[...] But a life without stumbling is also unimaginable: perhaps to be in between two places, to be at home in neither, is the inevitable fallen state, almost as natural as being at home in the first place.

Almost. But not quite. When I left England eighteen years go, I didn't know then how strangely departure would obliterate return: how could I have known? It's one of time's lessons, and can only be learned temporally. What is peculiar, perhaps even a little bitter, about living for so many years away from the country of my birth is the slow revelation that I made a large choice many years ago that did not resemble a large choice at the time; that it has taken years for me to see this; and that this process of retrospective comprehension in fact constitutes a life--indeed how life is lived. [...]