One Foot Out the Door (Micah)

Joanie's packing skills persevered yet again. After a week of deciding what to keep, what to sell, stuffing everything into boxes, recruiting friends and strangers to save all the stuff (clothes/records/kitchen supplies, etc) we don't want from the trash - we're all moved out.

Our new home (for everything but our travel gear and my record collection - which is house sitting at a friend's apartment in Brooklyn) is a 5' x 10' storage unit in Ridgewood, Queens. I doubted the space was big enough for everything (you accumulate a lot of crap living in one place for 5 years) but Joanie the Tetris Master packed it all in in 3 hours with enough room leftover for a the bed and dresser we gave away earlier in the day.

The loft - pre move.

One final look at our denuded loft.

Just a few more things to accomplish before our China Eastern Airways flight on Sunday: 一路平安 (bon voyage) party at the Williamsburg Beer Garden, call everyone to say I'll talk to you on Skype, get our anti malarial pills, take a deep breath and embrace the unknown.

I'm looking forward to the blank slate ahead of us. The pit in the stomach after arriving in a new city, no reservation (disclaimer: we do have the 1st night reserved in Beijing, but that's it the entire trip), not knowing where we're headed or where exactly we'll end up.

It's human, elemental survival: struggling to find ourselves amidst the swirl of the new, unknown, explored, but not by us. There's a new person on the other side of this abyss, the most beautiful, alluring, humbling place one could be and i look forward to meeting him (and her).

Two more days.

China here we come.