BON VOYAGE

spent my last night abroad in the helsinki airport again, and was happy to be able to sleep from midnight to six in the chilly basement lounge. there are still eight hours until takeoff, however. melissa and i woke up to the beginning of the day´s flight announcements and were sitting on the benches we have claimed as our beds when i looked down at the necklace which i have worn without removing for the entire trip; a beautiful little talisman given to me by hayley for my birthday, a small copper life preserver ring from which hangs a circular pendant engraved with a grand steamship and bearing the inscription: BON VOYAGE. it has been, this whole month, sometimes a perceived and always a subconcious reminder, a mantra, pressed close to my skin- to my heart and the core of my body. bon voyage. what a good trip indeed! i know on this last day of my journey i should say some words in reflection, but i wonder if i could even find the words to properly convey the bon-ness of this adventure? nor, for that matter, could i ever express the richness of my life: the accumulated experience of all my roamings. and now my passport if full, and now i must replace the backpack that has been so near and dear to me ever since it was purchased for my post- high school western european excursion with ginger and corina.
despite all this, bon voyage at this moment recalls another scene, a very particular scene entirely removed from the continent where i now stand: monday night sin williamsburg at black betty, listening to the reverend with his tom waits voive and his alligator shoes wailing, `bon voyage, you bastards, bon voyage!´(and we girls are singing along with everyone, raising our glasses with everyone, and secretly admiring the bassist, who also happens to be the beautiful drummer from tv on the radio....). so, i am brought simultaneously back to the past and into the future- to my life in brooklyn which i have temporarily abandoned and to which- though sad to leave these wanderings- i cannot wait to return. i look forward to returning to scenes such as this, to the shows of my own musically talented friends, to the creative energies of all my poets and artists and stylists and healers and laugers all those who know how to live at our age, in our age. in short, to my extensive new york family. to quote eliot, as usual:

you do not know how much they mean to me, my friends,

and how, how rare and strange it is, to find

in a life composed so much, so much of odds and ends...

to find a friend who has these qualities,

who has, and gives

those qualiities upon which friendship lives.

how much it means that i say this to you-

without friendships- life, what cauchemar!

and yet, in my case, it can hardly be so very rare and strange, wonderful friendships being more the rule than the exception, and for that i will be eternally grateful. i am incredibly blessed with my friends, in their quality and quantity. i often feel there is no girl luckier than i, and i sometimes fear that i know too too many good, good people and there can´t possibly be room in the human heart for more, but always there is! indeed, the past few months brought a few of them to the magnet that is brooklyn and i have the arrival of three more incredible, important people to look forward to upon my return! i have waxed sentimental. pardon. just know i am so happy to come back to you! i simply can´t wait to see you!
i can´t wait for autumn- just around the corner- and the promise of scarves, and the specific contentment granted by the gradual chilling of the air and the changing and falling of leaves from trees, and the changing of all things in general. i have an entirely new life to look forward to: once again the life of a student! (and in the field to which i will, it seems, devote my life. to have a path!) i look forward to the small details of my life, such as walking home from the subway in the evenings towards the water, into the setting sun sittingly blindingly at the end of the street- the street which is filled with kids throwing balls around, the sidewalk which is crowded with younger kids zipping by on their tricycles and pogo sticks, the stoops which are crowded with older kids and adults shooting the breeze, the simultaneous sounds on a friday night of reggaeton and the sabbath siren. i look forward to our roof with its view of manhattan, our treehouse, to having a dog and my girls and wine in the evenings and brunch on the weekends and my own bed to sleep in. the first bon voyage is sadly over, but it has now become something equally amazing: the journey home. i will see you so soon.