I'm leaving on a jet plane

So another year and another travelogue to be initiated. I don't know how, but the last 3/4 years have seen me bounce around the globe with no real reason. And since it's a new year with so many new resolutions (that mostly won't be kept), it is also the right time to pack my bags and fly away.

This time it's to Raleigh, NC, and it is work related. Duration is still not clear to me, but I think it can be anything from a month to 6 months! I really do hope it's the first. Because I think a month would be enough for me to get some substantial work done and exhaustively see the surrounding areas so that I'm able to write-off another city from my checklist.

I'm sure that I've mentioned more then once that I love travelling, it's just the idea of living out of a bag that really fascinates me. Not really too many worries (apart from the meeting of the mandatory deadlines), and no real plans. And the instant ability to just walk away in no direction with no destination. Just being there in the moment.

But as the years pass me by, this urge to pack up and leave, though still there, does diminish in intensity, and I won't be totally surprised if it's gone completely in the next 5 years. But again I won't be surprised if it's rejuvinated and alive then, I guess then I'd know that the nomad in me won't die before me.

But yes, it is a wonderful feeling to be able to get these oppurtunities where everything around me changes (for the good or bad is irrelevant here), and what this does is that at the end of the day when I come back to all those I love, it's like I'm getting together with them after ages of agonizing seperation, and it's the first date all over again!

So here's to this wonderful plan called life, and to all of us living it day by day, finding ingenious methods of evolution with every passing moment.

It's like swimming off into the ocean, I mean from the beach it looks so amazing, all mixed up with the sun and sparkling with energy and a promise of ever lasting youth, and then you begin to swim away. The water around your body tugs and pulls and pushes you, giving you a complete curtain of safety...finally the limbs begin to tire and the breath starts to get irregular. You start contemplating the return to the shore. And slowly you turn back, this time not swimming with all the energy you have, but with the experience of a man who's tested the waters many times over the years. Conserving all the energy you have, making the most distance with the minimum effort. And finally, after an eternity, you reach the shore, and for a moment you just feel the sand under you feet, and the air in you lungs, still standing waist deep in the water. And suddenly the beach is the surest thing you've seen and you fall in love with it all over again. It's the love you have for your home, for where you belong too, for the beach is all that and more, it's also your portal to the unknown, a way to escape whenever things get too well defined.

So my little trips, they're just that, they're the swim off into the ocean to taste the unknown every now and then, but it's the beach I am coming back to, Allah willing!

Let me leave you here with the song I hum everytime I swim away...

Have fun!

I'm ... I'm ...

All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go
I'm standin' here outside your door
I hate to wake you up to say goodbye

But the dawn is breakin', it's early morn
The taxi's waitin', he's blowin' his horn
Already I'm so lonesome I could die

So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you'll wait for me
Hold me like you'll never let me go

'Cause I'm leaving on a jet plane
I don't know when I'll be back again
Oh, babe, I hate to go

I'm ...

There's so many times I've let you down
So many times I've played around
I'll tell you now, they don't mean a thing

Every place I go, I think of you
Every song I sing, I sing for you
When I come back I'll wear your wedding ring

So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you'll wait for me
Hold me like you'll never let me go

'Cause I'm leaving on a jet plane
I don't know when I'll be back again
Oh, babe, I hate to go

Now the time has come to leave you
One more time, oh, let me kiss you
And close your eyes and I'll be on my way

Dream about the days to come
When I won't have to leave alone
About the times that I won't have to say ...

Oh, kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you'll wait for me
Hold me like you'll never let me go

'Cause I'm leaving on a jet plane
I don't know when I'll be back again
Oh, babe, I hate to go

And I'm leaving on a jet plane
I don't know when I'll be back again
Oh, babe, I hate to go

But I'm leaving on a jet plane
(Ah ah ah ah)
Leaving on a jet plane
(Ah ah ah ah)
Leaving on a jet plane
(Ah ah ah ah)
Leaving on a jet plane
(Ah ah ah ah)
Leaving on a jet plane
(Ah ah ah ah)
Leaving on a jet plane
(Ah ah ah ah)
Leaving on a jet plane
(Ah ah ah ah)
Leaving on a jet plane
(Ah ah ah ah)
(Leaving) On a jet plane