Don't get me wrong: there's no place I'd rather have my permanent address than New York City. Everything I love and that frustrates me about the world is packed into this one dense finger of land jutting into the ocean. As I write, Chicano music thumps my floor and the neighbor downstairs is singing. I hear the wailing son of an Indian woman, who is making her way up the stairs, wrapped head to foot in a colorful sari. She always shrinks away from me when I pass her with my nearly toothless dog. The neighbor across the hall just knocked on the door and gave me a steaming bowl of tamales wrapped in corn husks. The Albanian super is yelling at his Puerto Rican assistant, every other word punctuated by profanity. When he talks to me, he calls me "Ms. Julie" and apologizes when he curses, saying "Excuse my English." He occasionally invites us over for sausage and hard liquor from "my country." When we accept the invitation, he orders his sweet wife to pour some wine for me and pulls on his belt threateningly but also, somehow, comically when his son gets rowdy.  

Still. Everything in the past week has whispered "Go." Not "Go" as in leave New York permanently, but "Go" as in "Three months standing still--even in the city that's always moving--is your limit." We get an e-mail from someone we don't know, inviting us on a recorrido of Che's trail in Bolivia. It's tempting even before I know whether it's legit. Our friends in Puerto Rico send a flood of messages all at once-- can we come in June to see Arturo's lecture on Afro-Cuban influence on tango music? Would we like to house sit for friends in December? I'm ready to book tickets. Ross sends a message about an upcoming article-- 10 Reasons to Travel to Iran NOW--and I think about a former client who told me about the rich history of literature in her country. Over steaming cups of tea, while I was supposed to be giving her therapy, she gave me a history of Persian poetry and we talked about Hafiz and Rumi, the best therapy there is. I can't wait to read the article, but I don't need to be convinced to go. And then there's Richard's Casa Amarilla in Mompos, Colombia... that's the one that really snags me and I spend hours researching how Francisco's documents can be put in order in time to pull this one off. I'm a pathetic peripatetic. But I wouldn't have it any other way.