Let's Get This Thing Started

Boyce, Virginia


    Twelve days.  Twelve days from now, I’ll cut myself loose from my home and thrust back into the world of the Peace Corps.  I’ll have a whole host of new friends and colleagues.  My possessions will again be limited to what I can carry.  I’ll be back on that Acela train leaving Union Station, back in that burgundy cab under the Philadelphia skyscrapers, back in that warmly lit hotel conference room.
    And in thirteen days... buses, the Turnpike, Manhattan, JFK Airport, the lines, the security, the nervous-excited grins across plane aisles at friends you’ve only-just-met-the-day-before.  The plane sitting on the Tarmac like a bullet in the chamber.  And then... pshew, I’m not even going to contemplate fifteen hours aloft to South Africa.
    But right now it’s calm.  Not ‘the calm before the storm,’ or ‘the climb up the roller coaster,’ or even ‘the deep breath before the plunge.’  It’s more like I’m be-calmed, stuck on a one-man sailboat with no wind.
    However, I’m not idle myself.  Lots of stuff to prepare.  Today I picked up my cowboy boots from the repair shop in Berryville, and they look brand new.  It’ll be great to have comfortable formal shoes to wear to Philly.