EcuadorSabbatical

I have been concentrating on NOT panicking today. These are my last few weeks in this house. I remind myself that it is no longer mine. I can feel my heart racing and chaos threatening, but I take a deep breath and I count softly until the feeling passes, and then I am fine. I did not accomplish much in my office today. I was paralyzed. Any energy I had was devoted to managing my anxiety. I had to remind myself that I really wasn't all that attached to the house. It was a staging area, a place to refuel between work and running after children and traveling by planes, trains, automobiles and buses; to New York and DC and Canada and California and Salt Lake and Paris and Rome and Ecuador and many other destinations. I enjoyed entertaining in the house; I loved dinner parties and friends and family visiting and children sleeping over. Maya will miss the house. It is the only home she remembers. Often, when I am eager to go out for the afternoon or evening, she will express the wish t...

We did it! Eric and I signed papers to sell or rent the house. I could not bear to meet with the real estate agent, so I left my signature on line after line and Eric met with her and discussed numbers. I have to accept that the house is worth far less than I imagined and will sell for hundreds of thousands less than if we had sold it two years ago. The market is horrible and sinking further. Unfortunately, I do not trust our agent. I suppose she would like to sell the house and make a profit, so in that her interests mirror our interests. I wonder if most people like and trust their real estate agents. Of course, since I do not want to lose my house, I may not like anyone who facilitates the sale. My husband is so eager to sell, I am not sure he cares about anything but removing the burden of the mortgage from our lives. I wonder why I am attached to the house. I did not like it much at first, but then again I did not like Baltimore either and I did not want to move. Eric and his par...

My father's sabbatical year in Bonn and Brussels changed all of our lives irrevocably. Monica studied at the Sorbonne and Paris and stayed to marry a Frenchman and redefine herself. Karen returned to Canada to finish high school and university but ultimately moved to Italy and then France. I stayed closest to home, but have had an incurable addiction to travel, which only increases the more I indulge myself. Eric tells me we will have no money to travel while in Ecuador, but I am convinced that we will explore the country from top to bottom. And I will be the tour guide to any family or friends who come to visit while we are there. Tara plans to leave NYU for the year and try different volunteer jobs and perhaps take a class or two at the university in Quito. She has never been to Ecuador and I am not sure how interested she is in the country. She wants to have a unique and interesting experience. I believe she wants to find a new direction in her studies and needs time to find her...

My high school class is having its 35th year reunion in August 2011! I received a phonecall form someone I did not remember with a funny accent( I am recognizing the 'Canadian' way of speaking). I expressed delight and am committed to going, but I did not tell the caller that I never graduated with my class. During my last year of high school, my father had taken a sabbatical in Bonn, Germany and then Brussels, Belgium. I spent the summer in Japan and then studied Japanese at the University of Bonn, where my father was teaching and researching. I lived with my younger sister Karen and my parents in a town outside of Bonn called Oelinghofen. Our apartment was the renovated top floor of a barn. I went to university with my father several times a week, and as a family we traveled around the Rhine, looking at castles and wine tasting. One week we coasted down the Mosel and ate and drank wine. We visited Cologne and Nuremburg and visited my grandmother in northern Italy. My sister ...

I believe the house is actually coming together and may in fact be done by the weekend. Eric is very proud of himself; he removed the stump of a tree by himself and is painting and touching up and repairing and cleaning. I am trying to shrink the size of the boxes of papers that were removed from my closet and are lined up in two rows in the living room. I have filled two huge boxes of personal papers to be shredded or burned and a much smaller box to store. I feel very proud of the piles of discarded material. When the NCC or AmVets come by to pick up clothes and toys and other donations, I used to make it a goal to give away ten bags, except that one time I prepared ten bags and no one came to pick them up and it rained and everything went moldy and had to be thrown away. Now I never get more than two bags ready for them. They came last week and left with a highchair and a child backpack and baby clothes. I am finally giving up our baby things, somehow I could not let them go for the...

It is before ten o clock at night and I can hardly keep my eyes open. I managed to stay awake until my train arrived in Baltimore, and ran quickly to my car and did not encounter any trouble and arrived home safe and sound. I found Maya and her friends sprawled on the floor in Tara's room on the third level. There had been a storm earlier and a two hour power outage at the house. The areas near my house were still in darkness, and I must admit that everything looks better, not worse in the dark. The children were frightened and uncomfortable about falling asleep with a candle on...but I arrived past 2 AM and they were lined up side by side, breathing softly and looking adorable. They were less adorable when they woke up before 6 AM. I had three hours of sleep!!! I could hear Maya trying to quiet them down to let Eric and I sleep, but her efforts were fruitless and I could hear requests for breakfast. I made pancakes and woke Eric up to join us for a meal. I am sure he wanted to sle...

It is early Sunday morning and I cannot get a connection on the train on my way back to Baltimore. I hope to transfer what I write later. I spent the evening in New York to see my daughter's 20 minute play and join her for dinner. I did not like the play at all, but I always enjoy walking in the city and absorbing the energy and liveliness that is New York. It was hot today and it seemed that every New Yorker was on the streets soaking in the heat. A huge crowd was gathering around Madison Square Garden waiting to see a concert. I tried to figure out who was playing from the dress and demeanor of the concertgoers, and I finally concluded that it was the remainder of the Grateful Dead. They were mostly younger people with dreadlocks and shabby attire. I remember Grateful Dead concerts ten years ago; the crowd was older, dressed entirely differently, but of course it was in Salt Lake City that I attended Grateful Dead concerts, and Utahns are quite different from New Yorkers.  I lea...