unplugging

p and i were living in paris when we met and then we were married there. j was born there and when she was 8 months old, we moved to san francisco, where we lived for 8 years and then moved to boston. several years ago, i was reminiscing on my old life in paris and wondered if i would ever get to live there again. j was in a private elementary/middle school. would we have to wait for her to head to college before p and i could return to paris for a long term stay? then i had the idea that perhaps when she finished 8th grade and graduated from her school, and all the kids scattered to different schools that we could take a sabbatical. we could bring her back to paris and put her in school to work on her french. (she had gone to a french school in san francisco from ages 3-6). i told p and j this idea and started referring to it as the “evil plan”. as time passed, it grew as a possibility and the whole family was for it.

so here i sit on a plane about a half hour from landing in paris. it’s been a whirlwind craze for the last few months in preparation for our year here. we started packing 2 months ago, to make the house tidy to show to potential renters. we were going to rent the house furnished, but we had to store all of our “stuff”. then we began “culling” so that our possessions could reduce in volume and weight to be stored in the attic (and not collapse it). suburban life had made us heavy with things. it was a difficult task that was at the same time a cleansing experience. it's something we should all probably do every few years! we threw away and threw away. we had a garage sale, advertised on craigslist, which only sold a few items. after it was done, the driveway was still full of all the things that we had psychologically let go of. i stared at the pile of junk that i did not want to bring back into the house. then i went and wrote another craigslist ad: "post-garage-sale event - all items free” and i moved them to the bottom of the driveway . within 10 minutes the people started coming. like little ants, they took away the breadcrumbs and by the end of the afternoon, it was ALL gone.

we decided not to ship anything. so we did a couple of “dress rehearsals” where we tried to actually pack what we would bring into the allotted volume of the “2 check-in’s and 1 carry-on”. things seemed to be falling into place, piece by piece. j had gotten into both schools in paris that she liked. we were able to use our frequent flyer miles to get tickets. p told his boss that he was going to france in july and it was a one way ticket. they would try to work something out to let him continue his job remotely. (there is the possibility that this will not happen, but we are willing to risk it, use our savings and be poor for the experience of this year. a little scary since paris is so expensive.) then, we were able to rent the house to a nice family who will be renovating their own home for a year. they have a daughter the same age as j, who loved j's choice of purple for her room (so we didn’t have to repaint!) our friend in paris said she would house us for a month at our arrival. eddie bunny was adopted at the last minute by a family that is head over heels in love with him. one car sold, the other one’s lease finished the day after our flight. we cleaned and polished the house to sparkling to pass on to the renters. it will never look so good again! meanwhile, we detached ourselves, little by little, from our bills, our mail, and the east coast “grid”. we moved out and became homeless, staying for 5 days with my sister and mother, then 5 days on cape cod with my aunt and the last night with friends in cambridge. we were down to the last days with the task of fitting everything into the suitcases and making each one weigh less than 50 lbs.

the last hurdle in the US, was that maynard, the dog, could not fly if the temperature at either end was over 85 degrees. well, you may have heard that the east coast has had a very long heat wave. i was hoping that 3 or 4 weeks into the high heat, it would break. we watched the forecast every day. finally, on the day of the flight, it was still hard to call. depending on what website you looked at, the temperature was between 84 and 89. the check-in lady said it was 90. we checked our bags and then sat and waited to see if the temperature would go down 1 hour before take-off. unfortunately, it did not and we had to execute plan B for maynard– which was that a friend took him to stay with other friends in their house in the countryside. we were very disappointed, but thankful to our friends. i had felt that everything was encouraging us to go to france. all the little signs were pointing that way, so i didn’t understand why this would happen.

thank you again, to all our friends and family who were so helpful and supportive and who really took care of us. we are very grateful.

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