Becalmed for a week

The past few blog entries have been mostly rearward looking. I have yet to offer any impressions about our new living space or place. So this post will be the last one for a while chronicling what’s done. It describes a thought-provoking week in a State of Uncertainty before I could leave for the United States. Let’s capture this one just for me, for posterity.

As written in the prior entry we departed India in the evening of October 31 with only a few hours left on our visas. I was on the ground in Tennessee by November 8. The week between was a bit of a blank space. Let me explain:

I recall landing in Tokyo and then taking a 737 that hugged the coastline of Honshu as we veered southwest. The skies were eggshell blue and cloudless. From my window seat it looked like a real-life version of Google Earth because I could recognize the major cities and coastline below. It was a bright, shining welcome back to Japan, our way station until new instructions and visas would move us to the next gig in America.

Naomi’s folks provided their wonderful hospitality. However, we had no cellphones, no landline Internet connection, nor even a notebook computer—all were left in India and need time and a residence to re-acquire. We were thus technology and connectivity naked. I only possessed my permanent private email account and public phones to reach out and annoy someone.

Initially, it was liberating. I did not feel compelled to respond to buzzes and beeps, or check messages.

I felt less connected to the Matrix.

I found time to read silly books like World War Z, An Oral History of the Zombie War and Dolores Claiborne.

No more WhatsApp and email reflex checks!

When Naomi and the girls went out I was alone and disconnected from the world and all its tedious anger.

I took pleasure drives.

I had coffee with a few old friends and just spoke with them without sidelong glances at a phone or whatever gadget drove my day. 

After a few days of wallowing in this beautiful inertia my addled brain registered that it was nigh time to reconnect with the world. I found a new internet café in Hatsukaichi that is less scuzzy than the Popeye I used to frequent. Although it definitely had some semi-permanent residents, it had fewer adult-themed posters on the bathroom walls and smelled less like a college dorm. 

The “business suite” computer/phone/fax rentals offered a comfy chair, printer, and the means to check on my visa status. And so began the next phase of this becalmed week: twice-daily trips to the same internet café to check my email and send replies to my friendly “relocation associate”, Julie, in Texas, and the company’s legal team who were arranging my visa-related paperwork. Julie became an e-friend who offered morale-raising advice and stood by me (figuratively) while we both awaited the two Ps: permissions and paperwork. I sent Julie a note of sincere condolence when 26 people were murdered in mass shooting at a Texas church. It felt more real now that I was bringing my family to the United States. She was one of those people that you meet by chance for a brief time in your life yet leave you lasting memories. She is a nice person who did a tough job on my behalf.

After several days of this email tag, bad coffee, a modicum of angst, and seclusion in my internet cubicle, the message came with my visa waiver information. My flight was set within minutes, and I departed that week of stasis the next morning for Seoul, Vancouver, Seattle, and finally, Tennessee. Another new beginning beckoned.

2017: What a trip (May-Oct.)

(More) April… In late April we took a family fandango to Dubai. It’s a cliché, but everything in that metropolis truly is immense, expensive, impressive and world-class. Superlatives everywhere! 

Except when I think of the SuperCrap breakfast at our economy hotel (blech!).

May was Marina’s month. She had a role in her class's performance of Aladdin and certainly dressed the part. 

We celebrated her birthday by renting out a game center for a gaggle of her friends to party with her! I think this was the first time that we have done a biggish party involving friends—and it was fun. I think she loved the attention but would never admit it later when I teased her about it.

Otherwise, May highlights were weekend pilgrimages to the Southpoint Mall and the Fun n' Food Waterpark to escape the escalating temperatures and pervasive humidity.

June: Amid India’s summer peak heat, we escaped the high temperatures by viewing a Bollywood-style live musical at the air conditioned Kingdom of Dreams. 

This jaded, cynical scribe enjoyed it tremendously!! KoD is highly recommended; it offers live song and dance numbers every five minutes during the two-hour spectacle which convey a morality tale intertwined with coltish romance. These performances are just an incredible visual spectacle.

Also in June, we went back to Japan for the first time in just under a year. 

Besides visiting family, we had a dash of Japanese-style storytelling at a kagura festival (Shinto-styled theatrical dance accompanied by music) in Shimane-ken, and kickass fresh seafood and together with dip in a hot spring, too.

July: The Rising Family™ ladies stayed in Japan, and I went back to India to work. 

I was a part of a media test drive for a new car in Goa, a state on the western coast of India. Goa has Portuguese colonial remnants in its local culture and is renowned for its white sand beaches, nightlife, and world heritage architecture. 

After the work was done I got to drive, a rare treat for me while I was resident in the subcontinent! And I was introduced to “the real Goa” by my mystical co-worker and friend, R. What an amazing trip and experience in one of India’s best places to live.

August: Y’know, I was somehow fine with the heat. As you can see, the peak heat had crested by August, the family was back, and I could feign being in shape at the Freedom Run on India’s Independence Day. 

The rest of the time we beat the heat in the family-friendly waterparks, the local pool, and sometimes playing ping-pong in the Park Place club’s icey-blast air conditioned common room.

The other great memory I have is traveling to Chennai for a work event and having a terrific time. What happened was this: my return flight's departure was delayed so much I had time to go see Chennai’s miles-long beach with work friends and catch a movie (Dunkirk) at the local movie theater. Seeing movies in India is great—super-modern multiplexes with most of the latest Hollywood flicks at very reasonable prices. Faced with hours until our flight departed, we ate together, went to the beach to see the stars and hear the ocean waves, and watch Dunkirk on the big screen. This is the image that I will carry with me of Chennai and Tamil Nadu.

September: India's annual celebration marking its becoming a sovereign nation happens in August. 

In September, Elena celebrated her own flourishing independence by taking a school trip to Sri Lanka without her parents and little sister! 

By this time, we also knew we would be moving again and the countdown began, reluctantly, to our impending departure. I worked on another car reveal event and went to a public relations conference with my co-workers--both terrific experiences.

October was a melancholy month. After we arrived in August 2016, Naomi had quickly become a member of a group of ladies involved in our kids' school activities and philanthropic work. She truly loved being in India. So leaving was not an easy thing for her, or for any of us. Truth be told we wanted to stay longer. So the girls started the separation process with a great goodbye party with their closest friends. A proper farewell. This happens a lot in expat communities, and it was our turn. We also were honored by being invited to have dinner with my friend R’s family during the Diwali holiday near the end of October. 

The craziness of Diwali that time was more muted than the previous year's fireworks blitzkrieg—or maybe it was our realization it would our last Diwali for the time being.

I also had goodbye drinks with co-workers. The girls bid so long to Kidzania, an interactive theme park where kids can gain an appreciation for over 100 different types of work through job role-playing. Lady E. liked making her own pizzas at Dominos.

In the end, the final days were a maelstrom of paperwork, hasty moving, many goodbyes, laughter and tears, and for me – beer. Ah, Kingfisher!

The death of Gord Downie in mid-October hit Canada, and me, hard. He was a revered rock star who transformed into a cultural shaman later on in his artistic career, and he was an interesting, thoughtful guy. I’d seen the Tragically Hip at least five times or more given the years I spent in Kingston and shows I’d seen in Syracuse, N.Y., Halifax, and in Ottawa. So maybe it was the fact that I’d not seen the band play live since 1996 (one small price to pay for living overseas, but a price nevertheless) also signaled the two decades I have lived overseas collecting other experiences. But what a great Canadian and genuine person in spite of his celebrity.

Bobcaygeon is one of my favorite songs ever. It's a quintessential Ontario cottage country tune that begets bigger thoughts about the universe.

            I left your house this morning

            'Bout a quarter after nine

            Coulda been the Willie Nelson

            Coulda been the wine

            When I left your house this morning,

            It was a little after nine

            It was in Bobcaygeon, I saw the constellations

            Reveal themselves, one star at time

We left India with only a few hours left on our visas. Back to Japan to regroup and get the paperwork done for the next destination...