On the Plane to NY

1/3/07 (11:10 Cal. Time)

Two weeks later and we’re now on the plane. It has been a tough couple of weeks. We have the house rented. However, only for two months. On the positive side though, we have rented the house to an academy award winning actress. Just another side plot in the narrative of this trip. We gave away our two cars on a temporary basis. Our Subaru to my mother-in-law and our Prius to our Rabbi. Our Rabbi can only be described as giddy at having received the Prius.

Packing up the house and packing for the trip has been nothing short of horrendous. What does one take for a six month excursion to some pretty rugged places? Well, we decided to take everything, literally. Gone, apparently, are the carefree days of living out of a single backpack. Our bags are huge and unwieldy. If people judge us by our baggage, they will conclude—Ugly Americans, ill equipped to handle the rigors of travel. Obviously, I will have to disabuse them of this first impression with my charm and dazzling personality. I guess we’re screwed. Actually, there’s something comedic about the amount of crap. At least that’s what I keep telling myself.

We have been to so many farewell events, that we’re frankly sick to death of hearing ourselves talk about the trip. Although, I can safely say that nothing I have done in my life has met with so much acclaim. Not sure if that’s more a reflection of my lack of accomplishing anything particularly noteworthy. Although it seems clear that this trip resonates with people in ways that I did not anticipate. The response has been a generally consistent mixture of “that’s the most amazing thing I have ever heard of” and “I could never do it.” Interesting to me is that the “I could never do it” sentiment crosses socioeconomic lines. Both our less wealthy friends and more wealthy friends echo the same sentiment. So maybe it’s not about wealth. Certainly for Melissa and me, we had planned on doing this trip after we had “struck it rich,” but it just did not happen. So we decided, to hell with it, we would just go. So why? I think it’s a confluence of events—Maya starting high school next year, Melissa and I both ready for job/career changes, and just a general feeling that we need to break the pattern of our lives. Ultimately, I think it’s a function of Melissa and me supporting each other in the fulfillment of this somewhat crazy but shared ambition. Or maybe it’s simply folie a deux. Indeed, after many recent sleepless nights, Melissa and I have started our recent morning conversations with some version of “what the fuck are we doing!?”

At this point, I am bit scared of the kids. They swing violently between hating us (it seems more me than Melissa) and this kind of heart-breaking despair at being ripped away from their family and friends. Everyone says that they’ll appreciate this when they’re older. I just hope that I’m alive to reap the rewards of this new-found perspective. Oddly, they seem most scared about the safari. Perhaps it was an unwise move for us to show slides from Melissa’s safari as a kid: I think the images of snakes eating frogs, lions fornicating, and huge bugs freaked the hell out of them. Live and learn.

As we left this morning for the airport, the kids were weepy and surly (I’m sure it did not help that they had to sit on top of luggage as there wasn’t room for all of it in the trunk.) As we pulled out of our driveway for the last time for 6 months, the song playing on the radio was REM’s “it’s the end of my life as I know it. . .” Adios.