MAY 19, MONDAY

OFF TO GERMANY

Until my 3:30 departure to Asheville airport I was still in packing and straightening my apartment, slightly, and in house selling mode. When I was done packing I still had half a carry-on empty, even with a foot square cube of Mixtile photos for my German friend Elke. Everything I took on previous trips and didn’t use I left behind. I almost didn’t need my carry-on bag (which got lost anyway on the trip) and which only contained non essentials. I amended the email notice that Stephanie Johnson at Warren Wilson was going to send out about my house being for sale. I realized that going to Germany and trying to sell my house at the same time was completely nuts. I was worried that I had to find my way from LaGuardia Airport to JFK airport in New York and was afraid I would get lost or break down somewhere and never make it to the flight to Amsterdam. So I left home completely frazzled and resigned, just hoping for the best.

There was plenty of time before the flight when I got to the Asheville airport, time to have a huge and delicous cheese steak sandwich for $19 which the girl at the counter had the effrontary to ask for a tip of 19, 25 or 30% when I swiped my card simply for handing it to me (I gave none, happy to be free of American excessive Covid era American tipping for three weeks). I raced through the sandwich, found my gate and got a seat and then waited and waited and waited. The plane left just over an hour late. I was even more worried about how to get through New York in time, but was so exhausted I fell asleep on the flight until New York.

I hurried off the plane and was met by a wheel chair, which I was not certain I had ordered and the wheel chair pusher whisked me to the Q70 free bus for the 15 minute ride to a subway station, another 15 minute ride to the airport and then another 15 minute ride on the Air Train to JFK Terminal 4.

But when I got on the first bus I suddenly found myself completely relaxed. Maybe it was the nap, but more than that it was the feeling that I have had on almost every trip when I have left home frazzled. There was nothing more I could do, I could completely let go. Everything that was pressing before I left—cleaning up my apartment, selling my house, doing last minutes errands—was all beyond my control and would have to take care of itself. Suddenly I realized that I wasn’t in Swannanoa anymore, I had shed my former self, I was zooming underground on the New York subway with people from all over the world, a car full of immigrants speaking different languages, sitting around me. I was having an adventure that was beyond my control and I could just let myself soak in the experience. And I was off to more adventures. I completely forgot my house and apartment and Swannanoa. The trip that had so worried me was turning out, both over night and the next day, to be the beginning of another great adventure.