September 15 — Coming Home
Last Morning in Lima
I woke up at 6 because I had set my alarm for 6, and for a little while I had this very disorienting moment where my phone said it was 6:38 but the clock in the apartment said 8:08, and my taxi was supposed to come at 8:30. I knew logically that my phone should be right. My alarm had gone off when it was supposed to. But there was still that little burst of panic where I thought, what if somehow I have the time wrong and my taxi is about to be here and I am not ready? I had to check the time and reassure myself that, yes, it really was 6:38.
I was also still trying to figure out what I could and couldn’t bring home, including whether I could put the box of coca tea I had bought in my suitcase. There are so many tiny things like that when you’re traveling internationally that suddenly feel very important because you don’t want to do something stupid at customs after everything else has gone smoothly.
Eventually I got myself packed up and out of the apartment and headed to the Lima airport. I had been in Peru for two weeks, and it felt like I had lived several completely different lives during that time.
When I got to the airport I had plenty of time, and everything went smoothly. There were a lot of people checking bags, and first there was a line to get the sticker I needed for my checked bag, and then another line to actually hand the bag over, but I navigated all of it well. I think after two weeks of traveling around by myself I had gotten pretty good at just figuring out what I needed to do next.
Then I was in that weird holding pattern that happens at the Lima airport where they haven’t assigned your gate yet, so everyone is basically hanging around in the shopping and restaurant area waiting to find out where they’re supposed to go.
I got this croissant with chicken and avocado that was really good and bought some water. I knew from flying out of Lima before that there was a good chance I was going to have to dump the water before boarding the flight to the United States, even though I had already gone through airport security. It is so stupid. You buy water inside the secure part of the airport and then they make you throw it away before you get on the airplane. They blamed it on TSA regulations. No doubt.
I knew that was probably coming, so I tried to drink and hydrate while I could. Sure enough, I had to dump my water again before boarding. Both times I’ve flown from Lima to L.A., the flight attendants have been perfectly happy to refill my water bottle once I’m on the airplane, so it isn’t even that I’m going without water for very long, but something about being told I can’t bring water with me makes me anxious.
Nine Hours With Jodi Picoult
I had a window seat from Lima to L.A., and there were only two seats on that side of the airplane, so it was just me and one man next to me. He was totally fine. We didn’t talk or anything, but there was nothing irritating about sitting next to him. He basically watched movies the whole time.
I had my Beats headphones with me and started listening to The Book of Two Ways by Jodi Picoult, and somehow I ended up listening to it for basically the entire nine-hour flight. I continued listening on my flight from LAX to SFO and through the bus ride home. I’m still not done with the book.
I was surprisingly content. I sat there by the window with my headphones on and listened for hours and hours. At one point the man next to me got up to go to the bathroom, so I got up and went too, and that was the only time I got out of my seat during the whole flight.
They fed us twice. One meal was pasta, and the other was some kind of cheese sandwich. The food wasn’t quite as good as I remembered the meals being on the way to Peru, but it was fine. There was a little piece of chocolate with one of the meals, and I didn’t eat it because I was still trying to stick with not eating sugar after the retreat.
It was kind of funny because I kept thinking about Dan telling me that as soon as he got back to Iquitos after the retreat, he had immediately had two coffees and basically started eating whatever he wanted again. There was no judgment in that. It was just interesting because I still felt like I wanted to stay somewhat close to what I had been doing. I wasn’t ready to suddenly eat everything again just because dieta was technically over.
The whole flight went by much faster than I expected it to. Nine hours is a long time to sit on an airplane, and by the time we landed I was definitely ready to get off, but I wasn’t severely uncomfortable or counting every minute. Mostly I had just disappeared into this audiobook.
LAX
When I got to Los Angeles, I got my checked bag without any problem, and then I had to figure out how to transfer from the international terminal to the domestic terminal for my flight to San Francisco.
Somewhere along the way there was a sign telling people with connecting flights to drop their checked luggage there, and it felt strangely informal. There were basically these two guys standing there taking people’s suitcases, and I remember handing mine over and thinking, okay… I guess I’m giving you my bag now.
Which, in retrospect, is kind of funny considering what happened later.
Then I had to go outside and walk from Terminal B toward Terminal 2. It was a pretty long walk, and I remembered some of this from doing it before, but there was construction all along the arrivals level around Terminal 2, which made everything much more confusing. At some point I could have gone inside around Terminal 1 and gone upstairs, but instead I ended up going into Terminal 3, going upstairs, then not being able to figure out how to get back to Terminal 2. People were telling me I needed to go up another level, and I was just kind of following directions and trying to figure it out.
LAX is not my favorite airport.
I did eventually get where I needed to go, and I pretty much arrived at my gate at exactly the right time. I also managed to get a turkey sandwich from the same place where I had gotten a turkey sandwich last year when I was traveling through LAX. I even got the same sandwich, which somehow felt comforting after all the airport navigation. I love a turkey sandwich!
Then I got on my last flight.
One More Flight
The flight from L.A. to San Francisco wasn’t very long, but I was so uncomfortable. I don’t know what it is about those Delta seats, but I found the seat incredibly uncomfortable. There were two people sitting next to me, and the woman in the middle seat talked very animatedly to the man beside her for essentially the entire flight. She wasn’t doing anything wrong. She was just intensely, continuously talking, and even with my Beats headphones on I could hear every word she was saying.
After nine hours of sitting on the Lima flight and then navigating LAX, I really did not want to hear somebody else’s entire animated conversation. But at least it was a relatively short flight. When we finally landed at SFO, I went down to baggage claim and waited for my suitcase.
And waited. People kept collecting their bags and leaving. Eventually there was almost nobody left. My bag never came out.
It is such a terrible feeling when that happens because for a while you’re still thinking, maybe it’s just coming out late. Maybe there are more bags. And then eventually everybody else is gone and the carousel is basically done and you’re standing there thinking, my suitcase did not make it.
Luckily there was still someone working in the missing-baggage office.
I had already looked in the Delta app and scanned my baggage claim ticket, and it seemed to be telling me that my bag was going to arrive on another flight at 9:45 the next morning. I could have trusted what the app was showing me, but I wanted an actual human being to confirm that this was what had happened.
The woman in the office looked everything up, filed the report and told me they would deliver the bag to my house after it arrived. And at that point there really wasn’t anything else I could do.
In the end it wasn’t a big disaster at all. My suitcase arrived at my house around 2 p.m. the following day, everything was there, and it was fine. In fact, by that point in the night it was almost kind of convenient that I didn’t have to drag my suitcase through the rest of the trip home.
But I did have a moment of thinking, really? I have made it all the way through Peru with this suitcase and now you lose it between Los Angeles and San Francisco?
The Last Few Miles
I still wasn’t actually home yet. I had thought that the Marin Airporter came every 30 minutes, but it was actually on the hourly schedule that late at night so I’d have to wait for the 11:30 pm bus. I went to the bathroom, brushed my hair and my teeth and kind of regrouped before going back outside. I love carrying a toothbrush and toothpaste in my carry-on just for moments like this. I also reorganized my backpack. Organizing helps me regulate.
There was only one other couple waiting for the bus, and they were also going to the San Rafael stop. I briefly considered asking whether they might give me a ride once we got there, but then they mentioned that they were going to San Anselmo, so I didn’t ask.
I had gone through an internal process about asking Georgia for a ride home. I had been kind of on the fence about asking her because it was late and it pipe night, but then I did ask and she said yes. But then Josie had her appendix out, which obviously completely changed the context. I am thankful for the Marin Airporter bus option. I got myself home.
The Marin Airporter driver asked me if I needed a taxi and I said yes, but then he told me they charge $25 just to sit there and wait for me, on top of the ride, so when I finally got to San Rafael, I ordered a Lyft. It said the driver was about seven minutes away, but then instead of getting closer the arrival time kept increasing. I’ve had that happen before and it drives me crazy, especially when it’s late and I’m tired and I just want to go home.
So I canceled the Lyft and ordered an Uber. The Uber driver was about five minutes away, and I could actually see that they were moving toward me immediately, which was all I wanted at that point. The ride home was around twenty dollars.
After all those airplanes and airports and buses and lines and terminals and figuring out where I was supposed to go, there were only a few miles left.
Home
I was so happy to see Frank and Ricky. They had already had dinner, but I fed them again anyway.
I took a shower, which felt incredibly good, and I ate a little snack that I don’t even remember now. I had finally made it all the way home, but it still took me a really long time to wind down enough to actually sleep.
Two weeks earlier I had left this house and flown to Peru by myself. I had stayed in Miraflores, walked all the way to Barranco and back, flown to Iquitos, ridden around in motocarros, gone out onto the Amazon, walked through the jungle, spent a week at Blue Morpho, participated in three ayahuasca ceremonies and an all-day San Pedro ceremony, met all of these people, had experiences I still didn’t completely understand, flown back to Lima, lived on the 18th floor in Barranco for a couple of days, watched the Pacific at sunset, and then spent basically an entire day making my way back through Lima, Los Angeles, San Francisco and finally San Rafael.
And then I was back home. My suitcase hadn’t arrived yet, but the cats were there. My shower was there. My bed was there. I was there. I was super glad to be home.
