lost

The feeling of being back on this ship is one of the strangest things I've experienced recently. One one hand, like I mentioned already, I feel overwhelmingly that I'm home. I find nothing strange about lining up in the cafeteria to get my meals, seeing container ships outside my window and being hugged enthusiastically by about half of the people I walk past in the halls. Contrary to my own expectations, I have not, in fact, forgotten where things are in this eight-deck floating city. The only thing that throws me for a loop is the fact that the gangway leads down to a dock on the starboard side of the ship, not the port side, which last year was the only thing that helped me remember what the heck starboard and port meant in the first place. (My oft repeated mantra, Port means the side where the port is, doesn't seem to be helping me this time around.) But really, things feel normal. When people welcome me back, all I can think to tell them is that it's good to be home.

On the other hand. (There's always another hand, isn't there?) Remember how I just got married? And remember how, before that, I told you guys I wasn't really going to talk about my husband on this blog of mine? Well, both are true, but the latter isn't really going to be a problem, at least not for the next three weeks. Because after our first three weeks as married people, I actually got to come back to the ship all by myself. The Husband is taking part in a training course in some country that is Not Remotely Benin, and I'm here in a country that is Most Definitely Benin, rattling around our enormous (at least to me) cabin all by my lonesome.

And it's strange. For all the familiar faces and dearly loved friends whom I'm reconnecting with and eating meals with and sharing stories of the past five months with, it feels wrong to be here without him. There were so few days last year that didn't see us hanging out for hours on end, and, truth be told, I'm a little lost without him. I'm not used to not talking to him, but both nights since I've been here, I missed his phone calls because I was upstairs in the cafe, writing him emails that he hasn't read yet because he hasn't found a place to get on the internet. I laid awake in our bed last night, already instinctively leaving half the mattress free, and in the dark, wakeful hours until about three in the morning, I lost track of the number of times I slid my foot over to his side, just to make sure he really wasn't there.

In the grand scheme of things, three weeks isn't a long time. We just got through more than three months on separate continents, and I'm starting work tomorrow, so things promise to be busy. But that doesn't change the fact that I've barricaded myself in my cabin; armed with movies, a tea kettle and a wireless internet connection, I'm not coming out until I get to talk to him on the phone.

Now, who wants to bring me dinner? It's African night, and I have a powerful craving for plantains.