the too huge world | goodbye, oregon

I have a favorite quote. It's been a favorite since college, but I've never found a better use for it than at this point in our lives. I'm sure you've read it, but here it is again - for your enjoyment: “What is the feeling when you're driving away from people, and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? -it's the too huge world vaulting us, and it's good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.” - Jack Kerouac I'm not sure what it is about us, that part of us that compares today to what was a year ago.  Okay, in all fairness, maybe that's not so much an 'us' - I shouldn't blindly lump humankind into the way my own little brain thinks through time.  Let me rephrase:  I'm not sure what it is about me that compares my days to what they were a year ago.  I'm sitting in a ginormous airplane right now,  My sweet Livy is trying with all her might to stay awake next to me.  She's convinced she can beat jet lag before it even sets in.  Drew's little feet are kick kicking the back of my seat.  I'm not sure if he has to go to the bathroom or if he's implementing Livy's 'stay awake' strategy.  Zoey is busy watching music videos (probably entirely inappropriate ones), and keeps nudging me to turn it to channel 6 to see Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" - yup, just as I suspected: inappropriate.  Steve is wild eyed and spent, also in the row behind me, trying to mathematically calculate the landforms beneath us based on the time we left as compared to the flight pattern he's so carefully studied.

It's 10:10pm, or is it 12:10pm?  Geez, or is it 8:10am?  To be honest, it doesn't really matter what time it is.  I'm beat.  We're beat.  Bedtime for us has been about 2:30am, Madras time, for about the last month.  And by us, I wish I meant just Steve and I - no, I mean all of us.  I guess the air mattresses the kids have been sleeping on since the end of June haven't proven to be so restful.  The camp chairs in our living room haven't invited us in for family visits like our couch and comfy chairs used to.  The barren walls made home feel more like a vacation rental than a place to reconnect and make plans for an event packed summer, as the years passed have offered.  It sounds like I'm complaining.  I'm not.  It's just all so different.

Did I mention I'm suspended thousands of miles, okay maybe not thousands of *miles* - but a lot of feet above the ground and it may or may not be 10:19pm?  Did I also mention that I got up at 4:30am?  And again at 5:15?  Then at 6:08?  Then 6:39, and finally for real at 7?  Did I mention I've been in the air for the majority of the last day? Did I mention that our entire last day in Madras went off like a cruel prank? Oh, allow me to elaborate. I love to elaborate.

Imagine, but not too hard, a person (me), getting up bright and early to tackle the last bits of packing and prepping for an adventure of a lifetime. That productive day would start, of course, with a shower.  Imagine that someone (maybe Steve) called all of our utility companies a couple weeks ago and told them that our final day in the house would be August 21st.  Then imagine, and this will take quite the imagination, nearly all of those utility companies being efficient, maybe overly so, and actually following through with the orders promptly at 8am.  Rewind to me trying to tackle my day by starting off with a shower.  A shower that brutaly ends when the water disappears.  Then imagine that all of the clothes that we own are either packed in a suitcase or are in the washing machine.  The washing machine that has soapy water in it.   As if that weren't enough, go ahead and take it one step further and imagine me trying to reach the water company by looking their number up on my iphone.  What? Oh, right.  The cable company also got the memo to be uber efficient for the Canfields and turned off our internet.  No.  We don't have 4G in Madras.  We don't have any 'G' in Madras. Half the time I don't even have service in our own house in Madras.  Can't find the number to the water company. Who even owns a phone book anymore? Turns out they do still have a use, in very peculiar circumstances. And so it begins.  Destination Doha. Take all of that in mind as you read this, my first traveling blog post.  

Back to one year ago.  One year ago, we were living in Madras, Oregon.  I had come to terms with the idea of being a substitute teacher for at least the upcoming school year.  What?  Go ahead and try to tell me that anyone wants to be a substitute teacher. (Turns out it was one of my favorite jobs.)  One year ago I could fall into a fit of tears at the mere thought of Drew starting kindergarten.  One year ago we were making plans to go school clothes shopping.  Picking out new backpacks.  Trying to figure out how Drew and Noah could still be buddies when they would be going to different schools for the first time in their short lives. One year ago my brother was still alive.  One year ago my mom didn't have breast cancer. One year ago life was a lot different. One year ago I was planning Zoey's Justin Bieber party for her 11th birthday. One year ago Zoey actually liked Justin Bieber. Gasp. One year.  It's not such a long time.  A lot has changed in those 365 days.  A. lot.   I think it may be safe to say that on a number of levels that one year has been more defining than any other of all the years before.  It wasn't my favorite year.  But now?  Now I see that so much of what made that year, is why we're here right now.  Hovering above the clouds.  On our way to Doha.  Doha.  We're on our way to Doha, Qatar.  How weird is that?  It's crazy.  It's also amazing.  We're excited.  We all are.  It's time for a fresh start.  A wise friend said to me, "be careful, the grass isn't always greener..."  Well... if you could have seen the color of our grass when we drove away from that barren house...you may disagree.   It's a crazy tidal wave of feelings right now.  I could barely say goodbye to the people I'll miss so much.  Who am I kidding.  I really didn't say goodbye.  I hid outside, unable to contain myself, willing my entire person 48 hours forward in time - past the goodbyes. Past that horrible feeling when even though I know it's not goodbye - it's different.  It's different because it has to be.  I don't so much like that part.  I do like the part where we move our entire family to a new country. The part where the kids will get an amazing education, and I'm not even referring to their direct education in school.  This experience will change them forever.  It will change all of us. And I can't think of a better time for that to happen.   I miss my people, our people, already.  My heart hurts.  Right now I'm listening to a playlist Steve made for us in April.  We titled it "Onward and Upward".  Onward and Upward.  Three words one of my favorite people said to me at a time when life felt anything but on or up.  It turns out she was right.  Onward and upward we go.

More from Doha.  As soon as I figure out what time it's supposed to be.