Down the Rabbit Hole

Away but not Always Afar...

30 Day Blogging Challenge
PROMPT May 9th
What is the farthest you've ever been from the place you call "home?"

When I was seventeen, I traveled to Australia and New Zealand as part of the People to People Youth Science Exchange. It was as far geographically as I have been from home. It wasn't until I was waylaid by a stomach virus for a few days, that I realized how emotionally far I was from the home and the people who would normally comfort me.

I came down sick during my time in the field at Kangaroo Island. Kangaroo Island is a rustic nature preserve off Australia's Southern coast, perched at the edge of the vast Pacific ocean. It was a mile walk from the barracks to the island's only payphone. My wonderfully compassionate friend Jamie, accompanied me on the journey that took us down a red clay path, tailed by a few of the island's resident red kangaroo population. Relatively docile, kangaroos are surprising large animals. They followed closely behind, close enough to be intimating in my already fragile state. I remember how long it took my call to connect, and how distant my parents sounded over the line. I felt a world apart from them.

Oddly enough though there have times when home has not been a physical place, but I have felt that same spacial distance from it. I have felt cleaved from my sense of home and abandoned in my dark places. I have felt alone and apart, even if in geographical terms, I am within inches of that "home". This scenario is marked by the same despair I felt that day, all those years ago, at the edge of the world.