The Days Are Winding Down...

The days are winding down. Soon it’ll be time to transition. I’ve been selling and giving away pieces of my life, my Fender Strat, clothes and various paraphernalia from my life. It’s interesting to think about what I can’t give away: the coconut monkey drinking a cervesa that I bought after the Ziggy and the Wailers concert in Salvador, the Pakistani wooden camel my host family gave to me while I was swimming in the South Asian International Schools Association swim meet, old Tae-Kwan-Do belts that are longer than I was tall when I earned them, a plethora of school t-shirts detailing my athletic prowess in cotton goodness. These symbols of memories and experience, firmly rooted to my book shelf, my record player, my closet. Then there are my photos of it all. My life in still fits in a little cardboard box that’s 4x6x4 inches.

Earlier this summer, my family went through our house and tried to get rid of the junk we’ve acquired after twenty years and three continents. As one among many pack-rats I have to admit, we don’t do well with extra space. Corners of our house lose their right angles to junk, chairs become a source of storage space, and abandoned artifacts wait for us in dark corners. We met with some mild success. I found out that every member in my family has at least one weak spot for a very specific kind of junk. My mother has two, yarn and clothes. I found clothes in her closet that had never been worn, tags peeking awkwardly from pockets, as if the clothes were aware and ashamed of their uselessness. We found yarn in four separate rooms in my house, scattered into secret heaps so that at any point in time my mother was no further than ten feet from a spool of yarn. It reminds me of New York and rats. My father’s hunting and gardening supplies grow like weeds, sprawling out from the designated spots in the garage and the basement until they take over. My brother had the least amount of trouble, because I don’t think he got rid of anything he really cared about, but that’s alright because he’s always kept a tidy room, something he didn’t inherit from my parents and to be honest, he’s better for it.

As for me, I found that I had the most trouble getting rid of my books. I had amassed a veritable armada of classics, 101 text books, Far Side comics and fantasy novels. They adorned my book shelves like big game trophies, proof that I had read them, dissected them and could talk at length about all of them. The shelves held my books and my books held my self-esteem, to a certain extent. What struck me profoundly was my attachment to the books before and after I moved them out of my room. Before they were all artifacts, afterwards they were pounds of pages, nothing more than paper and binding. I found myself losing interest in keeping them as if I knew that bringing them back into my room was an act of finality, that if they moved back upstairs they’d never leave.

My friends are moving in masses back home and who can blame them? We’ve graduated into the worst economic climate since Reagan was in office. It’s gotten so bad that part of the Hispanic population is moving back to their country of origin because of the lack of employment, a sure-sign of the economic apocalypse. They say it’s getting better, but I feel we’re sticking

band-aids on arterial wounds. We need a tourniquet, not Neosporin. We need to do a little spring cleaning, and cut off dead limbs. I fear that our economic instability will only entrench ourselves deeper into the safe havens we know, until one day when the fear lifts, we may not have the strength to follow through with our adventures. Roots only grow deeper with time.

Joining the Peace Corps is a gamble, in exchange for two years of my life; I’ve been presented with the opportunity of a life time. I haven’t felt this excited about anything in years, not since I played in the state championship. I feel very fortunate to be in this moment. The possibilities of what I can do with the next two years are more than enough to keep me

up at night. When I leave Ukraine I want to accomplish several goals: I want to be fluent in Russian/Ukrainian, I want to become proficient in writing grants, I want to write as much as I possibly can, I'll do my best to update this blog regularly, respond to letters promptly and most importantly, I hope to impact the lives of the people I work and live with in Ukraine for the better.

My personal evaluation upon leaving Ukraine will be simple. All I need to hear to know I’ve done a good job is "Sam, I am glad to have known you." It's not very ambitious but that's all right, it doesn't need to be ambitious. Henderson had it right, "I need human voices and intelligence. That’s all that’s left. Kindness and love” (316). This is what I intend to bring with me to Ukraine, kindness and love. However, I'll have to temper my optimism with realism. The days ahead will be difficult, very difficult but I am ready. I am ready for the challenge... or at least as ready as I can be. Of course who has ever been “ready” for the great journey ahead of them? Was Frodo ready? Was Henderson ready? I've been given the tools I'll need to reach my destination. The only qualities I need now are courage and determination.

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Saul Bellow once wrote, "Everybody needs his memories. They keep the wolf of insignificance from the door." After it's all said and done, when I return from Ukraine I know it'll be worth the loss of two years here in America because I’m preparing the house that will hold my memories. My parents provided the foundation, my friends have provided the walls and my experiences have hammered, screwed and welded them together to create a shelter from storms. This summer has been about cleaning up the clutter; it’s about finding those memories that will always have a place to stay in my house. And so I’d like to take a moment and thank everyone I’ve called friend. If the only decent thing about me is that I’ve loved certain people in my life, know that you are among them. Friends and Family, I am glad to have known you, I’m a better person for having known you and I hope to see you again as soon as I’m back with a stunningly attractive accent… and maybe a wife. We’ll see what happens, that’s what’s so exciting about life.