It is like getting into a new garb - a changing of clothes. This transition into California - after 3 weeks in India.

The lighter air, cooler winds, the silence, the silence where one can listen to the birds, and the scratch of pen on paper.

The re-entering of familiarity - of the house and its rooms - of the patio and the plants - of the kitchen and the efforts at food - of household tasks - watering plants, cleaning, cooking. A life re-entered. This experience is like a metamorphosis accelerated. The jarringness forces the mind to put distance - figurative distance - as if to compensate for the sudden discontinuity between geography, weather, people and time.

When I am in water, in the swimming pool - swimming, floating, mostly submerged, the water is all around. After, a while, it feels natural, I get used to it - the extra lift, the buoyancy, the cold water, the wet.

And then, when I step out - out of the water, there is a transition - a few moments of mild shock - of adjustment. The body and the mind enter a world of air and ground. There is this brief discontinuity, a change.

The drive to SFO and the trips tp SFO are like that. And onreturn, especially the taxi ride from SFO airport to Mountain View are the extended transition periods. I see the broad roads, cars, the suburbia of Bay Area, the adverts, the buildings of tech companies, and somehow the mind switches. I remember this ... I know this, I have lived this. And the world from where I have come, starts fading...