Dec. 28: The intensity begins a few days before he leaves. It's a thick energy field that spreads through the house as L. opens drawers and slams them closed while he looks for items to pack. He swears and mutters as he rummages through the closet, sliding hangers along the rod. A tightness settles upon his face as he moves through the house collecting medications, credit cards, papers, presents, to pack. The sight of the suitcase on the bedroom floor sends the dog into a depression. He sinks to the floor, sad face on front paw.
Two nights before his departure for Venezuela, the suitcase lies open on the floor, with its future contents piled up across the bed or stacked on the floor. Between packing sessions, he talks on the computer via the Skype program with family or friends in Venezuela, probably verifying the details of when he'll arrive or what they'll do. I crawl into bed, trying not to disturb his stacks of clothes. The last thing I hear as I fall asleep is rapid Spanish conversation.
The next day, he leaves for work in a rush, mug of coffee in one hand, three eggos balanced on the other, as he hurries out the door. He has a lot to finish up today to cover everything for the two weeks he'll be gone. He has a headache, he says. His allergies are bothering him. His stomach doesn't feel right. His joints ache. I assure him it's nothing but travel anxiety. During the day, I iron the shirts and pants that he wants to take. He returns home that evening with a bouquet of roses and card, for our anniversary---I have given him a card that morning---but he doesn't want supper, says his stomach is a little upset and only wants arepas. I assure him it's nervous excitement. He spends the evening talking into the computer, packing clothes, pacing the floor, turning in mid-pace to rush back to another room for a forgotten item.
Departure day, he has already left for work when I wake up---exhausted as I am, I sleep like a baby during school vacations. Mid-morning, he calls from work to remind me that he'll be home at 12:30, and on the way to the airport, we'll pick up something to eat and also stop at the bank. He needs a certain amount of cash because he'll get a poor exchange rate if he draws it from our account while in Venezuela. The flight doesn't leave Savannah until 5:30, but he's nervous about arriving by 3:30 since Continental requires a 2-hour pre-flight arrival. Last year, when he was returning from a trip to Seattle on Continental, he was supposed to arrive one hour before the flight, was a few minutes late due to heavy traffic, and they wouldn't let him on the flight, even though there was plenty of time and no line.
Departure day, he arrives home from work at the appointed time, but absolutely has to double check the new webcast camera that he's taking to Venezuela to go on G's computer. We have a similar camera on his laptop, which he uses to talk AND see cousin Carlos and others. He's been testing both cameras using his laptop and another one of ours. He's psyched about having a camera at both ends to connect him with the familia when he's here, and also to be able to see us in real time while he's there. But right now,at 1 o'clock, departure day, he can't get the two cameras to work when he sets them up on different computers in different rooms. He runs between rooms fiddling with this setting and that, moving the eyeball-like camera to yet another laptop in the house, and is visibly distressed that he can't get a picture on one of them. I keep saying, "We'd really better leave" and he keeps saying, "Just a minute, just a minute; I'm going to get this thing to work!" The intensity flows like choppy waves through the air; I just want to get out of the way, sit quietly in a chair and continue counting the high school yearbook's Senior Superlative votes, a task that I've been working on. But I can't begin that or anything else, because every few minutes he calls for me to go to Computer Number 1 or Computer Number 2 and click this or that. The hour ticks by, and in the end, he can't get the connection to work. It's now almost 2:30. Each time I say, "We'd better go," he insists that we WILL get the camera to work. But we don't. He'll have plenty of time in Venezuela to try to hook it up from that end, so it's not the end of the world.
Finally, we're backing the car out the driveway. The traffic is very heavy going into Savannah, with post-Christmas shoppers. I remind him that we need to grab a bite on the way. P and I have both been starving but waiting to eat on the way. I assume he'll swing through some window and let us grab a burger, but he wants to eat inside because he's particular about keeping the inside of his car pristine. So we go inside, and of course it takes twice as long as it would have if we'd been allowed to eat in the car just this once. By the time we get to the bank, it's well after 3:00.
The line to the drive-through window is long, so he asks me to go inside the bank and wait in the lobby line because it might be shorter. Key word, might be. It isn't. When I return to the car, having withdrawn his required amount, it's 3:25, and now he's in a frenzy of anxiety. The traffic is still thick as he hurries down Abercorn, planning to take DeRenne to 516 to 16 to 95 to the airport. As the traffic crawls along, he taps the wheel impatiently, mutters under his breath, groans, breathes heavily. Suddenly, he twirls the wheel to the left to cut over through a side street to White Bluff, which connects with DeRenne. As he
races down the side street, he sees that White Bluff is also jammed with traffic. He swears, sighing loudly, his face drenched with anxiety. I work hard to refrain from saying one of the many things I'm thinking at this point, ranging from "Maybe we could have left the house earlier" to "Maybe we should have driven through the McDonald's window." He's gas-and-braking along White Bluff, inching in and out of lanes, brazenly cutting between slow-moving cars. We get onto DeRenne. Every red light elicits a fresh expulsion of tension. Finally, onto 1-16. The traffic is heavier than I've ever seen. It's now 3:50. He's sure he'll be too late to be allowed on the plane. He drives rapidly up 1-95. Soon we see the sign for the airport, exit on the right. A long line of cars is moving off the highway into the same exit lane ahead. They have stopped at the light, but are turning left for Wal-Mart, so L. scooches along the right side of the exit lane, bypassing the line, turns right at the light, and hurries along the airport road. Half a mile later, the road forks into "Arrivals" "Parking" and "Departures." It's now 4:00. He hops out of the car, grabs the luggage from the trunk, and tells P. to walk in with him to make sure he can get on the flight, while I wait in the humming car. Five or ten minutes later, he and P. come out the door with smiles and thumbs up signals. He has checked in his luggage. He's good to go. Luckily, he'd printed out his boarding pass at home, which made all the difference.
Okay, I admit it. As P. and I drove away, I was not unhappy to see him off. I'll begin to miss him in a few hours, but the intensity was beginning to get to me, sucking me into the vortex. I need a short break from it, okay? I know you understand!
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