My last grand opening

Tonight I sit in a billeting room on Chievres Air Base in Belgium. It is cold and foggy outside. Inside, my room is littered with papers, briefcases, and various digital gadgets from computers to card readers and cameras, all the necessary trappings of pulling together a commissary grand opening and being able to record it as I go. New to me this time is a Blackberry, a modern-day nag if ever there was one. Trying to be all things--phone, internet, camera, stereo--it has all sorts of challenges requiring me to figure it out as I go and frustrating me all the while. Of a greatly easier device is the new Kindle I received from Bill for Christmas. This device has nothing to do with the grand opening, it is just for feeding my ever-present appetite for reading. This device has turned out to be one of the easiest and must enjoyable electronic gadgets I've ever used. It is currently dishing up "The Measure of a Man" by Sidney Poitier, an actor I've always admired. For a book junky, this is like having a library on demand: buying a book can be done in less than a minute with the device not even plugged into the wall or a computer. No more having nothing to read on the road!

This trip is my last official grand opening. I have five weeks to go before I retire. Instead of going out in the evenings with the group, I stay in my room, isolating myself as a way of distancing from the emotions of saying goodbye to friends from Cairo, Egypt, and Livorno, Italy, here to work their usual magic on the new store. These talented and hard-working people have gained my respect. Knowing I may never see them again causes my insides to tighten and all my words to catch in my throat. I wish I could work beside them to design an endcap but can't find the time from my own job to do so.

My future keeps intruding on me this week. A problem with a new bank account in Virginia. A lost key to 931, our new house in Virginia. The longer I stay in Belgium, the more I can distance myself from the whole idea of leaving. These little surprizes jump into my email and remind me. Again my loyalties do the split, one foot on each continent, trying not to fall face first into the Sea of Separation.