When dates are set

Once upon a time, when people decided to move to another location, they just picked up and left when they did and arrived when they did. There were not schedules. American Indian wives rolled up their few belongings in a blanket, and that was it. Off the families went. The distance between a decision to leave one place for another and the actual leaving were quite spontaneous.There was no such thing as being on time or late.

Now, the distance between a decision to relocate and the actuality take that illusory time. We have to have an itinerary. Flight dates and times have to be booked. And there are lines to wait in, baggage to be checked, customs and immigration. 

Monday, June 11, I leave Chicago for Washington, D.C. via United Airlines.  From D.C. I fly to  Senegal, West Africa, and then on to Johannesburg, South Africa. This is a short 20-hour flight instead of previous 28 to 31 hours! I tell you it's worth it.

From Johannesburg, I take a South African Airways flight to Durban, South Africa, where Heaven Admin will pick me up. From there, a drive to Palm Beach, Hibiscus Coast, to begin my life anew by the Indian Ocean. It's been said that we can never enter a stream at the same place. I wonder.

Oh, to walk barefoot in the sand again, to make new footprints, collect shells and rocks for the garden Heaven Admin planted. To write Heavenletters™ in a room that faces the sunrise and Indian Ocean. To be lulled to sleep by the sound of the waves and to wake up to the sound of the waves.

In Palm Beach, Hisbiscus Coast, by the Indian Ocean, the tide rises and falls, and time is not.