departures II

Should be dated 5 April 06--When I wrote this on airplane flying from IAD to BOS:

This morning could have been a shaky 35 mm of what happens when I leave with an aching heart. Trolling my over-expensive on-a-whim bought-in-Heathrow carry-on Samsonite, my black work bag, and two plastic shopping bags; one with half frozen de-stemmed strawberries, mom's dried lime beef curry and stir-fried baby Asian eggplant over brown rice, an empty Nalgene, a bruised pink lady apple, and a freckled banana; the other bag with squeaky square-toed black pumps and sandals bought after Long Island sound left me shoeless on a red-drunk wine summer day on a rocky beach.

Caption me down an empty DC neighborhood street littered with the debris from spring tree blossoms, wearing a crisp French blue shirt, stretch charcoal pencil skirt, and Tevas-my favorite vehicle of escape. Snapshot to the work lunch hour confessing misty-eyed to a dear friend and colleague, two hours later picking my mom up near Union Station.

Now going up the aesthetically-pleasing cold glass and steel rising escalator corridors of Dulles, staring at aluminum tile, with hot tears falling on my overly expensive Samsonite. The cavern of halogen illuminated escalators echoing the vast crackening of my heart.

I'm going to the beach, but my mind can only think how cold 67 degrees can really be.

My friends console me and tell me I'm brave, I think to myself, 'I had to do it,' no choice or I'll always wonder. The answers I got did not impart the relief of un-weighted insecurity and indecision, but instead the aching of a heart-breaking.