As I write this, Patrick and I are sitting in gate K11 at O’Hare, with two hours to go before our flight, and about eight or nine hours until we depart the country from Los Angeles. We’ve said our goodbyes to almost everyone now; to my mom and dad and sister, with long hugs at the curb beside the American Airlines departure terminal. To our friends, almost all of whom were with us this past weekend in Pittsburgh for the wedding. To my family in Maine and to Patrick’s parents a month ago in Minneapolis.

We have been counting down, measuring the time remaining first in months, then weeks, then days, and now in hours. We have been shedding possessions like snakes discarding their old skins. Reducing what we carry to the bare minimum. There is still shedding left to do, and there are still a few goodbyes to come.

With us now are our backpacks, checked through to Jakarta; an orange nylon totebag filled with snacks and sandwiches for the upcoming two days of travel; my blue rice-bag shoulder bag; and a small wheeled carry-on suitcase that holds our nice clothes for the wedding in Jakarta next week. That bag will return to Philadelphia with one of our friends, the friends who will constitute the last remaining goodbyes when they depart Indonesia and we stay on.

And all of this is about logistics. Packing up your whole life and preparing to be vagabonds for a year takes so much planning and so much coordination that it has felt like a more-than-full-time job since we left our full-time jobs a few weeks ago. There has been very little time to lean back in a chair, close my eyes, breathe. And so it feels like the emotional weight of all this hasn’t had a chance to catch me yet. I have been the dry-eyed one during all of my goodbyes so far, and it’s not because I won’t miss people, but I think simply because my head is buzzing with to-do lists, worries, and won’t have space for contemplation until I’m on solid ground in Indonesia.

There have been small moments -- waking up yesterday morning in my childhood bedroom in DeKalb, there was a cool summer breeze through the open window and a greenish slant of light through the tree branches and the low moan of a freight train from the tracks a few blocks to the south. And the sound was so familiar and the air smelled fresh and it was the first little glimpse of what felt like homesickness. Or maybe the first was that twinge when we drove past the Italian Market for the last time on Friday morning, and I tried to memorize those little details I love: the fonts on the produce vendors’ signs, the bright pinks and whites of cosmos and petunias, the peeling paint on door frames, the smell of coffee and smoke.

There have been a few of them, those small moments when it hits me what I have now to miss. What I have to look forward to is still vague, though it is exciting and enticing and I am leaning toward it, more and more as it gets closer.

...And now it is some 24 hours or so later -- I’ve lost track between the time zones -- and I’m sitting in a wireless hotspot in the Taipei airport waiting to depart for Jakarta. My head is swimming a little from the feeling that I’m still in motion after the 13-hour flight from L.A., but I’m awake, the sky outside is gray-blue in early morning light, and I’m happy to be more than halfway done with the long journey to Bali.

For those of you reading, welcome to our travel blog. I’m hoping that in the days, weeks, and months to come, I will find time to focus on moments and to share stories. And when the jetlag subsides and the homesickness and the emotion and the missing you all hits me, it will be all the more important to stay in touch.

With love,
Sarah