Coming Together

We may have a renter; a family came to look at the house for a second visit, and the house was clean and presentable today, so it my happen! We may have to be out by July 1! I wonder where we will live through July. It may be that I will have to close everything up earlier than planned. I ought to be more agitated about it; instead, I feel relieved. We will ramp up our moving date! Yeah!

I look back and have to admit that it is only ten weeks or so that we have been organizing the house, and I have been gone for two weeks of that, so that reduces the torture to only about eight weeks. I have let it irritate and overwhelm me, but with the end in sight, I am looking forward to our move. I will check the airfares and try to focus more on closing at least one of the offices by th end of June.

Eric will be teaching in Woods Hole for eight weeks, so Maya and I will be alone in Baltimore for several weeks, visiting Cape Cod on the weekends. Maya will be in a ballet camp and I will be in the office wading through gargantuan quantities of paperwork. My secretary has stopped filing for me. I am not sure if that is because it is such a disaster in the office (it really isn't too awful, I am just trying to understand her behaviour) or as a revolt because I am leaving. I do not expect to return to two offices; that has been far too complicated. After a year away, I will want a more simple life.

I am actually feeling a smidgen of excitement. It is starting to bubble up a bit here and there. Eric and I have worked hard and accomplished alot. I went on the Canadian Embassy website and registered for my stay in Ecuador. Eric, Tara and Maya will sign up with the American Embassy. Although I am sure that if necessary the Americans will be helpful to me, at least as far as I am related to three American citizens, I did not have a good experience with the American Embassy in Rome. I had been there with Tara and Maya several years ago when my wallet was stolen (very skillfully in the subway between the main train station and the Vatican). My green card vanished along with credit cards and cash and I realized immediately what happened and was able to report to the police and walk over to the Spanish Steps and the very reliable American Express office and get some cash and a new credit card. However, without a green card, I could not return to the United States. I called the American Embassy in Rome several times initally asking, and later begging for the appropriate papers to get me back into the US. They rebuffed me over and over again and told me that my children ( 2 and 12 at the time) were welcome to return without me and that I had no status in the US and they would not help me. I was in a panic, running thorugh the streets of Rome to my hotel, to the police, to the Embassy, which was heavily fortified after 9-11. I kept calling them trying to convince someone to help me. I hung out at the Cafe de Paris on Via Veneto eating gelato with the children,waiting for some sign that I could enter the embassy. After a few days I finally was given permission to enter the courtyard of the embassy, with Tara and Maya in tow, to argue my case and procure a letter which would facilitate my passage through immigration. I did finally return to the United States, but have had difficutly entering through immigration almost every time I go through. I have been at Dulles for six hours in immigration. In Maimi it is usually three hours. The immigration officers keep reminding me of my unfortunate status in the United States. But not enough to convince me to get American citizenship. I suppose after 20 years of living in the United States, I am American, but I cannot quite make that step. It would make my travel so much easier.

I expressed my hesitation about our move to more than one patient today. My impression is that my patients were doing the therapy today, encouraging me, supporting me, making me feel far better as the day progressed. One in particular was so convincing that her words keep resonating! This year in Ecuador will be an incredible one; we will be marveling about it for the rest of our lives.