Still, when I went home for Christmas, I thought I had died and gone, if not to heaven—which might be a little sophisticated for me—at least back where I belonged. I drove down that long country road, where a farmer still had a tractor upended in a ditch from an accident twenty years ago, and when I saw the sign, PIGS 4 SALE, I about had tears in my eyes.

Our house is set on a hill removed from all civilization, and the access to it vaguely resembles a roller coaster. I drove up that bumpy driveway and saw my dad standing outside in shirtsleeves with a television sitting on a pillow in the clearest spot in that wooded yard. He held a remote in one hand, and every once in a while, he would gaze thoughtfully at the sky and adjust a small satellite dish. “Finally,” I said, “I’m back where people act normal.”

“If you need a hair dryer, you can borrow your dad’s,” my mom said, after she’d finished hugging me, our collie had finished jumping all over me, and our black half chow chow stray had finished gazing at me with dark, reproachful steadiness. “He bought one to dry out his ear.”

Well, maybe a little on the eccentric side of normal. But at least this place wasn’t strange. It was mine. The dried leaves underfoot. The light of sunset shimmering off the dark river water. The fuzz of moss on bark or the flake of lichen.

“Swimmer’s ear,” my dad explained. “A hair dryer is a perfectly logical thing to use.”

“We bought all the ingredients for your fruitcakes,” my mom said, her eyes gleaming in anticipation. So I sank my hands deep into slick batter, brightly colored fruit, and the sharp slivers of almonds and cooked Christmas food with my family until the tables overflowed. I hung out in a squirrel-eaten hammock, barefooted and in shirtsleeves, and watched a giant mosquito-catcher float through the soft day, tossing in the breeze, glimmering in the sunlight against the backdrop of green grass.

I didn’t want to come back to Paris. I didn’t even start crying on the plane, I just sank into my seat in despair. Well, and nausea, since I get sick on planes, but the two feelings combined very well to reflect my attitude toward Paris. I had to do it, though, and it wasn’t just because of my contract. I was the world adventurer, and I couldn’t bail on a year in Paris just because it wasn’t going in the skippy-dippy way all my other travels had gone.