“She broke up with Hao-hao, but he always tracked her down. Called her… Begged her to come back… Again and again. As if under a spell or hypnotized… She couldn’t escape. She always came back.”

– Millenium Mambo 千禧曼波 (Hou Hsiao-Hsien 2001)

This is the last of the nights I will spend here in this beautiful magical country. In the city where you once told me, I would find God at every corner. The time here has been essential – to see unfamiliar faces, learn new histories, and let myself be moved and touched by sunsets, and fingertips, flavours, and the scent of peaches. To be held by time, to be embraced by the old and new all at once. To watch the dervish, to yearn to be one with Him.

Still, in a land far from here, someone calls my name and asks for me to return. Not unlike Penelope, not unlike those millennia ago in Ithaca. My mad, frustratingly, gloriously imperfect home wonders out loud at my disappearance. And so, it is time to turn back to the place that shelters and keeps me. Back to the one whose hand belongs in mine.

I have missed you. And I am coming home.