Preparation Phase

Packing the house. What an overwhelming and cathartic experience. Every item that you own needs to be touched and assessed, in every nook and cranny and side closet. Keep? Toss? Give away? Pack for India? Pack for storage? So much stuff accumulates, that you figure you will get to some day, that you will need some day. When you look at it all with a critical eye, you realize that you haven’t touched item X in 10 years. You haven’t needed item X in 10 years. “Stuff” that you save thinking your kids will want it one day. Closets full to overflowing. Now, there is an “opportunity cost” to every item - - it either gets shipped, or stored in limited-space storage units. So many things that were discarded and donated. And those things that you saved because you thought you would need them one day….when you put them out on the curb, you are sometimes embarrassed about how shabby they are….so what, in fact, were you saving them for? I feel lighter and freer, having reduced the backlog of “stuff.”

So much gets done when you’re under the gun, things you have talked about and wanted for years are now done in days. We had talked about creating a large center room in the basement, where the boys could play music. But it never popped to the top of the priority stack. Now, we needed a place where we could lock up our furniture and stored paraphernalia. So the talked-about room got built. Now it is full up with stored stuff. We look forward to converting it to the music studio we had talked about, once we return.

The circumstances of the Big Cleanup are so much better than I could have imagined. One day, most people have to do this – empty the accumulated “stuff” in their home. Often this is when the owners are moving out of their home and “downsizing” to something of more manageable size. We have the opportunity to do this now, in anticipation of a big exciting adventure….nothing bittersweet here. And we get to enjoy the fruits of our labor, when we return.

The process to get a work visa for India was daunting, and that’s with the full force and power of IBM behind us. Endless documentation required, such as document of incorporation for IBM India, letters of proof that I walk on water and that no one in this country of 1.3 B people could possibly do what I will be doing….There is an “intermediary” to the Indian Embassy in NYC, where I had a scheduled appointment. (Travisa). They have become the emissaries to the embassy for people seeking visas. They are not, to the best of my knowledge, a government agency, but they have taken on the “frills.” (Someone assigned to make sure that no one on line is using a cellphone.) You get to the front of the line, and someone peruses your paperwork. Many of the line standers (myself included) “failed.” (In my case, they wanted the letter of proof that I walk on water (the letter of my qualifications) to be a separate letter from the letter describing what my Indian assignment entailed.) I contacted our local “Just In Documents” in Westchester, and used them as our intermediaries instead. It was a much smoother process.