Home is a split-level between two hemispheres

The intrepid travelers reach the banks of the Amazon and catch a glimpse of what will be our home in the jungle for the next six days.

“Did you get homesick?…”

That was our first ten-minute exercise prompt at writing practice Tuesday night, and my thoughts immediately swirled around the toilet bowl of primitive living that I had recently endured while in Peru, with its hammocks and jungle beds swathed in mosquito netting, the sweltering Amazonian nights, and the total absence of electricity, internet connectivity, and running water — well, except for that rather hard-to-miss river running through our front yard.

Mostly, when I had time to think about it while away, I missed family and friends, my min pins, and the luxury of having at least one washcloth to complete my daily ablutions. Washcloths apparently aren’t not considered an essential tool of personal hygiene in South America, at least not in the places I visited. The one exception was the five-star hotel we stayed at for a single, deliriously soapy night in Iquitos. My guest room came equipped with tub, hot water, and not one, but TWO washcloths. Oh, the joys of indoor plumbing!

Despite the bug bites, odd night noises and interminable heat and humidity, despite the longing for a bit of toweling smaller than a yard of terry cloth with which to wash one’s face and, most especially, despite the lack of toilets that actually flush without the need for human intervention by way of dipping a bucket in a rain barrel and sloshing the contents in the bowl, all the while praying that the force of gravity will send everything along its way and not instead cause a backwash of effluvia, I loved the jungle with an enthusiasm that compares to childhood sojourns into the midOhio woods for girl scout sleepovers or float trips down the Current River after college. Nay, the Peruvian jungle was way more exciting than Midwest nature hikes. It was the best camp out ever!

I loved the rainbow effect that seemed to crop up everywhere, in great arcs across the sky, in colorful ribbons at tree height and along the river banks. I loved the great river itself, its milky, muddy depths and the chilling possibility of dangerous creatures, large and microscopic, hidden just beneath its surface. I loved the midnight noises, the unidentifiable creaks and croaks that punctuated sleeplessness, a sleeplessness caused no doubt by the whining of mosquitoes. The still air beneath the mosquito net was a relatively free zone from blood-sucking insects, but the inescapable humidity made the thought of a cool breeze seductive, and once or twice I succumbed to the temptation of freedom and paid the price.

Perils of the jungle spiced our waking lives. Knowing that mud in a flash can suck you under, that a snake or insect bite can kill or, at least, make you so ill that death would seem a deliverance, that you have to PAY ATTENTION and be mindful at all times… There’s nothing like a sense of danger to magnify the joy of staying alive.

At times, I felt a twinge of guilt at this joy. There are more than 85 references to the word “home,” in Kenneth Grahame’s masterpiece, The Wind in the Willows,” but none so moves me as one contained in Chapter 5, “Dolce Domum.” In that passage, Mole detects the familiar scents of home, longs for it and, with heart-breaking resolve, turns away from it out of fealty to his new friend, Ratty:

“Home! That was what they meant, those caressing appeals, those soft touches wafted through the air, those invisible little hands pulling and tugging, all one way!”

I felt that tug at times. I missed Twiggy and Presh, my two miniature pinscer rescues who have been members of my small but close family for going-on seven years. I missed my 89-year-old mother who, I knew, was keeping track of my 23 days away by leafing through the detailed itinerary I had left in her keeping. I missed the routine I followed when in town — making plans for dinner and a movie with friends back home, guitar practice, gym workouts, staff luncheons and Multiplex Mondays at the office.

Sorely missed, of course, was my own bed, my own pillows, my sunken tub with the 17 jet sprays that I could, if I chose, run until the steaming, lavender-scented water was up to my chin.

The tug of newly forged friendships won out each time. The exchange of a few comforts of home became a small price to pay for the personal growth my comrades and I felt we gained from the experience and from the friendships formed during a leveling week in the wilds of Peru. Something changes in you when you live side by side with 9 other travelers, seekers all, in a jungle two hours up river from the nearest town. It goes beyond the collegiality of breaking bread and bending elbows over a shared meal.

When you share a razor, an article of clothing, or the uncertainty that you will emerge from the forest unscathed, a level of trust and caring deepens among you. And, when you put your trust and your hand into that of a fellow hiker while you wobble across a log over a rushing stream, your awareness of that level of trust and caring intensifies. Your group morphs into an interlocking and interdependent unit. A tribe is born.

I had an opportunity to compare notes with some of my fellow intrepid travelers, and a common thread ran through their observations. Each felt they had been challenged to their limit in some way. A few said they would opt NOT to return for a week in the jungle. But no one felt the time spent together at Camp Ayahuaca was a waste. Nary a one regretted that. We made a “solemn vow” to return in two years to reunite the tribe.

So, was I homesick? Yes, then and now. My feet are planted in two worlds.

Since I’ve returned, I relish the plumbing, but each time I turn on the tap, I hear the rushing river by our home away from home, deep in the jungle. Each time I notice the tops of trees swaying, I recall the blues and greens of a forest that stretches along either side of that river. Each time a min pin barks at a bird or a cat in the backyard, I remember the large playground of our adventure and recall chuffing jaguars, chirping frogs, and a sky that goes on forever.

The tug I now feel comes from opposite hemispheres of the planet, and I suspect the accompanying restlessness is shared by my former traveling companions. One continues to wander, the rest of us have returned to our homes, but I don’t believe any of us can say we return home as we left it.

The trials and triumphs of our journey have changed us in some irrevocable way. We followed the river. We hiked through first-growth forest. We climbed the mountain paths… And each of us met our challenge and somehow scaled it to reach a new awakening.

Next up: Ayahuasca Dreaming