EDIT DESK: There and Back Again

I should have known that my life would be forever changed when a cyclone swept my house away seven months ago.

Trapped inside my bedroom, I was nearly blinded by dust and deafened by the roaring gale. My window frame tore from the wall with a sinister crack and whipped itself at my head. I crumpled to the floor, unconscious. The world spun uncontrollably around my limp form. There was a great whoosh; a wild, earsplitting whistling; a crash; and then –

Silence.

My eyes fluttered slowly open. Dazed, I blinked at the ceiling and winced as I gingerly raised my fingers to the bruise blossoming on my left temple.

I pushed myself up and smoothed the wrinkles on my checkered dress. Looking down at my feet, I frowned. I don’t remember owning sparkly red heels, I thought.

As I turned toward the shattered window beside me, my eyes widened in horror. I scrambled backward until I stood, shaking, against the opposite wall.

“Toto,” I whispered, “I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”

OK, perhaps I’m exaggerating a bit. But the fact remains that, when the wheels of my plane first landed on the tarmac of San Francisco International Airport in May, I decided I may as well have gone over a rainbow.

I had recently accepted a three-month internship offer at a Silicon Valley-based software company. So, laden down with a gargantuan suitcase, an absurdly overstuffed backpack and a ukulele, I set off for the West Coast. This would be my first time living away from home for more than six weeks, let alone at a distance of nearly 3,000 miles and in a house (and region, moreover) full of strangers. My internship, furthermore, was to be a 9 a.m.-to-5 p.m. desk job set in my company’s vast headquarters, an environment that was utterly foreign to me. Still, I was eager to launch myself into this new adventure.

Much like Dorothy, however, I became a criminal almost the moment I was left to my own devices. In my attempt to practice what would become my daily commute, I somehow missed every public transit ticket booth and illegally, albeit unintentionally, rode the local above-ground subway all day for free. It was a blunt reminder that there would be no yellow brick road to guide me through my strange new life…or even to the grocery store. (I’d have to rely on Google Maps for that.)

The next few weeks were a blur of a thousand adjustments: to relatively sedentary days; to a schedule dictated by the local bus and train system; to corporate hierarchy, perpetually sunny skies, and the freshest avocados I’d ever tasted; to the fact that drivers actually yielded to pedestrians; to palm trees and beaches and mountains, oh my! But mostly, I had to adjust to the idea that home and its accompanying reassurances were thousands of miles out of reach. For all the wonder and promise of my new environment, I was constantly aware that, no matter how many times I clicked my heels, I’d never materialize on my own doorstep.

Either that, or my red shoes were simply defective.

Yet I was fortunate enough to encounter a slew of unprecedented fellow adventurers along my way. Although none asked for my assistance with an oil can or threw apples at talking trees, each added something innately valuable to my journey. Several emphasized the perks of spontaneity; others, the importance of rolling with even the most embarrassing of moments; and still others, the liberating strength of creativity or the simple joys of laughter. I even absorbed some highly practical skills, such as how to combat a vicious battalion of wolf spiders. Above all else, I developed an increased respect for the power of solidarity, particularly in the face of adversity. One friend, after hearing that I’d sold my bed and pillows with three nights left before my flight home, decided to sleep on the floor, too — just a couple time zones away.

I’m now back in, quite literally, the exact same spot in which I stood seven months ago. Sometimes it feels as though I never left, and the only tangible evidence of expired time seems to be my longer hair or the new freckles on my cheeks and shoulders.

But perspective isn’t visible to begin with, anyway.

It’s true that there’s no place like home. Yet we sometimes need to embrace the storms that sweep us away. Though their nature varies, their common factor is that all are bound to teach us something in the end. My particular cyclone led me to recognize that we’re all searching for something. What many of us don’t realize, however, is that what we seek is often already within us. Those we choose to surround ourselves with make that path to self-discovery only brighter.

Whether you’re looking for a brain, a heart, the nerve or otherwise, you won’t find it if you put your faith in a fraudulent wizard or a city of green, glass high-rises. Simply look inward, and you might realize you’re already home.