Post-

Post-

Nadi: At the door into Customs, I hesitated: it felt so weird, even wrong, to be going thru, leaving friends and Viti behind. I’d been at this spot many times: before, it was always I who’d stayed.

Inside, no line. Past the desk, that one final spot where, thru a glass wall, those on the outside can view the dearly departing. Sam, Katrina, Neelesh were there behind the glass. I’d taken photos from their side but never from this one, til now, then 1 last silent wave.

The xray folks admired my ‘Nadroga’ ball cap. Hakwa.

The flight’s uneventful, save for a pair of Americans who moved after a while from their A&B seats next to the window to be by their friends in the middle tier, then keep bugging me (in the C seat) to pass them various personal effects they’d left behind. At 8am LA time, I wake and open the window shade a crack to enjoy the streaming sunshine. From the middle of the plane, they demand I shut it.

Damn Americans.

Customs at LAX is trivial, we move thru quick & easy. I need open no bags, and am asked only 1 question: on the form, I’d checked the box that I had agricultural products…

“Yaqona,” I explained.

“What’s that?” the inspector asked.

“Kava.”

“Huh?”

“It’s a beverage.”

“Go ahead.”

Clearly not in Fiji anymore.

The Fed Aviation Security folks take my big bags for xraying, assuring me they’ll be routed to Fresno without further effort on my part. Everyone is friendly and relaxed, like California once was supposed to be. They direct me to the terminal for my next flight.

Outside, it’s warm 80 degrees, sunny, perfect, Fiji without the humidity. Friendly airport employees offer assistance. The rest room is clean, indeed, beautiful. In the sink, warm water comes on the instant a hand is inserted under the faucet, goes off the instant it’s removed. Marvelous.

I make my way to the American Eagle terminal, which is remote from the main terminals. I pass plenty coffee stands enroute, but surely there will be coffee out there.

There, I go to the snack kiosk. “Coffee?”

“They didn’t bring it today,” she answers. She seems truly sorry.

I doze in a chair for the few hours’ wait.

The final flight is short and uneventful (and I get my coffee).

The parents, plus my brother and his wife, wait for me in the airport lobby. We hug. I thought my folks would be much aged, especially dad post-stroke, but they haven’t changed at all. Everyone’s very nice and relieved to see me.

I’m relieved to see my luggage.

Dad has nice new hybrid Honda Civic. The trip to their home is uneventful. It was all so easy. I feel like I just got up and left Fiji this morning, here this eve.

The house is clean, neat, nice rugs on the wood or tile floors, luxurious bathroom, soft thick bed. I wear normal clothes again. At night, silence. I’d dreaded The Return, and now I’m so surprised how easy it is – how suddenly easy to give up Viti.

‘Castaway’, the last film I watched pre-Viti (the theme of being stuck on an island seemed relevant), now’s the first viewed on return. This time the island isolation seems less imposing. More meaningful is, post-rescue, when he returns home...

Helen Hunt: What now?

Tom Hanks: I don’t know. I really don’t know.

My parents are great, but maddening. From long experience I know I can’t tolerate 'em for more than ~3 days.

Father, a good man, gawd he counsels prisoners in the state penn, provides transport for old church ladies, etc. But he talks on&on, repeating things over&over, mumbles, low-volume, and doesn’t listen. Etc. I could go on & on but I don’t want to think about it.

Mom is great, she’s something approaching 75 and still works for NPS summers at Kings Canyon National Park. And in fact I like talking to her, being with her. But she insists I fix all her computer problems, many trivial, & my own computer problems are bad enuf (computers are nitemares) without having to deal with hers too.

Unfortunately, I’ve chosen computers to be an essential part of my life. In my youth I used to write A LOT in a journal, but stream-of-consciousness journals tend to be disorganized, rambling, babbling, and ya certainly can’t search or cut&paste. So I’ve migrated to everything-electronic, & I’m really satisfied with that. I wake every nite, instant-on the Clie’, scribble electronic notes, calendar entries, etc, for easy upload to the PC next morn. Same re anywhere else I am. Paper, for me, can’t work nearly as well.

Likewise in my youth I used to write long good letters to people. Now of course I send long good email to folks, tho almost always en-masse, rather than to individuals. Sorry.

I arrive home, thinking I can utilize my good desktop ‘puter stored@ my parents’ place. Damn, it turns out it’s SO OLD. I hadn’t remembered how old it was: dual-boot Win98/NT4. ANCIENT!

Losing my Sony Vaio notebook computer on a Suva bus was 1 of the great disasters of my life.

So here I am, back, with XP-level Outlook data (my life!) saved to CD, AND NO WAY TO RETRIEVE IT!! So xtremely frustrating, a state I’d fantasized I’d leave behind in Fiji.

Actually, I’m amazed how similar my current existence is to Viti. I’m living with a weird family. Dependent on them for everything. They force food on me. To be polite, must do whatever they want to do. Whatever I do, they have a better idea re how it should be done, and they persist til I do it that way. Can’t talk to them in any intellectually meaningful way. And I can’t (in the short term) get away. One diff: their babble is much harder to tune out than Fijian background noise.

Again, mom’s ok, but Pa’s a nitemare. The (American) Indians opened a casino right down the road a couple years ago, dad’s hooked, and the habit’s escalating: he’s up to $100 bets. He&ma go on trips to Nevada prepared to blow $4k! OK, it’s their $, they can do what they want, but I think it’s despicable, especially when little brother visits and hints that maybe the $ would be better spent in a college fund for his 2 kids. (True.)

[Me, I never ‘gamble’. But I watched my net worth sink by $200k in the stock market Tech-Bubble melt-down near the end of the last century.]

So, no job as yet, maybe never, I gotta get outa here.

1 week back, i throw some tools, sleeping bag, & warm clothes in the back of my just-re-registered/re-insured pickup, head north.

My brother Scott. i drive to Pleasanton CA, gas paradoxically more expensive near the big cities than in the countryside. He's huge, 6'8, a county fire marshall, married to a tall brilliant beautiful blonde Bechtel-software-engineer-turned-housewife, 2 brilliant odd sons, living in a nice big ridiculously-$-inflated suburban home. We dinner@MarieCalendar, the kids babble incessantly brilliant. Home, together we play a GameCube war-game on the huge-screen TV, wonders of tech.

Ellen Fennel. I trained with her in Namada, she fled her assignment at Savusavu rather early, returning home Alabama to an idyllic life of her-own-home/good-dog/working-the-family-farm. Then she met Ryan, an RN in California, they have a very nice apt near GoldenGatePark in SanFrancisco. She's really happy. We drink some beer at a weird art/beat/wireless cafe, then taxi to fine-dine @ a French place. Ryan's an interesting unusual guy, good luck to 'em. It’s really good re-living Viti w/EF.

Larry, Becky. I lived in incredibly beautiful Trinity County California for 14yrs. Larry, a ForestService firefighter all his adult life, worked part-time for me ambulance, and we were volunteer firemen. Larry was a Helitak foreman, then wrecked his back in a crash, worked fire-dispatch for a while, hated it, now age 56 is a HotShot crew chief. HotShots do all the hard fast dangerous work on wildland fires. He's an amazing man. Becky, likewise, a saintly woman, has run the Weaverville pre-school for minimum wage, forever. I've known them since about 1974. We dine well downtown in a gold-rush era brick building. Next day, Larry takes me around, tells of the 2003 fire which destroyed the entire mountainside to the town, threatening to wipe the entire community. Early-on, he and his crew mostly ran for their lives, assigned to one hopeless disaster after another. Fleeing a blow-up, he, with his bad back, physically carried an exhausted fat CDF engine crewman up a high steep roadway embankment just as the fire exploded around them.

Rob, Heidi. In the same fire, Heidi's dad was successfully defending his house on the mountain when he heard a sudden roar. He dived to a low spot in the garden. The arriving explosion literally blew the roof off his timber-frame home, incinerated forest to stumps, melted car engine blocks to silver puddles. I saw the photos: the only green spot left was a 10-ft circle around where he lay. Sincerely religious people, R&H never suggested a Miracle. Rob is my ex-stepson. He's a surveyor for the county. They live for now in a double-wide on their 10 forested acres near Eugene Oregon. They have 4 wonderful intelligent inquisitive polite personable home-schooled kids. Since i visited last, they've built an incredible 2800-sq-ft log home, tho plenty left to do. Rob & i talk til past midnite, he shows me the photos, they cut/peeled their own logs, did an incredible professional job on everything. Next day, Rob to work early, Heidi, the kids, & i do a long nature walk in the beautiful wooded-hill country.

Fred, Linda. Fred was the ranger at Joss Hoss State Park in Weaverville. He hired Linda, 20yrs his junior, cuz he was hot for her. Now retired to Bend Oregon, he skis, and he&L travel the world (Peru, Egypt, Morocco, Thailand) in search of experience, photos, and fabric. She's delightful! and an acomplished wildlife-rescuer, belly-dancer, & seamstress. Their home is elegantly/artfully furnished. They take me to a good Mexican restaurant. Gawd i missed Mex food.

Lee. I am so lucky, Lee & I, lovers once, effortlessly good friends now for 15+yrs. She’s acquired Montana boyfriend, Ed, a Forest Service hydrologist. Tho he's an intelligent and good man, meeting him now for the first time, my instant thot is: i'm better than this guy. But Lee no interested in a re-kindle. I don't know why.

Regardless, i work construction on her new Sula Montana home. Lewis&Clark passed right thru here ~200yrs back. It does her good, provides me satisfying enterprise, fills up the time, and i get to hang with Lee – we get along very well: both appreciate hard work, kick-back-after, good drink, good food, clever talk, long walks in the wild.

A week there, then time to return, TGiving should be mataVuvale, eh? I leave 8am, traveling the back roads ‘cross the ContinentalDivide. A fat unconcerned Bighorn sheep steps the road. Vast brilliant-sun Idaho, pronghorn antelope like i used to see a block from my Boise apt (before the space subdiv-filled). Empty Nevada. Then, dark, up/down narrow now-paved California Sierran wagon-road, just me & a coyote, then a black bear running the road close ahead. 3hrs sleep in ChinaCamp parking lot, then a final 2 hrs finally 'home', 20hrs driving of 23.

now in my old rocking chair, clumsy-2-fing-typing newly-purch’d HP Pavillion zv6000 (who makes up these names?) laptop with more electronic computing power maybe than existed in the world til 1980 or so? mid-day drinking vodka covertly (what? d'ya think i do this shit sober?), listening Ani DiFranco I Am Not a Pretty Girl, then JohnDenver "...wild Montana sky".

...day-dreaming o' my deck in Sigatoka, red-tiled, looking out at the green wind-waved hills, The Bush.

I wrote to RE1, december2003:

"It was a cruel trick, how they made us all so special to each other, then split us apart. But that's life, eh?, womb, childhood, high school, college, jobs, marriages, dogs, cats, kids: they come and you love and they go."

For 2+yrs i counted days to TheEnd. Now, instead...

25 days gone,