Goodbye Kansas

Some people are just lucky. Or fortunate—or maybe gifted. 

Whatever the case, some people manage to go and see exotic and far-reaching places that the rest of us only dream to see and do.

We all know someone who has seen lands and cultures and wonders that the rest of us only see in movies, on television and in travel magazines; someone whose passport would make Marco Polo green with jealousy; someone who has successfully crossed the ocean or circumnavigated the globe so many times that they now do so with the same manner and air of the average Joe going to the grocery store—casually and frequently. These people are the go-getters, the globetrotters, the frequent flyers, the out-and-about-ers, the sorry I was in Paris again last week-ers. These people get around—around the world.

I am not one of these people.

I’ve always been local kind of guy, never venturing too far from the family farm and the familiar plains of Kansas… Okay, I’m not actually from Kansas—I’m from Southern California. Sure, SoCal has nice weather and can be “entertaining” but it’s really all I’ve ever known. Sure, I’ve been out of state a couple times, drove to San Francisco once, and flew to Chicago about ten years ago. And that’s about it. I’m not opposed to travel; I just rarely do travel.

So when my school offered me the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to study abroad and live in Israel, I leapt at the chance to set foot outside of my home-sweet-home. And then the leash of doubt abruptly stopped me in my tracks.

Hustling through several airports to fly seventeen hours overseas to spend three months of hard study in a very different country and culture in the Middle East on the other side of the world? Intimidating. Just a little. But my land-locked fortune may never see this chance again—to see the sun rise on a different horizon, to experience people and places I had only heard of and read about, to be somewhere vastly different and completely unfamiliar was worth the risk. 

My window of possibility was quickly closing, the sun was beginning set on the farm, and the dusty country road that lead to the unknown was calling my name.

Three airports, one massive ocean, and seventeen hours of cramped seating, uncomfortable sleeping, time zone crossing, and bumping flying later, I stepped off the ramp and into the biggest adventure of my life thus far. With the Israeli sun beating down on my head, Arabic and Hebrew ringing in my ears, and the jetlag digging deep into my tired shoulders, I knew my tornado of opportunity had run it’s course. The farm and familiar landscape was nowhere to be seen and the adventure was just beginning.

I’m not in Kansas anymore.