Einmal ist Keinmal

Trips home, (ir)regular these days as drops from a leaky tap, are like riding the rollercoaster in your neighbourhood amusement park. They take you down a familiar path, yet leave little time for nostalgia.

As you will surely admit, your memories are little more than show-pieces of the past, exhibits in the museum of your mind, 'Look; Please don't touch.Thank you' ; and your life is merely the handiwork of some Grand Old Lady, knitting her giant patchwork quilt, a complex, eccentric tapestry defining the fate of every little drop in the ocean of humanity.

Home-coming is a time for reliving the old experiences, without feeling the deja-vu. Like getting drunk the second time. Or falling in love, again. Each time a little different, each time really the same.

It is a time for visiting the flea market, for hunting down the movies you never could find elsewhere. Ozu's Tokyo Story. After all these years .The elusive son of a gun. Discussions on Bergman, no less, with impassioned pirates, eager to unload their booty before you can say 'Wild Strawberries'.

It is a time for used bookshops, the swanky new malls, and all the particles of sand that slipped through your clenched, impatient fist.

It is a time for espying old flames, walking down the streets of your youth, hand in foriegn hand, each step a cold dagger piercing your broken-heart, each unrequited love a flag-bearer of your eternal defeat.

It is a time for your favourite at the restaurant, still crowded after all these years, and the chocolate chip sundae, and the long walk home.

But all in all, deep down, you know that it is a time for all the things money can't buy.Perspective, for one.