For seemingly endless months, I talked about a potential job in the Persian Gulf. With the economy slowly emerging from the precipice of collapse and stabilizing to a recovery that is still a long, hard slog, an opportunity to work abroad in a region that was the focus of my recent graduate studies seemed too good to be true.
In a few weeks I move to one of the gulf states to assume my position with a non-profit initiative. After 15 years in New York City, I packed up my loft in the winter to await the contract and over the months edited, culled and re-edited what I consider the essential must-haves for triple-digit heat, sand storms and untold travel adventures. To kill time and/or assuage nerves over the spring and summer, web trolls for weekly sailing and scuba certification classes, sandsurfing in the Arabian and Egyptian dunes, surfing on Masirah Island, (long) jaunts to Borneo and yoga bootcamp in Mysore, painted an exciting future in the abstract.
Chronicling a colorful reality of assimilation as well as the hilarity of the absurd is the purpose of this space. Many friends have treated me to farewell lunches, dinners, coffees, drinks, ... over the months of imminent departure. A comment shared by a particularly dear person (during a fabulous Elderflower Martini lunch at Marseille on 44th & 9th) comes to mind as especially prescient with the exit almost realized: depression is the rent you pay for living in the house of desire.
Stay tuned for initial impressions ...my first day on the ground is the first day of Ramadan and it will be over 100 degrees everyday, until October. Maybe.
Oh, and two words for acquaintances/friends of family/friends who have expressed reluctant enthusiasm at the geography of my next step: Timothy McVeigh.
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