See, I’m late for class, as it is, but I’m not done with my homework.  A lot of folks call homework “PSets” around here.  I call it homework.  Fin.  But I digress.

So I walk toward said class, crossing the Infinite Corridor, but turn off the hallway and walk out onto one of the many sets of stone steps in Killian Court, whereupon I commence to cracking at my solutions again.  And I squeeze off part d of problem 4 before heading on…to class?  No - to the nearest Athena cluster to quickly print out my homework!  Take note of the time, now: it’s 12:20 PM.  I’m twenty minutes late.

I go to the Athena Cluster in Building 12.  I log into the Quickstation.  I look at the printers.  One has a sign that says, “Dead since 9/14″ (it was September 28).  Another is busy undergoing a cavity search from a few industrious MIT students.  The third is taking up the queue from the full cluster.  So I bounce and head to the Athena Cluster in Building 4.

Enter Building 4 Athena Cluster and its printer, sanda.  sanda isn’t doing well.  It is jamming on some poor fellow’s print job.  And no sooner than I yank out the the jammed paper and shut the machine did sanda jam again.  A couple of iterations later, I bounce, feeling a bit like Sisyphus, or Tantalus, or one of those other poor blighters, and head toward the basement of Hayden Library, where there is another cluster to try.

But when I got there, the undergrad said, “Lo!”  Actually, he says (and I can’t even be sure he was an undergrad), “Yeah, I’ve got a couple of things printing, so it’s probably gonna’ be a while.”  I mean the fellow who is standing next to the printer, see, who I encounter after I sent my job off to the printer.  In the green shirt, you know.  That guy.  Who has to print those scanned-in .pdfs, bloated files what come out at 1 page per minute.  Several such.  Files.

So I bounce.  I head to the Athena Cluster in Building 56.  Funny story - you know those long, low-to-the-ground dogs?  I trip over one on the way to the Athena Cluster in Building 56.

Anyway, to follow the line of reasoning of the great Yogi Berra, that printing queue is so long, no one is getting anything printed.

And so I head back to Hayden Library (time check: 1:00 PM - class is over, anyway).  No dogs this time.  I go back down to the Athena Cluster.  The one in the basement.  The one in the basement, without the windows, with the cushy chairs nearby, and the books what distract you…anyway, I go to the library, where I encounter the same undergrad, still printing.

So I pop above ground and address a short letter to the IS&T (not to the professor of my class) which politely describes of my ordeal.

(Then I visit the printer again and infer that my print job has been canceled.  Exeunt.)

And then I finish my homework, and meet the professor of the class, and he accepts the thing late, anyway (though not before assigning me the Herculean task of tracking down his TA, and on an empty stomach, to boot!  Funny story.).

What irony - bad printing leads to better homework.  Who knew?

I get off the plane and I walk hurriedly past the other passengers, because I know right where to go.  The pathway takes us around the great atrium with its weighty water fountain; past the ridiculous and happily familiar dairy advertisement, cut into the grass; to the customs….

——————–

I emerge from the airport and start again at the dry air, not because it is so strange to me - more because I’ve been in a plane for a few hours and the cripsness of unfiltered air is refreshing.  I am very tired, and still have to handle myself in my third language.  But this part is routine.  I walk to the ticket counter, my motions a reflex to the blast of hot, dry air, and ask for the express bus, Chi 93.  I buy the tickets….

———————-

I get off the T and start walking back to campus.  I know I have about fifteen minutes before I reach my dormitory.  The air is moist and thick and heavy and the clouds are colored by the setting sun.  I breath and it is heavy.  And I am exhausted.  I pass the Stata center and I feel better….

———————-

From the bus to the train is not far - about ten minutes walk.  Only it is hard because you have to weave in and out of the people.  I have to show them that I am in a hurry.  Take no prisoners, don’t smile.  And I smile in spite of it because there is so much energy and I am not too tired and my legs resonate with the movement on the pavement, with the steps of ten million others, and I am spirited on my way.  Down, down the street and in and out and in and around and through and down, down, down the stairs into the harsh light in the subway tunnel….

——————–

I stand in the line at customs.  This time, there is another instructor next to me in the line, and we chat.  I have traveled the whole way here with her, and we are comfortable around each other now, though we had never seen one other when we set off about thirty hours ago.  I tell her that I should go to counter first because I know what to say to the border patrol.  This is my third summer here, and my fifth trip through customs, and I expect I know what to say.  So I am only a little excited when the guard beckons me to step forward.  She asks me, “What is the purpose of your stay in Israel?”

——————–

I get off the bus at the bus station.  It took a lot longer to get here than I thought it would.  Or was it just that my fatigue stretched the hour’s trip into something longer?  I walk into the station.  I stand in line at the counter to buy another bus ticket, and, while waiting, rehearse what I am going to say.  And suddenly, it is my turn.  “For Patras”, I state, with just the right inflection of purpose and question.  The woman at the counter says a number to me, and I don’t parse it, so I ask her to repeat it.  Still unsure, I put down a bill that I am sure is enough - I have left my tracks in this station and now follow them again and again, and I needn’t even think where I go.

I am hungry and want to buy some lunch.  I see an “Arabian Pita” and I smile.  It is from my other life.  Nostalogically, I decide to buy it.  I speak to the woman at the counter, pay, and eat it.  It is not authentic.  And this, too, makes me smile.

I get on the bus for Patras.

——————–

I reach my dormitory.  I will go to bed soon - I have not been in a bed for about two days.  I have not been in this bed for about two months.  I don’t care because I know it is flat and comfortable enough and so quiet.  Oddly high off the ground, this bed.  I will have to climb into it and that will be satisfying.  But first I have to shower, because of the trip.  I must cleanse myself of the journey, as much as soap and sleep will allow…

And I am in front of the door to my comfortable, quiet dormitory apartment.  I have opened gates on autopilot, navigated through hallways and stairwells and elevators.  The last steps of the long voyage go unnoticed as I toy with the idea of skipping my shower and hitting the sack directly.  And I am still toying with the idea even after hot water strikes my body and steam fills my nostrils….

——————–

I get off the train and it is nighttime.  I look around for familiar faces, though I am not sure what I would say if I found one.  And besides, everyone is in a hurry.  Where I come from, which is here, trains mean hurrying.   We must be of the opinion that it is the destination that counts, and not the journey, because we always journey with purpose.  And this is ironic because the Hudson River is so pleasant to watch from the train window.  I emerge from the station and look for the familiar faces I know will be there, waiting for me….

——————–

It was harder getting through customs than I expected it would be.  And it has been harder getting ready for the summer, and it has been harder even to find food - cheap food, anyway.  And it is mostly hard because my routine has holes in it - because life appears and it changes and forces me to change.  And the irony that even the response to change is a familiar reflex….

And it doesn’t matter at all, really, because the whole of my being is waiting to be reunited with the reason I have come back.  And the reason I have come back is so simple - it is for love.  Because I have one hundred students waiting for me, and depending on me.  Because I am depending on one hundred students, too, to give me hope, to make my heart full, to remind me of all the good in the world.  They are my people, and I must come back to them.

And the reunion is soon, and I am nervous and tired and excited….

——————–

Out of the bus stop and into the taxi, out of the taxi and into the apartment.  Into the elevator, up and up to the fourth floor.  And when I get to the door, my grandmother will welcome me and ply me with sharp feta cheese and strong coffee and the flavorful foods of the wild landscape around me, with its still wild people.  I am very tired, and my appetite is dull, even for feta.  It was not an overly long trip, but I have not slept for a long time. And still I am excited.  My grandmother is of my people, and I am of hers.

——————–

And now I have cleaned and slept and I have stocked my refrigerator with food.  I am not used to this food yet.  The flavor is bland - the fruits are not ripe yet, the spices not as sharp.  Odd that I should feel alien even to this environment, which is more home to me than where I was.  But I will become used to it again.  And flavor is a matter of looking hard and being creative.

I wake up early because I will go back to lab today.  I am happy to return.  I will pick up my life here right where I left it.  It is a good life.  It has purpose.  And I have purpose that I believe in.  It is what has always driven me.

——————

And I am back home and my parents are before me and they welcome me and they are even more tired than I am, but their eyes are still beaming, and it makes me smile.

There is not one path in life, but many, and the road diverges and winds and rejoins itself.  But you cannot travel far before the urge comes to retrace the old, familiar paths, and see the footsteps you have made in the ground, and return to the places where you began.  And it is always love that brings you back.