Moving On

Last night, I lit a candle, as I often do on Fridays. Actually, normally I light two, as it’s Shabbat, but last night there was only one, and its makeshift candlestick was a few drops of wax dripped onto Mark’s old hard-drive. My real candlesticks are wrapped in socks, which have been nestled in a knit hat and then deposited into a knit bag currently residing in the top of my suitcase.

I have less than an hour remaining at Pengtun Middle School.

My room is as bare as it was when I moved in—far more so, in fact, as I’ve essentially cleared it out but for a corner of the kitchen in which resides a spattering of items to hand down to next year’s fellows. I’m actually taking less than I’m leaving. I organized our last class as an “auction” where my kids could use their class points to bid on such exciting items as notebooks, bags, American money, and “Miss Emily’s Tea Mug” (which went for a frightening $800). And last night I gave my coat hangers, some bowls, and a lot of school supplies to my few students not at home for the weekend.

So, other than one small box of books I mailed last week, everything I’m carrying back to America fit into one suitcase, one briefcase, and the backpack I took with me for my new year travels. Packing, which always seems such a formidable task prior to commencement, always seems to manage to happen quite quickly once the first step is taken.

There’s going to be a lot of travel over the next day or so. A bus ride to Heqing. A night bus to Kunming. A cab to the airport. A flight to Beijing. A subway (actually three, I think) to the south train station. A train to Tianjin. Once I arrive in Tianjin, I’ll have two or three days there and a couple in Beijing before getting on the biggest plane I’ll have seen in over a year and experiencing the longest 7 minutes (4:03 on 7/21/2011 to 4:10 on 7/21/2011) of my life. Then it’ll be a short little O’Hare to Atlanta hop—a trip I’ve taken probably half a dozen times en route to Mac.

For now, there’s me and my couch and perhaps 40 minutes of stillness. Stillness has been a rarity of late, so I’m trying to enjoy it. This is, in fact, the first time I’ve written more than a couple of paragraphs (this “final” Pengtun entry has been started and interrupted at least three times). Hopefully there will be time enough to finish and post prior to getting on the road. And once I’m in Beijing I hope to finish a half-completed entry about the travels of last week’s break.

The last few days have been full of 3+ hour farewell dinners, visits from my kids, and lots of lesson planning. On Tuesday evening all the TFC fellows shared dinner and drinks and silly awards. Mine was for “Culinary Excellence” and involved two cookbooks, which’ll be fun to play with. We also got gifts from both the elementary and middle school administrations, so I now have beautiful silver bracelets that I’ll never be able to wear without thinking of this year.

This morning I finally got a chance to zen as I enjoyed a leisurely breakfast of mango-chocolate chip pancakes (a dish that would be at home in any American kitchen but for the fact that it was prepared in a wok and consumed with chopsticks). It was quiet, most students at home, the pitter-patter of what seems eternal rain competing ever so slightly with the music I was streaming.

I biked into town to drop off some pictures I’m printing for my kids, then met up with Arianne and her mother for lunch. We actually went to the same noodle place all the fellows ate at on our very first trip to Heqing, back last August. I hadn’t been since. It seemed like a nice bit of closure.

Then I went to empty my bank account and rode home with the equivalent of well over $1000 dollars in my raincoat’s inside pocket. This huge sum of cash was made even more dramatic by the fact that the highest value bill in China is 100 kuai, which means that I had many, many, many bills. I sure hope I don’t get robbed between here and Atlanta.

The rest of the day’s been quiet as I finished packing, scrubbing down my room, and making several trips to the trash pit. A couple of my girls who stay on campus most weekends called me up to the classroom, so I went to sit with them for a few minutes. I hadn’t expected to feel anything related to the space, but as I walked through the nearly empty room, seeing each student in his or her seat, I came close to tears. It was almost a relief—knowing that, despite its challenges, this year’s work has had enough positive impact on me that its end carries mourning as well as joy.

There are lots of things I need to process, and luckily once I’m home (in 6 days!!) I should have time to do just that. And I’ll probably have things to say about Beijing, and about reverse culture shock once I’m back Stateside, so this is by no means goodbye to the blog. It is goodbye to Pengtun, to Heqing, to the world that’s formed my life for the last year. As much as I’ve looked forward to this day, actually walking out of that school gate suddenly seems a heavy task. Change, even when desired, is hard. But it’s time to go.