Week 5: Audience & Adult Memoir

The summer we decided to leave.

    The summer we decided to leave was not different than the many summers before. Hot blazing days survived only by the help of air conditions and somewhat cooler nights, spent mostly outside on the open deck with huge glasses of cold coffee. Early in the morning I would stand and watch the desert from the big windows of our dining room, facing east. I loved the view, the sun slowly climbing up over the Edom Mountain range, on the Jordanian side of the border.

It was not the first time my husband and I considered leaving and going on a long journey unconfined by time. The idea was brewing for some time, surfacing for a minute and then returning to that place where all the untimely ideas are kept. But that summer, it refused to fade away, and kept coming up, until it became an inseparable part of every conversation we had. We could no longer disregard the feelings of anger and frustration, but most of all the heaviness that shadowed us everywhere we went. This heaviness colored everything we did, every meeting, every conversation, with a gray tint. At times it was impossible to see through it the true rich colors of the desert we used to love so much.

The summer we decided to leave when I was standing there, looking outside the windows, I would summon up all the good times. The moments of excitement that accompanied our first years in the small town at the edge of the desert. How I felt every time I looked at the distant, hazy mountains and caught a glimpse of the sea, so blue. Every time we drove down the sharp curvatures leading to the Dead Sea almost overcome with the feelings of owe. I recalled those moments of fresh beginnings, new friends, moving into our first home. Precious moments, everyday moments, moments that will never return. Deep in my heart I knew that if I could go back in time I wouldn’t give up even one of them. But that it was time to go.

When we were getting ready to leave I looked around for days, measuring objects and views for the hundredth time and wondering. What was in that old faded couch I kept a year after year, pushing from one corner to another but still couldn’t throw away. This box full of old magazines under the table, was I really planning on reading them all? Greeting cards from people I didn’t even remember. A closet full of baby clothes, who was I keeping them for? In those last moments between the here and there my mind was playing tricks on me. Nothing looked the same. Things I used to treasure suddenly looked colorless and dull. Even my garden, in which I invested never ending hours keeping it alive in the harsh climate, looked somehow different.

When we made our mind and decided to leave we knew we were going to be criticized and misunderstood. Friends we had known for more than twenty years, and became part of the heavy feeling, will see this move as betrayal. We could foresee the misunderstanding and hurt in their eyes and the incomprehension in their questions;

“So what exactly are you going to do?”

“And for how long?”

“Isn’t it an irresponsible move?”

“What is so bad here?”

We realized we couldn’t offer a real explanation, none that could satisfactory explain our choice of action. Only that like a swimmer who has a pressing need to float to the surface of the water, we were longing for a breath of fresh air.

And so ten years ago by the end of a summer, not different than the twenty five summers that preceded it, we each packed two suitcases, gave the cats a quick pat, locked the front door and walked away.

I was often asked in the years to come how difficult it was, leaving everything behind. The only candid answer I have is that by far the most challenging part was not the physical act of leaving; it was that summer when we made the decision. It was the moments, or hours or maybe days of dealing with uncertainties and doubts. It was in the act of letting go of the known and familiar in favor of the unknown.