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It’s not that I suddenly hated Los Angeles. I could see more clearly than ever that my life was good, really good. There was an endless parade of guests through my apartment. I’d built a fine community over the years by hosting a party every Friday night. The enormous pool behind the building was huge and beautiful and just the right temperature, and every day I got to see my fellow swimmers there. Two blocks away was the gorgeous, well-stocked public library that had been my ultimate inspiration to part with my books for good. A couple of farmers’ markets set up downtown each week and allowed me to enjoy California’s abundance of fresh produce without getting in the car.

The only easier commute than mine would be to work in my living room; I didn’t even have to fight traffic to get over to the office, thanks to a pedestrian walkway that connected both sides of the street. I got to sit in climate-controlled splendor all day, in front of a computer, and interview leaders in their fields. My stories got beamed out on a show that was heard by millions of devoted listeners. The rotating overnight hours were like living in a constant state of jet lag, but nothing about my days was very exacting. In fact, life was very pleasant.

And that was the problem. It was all too easy. Too civilized. Too flat, colorless. I couldn’t just go back to a world of work, leisure, and consumption. That would feel like going back in time, living on the obvious, predictable path.

The reactionary thing to do would have been to renounce it all, to pack it all up and just leave for somewhere, anywhere—to change my landscape before my mangled suitcase cooled. But my return was my endurance test of all I’d been learning. I fought the tendency to think another location, other people, another world, would be better and yet to accept that the way I’d been living wasn’t right for me anymore. There was no better place. There were no better people. All I really needed was here inside me. The answers would follow in due time.

And so I settled into my routine. I chatted with my neighbors at the pool. I gritted my teeth at the office. I spread the word that the Friday-night parties would resume, and each week, I cooked up the usual big pot of soup to serve. I visited friends in various parts of town and shared meals. My wise mentor had predicted correctly. “How was Bhutan?” most would ask in an obligatory, cursory way. The “How was your day?” of travel. I taught myself to smile and simply say, “Great, just great,” until and unless a follow-up question demanded more of an embellishment.

The pictures I showed the lady on the airplane came in handy. They were like having a secret friend. They jogged my memory as the vividness of Bhutan began to fade. I had some of the better shots blown up and posted them on the wall at work, in my line of sight. Right on the edge of my cubicle, I hung a giant picture of the king, attached to a calendar from the Bhutan National Bank. My coworkers would walk by and say, laughing, “Wow, is that the Thai Elvis?” And I would laugh back, and then answer, defensively, protectively, as if he were mine, “No, no, that’s His Majesty, the king of Bhutan. The youngest monarch in the world. He presides over a land that’s going through a sea change, a transformation.”

What I didn’t add was: so had I.

THE DRIVEWAY TO Sebastian’s off-the-grid cabin in western New England goes on forever. It’s rocky and, remarkably, even bumpier than that terrifying Bhutanese highway. After a while, there isn’t a pretense of pavement. Dense woods in every direction obscure the sky. Sebastian had promised that when we got to the end, there’d be deer and turtles and a lake. This property has been in his family for decades, so this similarity to Bhutan, this roughness, couldn’t be by design. Now I got a hint, though, of how he could feel so at home in the wilds there.

There were supposed to be four of us here for the weekend, but the patron saint of our friendship, Harris, along with his