Change of Plans

As I set my bags down in a bungalow on Koh Samui it was a relief to finally be oceanside after months of romping around Burma and India (not that I’m complaining). I had tentative plans for the next few months. Armed with a work visa, I would fly to Australia in a few weeks to find a job for several months. After refilling the kitty, I would fly to South America to travel and work for around a year. I had all sorts of ideas about how things would play out, but as Woody Allen once said “If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.”

I hadn’t spoken with my parents in a while and decided to skype them before I went out for the evening, only to be blindsided by news that changed everything:

1)    Our family vet had just arrived at the house and was about to put down our 14 year old dog, Sandy. I watched the whole thing go down on skype and succeeded little in keeping it together. It was a powerful thing to lose a member of the family, a piece of my childhood. And it was weird being in a tropical paradise as I watched it happen almost 9,000 miles away.

2)    No where close to having recovered from this event, my parents inform me that my 22 year old sister, Haley, who has been living with her boyfriend in Brazil for about a year, will be getting married there.

In 6 weeks.

Mind: BLOWN.

 

Flights from Asia to Brazil were insanely expensive. Eventually I found that buying a one-way ticket from Singapore to America, then another one-way ticket from America to Brazil was the most economical way to go. So, silver lining: I would get to come home for 2 weeks.

This, I must say, was most welcome news. By this point I was thoroughly sick of my clothes. Operating on a 4 t-shirt rotation for 7 months ain’t so easy, ya dig. And most importantly, though this turn of events had certainly messed up my plans, I found immense solace knowing that I would soon be with people I’d spent so much time missing.

I decided to tell no one that I was coming home. The potential for a grand surprise was too tempting, especially since no one expected me back for ages. I notified a couple of confederates to help me plot an entrance.

On August 8^th, 7 months after leaving home I flew from Singapore to Delhi where I waited through 2 hours of security (only in India can such structural chaos be found), and then endured a 15 hour layover before boarding a flight to JFK. I had the pleasure of sitting next to two 14 year old girls who got me up to speed on all the haps at school; there’s this girl named Jill for example who’s SUCH a social climber, she’s so fake it’s ridiculous (big ups to all the real girlz out there), and a soccer player named Rob who is really hot and a nice guy AND he can sing too! Thank you, heavenly father, for inventing Ambien.

We touched down around 7am. What a feeling to be back in New York! I took the subway to Morgan Ave, my old stomping groups, and rendezvoused with my former roommate Zack at a café across the street from my apartment.  We hugged – really, really hard. Zack’s younger brother Ian, my former roommate and best friend from college, still lives in my apartment and had just fallen asleep after working a night shift.

When I opened the door to 205 I took just a moment to take it all in, the place where I’d spent the best 2 and a half years of my life. Then I sat down at the piano to rouse Ian from his slumber with one of my signature songs. Zack filmed Ian’s reaction. I’m so happy to have this footage. Enjoy.

I took a bus to Boston the next day. As fate would have it, a band called Birds of Spray featuring three good friends of mine had a big gig in Boston that evening, and everyone was going. How perfect that my entire group of friends from high school were gathered in one place on the eve of my surprise return home.

The reaction to my arrival at Copperfields is something I’ll never forget. When you’re on the road for a long time, stripped of support systems integral to the formation and validation of your identity, it’s quite something to be reminded via an avalanche of hugs and eager questions that you’re loved. My friends are awesome.

FYI, Birds of Spray features Blake Raphael (lead guitar, high pitched vocals, jorts) Andrew Smith (drums, shredded abs), Teddy Griswold (base, future US President). They’re legit and I recommend checking them out. Like, right now.

 

A few days later I went back to New York for 5 days. It was great to relive the glory days, yet strange to be a guest in my old apartment where I had once ruled with an iron fist.

Evan Fisher, with whom I rode on motorbikes across Vietnam and plunged through India, my travel companion for over 2 months, happened to be passing through the city on his way home from a year of travel. Merriment ensued.

 

There are many more anecdotes I’d love to share, and many friends of mine who deserve mention, I mean I could go on and on, but the title of this blog isn’t MilesIsHome. I’ll throw in just one more:

I went with my friend Lucas, who’s now living in my old room, to my favorite rooftop lounge in the city – Le Bain on top of the Standard Hotel. After a drink or two we were about to head home when the cocktail waitress told us we’d have to leave our table because they were only accommodating bottle service at this time. I didn’t mind since we were leaving anyways. Lucas was infuriated. Lucas, who is from Haiti, took this as an assumption that, as a black man, he couldn’t afford bottle service. This was racism goddamit, and he wouldn’t stand for it, not for one second. Defiantly he demanded we be seated and ordered $200 champagne. That’ll show her. The waitress later asked if we were mad at her and I replied that my friend was upset because she had assumed we weren’t “men of means.” A couple of complimentary cocktails followed suite. Good times.

It was at once wonderful and refreshing to see so many people I’d missed so much and for so long. Still, I was unable to make time for too many friends, and that sucked. Seeing my parents and Coco (my other dog, Sandy’s sister) was incredible. It felt like I’d just finished exams, like I was refueling the tank.

And just like that, the 16 day pit stop was over and I found myself once again en route to Logan Airport, with no clue when I would be back.

Chapter 2: South America.