Wednesday, November 4, 2009

I am mentally sorting our possessions, and saying goodbyes one by one. I know what we are leaving -- though it's hard to comprehend a goodbye so final -- but I have no idea what sort of life or home we're headed for.

Trying to make important arrangements, like housing, by email, is a bit like searching for life on Mars; I am squinting over the details of bad photos, sending out dozens of blind messages to a place we've never been, getting little response, hoping for small electronic signs of friendliness, wondering what it's like out there. Giving things away. Trying to prepare myself and the girls for the absoluteness of our leaving, that abrupt shift from being fully, inescapably in one world and then on (roughly) the same day, completely and irrevocably in another, with no easing out or in. That suddenness of air travel is still amazing and melancholy to me after many such departures over the years. We spend weeks mustering ourselves, packing up quite purposefully, attending to every detail, hurtling towards the climax of departure, and finally before dawn on the appointed day we step onto the plane, and sit down, and take a breath, and wonder, where are we going? And find there is no break, no rest; in those few moments on the runway we segue immediately from preparing to leave one life forever into facing the daunting and almost total unknown of a new one, and in a couple of weeks, in seat 23B, I will fasten my seat belt thinking, So the leaving's finally done; what do I need to prepare myself for now? 
 

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I had a bicycle for 2 years,
a yellow one.

Took off the basket for aerodynamics.
The cops

Never figured that one out.

Kept it in the alley by the stairs.
Alone.

Unleashed it everyone now and then.
For a cruise to the park.

Where I leaned it
Up against itself.
For a few minutes.

As I wasted them,
musing.

Then one day,
I walked down the stairs
To go cruising.
and musing.

Noticed his absence.

Reported it to the cops.
But understood.

He left on his own.

And that sometimes,
We just need to go places.

Scott said...

I can take better pictures, you know : )