Return From France: It's All A Blur

I arrive home and can't tell what day it is anymore. Could be Saturday, but most likely it's Sunday. Local time is 2 a.m., says the clock, but that hardly means a thing.  I am tired, feeling like I have half my body in today and the other in both yesterday and tomorrow. It's a weird feeling of mistaken identity, only it's the identification of time, not myself.

I sleep like a rock, have complicated dreams about a lumpy, convoluted city with steep streets and tunneled roadways that are cave-like at their entry points but that end up going up the sides of buildings. A small girl in a dress keeps running away from me, but there is no fear and no sadness. I feel curious and bewildered. It's all a blur.

I wake up at 7 a.m. and know for certain I am in Provence, but I am also in Paris. I don't smell the croissants baking yet, so I go back to sleep. It's a cycle that repeats itself three more times, a constant yo-yo-ing back and forth between France and California. I am nowhere and I am here, all at once.

Finally I awaken and remain awake. I try a cup of coffee and it doesn't help. I feel exactly as if I've had a glass of wine and I should sit down to a good dinner. The house is fine, I unpack things and move from room to room, sometimes with intention and other times in a state of suspended animation.

This is the oddest part about travel, the loss of a sense of place and urgency. I enjoy the latter, but I wonder what I would do if an emergency arose. I might just smile and toast it with my glass of wine.  Only, it's a cup of coffee and I have to go to work in a few hours.  Bad planning!

I removed myself from my own culture and time frame, left for two weeks, changed all points of reference, and then wedged myself back into my own life again. I hear about a friend who has suffered a serious illness, another friend who has gone on sick leave and natural disasters potentially affecting friends in other parts of the country, but I feel detached and as if I am floating like a helium balloon.  I wonder how military soldiers can possibly assimilate after being at war for several seasons in a land where no one speaks their language and they are faced with guns, fear and intense stress.  I have no comprehension.  I have simply been on vacation to a first-world country for two weeks and I am this disoriented? What happened?

France crooked her finger to me and whispered in my ear.  I am not the same anymore.  As usual, travel has changed me, exactly the reason I travel. Gradually, all my molecules will reassemble and coalesce again, and I will feel more grounded and competent to face the ups and downs of ordinary life, but the memories of this two-week exit into a parallel universe called France will now be part of me, too. I can already tell they are influencing my habits and patterns around the house and my town. I am returning gradually and steadily, but will I still fit into the slot I fit into before?