bon voyage

Question

I stood with them in my parents' drive making a bon voyage of the cold.What does 'of the cold' mean in this context?

Khoff · Accepted Answer

making a bon voyage of the cold

This is a very strange phrase. Where did it come from? I don't have any idea what it's supposed to mean.

Englishsz · Answer

Sometimes, when afternoons turn heavy as used furniture, when I close my eyes on the bus, or open a window at home to create a dot-to-dot flight pattern to the nearest mountain, I think of my brother floating. My brother in 1978, with Bob Dylan hair, in the lotus position. In a meditation room, in Israel, suspended between floor and ceiling, buoyant as a soap bubble. He went there, with his wife of five months, for advanced training in transcendental meditation. No, TRAN-scen-DEN-tal MED-i-TA-tion. That's how I learned to say it, filling my mouth with perfect trochaic syllables - and feeling hip and very California. No small accomplishment, given that I lived in Idaho. TM for short: code for the initiated. The night before their international flight to Jerusalem, I stood with them in my parents' drive making a bon voyage of the cold, our breath coming in little gasps. They'd driven straight through from Seattle.
"So what is it you're going to learn?" I asked.
He flipped up the collar on his pea jacket:
"Longer meditations, deepness, clarity. They say you go into these moments when you're there and not there, and sometimes you float."
"Float," I said, "as in off the ground?"
"It just happens," he said, "but never on purpose."
And then we were on to more pressing matters, such as the question of my babysitting his Volvo.

CalifJim · Answer

I think it was intended to read, "a bon voyage in the cold".
CJ

Marius Hancu · Answer

making a bon voyage of the cold, our breath coming in little gasps

Strange stuff.

CJ may be right, but a possible reading if the original could be:
saying good riddance/good bye/bon voyage to the cold (if he had had a cold, or if the temperatures had been low:-))

Khoff · Answer

Maybe this author just likes to be mysterious.  I'm just glad we weren't asked to explain "open a window at home to create a dot-to-dot flight pattern to the nearest mountain." [:^)]

Englishsz · Answer

So what's your interpretation of this article, guys?

Marius Hancu · Answer

e-mail the author<img class='emoticon' style='Width:19px;Height:19px;' data-delaysrc='https://uat-englishforward-forums-backend.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Emoticons/1.gif' src='https://uat-englishforward-forums-backend.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Emoticons/1.gif' alt='Emotion: smile'/>

bon voyage

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