Aloft

28 January 2005

I've been living in airplanes since yesterday morning at 5:30 AM. San Francisco to Denver. Change planes. Denver to Newark. There I met Roxanne, who had the tickets for the rest of our journey, at the KLM check-in. Newark to Amsterdam through the night. From 7 AM to 10 AM we wandered around the Amsterdam Airport.

I think my first taste of India was waiting at gate A25 for our flight to Delhi. A25 was the gate at the far end of one wing of the airport, much larger, and MUCH more crowded than any of the others. The boarding process was long and untidy. We stood in line for what seemed like at least an hour (though I have to say my sense of time is no longer reliable), pressed on all sides by people. Families with small children were called to board first; beyond that it was more or less a free-for-all. But once inside the plane, we were back in the Netherlands. The flight thus far has been pleasant, the airplane very clean, and the flight attendants very blonde.

We will arrive in Delhi at 1 AM local time, I'm told. I have no idea at all what time that is in Pacific Standard time, which is the last stable time I experienced. I didn't take a watch on this journey, though in Amsterdam that seemed like a mistake, and Roxanne and I spent a good portion of our layover looking for a travel alarm in those upscale airport shops. We didn't find one or at least we didn't find one worth the euros it cost. Maybe you are right, Frank, and India won't require knowing what time it is.

I certainly don't know what time it is now.

Berkeley

There are no trains from San Luis now, either north or southbound, because of the mudslides earlier this month. Instead, Amtrak provides the most train-like bus service they can manage. Tom drove me to the station after we dropped Linnea at the high school. One man, always the same man as far as I know, minds the train station, selling tickets, making the announcements, answering the phone, carrying baggage. The station itself is spacious, solid and clean, tiled in what I know know is uniquely Californian tile. The bus was similarly clean and surprising light and airy.

I pulled out Linnea's CD player and listened to the last third of Vann Martell's fantastic Story of Pi as we climbed Cuesta Grade, the sides of the mountains vibrant green in the morning sun. It was in the period in the book when Pi was blind, and speaking with Richard Parker, the Bengal tiger, for the first time. Great story. Just as we pulled into the train station in San Jose a few hours later, the reader came to the final lines. Such a tidy conclusion seems auspicious.

The trains are running north from San Jose, so I took the Capital, which makes some local stops along the East Bay before continuing to Sacramento. At one I point looked out from my second floor seat and saw water almost as far as I could see on both sides of the train. Lisa, Martin and the two little boys met me at the station in Berkeley. It was early, only two in the afternoon, so after dropping off my bags at the house, we set out along a footpath to Cordonices Park. An elaborate network of footpaths in Berkeley curves between the streets and houses, offering a intimate view of gardens, eccentrically ornate gates, and occasional cameos of the fog-draped hills. Though the path was damp and muddy, Jeremy, who's just five, ran along confidently, pulling me by the hand.

In the park there is a long, concrete slide, built right into the hillside. Pieces of wet cardboard, used to make the slide faster on dryer days, littered the ground at its bottom. Jeremy and Martin went down slow and damp a few times but it was much more fun to join in the project when a ten year old boy brought over a vehicle he'd built with K'nex, a pair of two inch high rubber tires attached together like a bicycle. Soon Martin and Jeremy were constructing jumps and tunnels from the cardboard as the boy ran up the stairs to release the toy.

Brendan and Jessica joined us for a Vietnamese meal downtown before we headed back to get an early night. We'd be getting up at 4.

Last day at home

Today is the first day in well over a month that I have been at home alone. James left early, early, this morning on the first leg of his own journey, six months in Africa, beginning in Uganda. He arrives the day after I arrive in Delhi. Marcus, the Brazilian student, is gone, too, in Albuquerque now, and flying back to Brazil tomorrow, three of us en route at the same time. Juliet is at work, Linnea at school, and Tom is teaching.

Fortunately, most of my preparations are complete. This morning I still went downtown to buy a blue microfiber towel , very light and very absorbent, and a tiny flashlight.

When I came home, it was mid-morning and the winter sun was slanting low into the front garden, lighting the new bench where the stone cat lies sleeping softly. I sat down and pulled out a pad to jot down a few thoughts for my family. Are they aware that I wash the kitchen floor at least twice a week? Seneca joined me, lying in the shade of the bench. I saw that the goldfinches discovered that I'd filled their feeder a few days ago.

Later I packed my bags, then unpacked them and packed them again, three times. I have one small suitcase on wheels, a good backpack, and a shoulder bag with more nooks and crannies than I could use.

The crannies begged me to fill them. Soon I had my whole collection of Dog Beach stones spread out on the carpet. Very carefully, I chose a few small stones to take with me, perhaps to leave in some special place, or with some special person. I also chose ten very small ones to form a tetraktys . Moving things about to pull out the little drawstring bag I wanted to put the stones in, I came across John Strohmeier and Peter Westbrook's book on Pythagoras, Divine Harmony , so I packed it along with the novel, Sister India , I'm taking for the plane ride.

Seems like the right stuff to take. Now, anyhow. I wonder what I'll discover I've forgotten and what I'll never even take out of the suitcase.

Tonight I'll have dinner with my family, then, in the morning, take the bus and the train to Berkeley, and spend tomorrow night with my grown children in Berkeley. How lovely that I am able to spend time with all my children before setting out on this great adventure! At 6 AM Thursday, I'll board the plane to New York where I'll meet Roxanne and we'll fly together to Amsterdam and to Delhi.

I think I'll be a different person when I come back.

Visa

I've got four days now before I leave. For the last three days I was in Berkeley, staying with my kids and grandchildren, and navigating the streets of San Francisco to get my visa.

It was a pleasant experience. The Indian Consulate is in the section of San Francisco near the ocean, between those two wonderful parks, Golden Gate and the Presidio. We took the car after examining the transit maps and deciding it wasn't worth all the bus and BART changes we'd have to make to get there from North Berkeley, and our route took us along California Street, right up Nob Hill, past Grace Cathedral and the Mark Hopkins and down again. I was relieved to be driving the Prius, which is an automatic. Those were some hill starts. Lisa dropped me off at the consulate and took the car and the boys to the park. We intended to reconnect by cell phone when I was done. If it looked like I could use a companion with better hearing, I would call her back early to help.

The consulate is a small building tucked away in a residential neighborhood, its interior even more humble than its exterior. I walked into a cramped entry. To my left was a waiting room lined with old wooden chairs, A couple of clerks sat behind windows on the left. Some Indian people in traditional dress were seated in the chairs, a few more were speaking with the clerks, and one other American was standing in line. An Indian man in a tidy grey suit was speaking with one of the traditionally dressed Indian men. A lit up sign between the clerks' windows announced, "Now Serving 56."

Realizing I needed a number, I went back into the entry and found a machine like the one at the bakery. I was number 63, so I took out my paperwork and settled into one of the chairs in the waiting room. I can do this, I thought. The lit up sign announcing the numbers made me feel secure enough not to call my daughter. Then I noticed another sign, an ordinary piece of paper attached with a single strip of tape to the wooden divider between the windows. "1. Have all paperwork completed before taking a number. 2. Write your name in block capital letters on the piece of paper given to you by the security guard." What? What security guard? What piece of paper?

I went over and asked the other American if she had written her name in block capital letters on a piece of paper given to her by the security guard. She had not. Just then the man in the grey suit came by and I realized that he was probably the guard. I asked for the piece of paper. Sure enough, he leaned into the clerk's window, tore a 3x5 slip of paper off a pad and handed it to me. I wrote my name on it in block capital letters.

When my number came up, I had my $60 in cash, my name in block capital letters, my passport, and my completed paperwork with two passport photos ready. I pushed them under the plexi-glass shield and the clerk rang up the payment on a old-fashioned cash register. She stamped the slip of paper with a rubber stamp, initialed it, stapled the cash register receipt to it, and gave it back to me. As she did that, she said something to me that sounded very much like "Come back at 2," which surprised me, because I had read the instructions over and over on the website, and I was certain the consulate reopened at 2:30. To be sure, I asked the security guard on my way out. Good thing I did, because 2 was the right time. If I'd come back at 2:30, he explained, I would have had to stand in line again. At 2, you just come in and out with your passport and new visa.

Lisa and the boys and I went to the arboretum and had a nice lunch in the Beach Chalet. At 2 I came back to the consulate, walked in confidently, and found both windows closed. I was standing there looking forlorn, I think, when a man in a turban with a neat beard and a waxed handlebar mustache came by and told me I should be at window number one, around the corner. He showed me where it was. Apparently the clerk had told me about window number one, but I had missed that part entirely. Oh well. As we were walking over, I noticed that the man's beard was actually very, very long. It was parted at the center and twisted round and round till it tucked into his turban!

At window number one, I handed back my receipt and the paper with my name in block capital letters and a clerk pulled my passport out of some wooden cubbyholes and gave it to me. Now I have a nice new visa, and that part of my preparation is complete.

Now to pack.