Singapore
Home is so often the hardest place to return to. As I celebrate 4 years on the road, I’ve noted feeling something suspiciously akin to gladness at being in Singapore. This is unusual for me, given the isolation of coming back to empty spaces of friends and family who have left, sets in too quickly, and by the time I’ve been here 2 weeks, I’m desperate to leave.
I arrived at the start of December, this time around, and it’s been different. December and January have been exceptionally rich months with the important people in my life. I got to see both my sisters in short order of each other, which is incredible, given one lives in Malaysia and the other in the USA and we intersect at the frequency of lottery wins. I got to hang out and talk, really talk, with old friends, and break bread with those who might be new ones.
It feels like a parttaking of life, rather than watching everyone else do so from an invisible partition. Maybe this is what makes some place feel like home.
2017 promises to be a strange and tangly year politically, but sparks in the dark are flaring despite it. What a time to be alive.
P.S., Have you seen Her Side Of The Street’s feature on Guardian Cities?
charlene winfred 
I hope this richness carries right through the year.
Thank you Erin.