Preparing for Lift-Off

I'm sitting on my floor, with my laptop on a plastic storage box, with my possessions in two suitcases, a carry-on, a duffle bag, and two plastic boxes. My computer desk goes this morning to its new owner and my bed disappears tomorrow night.

Every day my apartment becomes a little larger and a little cleaner and a little more foreign to me. The memories of the good times and the growing older-- if not up-- that has taken place in this vanilla box are now packed away inside me and inside things that will be left behind.

This is a familiar state for me to be in now but the first time I went through it is still carved into my memory. "Don't forget to breathe," an acquaintance advised me at one point in the departure process, "It's like childbirth, but it lasts longer."

For me, who could have happily given birth in any nearby potato field, it was infinitely worse than childbirth. Each time I do this, it becomes a shorter period of hyperventilation, but the question remains. Why was I inflicted with the DNA that caused my ancestors to leave England in the early 1600s, Ireland during the Potato Famine, and most recently, my teenage grandfather to accompany his older brothers on a ship that took him from Germany to America?

I like to think that I am simply preparing a new home for my family to come to, just as my forbears did--and with the current political and economic climate, this may not be a fantasy. Who knows? A tiny Alaskan colony may soon be established in Bangkok, in flight from Sarah Palin and the victory of the Religious Right. (A girl can dream, can't she?)

And the Beat Goes On

My friend Kim Fay quotes Confucius on her website with his sage words that a journey begins with a single step. For me a journey begins with a single list, and each checked-off item brings me closer to my departure.

Ticket purchased--check
Cat to the vet--check
Visa obtained--check
Go to Alaska to say goodbye to family and leave cat--well not yet

This is not an easy step for the cat or for me. He's been my comrade and distraction and occasionally a comforter ever since he entered my life in 2002. His major flaw is he does not travel well which is why today he faces a four hour plane ride as opposed to one that is over four times that length.

I know he'll eventually be happy--and so will I--but today we will both end up temporarily hating each other--just as it is in any good relationship. Please wish us luck...

The Reasons That Make My Move Difficult

With hair or without, these two men are the people I love best in the world.

Better than Prozac

There is absolutely no mood elevator so effective as an airline confirmation code, and three of them is even better! In the three weeks I have left in the states, I have three air tickets--one to Oregon to plead for my visa, one to Alaska to give my cat to my mother, and the final one to Bangkok at last!

Every time I've gone to the airport in the past two years, I've cast longing glances at the EVA ticket counter, wishing I were in line there to board a plane to Asia. Now at eleven p.m. on the last day of September that wish comes true.

The only thing that would make me happier would be if my two sons were in line with me, but I take consolation in knowing that I'll be back to see them in the summer--and with any luck they'll be able to visit me as well. The cat-- he'll be happier watching squirrels and moose from my mother's window than if he were chasing jingjok in 90+ heat.

So as I dismantle my tiny household in Seattle, I'll keep in mind the complete bliss of sipping cognac at four in the morning as I cross the International Time Zone into a day ahead of my old life in the Cold Country, to disembark in a new (to me--I've yet to experience Suwannaphum) airport and to return to the country that truly feels like my home.

Another One For Ernie

No food pictures this time since you are well aware of what a cheeseburger looks like--just late summer in the city and happy hour(s) with my oldest son!

Winnowing

It would be so easy for me to move to another place if I were not afflicted with the Paper Curse. Some old hag must have bent over whatever served as my cradle and muttered, "This child will always be at the mercy of stacks of paper," because I always have held on to reams of the stuff. Old letters, old photos, old manuscripts, bits of writing, newspaper clippings, cards...on and on the list goes, stuffed into drawers, into boxes, waiting for the day that I begin to pack up my life and have to go through every scrap, deciding what to keep and what to toss.

Every morning now, while I have coffee, I sort through the accumulation, shredding old paystubs, bank statements, utility bills, by hand of course because I am way too 20th century to have acquired a paper shredder. I am so good at not accumulating--except for old report cards (handed over to me by my mother, in case anyone wonders where this curse actually came from), old notebooks, and I promise not to enumerate the entire list again. Let it be enough to say that my hands are drying out from handling it all.

I tell myself that I've learned my lesson--I have a huge amount of writing on my laptop, and I now own a digital camera--but of course I'm deluding myself. We who suffer from the Paper Curse will never succumb to the joys of the Paperless Office. If we can't handle it, it's not real--and the undocumented life is not worth living.

It's truly painful to throw out the papers that I'm callously discarding. But I know there will be more to fill the gap the minute that I'm settled in my new home. There has to be. That's the only way I ever feel rooted to a place, to a time, to my life.

Endless Summer

This morning's light is the pale, watery gleam of late summer and the air already has a chill to it--not quite enough for a sweater but close to it. The brief blaze of sun that we receive in the Pacific Northwest--and that gave us tropical heat long after dusk on a truly magical full moon night last Saturday--is on its way out, far too soon for many of us.

And yet this year summer will not end for me. Through an amazing twist, I will be on my way to Bangkok in a few weeks, to live and work and write and soak up the wonderful, steamy heat and light that characterize my favorite place in the world.

As this autumn approaches, I feel blessed, and as winter approaches, I won't be around to complain about it. Life is not only good--sometimes it offers small miracles that can only be accepted with gratitude and wonder.

This One's for Ernie

Breakfast with Nick--at Glo's on Capital Hill. Soon to come--Happy Hour with Matt (at Contour on First--aka Cheaper than MacDonald's--with cocktails!)

Becoming Miz Lillian

As much as I strive to grow old disgracefully, there's always a pie in the face joke that threatens to take over my life. This morning while I was having coffee I read a sentence that referred to Miz Lillian, the Carter family matriarch who emerged into public view when Jimmy became our president. Miz Lillian was a fine example of the energetic aging process, having just returned from a stint in the Peace Corps in time to attend her son's inauguration, after which she wrote her first book and showed the world that a woman could be wrinkled and proud of it.

I revered Miz Lillian in my late twenties. She was a clearcut illustration that a woman's life didn't end with her first wrinkle, and that being ancient did not preclude being fully alive. She also frightened me in the way that Girl Scout leaders used to when I was small. She looked like the kind of person who would be fond of barking, "Keep a stiff upper lip. Stop sniveling," when I would try to be funny about what I thought were adverse circumstances. Miz Lillian, I knew, was not the kind of woman who worried about her clothes or frequented cosmetic counters in hopes of free samples. She was indisputably old and well above all that.

At that point in her life Miz Lillian was in her sixties.

I will be sixty in a few months. I work with women who are in their early twenties. Last night as I regaled them with indiscreet stories about the past history of the bookstore that employs us all, I realized that I could well be their grandmother. This morning I understood with chilling horror that they could quite possibly see me in the same light that I saw Miz Lillian, an energetic, withering crone who provides a sterling example of facing age without whining about it.

And suddenly I wanted nothing more than an arid martini and a cigarette in a very long holder--maybe a white fur stole as well. By God, if I have to get old, at least I can turn my back on Miz Lillian and become Auntie Mame.

Meeting Amadi

For those of us who read in the same way that we breathe, sometimes it's easy to take that activity for granted. We forget the inherent magic that comes from the printed word floating from the page into an imagination and the excitement that comes when that flow first occurs.

When a book reminds us of how special it was to learn to read, and how much we once yearned to know how to do that, that book is special. Amadi's Snowman by Katia Novet Saint-Lot and illustrated by Dimitrea Tokunbo is one of those books that gives us back the hunger and eagerness that we once had for learning to read. A short story in the form of a picture book--and a beautiful one at that!--this book gave me chills as I read it, and when I finished the last jubilant page, I immediately went back to the beginning and read it again.

This is one of those remarkable books that is meant for all ages, where the pictures and the text come together seamlessly in a glowing, perfectly blended, and wonderful world of its own. I love this book and can't wait to share it with (and give it to) other people who will love it just as much as I do. Thank you, Katia, Dimitrea, and Amadi!