The Start

31 July 2008

The heroine’s journey is generally fraught with obstacles, if not then where would the adventure be? Is should have known something was coming the day before I left India but I was too preoccupied with tying up the loose ends and preparing for my latest journey to the India sub-continent to teach at Long Island University’s Global College. I decided to attend one more gathering of friends in order to say ‘see you soon!’, and wish all friends well.

I stepped out of the Ukranian Village club rather late shouting across the street to my friend that I would see her at her home in a few minutes for a last good-bye. A press of the electronic car key and a jump into the driver seat, suddenly I was halted by the appearance of displacement of internal parts of my car. First of all, the dashboard with sitting six inches out of its grooves and things were in disarray.

It always amazes me how the mind works in situations where something has drastically changed but your brain hasn’t figured it out what it is yet. Hummmmm, the dashboard is out, the car in disarray…..my gaze then panned right to the broken window of the passenger door. Smashed! But what was missing? Nothing?

Smash and grab I believe it is called and more importantly I leave for India in just a matter of hours! How could this happen now?!?! Well, how this happened I’m sure are the nimble hands and dulled mind of a crackhead who obviously couldn’t negotiate that fact that there were any number of better cars to break into on the street but went for the pickup. I could see the pry-marks around the radio but I guess they couldn’t get it out.

More importantly then how this happened is that fact that it happened and that I have to deal with it, perhaps after a few needed hours of sleep. So that’s what I did. Between phone calls, police reports, and feverishly packing I raced through my day preparing for a trip where I truly don’t know when I will return. I have no idea where I’ll be going in the world from this move, so this sort of uncertain-future traveling requires a specific kind of packing. There are a few more necessities involved in the leap-of-faith I was taking.

My mom couldn’t drive me to the airport as she was waiting for the window repair person to arrive so I called in backup. Susan dutifully waited over and hour for me to pull myself together, get those bags zipped up and head out. Thanks to her patience and skillful driving skills we negotiated some serious Chicago traffic and got me to the Air India check-in line just one and a half hours before my scheduled departure.

At this point in time I really started to question my luck. Had it run out? Did I really have any chance of making this flight? Of course my mind took my moment of doubt and ran with it causing me to question the entire venture of moving to India to teach for peanuts at the university. But hey, what’s a heroine’s journey without some doubt and thoughts of giving up?

At the first of many security checks, this one at the beginning of the check-in line, I asked if I really had any prayer of making this flight. She turned to me and said in an excited manner, “Ms. Joseph you’ll have no problems. Lots of people are late today and there are still many people to check-in”. I stood for a slightly abnormal amount of time relishing the news that I just might make it through this hellish last day in America and board that iron-bird to cross the globe to the opposite side.

And so it went on smooth sailing from there. I had great seats and decent service though all my various stop-overs in Frankfurt, Germany and Mumbai, India. Two days, so the dateline goes, and several thousand miles later I made it to Bangalore in one piece and was even gifted with my luggage showing up intact (a small miracle too). Although I know my journey is just beginning I can only assume the lessons will continue to come, but perhaps they can be more internal that external as I surrender myself into the lap of Mother India.