplicable.

Opening the door to home after being away for three weeks, I feel as if I am silently greeted. As if there is a little portion of myself that has been waiting here, candle in the window, for my arrival home. For just a few seconds I stand in the doorway and drink it in. Then, of course, I rush to take a pee.

I had told Joe that I wanted to take Henry out for a run and I got myself strapped in and off we went. We needed a few groceries and had a couple parcels to pick up at the post office. After three weeks in a manual chair, being able to zip along was sheer joy.

So we did all that we intended to do and were on our way back. More than enjoying the rush of independance that Henry gives me, I was almost exilarating in the wonderful sense of 'ordinariness' that I get here in my home neighbourhood.

When we first moved here, I was an oddity. My size, my shape, my way of getting around all drew attention. I was DIFFERENT. But I was only DIFFERENT for a while, it's only possible to be different for a very short time. Upon repeated viewing, repeated interactions, you slip into a wonderful kind of anonymousness. I have acheived that here.

One of the challenges in being on the road, and looking different, and moving different, and BEING different ... is that one is constantly novel. One is constantly noticed. One lives constantly in the corner of someone's eye. Invisibility is impossible.

Coming home is like moving off of the display shelf.

I like my home community. I like the people in it. I like how those who once stared, now wave hello. I like how relaxed I feel when, once again, I rejoin the human race.