bye

The boy leaves tonight for the Middle East. Even though he left here twelve days ago at least I knew he was on the same continent. But tonight he flies 5900 miles away to a very different land. I hope he will be safe and happy. I hope his experiences will be engaging. I hope he will allow himself to be present and paying attention.

I’m sure his adventures will equal the adventures of the woman in whose life I am entangled: Belle. She, too, went East. And also Doreen, who just a few years after Belle, sailed off to the Middle East. The boy will be jetting, not sailing. And adventures now feel both more tenuous and dangerous. Tenuous because the adventure part feels secondary to the grind of finding an existence. The girls went off in search of adventure, not required to work or attend in any way to the requirements of their lives. Doreen was with a group of girls living in a hotel and attended by many “brown” men as she lovingly calls them. Although she was already ten years out of college, Belle was simply searching for something to do and wrote on her passport application that she was traveling for leisure. Dangerous because that part of the world is so much more volatile today than it was 75 years ago when the girls went. At the time of their stays the world was simmering – about to erupt in the conflagration of WWII. But the Middle East still had some years to go before the carving up the West had done burst into the firestorms of today’s poisonous environment.

He has rules for his existence in the Middle East: answer all emails promptly, stay in touch generally, if anything happens within 500 miles of him he must get in touch immediately to say he is OK. And I sent him off with my current words of wisdom. First from the Dalai Lama: whenever possible, be kind. It is always possible. And from me, the three things to guide a good life: Show up. Pay attention. Tell the truth.

Godspeed.