leaving....

"...on a jet plane,
don't know when I'll be back again."

I heard those lyrics over and over in my head during the past two weeks. Late in the evening on July 3rd, I became convinced that I needed to make a trip back to Charlotte. The party that I had helped organize the year before was going to happen and I was going to miss it. I tried to discard my yearnings as ego-mania, believing that there was no rational reasoning behind such an impromptu-an expensive-trip to my hometown.

So I resorted to meditation to clear the nonsense from my brain. Only it didn't, clear, it crystallized into a list of things that I had left undone, or that I needed to do. Still suspecting some sort of acute mental dysfunction, I sat down to make a list of the pros and cons of such a trip. The majority of the cons centered around money-and I have been making efforts in my life to not live based upon a fear of not having enough of it. As long as I was honest and truthful, I didn't feel as if I was going to do any other sort of damage on my trip.

I bought my ticket at 1:30 am on the fourth of July, hopped in the shower, threw some stuff in a bag, gave the house a thorough water-proofing, left the landlord a note, and headed to the airport to catch my four a.m. flight to Guam. It's a short half-hour flight, on a wonderful twin propeller aircraft. I am used to it now, but the first time on it was a little unnerving. After an hour in Guam, we left around 6:30 a.m., headed towards Hawaii. The flight landed in Honolulu around five o'clock in the afternoon on July third, seven hours after leaving Guam. Weird! I always wanted to be a time traveler! From there, we flew to Houston, and since we arrived a little behind schedule, I barely made it to my next flight. Houston is an enormous airport, and I hope all the others who were with me made their respective flights as well. We touched down in Charlotte at noon on the fourth of July, almost exactly twenty-four hours after I had left the house in Saipan to go to the airport.

That was just the beginning...I made three more trips to the airport over the next 10 days, for a total of over 32 hours. I also rented a car in Texas and drove for over four hours one way to visit some family. And now I am contemplating my next trip... although I don't have a definite date yet, it is going to be soon!

Special thanks to a wonderful woman here on Saipan who saved my ass by cleaning up the mess I left here as I rushed away to North Carolina...I owe her big time! I would also like to apologize to anyone who I didn't get to see, or didn't spend much time with...I love you and wish there had been more time!