Losing Our Way Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day I can hear her breathing. --------------------------------------------------------- Arundhati Roy (Indian author, advocate, activist)

It seemed like a miracle. December 28^th in Tacoma greeted us with blue skies, sunshine, and a crystal clear view of the Cascades and the Olympics. This would seem like a bit of a miracle in any Pacific Northwest December – an uncanny break from the ever-present mist and low-hanging slate gray clouds that, as my friend Indi puts it, make you feel like you've been locked inside a tupperware container. Every Western Washingtonian knows this feeling well). But it was so much more astounding following about two weeks of almost constant snowfall that buried the area (okay, for all of you Northeasterners and Midwesterners, to be fair, “buried” is a relative term – the area never got much more than a foot of snow at its worst – but when cities have no snow plows or salt spreaders and the temperature stays low enough to keep the snow and ice from melting for a couple of weeks – you can actually feel buried by two to three inches!). The snow was practically all gone. The air was dry. And the Puget Sound was offering one final glance at its mammoth glory. People explain situations like this in different ways. Auspicious coincidence. God's grace. Or, one of my personal favorites from Rob Brezny, “The Universe conspiring to shower you with blessings.” So much of the planning of this trip had seemed pretty unimpeded by problems – things falling into place little by little fairly effortlessly over the course of the year. Miral and I kept saying to one another that the trip must be meant to be (or, as Miral likes to say, “kisment,” -- although I still don't know exactly what that means...), or we'd be getting more signals that it wasn't. And this day just completely capped that sense off – like this unmistakable message, “Okay – today's the day to begin your journey.”

So we packed the cars and began the journey. The day before Miral had insisted we'd be ready to leave on the 28^th. I was disbelieving. Her tiny apartment looked like a war zone – a mix of piles of random items, other items packed for the long haul cross-country in small retail store shopping bags, scattered photographs, books, and clothing – and a few boxes that actually looked like they'd been packed to be moved somewhere only because Miral has the completely obsessive quality (thank goodnes she has one to balance my 100s!) of keeping the original box to every item she owns (does one really need to pack a vacuum cleaner back into its original boxing?). In an effort to accept the reality of the scene myself, I said, “So we're not leaving until Monday, right?” Miral just laughed and said, “We're leaving tomorrow.” When I scoffed, she added, “This is exactly what the Ward's house looked like about fifteen minutes before you showed up to your surprise party.” I'd heard stories from everyone at that party about the utter and complete chaos that preceded by mere minutes what ended up being the most pristinely thrown and gorgeously presented surprise party I've ever been a part of. Still, I didn't believe her. By midnight on the 27^th, she'd proven her point. The final runs to Good Will were done. Erin had stopped by to pick up the final donations for L'arche. And most everything was packed. Okay, there were still about 100 too many items still “packed” in small retail store shopping bags for my comfort level – but everything was honestly in some form or another ready to be moved down to her car.

On the morning of the 28^th, contained by the aforementioned blue skies and sunshine, we packed the cars. By the time we were done it was 2pm and the weather had gotten a bit less hospitable – but, the DOT website was saying all of the mountain passes were not only open but, for the first time in weeks, were not requiring tire-chains – and since Miral hadn't been able to beat the massive run on tire-chains in Tacoma, she didn't have any. Now, no need. The journey was set to begin.

Well, not before a final visit with Julie and Gus. This was a chance to leave them about 20 pairs of Miral's shoes (we can officially call Julie “Imelda” now), envelopes and printer paper, an array of psychology textbooks and other items that needed to be brought to Western or CSTC, our remaining cooking spices, and a completely random array of other odds and ends that we hoped they could make use of. So Julie and Gus became our final Tacoma farewell after what seemed like weeks of final farewells.

So many farewells. The great seafood dinner with Jake and his wife; a few stolen minutes at the coffee shop with Mick; Mike and Naomi's baby shower; the dinner Casey threw for us; the night at the Swiss punctuated by Sanjeev's Indian money, Bruce and Indi's Freud lolipops, wonderfully unexpected visits from Tom and from Joseph, jukeboxselections from Erik, finally some time with Jeanne, a joyful Buddha card from Holly and Dennis, a really warm embrace with Gregg, and a late-night Denny's run with Susan and David; the unplanned phone farewell with John after snow canceled our plans for a final Seahawks game; an adorbale voicemail message from Aaron and Anton; a really sweet mutually admiring 'good luck' with Jewel (okay, “Jules”); the last good-bye's to Rick and Jane and April on the last afternoon at CSTC. Each one with its own unique flavor of bittersweet.

But Julie and Gus would be the last ones. That seemed right – we'd shared a lot with them lately – from the unfortegttable array of desserts at my surprise party that wowed the crowd (I mean, who ever heard of Vegan Cheesecake that tastes BETTER than any cheesecake you've ever had – even to carnivores!) so much that her recipes are bouncing around through emails all over the country – to Miral standing in and me officiating at their wedding in October – to making plans to meet up together in India (stay tuned for stories of that adventure...). It was also a sad good-bye – sweetened by, if nothing else, pictures of Julie's newest gourmet dessert creation – a cup made fully from chocoloate drizzle filled with chocolate mousse!

Now we were really off. Hopped on Highway 16, shot up I-5, and hit Highway 18 with North Bend and I-90 ahead. We had made plans to make a final stop in Roslyn to say good-bye to Pam and Doyle, but Pam had called the day before to say she wasn't sure they'd be there – 18 inches of snow had fallen and they needed to go up to The Land (as it will always be called by me with deep affection no matter how many times Pam calls it 'the river' or 'my properrty') to shovel out the yurt. I left a message for them that we were approaching North Bend with visions of them getting the message a day or two later – but she called back a little while later to say that they had just made it back from The Land! After a few minor miscommunications we ended up rendezvousing with them at the gas station a little ways down a completely iced over Turtle Road, off I-90. We caught them up on the last few weeks of chaos and they caught us up on The Land and Coral's engagement! (Congrats you guys!) and Pam's plans for Tanzania. Then some final hugs. I began to say good-bye to Pam in a way that attempted to reflect how I'd felt about the many unexpected ways our friendship had grown over what must be six years – but she wasn't going to have any of it. As she turned away, I flashed on Miral remnding me just the day before, “Never be too busy to say good-bye,” when I was too distracted by tasks to get on the phone when Pam called to tell us she might not be in Roslyn. I had explained that with some people the words can never capture the feelings shared and the sentiments are so well understood that the words are superfluous. Miral replied, “That's not how all those people on those planes felt on 9/11 when they made those desperate calls to say good-bye.” I still don't know which view is right. Maybe it depends on the complexity of the relationship and the number of twists and turns its taken over time. When its been complicated, you want to make sure the last exchange is sweet. But somehow some relationships miraculously seem to be pure joy and fun and both people rest in certainty about that.

Whatever the right way to say good-bye may be, we were off agin on I-90, the road that would take us nearly the entire way into New York. We made it to Coeur D'alene, Idaho – crossing out of Washington State – when Miral got too tired to continue on. The next day we awoke to snowfall and predictions of 2-4 inches. We hit snow that kept us at low speeds all day. It culminated in Montana, with insane winds that turned into insane winds filled with sideways rain that turned into insane winds with sideways snow. Read as: white out blizzard. We'd only made it to Butte, Montana, well short of where we hoped to be, but after driving the final 5 miles at 12 mph through about five feet of visiibility, there was no choice but to call it a day. So, we decided we'd been given the gift of a spacious evening for pizza and relaxation -- which Miral generously turned into a celebration of my "Birthday Eve." We knew we had a long day on the road ahead on the 30th to make up for lost time, so this was the perfect solution.