I have been thinking about today for 15 years. Along the way I've thought of many other things, and I've had days and weeks and months of not thinking about today at all. But it didn't sneak up on me, not even for a moment. No, today has been with me every day since January 9, 1994.
"It's over," I wrote in my journal that day, my 15-year-old self every bit as dramatic and heartbroken as the 30-year-old who writes this. I was talking about the hell of watching my mother die. I was talking about the exhaustion of doing my homework from a chair next to her hospital bed, and the fear of giving her the seizure medication too late, and the desperate attempts to be a normal teenager while balancing a schedule that included spending all of my free time at Albert Einstein Medical Center. I don't know what I thought would be different after she died, but I did know that I was ready to release myself from all of those things, from the hospital and the pills and the balancing act.
But the fact remained that my mother was dead. And that unlike so many of my friends who were just starting to realize that their parents were real people, I was faced with the reality that my mother could only live on in my memory. Starting tomorrow, then, my memory of mother outlives her presence in my life. Tomorrow, my mother will have been dead for fifteen years and a day, and I only knew her for a mere fifteen years.
***
I picture myself at the bow of a big ship, holding my arms out to the world, titanic-style. I see myself surrounded by white light, offering my outstretched palms to the sky. There is a freedom that comes with today, with letting the past be the past, and the future be the future. I cannot put it into better words, and that is good, because I feel terribly terribly guilty about the freedom. And I also feel terribly terribly sad.
There are so many memories in the last fifteen years, memories that I wish my mother could have been in. I wish I could picture her at my college graduation, taking pictures and meeting my friend's parents. I wish I could remember the excitement in her voice when I called from Mexico to tell of my engagement. I wish I could remember that funny time in the wedding dress shop when she got angry and walked out of the store because I couldn't decide between an ivory-colored veil or a champagne-colored veil. I wish we could reminisce about those horrible mornings spent doing my hair as a kid, or those car rides to and from ballet. I wish she knew Matt, and Julie, and Evan. I wish she knew me.
And that's the thing: I think that she does. I do, I really do. I think of my mother as a continuous presence in my life, a fact that today doesn't erase. But today does change something. In my head, there's a difference between today and tomorrow.
***
I woke at 4:40am today as I do every year on this date. I didn't think I would this year, I thought that it would start off differently. But no, I woke at 4:40, just about the same time that we got the phone call fifteen years ago. I don't have to think too hard to hear my father or Andy crying. Or picture our house full of our friends and family. Or visualize the funeral home. I am moments away from those memories. And yet they were fifteen years ago.
But I have to work to remember those mornings spent doing my hair, and those car rides to ballet. I have to work to remember them because I can't reminisce about them. My mother and I have no stories that we have told so many times that we can finish them for each other. I have only the stories I that I have told, over and over again, creating a lifetime of memories with my mother from ten good years of conscious thinking with her in my life. It is amazing what ten good years can give you.
I think that I know my mother, that I know who she was and what she was like, how she viewed the world. I worry that I put her into a mold that would feel uncomfortable for her to actually inhabit, that I have made her larger than my own life just so I can keep her in it. But the worry doesn't keep me up at night. I love the mother that my mother is for me.
***
I have been experiencing this day in my head for so long that I needed to experience it out loud. I was fifteen when I realized that I would still be so young when today came around. And at the other end, at thirty, as I re-read my journal entries written in my fifteen-year-old voice, I think to myself that we never really change. I have spent fifteen years - half of my life - thinking about today. And as when I was fifteen, now that it's here, I just want to spend today thinking about today, assured in the knowledge that tomorrow is tomorrow.
Showing posts with label musings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label musings. Show all posts
Friday, January 9, 2009
Thursday, July 17, 2008
The Only Bar that Might Not Let Me In
The MA bar exam will be over in exactly two weeks. Just two weeks from right now, I will be swinging a margarita back and forth while I gesticulate wildly and contemplate packing for my four-day jaunt to the Bahamas, all while celebrating my new freedom with respect to the likes of Corporations, Secured Transactions, and Commercial Paper.
Many of you who read this remember what I was like the first time I studied for this exam. For those of you who don't, or don't know me at all, allow me to paint a picture for you: my hair was wild, my eyebrows unkempt. My cuticles were ragged and raw. I gained and dropped 5 lbs in any given day and cried at least twice. An hour. I would be loving and happy for the briefest moment, and then wildly and explosively angry. I plunged myself into new depths of self-doubt, and spent whole days uttering an endless stream of "IwillnotpassIwillnotpassIwillnotpass" under my breath. As you might guess, this kind of confidence-inspiring mantra did wonders for my mental health and I suffered the consequences of the bar exam for months after I found out that I had actually passed, and was, wonder of wonders, a lawyer in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
This time around, I'm actually a lot calmer. I'm too calm, in fact. I'm eerily calm. Sure, I've done a couple of hundred multistate questions. And I've reviewed a few of the essay subjects. But despite the fact that I'm having incredibly strange and vivid dreams, I'm not freaking myself out like I did the last time around. And I gotta tell you: it's kind of strange. I feel like a dull-edged version of my former bar-studying self. It's like I"m watching myself from outside of myself. And the ghost-like floating version of me is trying to knock off the version of me that's writing a blog post instead of a Trusts Outline, and ask why on earth I'm not feeling crappier about this undoubtedly crappy test. "Eh," I want to tell her, "chill out. It's JUST a test."
To compensate for my bizarre mental state, I've imposed a rigorous 16-hours-a-day study schedule for myself. Every moment of every day will be spent practicing inane multiple choice questions or working through subjects that never once, not even for the briefest of moments, held my interest in law school. It should be fun! Where fun = wanting to pull my teeth out. The one upside to imposing a ridiculous course of study on myself is that I believe it gives me free reign to give into my cravings. Last week it was spinach and scallops and caramellos. Today it was a toasted bagel with lox cream cheese. There's a half-eaten package of Rolos in my bookbag, along with a fruit leather and some smooshed pretzels.
Matt spent three days last week traveling for work. Life without him was odd and I felt like a first-year law student again, talking to Julie in the middle of the day, succumbing to my bizarre and over-the-top cravings, sleeping on the wrong side of the bed, dreaming about law that doesn't make any sense. I couldn't WAIT for him to come home, not least because I was craving this salmon dish that I really didn't have time to make for myself, but which I knew he'd attack with the vigor of a man who wants nothing more than for the beast to remain hidden this time around.
So wish me luck, Internet! I apologize in advance if my next post on this blog comes out as one enormous scream. Consider yourselves warned. And send candy.
Many of you who read this remember what I was like the first time I studied for this exam. For those of you who don't, or don't know me at all, allow me to paint a picture for you: my hair was wild, my eyebrows unkempt. My cuticles were ragged and raw. I gained and dropped 5 lbs in any given day and cried at least twice. An hour. I would be loving and happy for the briefest moment, and then wildly and explosively angry. I plunged myself into new depths of self-doubt, and spent whole days uttering an endless stream of "IwillnotpassIwillnotpassIwillnotpass" under my breath. As you might guess, this kind of confidence-inspiring mantra did wonders for my mental health and I suffered the consequences of the bar exam for months after I found out that I had actually passed, and was, wonder of wonders, a lawyer in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
This time around, I'm actually a lot calmer. I'm too calm, in fact. I'm eerily calm. Sure, I've done a couple of hundred multistate questions. And I've reviewed a few of the essay subjects. But despite the fact that I'm having incredibly strange and vivid dreams, I'm not freaking myself out like I did the last time around. And I gotta tell you: it's kind of strange. I feel like a dull-edged version of my former bar-studying self. It's like I"m watching myself from outside of myself. And the ghost-like floating version of me is trying to knock off the version of me that's writing a blog post instead of a Trusts Outline, and ask why on earth I'm not feeling crappier about this undoubtedly crappy test. "Eh," I want to tell her, "chill out. It's JUST a test."
To compensate for my bizarre mental state, I've imposed a rigorous 16-hours-a-day study schedule for myself. Every moment of every day will be spent practicing inane multiple choice questions or working through subjects that never once, not even for the briefest of moments, held my interest in law school. It should be fun! Where fun = wanting to pull my teeth out. The one upside to imposing a ridiculous course of study on myself is that I believe it gives me free reign to give into my cravings. Last week it was spinach and scallops and caramellos. Today it was a toasted bagel with lox cream cheese. There's a half-eaten package of Rolos in my bookbag, along with a fruit leather and some smooshed pretzels.
Matt spent three days last week traveling for work. Life without him was odd and I felt like a first-year law student again, talking to Julie in the middle of the day, succumbing to my bizarre and over-the-top cravings, sleeping on the wrong side of the bed, dreaming about law that doesn't make any sense. I couldn't WAIT for him to come home, not least because I was craving this salmon dish that I really didn't have time to make for myself, but which I knew he'd attack with the vigor of a man who wants nothing more than for the beast to remain hidden this time around.
So wish me luck, Internet! I apologize in advance if my next post on this blog comes out as one enormous scream. Consider yourselves warned. And send candy.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Aboard the Animal Train
We sit around the table, talking at the same time, each person's voice answering someone else's question, commenting on another's thought. It is a conversation punctuated by laughter, by loud, raucous guffaws, by bursts of bright and glorious hysteria, and I look across the table to see Matt laughing so hard that his eyes scrunch into tiny little slits with wrinkles at the side as he nods his head up and down, up and down, chortling into the hand clenched into a fist at his mouth, which is wide and grinning. Cris has to excuse herself to pee, because when you laugh so hard that you have to pee, and you've already had to pee for about 20 minutes, you know that if you sit at a table for another moment, you will surely wet yourself.
**
We wake up bright and early to the sound of the baby's cries. We're not used to it, those of us who are not yet parents, and particularly those of us who prefer to use our weekends catching up on sleep. But when I stumble into the living room, my hair a wild mess, and see the little one on the floor, toys already in her mouth, I feel my un-caffeinated self softening a little, waking up by the sheer energy of the amazing little person I'm seeing first thing in the morning. "Don't worry," her father assures her, "Lizzi doesn't talk first thing in the morning. She'll be nice again in a minute." After I brush my teeth and wash my face, I come out of the bathroom and the little one smiles up at me again, hopeful that I will smile back. And I do. And then she lunges for Julie, giggling as she grabs fistfuls of her hair and pulling her towards her so that she can gum on her face with her two shiny new teeth.
***
I'm in the kitchen now, cooking pasta, chopping vegetables, marinating meat that will later spend some time and then, whoops, it's not done yet!, more time on the grill. "What are we doing in here, hmmm?," Adam moos at me. "London broil. Orzo Salad. Green Beans and Tomatoes," I respond. "Me likes," Adam assures me. I smile as I turn towards my artichoke hearts, waiting to be cut into bite-sized pieces and tossed with parsley and kalamata olives. "Grab me one," Katy calls out to Geoff and he responds in kind, equal parts affectionate and gross, grabbing a beer out of the cooler for himself and Katy. They sit around the table, feeding the baby, keeping the beer bottles out of her reach, talking about talking about talking, and I cook.
****
We wander into a restaurant in Provincetown, ready to stretch our legs after the hours and hours of traffic heading east. But none of us want to be there, none of us are interested in the overpriced menu, or the food that doesn't sound appealing. So we leave, packaging up the baby and grabbing our bags, and head out to the street, where some of us search for good pizza, others of us eating fried seafood and sandwiches. Adam, who snacked too much on the way down, is hungry for none of it. We are not surprised, we probably all have the same thought that's running through my own head: "that's Adam!" We wander around the town, smiling in the direction of Ellie and the overly tanned and muscled men, thinking that we're all tired and zonked, wondering how J and Cris do it day after day with the little one. We find ourselves in a cool little store and J is impulsive and it makes us all feel a little bit giddy for him and for Cris. They are exceptionally nice watches.
*****
We have been around the world, I think to myself as I watch Matt sleeping. We have been to corners of the earth that we will never see again. "A lot has changed in a year," Matt remarks. And he is right. A lot HAS changed in a year. But here we are, back again, back with each other, back where I cook and Geoff is ridiculous, where Adam eats snacks and Katy talks about artsy things we don't understand. Back where we would give anything, anything at all to know what Julie has to say about us, where J and Cris have done the most amazing thing imaginable and brought this new little creature into our circle, into our lives. We are back in the best part of our world, the part where our family knows us, wants nothing more than to be with us and make fun of us, where we always know we have a place to call home.
**
We wake up bright and early to the sound of the baby's cries. We're not used to it, those of us who are not yet parents, and particularly those of us who prefer to use our weekends catching up on sleep. But when I stumble into the living room, my hair a wild mess, and see the little one on the floor, toys already in her mouth, I feel my un-caffeinated self softening a little, waking up by the sheer energy of the amazing little person I'm seeing first thing in the morning. "Don't worry," her father assures her, "Lizzi doesn't talk first thing in the morning. She'll be nice again in a minute." After I brush my teeth and wash my face, I come out of the bathroom and the little one smiles up at me again, hopeful that I will smile back. And I do. And then she lunges for Julie, giggling as she grabs fistfuls of her hair and pulling her towards her so that she can gum on her face with her two shiny new teeth.
***
I'm in the kitchen now, cooking pasta, chopping vegetables, marinating meat that will later spend some time and then, whoops, it's not done yet!, more time on the grill. "What are we doing in here, hmmm?," Adam moos at me. "London broil. Orzo Salad. Green Beans and Tomatoes," I respond. "Me likes," Adam assures me. I smile as I turn towards my artichoke hearts, waiting to be cut into bite-sized pieces and tossed with parsley and kalamata olives. "Grab me one," Katy calls out to Geoff and he responds in kind, equal parts affectionate and gross, grabbing a beer out of the cooler for himself and Katy. They sit around the table, feeding the baby, keeping the beer bottles out of her reach, talking about talking about talking, and I cook.
****
We wander into a restaurant in Provincetown, ready to stretch our legs after the hours and hours of traffic heading east. But none of us want to be there, none of us are interested in the overpriced menu, or the food that doesn't sound appealing. So we leave, packaging up the baby and grabbing our bags, and head out to the street, where some of us search for good pizza, others of us eating fried seafood and sandwiches. Adam, who snacked too much on the way down, is hungry for none of it. We are not surprised, we probably all have the same thought that's running through my own head: "that's Adam!" We wander around the town, smiling in the direction of Ellie and the overly tanned and muscled men, thinking that we're all tired and zonked, wondering how J and Cris do it day after day with the little one. We find ourselves in a cool little store and J is impulsive and it makes us all feel a little bit giddy for him and for Cris. They are exceptionally nice watches.
*****
We have been around the world, I think to myself as I watch Matt sleeping. We have been to corners of the earth that we will never see again. "A lot has changed in a year," Matt remarks. And he is right. A lot HAS changed in a year. But here we are, back again, back with each other, back where I cook and Geoff is ridiculous, where Adam eats snacks and Katy talks about artsy things we don't understand. Back where we would give anything, anything at all to know what Julie has to say about us, where J and Cris have done the most amazing thing imaginable and brought this new little creature into our circle, into our lives. We are back in the best part of our world, the part where our family knows us, wants nothing more than to be with us and make fun of us, where we always know we have a place to call home.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Checking In
We have been home for exactly 50 days. In that time we have lost three apartments and found one. We have attended a funeral and two graduations. We have put about 2000 miles on our car, and spent about that much in gas. One of us started a new job, one of us applied for several. We made a commitment to eat organic, to find comfort in faith, to spend more time together. In short, it's been an eventful 50 days. But it has also been an adjustment. Because for all that has happened in the past 50 days, it is incredibly, unbelievably, undeniably different than all that occurred in the 50 days before these 50 days.
Before we went on the trip, I knew that there was a chance that a trip like that could really change us. But I feared that it would change us in mostly negative ways. I worried that we would grow really tired of each other and that the trip would make us want to spend as much time apart as possible. I worried that it would be nearly impossible to integrate into my former life upon my return. I worried that I would resent Boston for not being somewhere as exciting as Bangkok. Um, I'm a worrier. But as it turns out, some of my fears were well-founded, and others of them were totally unfounded.
One of the things I have noticed over the course of the past 50 days is that I look at the world as though I'm wearing different glasses. By way of example, we went to hear Jane Goodall give a lecture a few weeks ago. Before the trip, I would have heard what she was saying, would have reflected upon her words as the true message of an incredible woman, but I would have walked away thinking that I do enough to make the world a better place without worrying about chimpanzees in Africa. For the most part, I still believe this about myself. But while I was listening to her lecture, I also found myself thinking that I DO care about chimpanzees in Africa, that I have opinions, STRONG opinions, about the effects of global warming, and that while I believe I do a lot to make the world a better place without occupying my mind with thoughts of chimpanzees in Africa, I enjoy being someone who can stop to think about chimpanzees in Africa.
Just this past weekend, as we were listening to various graduation speakers remind us to follow our passions or risk living an empty life, I found that I wasn't sitting there thinking of all of the things I have yet to do with my life, rather, I was sitting there thinking about what I have already done. I felt proud that we listened to our hearts and bought those plane tickets, that I have decided to listen to my heart and follow it to a career in the public sector, that I realize just how good my life is.
In a way, coming home has helped me to see what an incredible place this was to leave behind for a while. In this new city of ours, I literally have every opportunity at my very fingertips. And I am in a place, a good place, where I feel grateful and excited about that opportunity.
I am very fortunate to have a few people in my life who understand exactly what it is that I am feeling these days. They write me encouraging emails to remind me that the adjustment will get easier. They tell me that I'll eventually get used to living two lives, the one here that I'm actually living, and the one I might be living if I was in, say, Nepal. They say that I will grow accustomed to having two simultaneous conversations, the one I'm having with whomever I'm speaking with, and the one I'm having in my mind about whatever is going on in the wide world. I have every reason to believe that these people are right, that I will get used to this new person that I have become.
I also think that as I pursue my place in Boston, as I find where it is that I belong here, there will be a part of me that might never get used to those feelings, that might never get used to the fact that I was lucky enough to follow my passions to places farther east than here, that I am lucky enough to hear a heartfelt tale about chimpanzees and feel that I can actually do something to make their lives better, that I am lucky enough to be living that moment where I realized that to change the world, all you need to do is to positively affect just one single soul.
Before we went on the trip, I knew that there was a chance that a trip like that could really change us. But I feared that it would change us in mostly negative ways. I worried that we would grow really tired of each other and that the trip would make us want to spend as much time apart as possible. I worried that it would be nearly impossible to integrate into my former life upon my return. I worried that I would resent Boston for not being somewhere as exciting as Bangkok. Um, I'm a worrier. But as it turns out, some of my fears were well-founded, and others of them were totally unfounded.
One of the things I have noticed over the course of the past 50 days is that I look at the world as though I'm wearing different glasses. By way of example, we went to hear Jane Goodall give a lecture a few weeks ago. Before the trip, I would have heard what she was saying, would have reflected upon her words as the true message of an incredible woman, but I would have walked away thinking that I do enough to make the world a better place without worrying about chimpanzees in Africa. For the most part, I still believe this about myself. But while I was listening to her lecture, I also found myself thinking that I DO care about chimpanzees in Africa, that I have opinions, STRONG opinions, about the effects of global warming, and that while I believe I do a lot to make the world a better place without occupying my mind with thoughts of chimpanzees in Africa, I enjoy being someone who can stop to think about chimpanzees in Africa.
Just this past weekend, as we were listening to various graduation speakers remind us to follow our passions or risk living an empty life, I found that I wasn't sitting there thinking of all of the things I have yet to do with my life, rather, I was sitting there thinking about what I have already done. I felt proud that we listened to our hearts and bought those plane tickets, that I have decided to listen to my heart and follow it to a career in the public sector, that I realize just how good my life is.
In a way, coming home has helped me to see what an incredible place this was to leave behind for a while. In this new city of ours, I literally have every opportunity at my very fingertips. And I am in a place, a good place, where I feel grateful and excited about that opportunity.
I am very fortunate to have a few people in my life who understand exactly what it is that I am feeling these days. They write me encouraging emails to remind me that the adjustment will get easier. They tell me that I'll eventually get used to living two lives, the one here that I'm actually living, and the one I might be living if I was in, say, Nepal. They say that I will grow accustomed to having two simultaneous conversations, the one I'm having with whomever I'm speaking with, and the one I'm having in my mind about whatever is going on in the wide world. I have every reason to believe that these people are right, that I will get used to this new person that I have become.
I also think that as I pursue my place in Boston, as I find where it is that I belong here, there will be a part of me that might never get used to those feelings, that might never get used to the fact that I was lucky enough to follow my passions to places farther east than here, that I am lucky enough to hear a heartfelt tale about chimpanzees and feel that I can actually do something to make their lives better, that I am lucky enough to be living that moment where I realized that to change the world, all you need to do is to positively affect just one single soul.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Home without a Home
We've been back in the country for a little over two weeks now, and while I can confidently report that we are finally adjusted to THIS time zone (read: we are no longer waking up at 6am thinking about where to go for dinner and drinks, as opposed to waking up and thinking about what we'll eat for breakfast like normal people do), we're still not completely adjusted to the...I don't know...the HOMEness of being home.
Basically, not a whole lot has changed since Matt wrote that last post, except for the fact that I can now turn one sentence into an entire paragraph like I just did.
Boston has been less than welcoming to us. In the 10 days since we started looking for an apartment in this crazy town, we have seen forty different apartments. Yes, you read that correctly. Forty. Apartments. Which, for the record, is more apartments than we've ever seen in our long history of looking for apartments. Combined. So we still have yet to find a home, but we're reluctant to settle for anything less than something that feels like it should be home. Maybe that means we're picky. I think it means that we decided that we're ready to set down some roots and dammit, we want to set them down somewhere where we're sure they should be set down!
One of the strangest things about coming back from our trip has been that there's a part of me that feels like we never left at all, that we tesseracted through time and here we are again, having experienced a lifetime of experiences that we can't really talk about because we were the only two people there. On the other hand, it feels like we were gone FOREVER and that now that we're back, we have to re-figure out who we are and where we fit. I used to feel this way about my parents every summer after I came home from camp. It was as though I'd just experienced this amazing thing, totally separate from my life as their daughter, and I just couldn't explain it to them in a way that made sense to any of us. Of course, these feelings would usually end in a loud screaming fight sometime around the first week of school, and I'd pound up the stairs to my room, crying and yelling something along the lines of, "you just don't underSTAND meeee!" This is not really an option right now. Especially because running up the steps and screaming at the hotel we're staying in would probably just get us kicked out. But also because this time, at least, Matt and I went through this experience together, so I do get to feel like someone really does understand me.
Not a day has gone by since we've been home that I haven't pictured Sangita's sweet little face smiling up at me from the floor of the orphanage classroom, or thought of the serenity I felt while standing awestruck under the reclining buddha. But when I dwell on these things too hard, when I picture myself turning from Sangita's face and accepting a plate of daal bhatt from Didi, or walking out of Wat Pho towards the madness of the Bangkok city streets, my heart does a little flip-flop and it really does actually hurt a little bit.
Over the past few years, I have come to realize that although I am more willing to talk about my emotions and my feelings than just about anyone I know, I am reluctant to talk about the thoughts that I hold most dear, the precious thoughts that no one thinks to ask me about because they're so used to me just talking all the time about whatever is on my mind. It's a strange thing to realize that even though most of the people who know you would describe you as an "open book," there are times when you feel more private than even your most emotionally-quiet friends. Which I think is the reason that I haven't posted anything since we've been home. When we were gone, the blog was a way for me to connect my life to the people who usually hear about my life all the time. Now that we're home, I don't know where to begin with the stories about how my life was without them for the past few months. So instead I've remained quiet about it all, or at least quieter than my mind feels, trying to blend back into the life I kind of left behind for a little while, trying to feel positive about the fact that we're still more-or-less homeless.
Matt thinks that we'll both feel worlds better when we find a place to move to, when we're more settled into our lives in Boston. I really hope he's right, because it's definitely surprised me that I felt more settled in cities where the only words I could say were "hello" and "thank you" than I do in a place that's supposed to be home.
Basically, not a whole lot has changed since Matt wrote that last post, except for the fact that I can now turn one sentence into an entire paragraph like I just did.
Boston has been less than welcoming to us. In the 10 days since we started looking for an apartment in this crazy town, we have seen forty different apartments. Yes, you read that correctly. Forty. Apartments. Which, for the record, is more apartments than we've ever seen in our long history of looking for apartments. Combined. So we still have yet to find a home, but we're reluctant to settle for anything less than something that feels like it should be home. Maybe that means we're picky. I think it means that we decided that we're ready to set down some roots and dammit, we want to set them down somewhere where we're sure they should be set down!
One of the strangest things about coming back from our trip has been that there's a part of me that feels like we never left at all, that we tesseracted through time and here we are again, having experienced a lifetime of experiences that we can't really talk about because we were the only two people there. On the other hand, it feels like we were gone FOREVER and that now that we're back, we have to re-figure out who we are and where we fit. I used to feel this way about my parents every summer after I came home from camp. It was as though I'd just experienced this amazing thing, totally separate from my life as their daughter, and I just couldn't explain it to them in a way that made sense to any of us. Of course, these feelings would usually end in a loud screaming fight sometime around the first week of school, and I'd pound up the stairs to my room, crying and yelling something along the lines of, "you just don't underSTAND meeee!" This is not really an option right now. Especially because running up the steps and screaming at the hotel we're staying in would probably just get us kicked out. But also because this time, at least, Matt and I went through this experience together, so I do get to feel like someone really does understand me.
Not a day has gone by since we've been home that I haven't pictured Sangita's sweet little face smiling up at me from the floor of the orphanage classroom, or thought of the serenity I felt while standing awestruck under the reclining buddha. But when I dwell on these things too hard, when I picture myself turning from Sangita's face and accepting a plate of daal bhatt from Didi, or walking out of Wat Pho towards the madness of the Bangkok city streets, my heart does a little flip-flop and it really does actually hurt a little bit.
Over the past few years, I have come to realize that although I am more willing to talk about my emotions and my feelings than just about anyone I know, I am reluctant to talk about the thoughts that I hold most dear, the precious thoughts that no one thinks to ask me about because they're so used to me just talking all the time about whatever is on my mind. It's a strange thing to realize that even though most of the people who know you would describe you as an "open book," there are times when you feel more private than even your most emotionally-quiet friends. Which I think is the reason that I haven't posted anything since we've been home. When we were gone, the blog was a way for me to connect my life to the people who usually hear about my life all the time. Now that we're home, I don't know where to begin with the stories about how my life was without them for the past few months. So instead I've remained quiet about it all, or at least quieter than my mind feels, trying to blend back into the life I kind of left behind for a little while, trying to feel positive about the fact that we're still more-or-less homeless.
Matt thinks that we'll both feel worlds better when we find a place to move to, when we're more settled into our lives in Boston. I really hope he's right, because it's definitely surprised me that I felt more settled in cities where the only words I could say were "hello" and "thank you" than I do in a place that's supposed to be home.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
...Come Home for Love
Written and Posted from Hong Kong
Exactly one hundred and eight days ago, we sat in a tiny little hotel room somewhere close to JFK and wrote the post that preceded this journey by an evening and a long-ass plane ride. I am writing to you now from a tiny little hotel room in Hong Kong, about to spend another 16 hours on a plane to get back home.
There are a lot of reasons that we decided to take this journey. At least, I think there were a lot of reasons that we decided to take it. Now it just seems like we decided to take a journey so that we could see what there was to see, and now we have seen some of it, and we are coming home, where we will stay until we decide to take another journey again. This is enough of a reason to me now. I have thought about this post almost since the day that we left on our trip, because I am the type of person who thinks of the ending while we're just at the beginning, and I am not likely to become a different type of person any time soon, try as I might. I thought I would be able to say something profound, like tell you some kind of story about what I learned about myself on this trip. But what I learned is, of course, something I've known for a long time, a mantra that some of you are probably so sick of: you take yourself wherever you go. But see, sometimes you get to go to really cool places. And when you do, and you're able to appreciate the coolness of the places while you're actually in them, well then the self that you've taken along with you is one lucky girl.
I will share with you this one thought that I can't get out of my mind, because it seems appropriate, given the title of this post. I don't know where the original quote came from, but the more that I think about it, the more I think that the idea that you go out for adventure and come home for love seems...oversimplified to me. Because I went out for adventure and managed to find love all around me, everywhere I looked, particularly when I looked to the man standing next to me. And I'm coming home for love, but also for an adventure in Boston that I'm really just really really excited about. Basically, over the course of the past three months I've concluded that love and adventure are often the same thing, that you can go out to experience the world, or you can have an adventure all by yourself, amidst the comforts of your hometown. I wish I could explain to you guys why this means so much to me, but I can't seem to get the words right so I'll just tell you that all of you are part of the adventure that I'm so excited to get home to, and all of you are part of the love that I was sad and nervous to leave behind for three months. But in the end, it was your adventurous spirits who helped to motivate me to find a way for us to take this trip, and as usual, I took your love right along with me. Thanks for that.
I'll stop with the philosophy long enough to tell you that we'll be in New York tomorrow by 2pm, (even though we leave Hong Kong tomorrow at 10am). And I'll also tell you that this isn't the very last post for this blog, because there are still some trip stories to tell you, and tons of pictures to put up, and unnecessary advice about traveling that we want to share with you, and oh yeah, that adventure we're about to start in Boston!
So thanks for following along on this journey, for reading this blog and supporting us, and letting us complain to you about so many things. Thanks for dealing with the fact that we didn't always have a fast enough internet connection to give you pictures, or even a post. Thanks for offering your comments and your suggestions and special e-birthday wishes to Matt. If you don't hear from us for a couple of days, it's because we're too busy brushing our teeth with water FROM THE TAP, walking into public restrooms just because there's toilet paper there, and stuffing our faces with meals that involve neither rice nor curry nor lentils. See you at Vino's!
Exactly one hundred and eight days ago, we sat in a tiny little hotel room somewhere close to JFK and wrote the post that preceded this journey by an evening and a long-ass plane ride. I am writing to you now from a tiny little hotel room in Hong Kong, about to spend another 16 hours on a plane to get back home.
There are a lot of reasons that we decided to take this journey. At least, I think there were a lot of reasons that we decided to take it. Now it just seems like we decided to take a journey so that we could see what there was to see, and now we have seen some of it, and we are coming home, where we will stay until we decide to take another journey again. This is enough of a reason to me now. I have thought about this post almost since the day that we left on our trip, because I am the type of person who thinks of the ending while we're just at the beginning, and I am not likely to become a different type of person any time soon, try as I might. I thought I would be able to say something profound, like tell you some kind of story about what I learned about myself on this trip. But what I learned is, of course, something I've known for a long time, a mantra that some of you are probably so sick of: you take yourself wherever you go. But see, sometimes you get to go to really cool places. And when you do, and you're able to appreciate the coolness of the places while you're actually in them, well then the self that you've taken along with you is one lucky girl.
I will share with you this one thought that I can't get out of my mind, because it seems appropriate, given the title of this post. I don't know where the original quote came from, but the more that I think about it, the more I think that the idea that you go out for adventure and come home for love seems...oversimplified to me. Because I went out for adventure and managed to find love all around me, everywhere I looked, particularly when I looked to the man standing next to me. And I'm coming home for love, but also for an adventure in Boston that I'm really just really really excited about. Basically, over the course of the past three months I've concluded that love and adventure are often the same thing, that you can go out to experience the world, or you can have an adventure all by yourself, amidst the comforts of your hometown. I wish I could explain to you guys why this means so much to me, but I can't seem to get the words right so I'll just tell you that all of you are part of the adventure that I'm so excited to get home to, and all of you are part of the love that I was sad and nervous to leave behind for three months. But in the end, it was your adventurous spirits who helped to motivate me to find a way for us to take this trip, and as usual, I took your love right along with me. Thanks for that.
I'll stop with the philosophy long enough to tell you that we'll be in New York tomorrow by 2pm, (even though we leave Hong Kong tomorrow at 10am). And I'll also tell you that this isn't the very last post for this blog, because there are still some trip stories to tell you, and tons of pictures to put up, and unnecessary advice about traveling that we want to share with you, and oh yeah, that adventure we're about to start in Boston!
So thanks for following along on this journey, for reading this blog and supporting us, and letting us complain to you about so many things. Thanks for dealing with the fact that we didn't always have a fast enough internet connection to give you pictures, or even a post. Thanks for offering your comments and your suggestions and special e-birthday wishes to Matt. If you don't hear from us for a couple of days, it's because we're too busy brushing our teeth with water FROM THE TAP, walking into public restrooms just because there's toilet paper there, and stuffing our faces with meals that involve neither rice nor curry nor lentils. See you at Vino's!
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Words to Live By
Written and Posted from India
Moments before I walked down the aisle on my wedding day, fear gripped my heart and Maura, my beautiful Maura, gripped my wrist. Smiling into my face, her red-blonde curls making her look angelic, as always, she whispered something to me, earnestly. And then before I could even think, before I knew what was happening, the doors opened, my nearest and dearest sat, turned in their seats, staring at me. Halfway down that aisle, arm-in-arm with my dad, I realized what Maura had said to me. "Live the day!" she said. Live the day. And in that moment, at that very moment, I knew exactly what she meant. I knew that this day was only going to come once, and that unless I lived every single moment of it, I would let it slip through my fingers virtually unnoticed. At that moment of clear and uninterupted understanding, I cried and I grinned and I thought wonderful things about all of the people in that room who were watching me watch Matt. Those first moments of walking down the aisle are blurry, unclear, but from that one moment on, the rest of the day is like looking into a movie of my life, and if it had a color, it would be clear, clear beautiful crystal blue.
I am not the type of person who remembers what people say to me. Which is to say that I remember stories, I remember backgrounds and cousins and ex-boyfriends and piles of details about people's lives. I can't forget the stories and the details, even when I wish I could. But I rarely remember those precious pearls of wisdom that people have handed out to me over the years. It's frustrating that I don't remember them, especially because I'm certain that with the pearls I could have collected from my mother and grandmother alone, I would have quite a gorgeous strand by now. Instead, I am generally left with fragments, shards of wisdom, and whatever it is that I feel in my bones just by being who I am, genetically. Most of the time, my genetic wisdom serves me well. But every so often, someone whispers words to me, and they plant themselves in my brain in a way that's utterly different than what's in my DNA. Maura's words became a mantra for me. It is something I say to every bride before she walks down the aisle, particularly if I am lucky enough to be standing with her in those precious moments before a marriage is revealed. It is something I say to myself when I am practicing meditation or yoga. And sometimes it is something I say to myself when I need to pull myself back, reign myself in, when I need to be reminded to actually EXPERIENCE what it is that I'm experiencing. These are strong and precious words, which makes sense, because Maura is a strong and precious person.
Just a day before we left on our trip, I talked to Heather for the first time in months and months and months. Matt and I had a million errands to run that day, all of which we were running with my dad, and in his excitement and urgency to help us, he was impatient with the time I was spending on the phone. "This conversation is important," I told him, and "I wouldn't be talking on the phone right now if I didn't need to be talking on the phone right now." But in the end, his restlessness was contageous, and I told Heather that I needed to go and get on with that last day. "Remember the colors," she said as we were hanging up, "SEE all the colors." I promised her I would, and rushed off to buy those ever-important last minute items without which we surely wouldn't have been allowed on the plane.
And here I am now, with just 18 days left in this trip, and I feel saturated with color, full to the brim with colors I didn't know existed. Especially in the bizarre places where some of the colors exist, places like doorways, back alleys, cars, and dump trucks. There are the usual colors to be seen on clothes and jewelry and fruit. But it's the shock of the color, the color that catches me by surprise, that is the color I rush to soak in, to take in, to really SEE, just like Heather urged me to do. I think that she would be proud of me, that her inner artist is beaming with pride at her student, working so diligently to SEE everything that there is to see.
I am writing this post today because Maura has an upcoming birthday and because sometimes, on your birthday, it's nice to know that others take your words to heart so well that the words live inside their heart, just like you do. Before Maura whispered those words to me, I would have said that I do, actually, think of myself as a live-er of life, that I really DO live the day. But now I know that I wasn't quite right, that it was Maura who opened my eyes to HOW to live a day, an day, even a most extraordinary day. So on her birthday, I wanted her to know that because of her words, I was able to live Heather's words, and because of both of them, I get to experience India in particular but this whole trip in general, as though I just, for the first time, opened my eyes to the world, and my, what a lovely hue it has.
Moments before I walked down the aisle on my wedding day, fear gripped my heart and Maura, my beautiful Maura, gripped my wrist. Smiling into my face, her red-blonde curls making her look angelic, as always, she whispered something to me, earnestly. And then before I could even think, before I knew what was happening, the doors opened, my nearest and dearest sat, turned in their seats, staring at me. Halfway down that aisle, arm-in-arm with my dad, I realized what Maura had said to me. "Live the day!" she said. Live the day. And in that moment, at that very moment, I knew exactly what she meant. I knew that this day was only going to come once, and that unless I lived every single moment of it, I would let it slip through my fingers virtually unnoticed. At that moment of clear and uninterupted understanding, I cried and I grinned and I thought wonderful things about all of the people in that room who were watching me watch Matt. Those first moments of walking down the aisle are blurry, unclear, but from that one moment on, the rest of the day is like looking into a movie of my life, and if it had a color, it would be clear, clear beautiful crystal blue.
I am not the type of person who remembers what people say to me. Which is to say that I remember stories, I remember backgrounds and cousins and ex-boyfriends and piles of details about people's lives. I can't forget the stories and the details, even when I wish I could. But I rarely remember those precious pearls of wisdom that people have handed out to me over the years. It's frustrating that I don't remember them, especially because I'm certain that with the pearls I could have collected from my mother and grandmother alone, I would have quite a gorgeous strand by now. Instead, I am generally left with fragments, shards of wisdom, and whatever it is that I feel in my bones just by being who I am, genetically. Most of the time, my genetic wisdom serves me well. But every so often, someone whispers words to me, and they plant themselves in my brain in a way that's utterly different than what's in my DNA. Maura's words became a mantra for me. It is something I say to every bride before she walks down the aisle, particularly if I am lucky enough to be standing with her in those precious moments before a marriage is revealed. It is something I say to myself when I am practicing meditation or yoga. And sometimes it is something I say to myself when I need to pull myself back, reign myself in, when I need to be reminded to actually EXPERIENCE what it is that I'm experiencing. These are strong and precious words, which makes sense, because Maura is a strong and precious person.
Just a day before we left on our trip, I talked to Heather for the first time in months and months and months. Matt and I had a million errands to run that day, all of which we were running with my dad, and in his excitement and urgency to help us, he was impatient with the time I was spending on the phone. "This conversation is important," I told him, and "I wouldn't be talking on the phone right now if I didn't need to be talking on the phone right now." But in the end, his restlessness was contageous, and I told Heather that I needed to go and get on with that last day. "Remember the colors," she said as we were hanging up, "SEE all the colors." I promised her I would, and rushed off to buy those ever-important last minute items without which we surely wouldn't have been allowed on the plane.
And here I am now, with just 18 days left in this trip, and I feel saturated with color, full to the brim with colors I didn't know existed. Especially in the bizarre places where some of the colors exist, places like doorways, back alleys, cars, and dump trucks. There are the usual colors to be seen on clothes and jewelry and fruit. But it's the shock of the color, the color that catches me by surprise, that is the color I rush to soak in, to take in, to really SEE, just like Heather urged me to do. I think that she would be proud of me, that her inner artist is beaming with pride at her student, working so diligently to SEE everything that there is to see.
I am writing this post today because Maura has an upcoming birthday and because sometimes, on your birthday, it's nice to know that others take your words to heart so well that the words live inside their heart, just like you do. Before Maura whispered those words to me, I would have said that I do, actually, think of myself as a live-er of life, that I really DO live the day. But now I know that I wasn't quite right, that it was Maura who opened my eyes to HOW to live a day, an day, even a most extraordinary day. So on her birthday, I wanted her to know that because of her words, I was able to live Heather's words, and because of both of them, I get to experience India in particular but this whole trip in general, as though I just, for the first time, opened my eyes to the world, and my, what a lovely hue it has.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
An Open Letter to Asia
Posted from Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India
Dear Asia,
I understand your confusion over the fact that I have been married for nearly five years and yet do not have any children. I respect that you believe that something is woefully, seriously wrong with us. I promise to continue to lower my eyes and smile when you lean low and whisper to me that we should try, that very night, to make babies, that the moon is full and the stars are bright and that it is a most auspicious time. I promise that I take your concern seriously. I do. I really do. But Asia, time and time again I have walked through your streets and wanted to hand you a condom. I have wanted to explain to your mothers of 13 and 14 children that birth control IS an option, and that over in the western world we're allowed to exercise it. So, Asia, until such time as you understand that conceiving a child is low on the list of experiences I want to have while we're here, even while it's high on the list of experiences I very much want to have in my lifetime, I respectfully request that you stop offering a tea with a special blend of herbs and spices in order to fix my husband.
Love,Lizzi
Saturday, March 1, 2008
We May Be Traveling But It Doesn't Always Feel Like Vacation
Written and Posted from Agra, India
We wake up with a start at 5:30 in the morning. There is music in the air, singing in a foreign language, and honking, but that's not what woke us up. No, it's the sound of laundy being done downstairs, the loud slapping of a wet sheet against a stone, and the sound of the people doing the laundry, chatting and talking to each other. Their voices carry up the open-air stairwell to our room. We put earplugs in and fall back to sleep. But an hour later we wake again to the sound of construction. It is constant and ever-present, this changing and morphing and betterment of Delhi. This morning it is the sandstone polisher, working the floors to a gleaming, marble-like white. We make ourselves get out of bed by 8:30 because there is a lot to see and do and we want to pack it all in. We run the hot and cold taps into our bucket and begin our "shower" but then the power goes out and it's a cold bucket shower but it doesn't really matter anyway because within the hour we're cruising down the street in a rickshaw and when we look into the sunlight, we can see the dust particles in the air. In fact, the smog is so thick that it hangs low enough to obscure our vision just a few feet in front of us. By the time the smog burns off, it is early afternoon and hot. We buy a bottle of water but end up throwing it out because after we do the squeeze test, we notice water leaking out of our allegedly sealed bottle. We settle on some Cokes instead, consoling ourselves that we'll be loyal to our dentists and our gym memberships when we get back home.
The millions of school kids on their field trips stare at us as we walk by them. "Hi! Hello! Candy?" they shout at us as we walk by. When I smile at the girls, they giggle behind their hands and wave at me. When Matt smiles at them, they bump into each other, awkwardly laughing and blushing, their midnight-black braids swinging on either side of their face. The boys poke each other in the back, the language of a dare the same, even if I don't understand the words. "Hi!" a bold one finally says, his round cheeks so sweet that I want to take him into show-and-tell as my new little brother. "Hello," I reply, and he puts his hands over his heart, grinning at me.
I raise my camera to take a picture of the shy little girl sitting by herself and staring at whatever monument we've come to visit. She reminds me of my favorite girls, the ones I know who were likely to sit by themselves on a field trip, either in quiet contemplation, or uncertainty about how to join the big group. No sooner have I raised my camera than we are surrounded by a mob of shouting and excited kids, all eager to be her new best friend now that she's made friends with the white lady and her camera. I snap the pictures as quickly as I can, trying to capture their eager faces, their fingers making a peace sign or giving me a thumbs up. Through the wonders of digital photography I show them the picture and when I do, they shout and laugh, a cacophany of children's noises. "Bye! Bye America!" they say as we walk away.
In the few paces it takes for us to approach the rickshaw driver we have hired for the day, we are approached by five other rickshaw drivers and six people selling postcards, miniature chess boards, water, and jewelry. We keep our heads low, trying not to make eye contact with any of them, a constant stream of "no, thank you" coming out of our mouths.
Back in the rickshaw, our driver asks us if we could please do him the favor of stopping at his friend's store. "No buy," he says. "You see something, you like it, you buy it. They give me coupon for petrol. Good for you, good for me. Friends." And we sigh, having lost this battle a million times before, "okay," we say, "but only ten minutes." Our driver is happy, pointing out new buildings and areas of the city as we're on our way to his friend's store. Once inside, we carefully walk through every room, making sure not to spend a minute more or a minute less than we have to. We finger carpets and sandstone boxes and pashminas, knowing that we won't buy anything, feeling vaguely guilty for the shop-keeper who follows our every move. "You like scarf madam? Beautiful scarf. Cheap for you."
We head back to our hotel to check our email and reconnect with those people on the other side of the world who we miss so much. The connection is too slow, we can't get to gmail, we're pretty sure the guys next to us are cooking up a spam scam. Missing home more than when we walked in, we head back out to find some dinner, using the "if it's full of women and children, we can eat there too" test when we're in doubt. We order too much food because we want to try everything, and we talk and talk and talk about our day, about Boston, about our friends. We order two more bottles of water and we check them both before we leave the restaurant.
Walking back to our hotel, children, young, beautiful, dirty children pass us. Touching my arm so that I can't help but look at them, they hold out their hand, palm outstretched, and then bring their fingers back to their mouth. "I am hungry," they are telling me. And though my instincts are to scoop them up and walk right back into the restaurant, I adapt the same stance as I did earlier in the day when offered a miniature chess board, hang my head and say, "no, sorry. I'm sorry." I'm even sorrier when a young, beautiful, dirty child walks up to me with an even younger, beautiful, dirtier infant that is clearly hers, and the baby, only just old enough to hold her head up, holds out her hand to me. I give her 5 ruppees and walk away, feeling ashamed of my full belly, my full camera card, my full wallet.
And then it's time to relax and look at pictures, to sort through the remnants of our day, to wash the dirt off of our faces and to marvel at what our lungs must look like, given the state of the tissue we just blew our noses in. We open our sleep sacks so we don't have to touch the bed and we set our alarm clocks, making sure the our earplugs are nearby so we can put them in at 5:30am again.
This life that we're living over here is nothing like our real lives, our lives with things like the T and our cute SUV. It's nothing like the life where I covet designer jeans and Matt dreams about the Dodge Charger he wants someday. It's basically the opposite of being on vacation because for us, at least, vacation is a place where you can put your feet up, where someone brings you drinks when you ask for them, where sleeping on the sheets isn't something you give much thought to. No, this is more like a hiatus, a time warp, an experience in an alter universe. To say that it's occasionally hard and exhausting is an understatement. But I wouldn't trade it in for anything. I'd do it again in a heartbeat. All of it. The beautiful buildings and sights to see, right there alongside the hungry children. The amazing tastes and the 5:30am wake up. Yes, I know that I'd do it all over again without even thinking twice about it. There is time enough for vacation; now is the time for travel. And for the next month and four days, travel we will do.
We wake up with a start at 5:30 in the morning. There is music in the air, singing in a foreign language, and honking, but that's not what woke us up. No, it's the sound of laundy being done downstairs, the loud slapping of a wet sheet against a stone, and the sound of the people doing the laundry, chatting and talking to each other. Their voices carry up the open-air stairwell to our room. We put earplugs in and fall back to sleep. But an hour later we wake again to the sound of construction. It is constant and ever-present, this changing and morphing and betterment of Delhi. This morning it is the sandstone polisher, working the floors to a gleaming, marble-like white. We make ourselves get out of bed by 8:30 because there is a lot to see and do and we want to pack it all in. We run the hot and cold taps into our bucket and begin our "shower" but then the power goes out and it's a cold bucket shower but it doesn't really matter anyway because within the hour we're cruising down the street in a rickshaw and when we look into the sunlight, we can see the dust particles in the air. In fact, the smog is so thick that it hangs low enough to obscure our vision just a few feet in front of us. By the time the smog burns off, it is early afternoon and hot. We buy a bottle of water but end up throwing it out because after we do the squeeze test, we notice water leaking out of our allegedly sealed bottle. We settle on some Cokes instead, consoling ourselves that we'll be loyal to our dentists and our gym memberships when we get back home.
The millions of school kids on their field trips stare at us as we walk by them. "Hi! Hello! Candy?" they shout at us as we walk by. When I smile at the girls, they giggle behind their hands and wave at me. When Matt smiles at them, they bump into each other, awkwardly laughing and blushing, their midnight-black braids swinging on either side of their face. The boys poke each other in the back, the language of a dare the same, even if I don't understand the words. "Hi!" a bold one finally says, his round cheeks so sweet that I want to take him into show-and-tell as my new little brother. "Hello," I reply, and he puts his hands over his heart, grinning at me.
I raise my camera to take a picture of the shy little girl sitting by herself and staring at whatever monument we've come to visit. She reminds me of my favorite girls, the ones I know who were likely to sit by themselves on a field trip, either in quiet contemplation, or uncertainty about how to join the big group. No sooner have I raised my camera than we are surrounded by a mob of shouting and excited kids, all eager to be her new best friend now that she's made friends with the white lady and her camera. I snap the pictures as quickly as I can, trying to capture their eager faces, their fingers making a peace sign or giving me a thumbs up. Through the wonders of digital photography I show them the picture and when I do, they shout and laugh, a cacophany of children's noises. "Bye! Bye America!" they say as we walk away.
In the few paces it takes for us to approach the rickshaw driver we have hired for the day, we are approached by five other rickshaw drivers and six people selling postcards, miniature chess boards, water, and jewelry. We keep our heads low, trying not to make eye contact with any of them, a constant stream of "no, thank you" coming out of our mouths.
Back in the rickshaw, our driver asks us if we could please do him the favor of stopping at his friend's store. "No buy," he says. "You see something, you like it, you buy it. They give me coupon for petrol. Good for you, good for me. Friends." And we sigh, having lost this battle a million times before, "okay," we say, "but only ten minutes." Our driver is happy, pointing out new buildings and areas of the city as we're on our way to his friend's store. Once inside, we carefully walk through every room, making sure not to spend a minute more or a minute less than we have to. We finger carpets and sandstone boxes and pashminas, knowing that we won't buy anything, feeling vaguely guilty for the shop-keeper who follows our every move. "You like scarf madam? Beautiful scarf. Cheap for you."
We head back to our hotel to check our email and reconnect with those people on the other side of the world who we miss so much. The connection is too slow, we can't get to gmail, we're pretty sure the guys next to us are cooking up a spam scam. Missing home more than when we walked in, we head back out to find some dinner, using the "if it's full of women and children, we can eat there too" test when we're in doubt. We order too much food because we want to try everything, and we talk and talk and talk about our day, about Boston, about our friends. We order two more bottles of water and we check them both before we leave the restaurant.
Walking back to our hotel, children, young, beautiful, dirty children pass us. Touching my arm so that I can't help but look at them, they hold out their hand, palm outstretched, and then bring their fingers back to their mouth. "I am hungry," they are telling me. And though my instincts are to scoop them up and walk right back into the restaurant, I adapt the same stance as I did earlier in the day when offered a miniature chess board, hang my head and say, "no, sorry. I'm sorry." I'm even sorrier when a young, beautiful, dirty child walks up to me with an even younger, beautiful, dirtier infant that is clearly hers, and the baby, only just old enough to hold her head up, holds out her hand to me. I give her 5 ruppees and walk away, feeling ashamed of my full belly, my full camera card, my full wallet.
And then it's time to relax and look at pictures, to sort through the remnants of our day, to wash the dirt off of our faces and to marvel at what our lungs must look like, given the state of the tissue we just blew our noses in. We open our sleep sacks so we don't have to touch the bed and we set our alarm clocks, making sure the our earplugs are nearby so we can put them in at 5:30am again.
This life that we're living over here is nothing like our real lives, our lives with things like the T and our cute SUV. It's nothing like the life where I covet designer jeans and Matt dreams about the Dodge Charger he wants someday. It's basically the opposite of being on vacation because for us, at least, vacation is a place where you can put your feet up, where someone brings you drinks when you ask for them, where sleeping on the sheets isn't something you give much thought to. No, this is more like a hiatus, a time warp, an experience in an alter universe. To say that it's occasionally hard and exhausting is an understatement. But I wouldn't trade it in for anything. I'd do it again in a heartbeat. All of it. The beautiful buildings and sights to see, right there alongside the hungry children. The amazing tastes and the 5:30am wake up. Yes, I know that I'd do it all over again without even thinking twice about it. There is time enough for vacation; now is the time for travel. And for the next month and four days, travel we will do.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
A Few Thoughts on India, So Far
Written from Cochin, Kerala, India
Posted from Delhi, India
We've been in India for over two weeks now, and I haven't really written anything substantive on our actual travels here. Sure, I've written about other backpackers, and Matt told you about our seaside and bus experiences, but I haven't written anything about what it's like to actually BE here in this place. And I'm not sure why I haven't written about it, because it's not like I'm not thinking about it. On the contrary, I'm thinking about it all the time. It's practically all I can think about. The very word "India" just rolls around in my head, over and over and over again. It's often coupled with images I expected to see here, images that collide with things that I am actually seeing here. And there are bits and pieces of stories that I've stolen from friends who have either visited India or still call India home. Those roll around in my head too. So although I'm sure that it won't be even a little bit eloquent, I want to try to get some of these thoughts down for you, just in case you're still bumbling along on this journey with us and you want to know.
From the stories I'd heard about Goa, I expected to land smack in the middle of an enormous beach rave. I expected something a la Phi Phi Island, Thailand, complete with hippie-like tourists and buckets filled to the brim with vodka and red bull. But because we stayed off the beaten track in a non-backpacker area, there were no buckets, no hippies to speak of, and certainly no raves. In the end, even though we thought we were looking for some way to inebriate ourselves in our early days in the subcontinent, it ended up being a good thing that Colva Beach wasn't the party mecca we were looking for. In its own quiet, ocean-observing way, Colva gave us the opportunity to settle in to India.
And as quickly as we could settle in to Goa, we were off for our whirlwind tour of Kerala. I expected things to be quiet here, quiet like the people who urged us to visit their home, who aren't really quiet at all, so I'm not sure why I thought that. I figured that the pace of Kerala would suit us, that we would move effortlessly from place to place and see what we could see. But I am now convinced that there is no such thing as effortless movement in India. Instead, we were bumped and hurried and hustled from place to place, over windy, vomit-inducing roads, and through dusty towns. We ate good food and we ate bad food. At first it seemed like everyone wanted to sell us something, something that looked a lot like something we didn't even think about wanting, but in the end it turned out that everyone just wanted us to love Kerala, to love this place, the way that they do.
And what a place it is. Goa, Kerala, India. It is an incredible, amazing place. Amazing in that it causes constant amazement, and amazes us, constantly. Before we came to India people told us that we would either love it or hate it. And we knew people who fell into both camps. Heather loves it. Her fiance Andrew (yay, Heather got engaged!) hates it. Jane loved it. Megan hated it. Nitin and Uma call it home, and tell us stories about India with the love of someone whose dreams still bring them back here. But then there were those kids from our first go-round at CMU who would ask us WHY we'd want to be a tourist in a place like India. But I've always wanted to visit India, always, for as long as I can remember, even way back in my youngest years on Copper Beech Drive when I'd spend my summer days playing hide-and-go-seek with Zarine and Kekki, and I'd walk into their house for lemonade and smell that unfamiliar and mezmorizing smell. (Incidentally, it's a smell I can now correctly identify as cooked basmati rice, ginger, and cardamom.)
So here we are now, day by day, moment by moment, trying to figure out which camp we fall into. Love it or hate it? And for some reason, I'm having a hard time coming up with a visceral reaction. I can't collect my thoughts around what I spend my day seeing, and certainly not in a way that's cogent enough to come to any conclusions. So I will give you things that I see, instead, so that you may draw your own: I see a truck full of cows, crammed head to head, riding on the windy roads of Perriyar; I see tea plantations as far as I could look, greener than any green I've ever seen; I see women washing clothes by beating them against washing stones; I see little children with kohl on their eyes like eyeliner; I see sarees and sarees and sarees; I see men fidgeting with the ends of their lungis, which basically look like a skirt; I see beautiful fruit and vegetable stands, the likes of which we don't have at home in the US; I see trash burning on the side of the road, on the side of the river, on the side of someone's house; I see tea stalls and tea stalls and tea stalls; I see brightly-colored fried desserts that make my eyes scrunch, they're so sweet; I see women and children who are hungry and begging. I see all of these things, and I don't have the slightest clue how I absorb them all, soak them into my mind and my skin so that they're part of me, part of what I'm doing in this place, after all.
We're ending our time in South India tomorrow and heading to Delhi. We'll be there for about three weeks before we head off again, this time to Nepal. And there isn't time, there just isn't enough time, to love or hate this place. So for now I will work on experiencing it and taking pictures with my camera and with my mind's eye, so that when I am home, and someone says the word "India" to me, I can see where my inner eye takes me and where my stomach pulls me and where my heart lies.
Posted from Delhi, India
We've been in India for over two weeks now, and I haven't really written anything substantive on our actual travels here. Sure, I've written about other backpackers, and Matt told you about our seaside and bus experiences, but I haven't written anything about what it's like to actually BE here in this place. And I'm not sure why I haven't written about it, because it's not like I'm not thinking about it. On the contrary, I'm thinking about it all the time. It's practically all I can think about. The very word "India" just rolls around in my head, over and over and over again. It's often coupled with images I expected to see here, images that collide with things that I am actually seeing here. And there are bits and pieces of stories that I've stolen from friends who have either visited India or still call India home. Those roll around in my head too. So although I'm sure that it won't be even a little bit eloquent, I want to try to get some of these thoughts down for you, just in case you're still bumbling along on this journey with us and you want to know.
From the stories I'd heard about Goa, I expected to land smack in the middle of an enormous beach rave. I expected something a la Phi Phi Island, Thailand, complete with hippie-like tourists and buckets filled to the brim with vodka and red bull. But because we stayed off the beaten track in a non-backpacker area, there were no buckets, no hippies to speak of, and certainly no raves. In the end, even though we thought we were looking for some way to inebriate ourselves in our early days in the subcontinent, it ended up being a good thing that Colva Beach wasn't the party mecca we were looking for. In its own quiet, ocean-observing way, Colva gave us the opportunity to settle in to India.
And as quickly as we could settle in to Goa, we were off for our whirlwind tour of Kerala. I expected things to be quiet here, quiet like the people who urged us to visit their home, who aren't really quiet at all, so I'm not sure why I thought that. I figured that the pace of Kerala would suit us, that we would move effortlessly from place to place and see what we could see. But I am now convinced that there is no such thing as effortless movement in India. Instead, we were bumped and hurried and hustled from place to place, over windy, vomit-inducing roads, and through dusty towns. We ate good food and we ate bad food. At first it seemed like everyone wanted to sell us something, something that looked a lot like something we didn't even think about wanting, but in the end it turned out that everyone just wanted us to love Kerala, to love this place, the way that they do.
And what a place it is. Goa, Kerala, India. It is an incredible, amazing place. Amazing in that it causes constant amazement, and amazes us, constantly. Before we came to India people told us that we would either love it or hate it. And we knew people who fell into both camps. Heather loves it. Her fiance Andrew (yay, Heather got engaged!) hates it. Jane loved it. Megan hated it. Nitin and Uma call it home, and tell us stories about India with the love of someone whose dreams still bring them back here. But then there were those kids from our first go-round at CMU who would ask us WHY we'd want to be a tourist in a place like India. But I've always wanted to visit India, always, for as long as I can remember, even way back in my youngest years on Copper Beech Drive when I'd spend my summer days playing hide-and-go-seek with Zarine and Kekki, and I'd walk into their house for lemonade and smell that unfamiliar and mezmorizing smell. (Incidentally, it's a smell I can now correctly identify as cooked basmati rice, ginger, and cardamom.)
So here we are now, day by day, moment by moment, trying to figure out which camp we fall into. Love it or hate it? And for some reason, I'm having a hard time coming up with a visceral reaction. I can't collect my thoughts around what I spend my day seeing, and certainly not in a way that's cogent enough to come to any conclusions. So I will give you things that I see, instead, so that you may draw your own: I see a truck full of cows, crammed head to head, riding on the windy roads of Perriyar; I see tea plantations as far as I could look, greener than any green I've ever seen; I see women washing clothes by beating them against washing stones; I see little children with kohl on their eyes like eyeliner; I see sarees and sarees and sarees; I see men fidgeting with the ends of their lungis, which basically look like a skirt; I see beautiful fruit and vegetable stands, the likes of which we don't have at home in the US; I see trash burning on the side of the road, on the side of the river, on the side of someone's house; I see tea stalls and tea stalls and tea stalls; I see brightly-colored fried desserts that make my eyes scrunch, they're so sweet; I see women and children who are hungry and begging. I see all of these things, and I don't have the slightest clue how I absorb them all, soak them into my mind and my skin so that they're part of me, part of what I'm doing in this place, after all.
We're ending our time in South India tomorrow and heading to Delhi. We'll be there for about three weeks before we head off again, this time to Nepal. And there isn't time, there just isn't enough time, to love or hate this place. So for now I will work on experiencing it and taking pictures with my camera and with my mind's eye, so that when I am home, and someone says the word "India" to me, I can see where my inner eye takes me and where my stomach pulls me and where my heart lies.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
The Backpacker Beat
Written and Posted from Kumily, Kerala, India
Over the course of the past couple of months, we have had the opportunity to meet people just like us. They're doing the backpacker thing just like we are, going here and there, seeing what there is to see. Most of them either quit their jobs at home, have delayed starting work until that inevitable day when they run out of money, or are on a perpetual backpacker circuit where they work until they save enough to travel and then travel until they run out of money. We have yet to meet the independently wealthy trustafarian, though we are sure he or she is out there, staying in much posher hotels than the ones we frequent.
By and large, backpackers fall into two big groups: the young kids and the old kids. The young kids are the ones that are just out of college, or are even in college and doing a study abroad/run away from college thing. They tend to stay in dorm-style rooms, eight to twelve kids to a space, and they're loud and they drink a lot of beer. They watch their budget so tightly that instead of spending $1 on an actual meal, they'll make a meal out of bread and chutney. They almost never splurge on things, but they do find a way to buy tshirts and pashminas, and they always look sunkissed and happy, if not a little bit tired. We've enjoyed meeting them because they make us laugh and they make us feel wise. We, however, do not fall into this category. We're the old kids. (Of course, there's still a set of even OLDER kids and those are the ones I admire very much. They're the people who actually DO what they said they were going to do when they retired. And while they often hang out in big tour groups or sit in big buses with tinted windows, we've met the occasional older kid who just straps on a backpack and some walking shoes and checks out India, FINALLY.) The old kids like us tend to stay in places that are just one step up from the dorm room, and when we eat a meal, it's okay to spend $4, even $5 dollars. We occasionally splurge on things like air conditioning and dessert, and we don't feel TOO guilty if we spend money on a beautiful bedspread (cough, cough). Some of the old kids even travel with their own kids (and props to them, right?) and while lots of the old kids are couples traveling together, many of them are also flying solo, or traveling in groups of two and three friends who decided that they'd prefer to trade their spot in a cube farm for a view of a cardamom plantation.
But the funny thing about backpackers, and here I mean ALL backpackers, is that we all have a tendency to want our experience to be the BEST experience. Though we have been very lucky to have met a few other travelers who are just as excited as we are to be traveling, and who seem like the type of people we would be friends with in our real lives, by and large, when we meet other backpackers, we start off conversations the same way, and then proceed towards a general dissertation of why our trip is the best possible trip ever. By way of example, here is a typical conversation:
Us: Hello, where are you from?
Them: We're from the US/UK/Australia/Sweden/New Zealand
Us: Cool. How long are you traveling?
Them: Oh, just 1 month/three months/a whole year.
Us: Wow, that's great! Where are you going?
Them: Just Thailand/All of Southeast Asia/Southeast Asia, India, Indonesia, Australia, Africa, and New Zealand.
Us: Awesome. We're doing Southeast Asia and Thailand in 3.5 months, so we're on kind of a whirlwind tour.
Them: I'll say! That IS quick. Where have you been so far?
Us: Well, we just got to India about a week ago, and we've already been to Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Sri Lanka.
Them: Oh, didn't you just LOVE Thailand/Laos/Vietnam/Cambodia?
Us: Yeah, we did. We feel really lucky to have--
Them: When you were in Cambodia, did you get out to that really remote temple that no one's even heard of? Because we did, and it was SOOOO much better than Angkor Wat or Bayon.
Us: Um, no, we didn't even know about that. But we loved--
Them: And wasn't Hanoi amazing? We thought the hubub was fantastic there.
Us: Actually, it was a little overwhelming to us.
Them: Really? Hmm... well then you better be careful in Delhi, because if Hanoi freaked you out then you're going to have a really tough time in Northern India.
Us (walking away): Um, thanks for the advice. Have a good trip!
And see, when I type it out like that, it doesn't quite convey how annoying it can be to have this kind of conversation with someone. But the conversation usually occurs when we're standing around waiting for a bus or a train, and really, we're all sort of lost, otherwise, WHY would we be halfway around the world when there are perfectly acceptable things for us to be doing in our countries of origin? But practicalities aside, is there really any NEED for that kind of conversation? Do I really CARE that I missed out on the really remote temple that no one's even heard of, particularly considering that I really enjoyed seeing the temples that I did see? Well no. Except that yes, sort of, I DO care.
At least, I care until I remember that in the end, this trip isn't about comparing ourselves to anyone else, or hearing about anyone else's experiences. In the end, this trip is about our experiences and our journey. This trip is about the fact that lately, when I find myself with time to sit and think, I find my mind drifting to happy things like an old friend's upcoming wedding, or how excited I am to live in Boston, or how cute all my nieces and nephews will be. I sit around and smile to myself, which is basically the reason I went halfway around the world. And then there's also the fact that I know myself well enough to know that in a few months, if I run into someone traveling to Saigon, I'll be quick to offer them my opinion about how much cooler Saigon was than Hanoi. You know, just in case they're curious.
Over the course of the past couple of months, we have had the opportunity to meet people just like us. They're doing the backpacker thing just like we are, going here and there, seeing what there is to see. Most of them either quit their jobs at home, have delayed starting work until that inevitable day when they run out of money, or are on a perpetual backpacker circuit where they work until they save enough to travel and then travel until they run out of money. We have yet to meet the independently wealthy trustafarian, though we are sure he or she is out there, staying in much posher hotels than the ones we frequent.
By and large, backpackers fall into two big groups: the young kids and the old kids. The young kids are the ones that are just out of college, or are even in college and doing a study abroad/run away from college thing. They tend to stay in dorm-style rooms, eight to twelve kids to a space, and they're loud and they drink a lot of beer. They watch their budget so tightly that instead of spending $1 on an actual meal, they'll make a meal out of bread and chutney. They almost never splurge on things, but they do find a way to buy tshirts and pashminas, and they always look sunkissed and happy, if not a little bit tired. We've enjoyed meeting them because they make us laugh and they make us feel wise. We, however, do not fall into this category. We're the old kids. (Of course, there's still a set of even OLDER kids and those are the ones I admire very much. They're the people who actually DO what they said they were going to do when they retired. And while they often hang out in big tour groups or sit in big buses with tinted windows, we've met the occasional older kid who just straps on a backpack and some walking shoes and checks out India, FINALLY.) The old kids like us tend to stay in places that are just one step up from the dorm room, and when we eat a meal, it's okay to spend $4, even $5 dollars. We occasionally splurge on things like air conditioning and dessert, and we don't feel TOO guilty if we spend money on a beautiful bedspread (cough, cough). Some of the old kids even travel with their own kids (and props to them, right?) and while lots of the old kids are couples traveling together, many of them are also flying solo, or traveling in groups of two and three friends who decided that they'd prefer to trade their spot in a cube farm for a view of a cardamom plantation.
But the funny thing about backpackers, and here I mean ALL backpackers, is that we all have a tendency to want our experience to be the BEST experience. Though we have been very lucky to have met a few other travelers who are just as excited as we are to be traveling, and who seem like the type of people we would be friends with in our real lives, by and large, when we meet other backpackers, we start off conversations the same way, and then proceed towards a general dissertation of why our trip is the best possible trip ever. By way of example, here is a typical conversation:
Us: Hello, where are you from?
Them: We're from the US/UK/Australia/Sweden/New Zealand
Us: Cool. How long are you traveling?
Them: Oh, just 1 month/three months/a whole year.
Us: Wow, that's great! Where are you going?
Them: Just Thailand/All of Southeast Asia/Southeast Asia, India, Indonesia, Australia, Africa, and New Zealand.
Us: Awesome. We're doing Southeast Asia and Thailand in 3.5 months, so we're on kind of a whirlwind tour.
Them: I'll say! That IS quick. Where have you been so far?
Us: Well, we just got to India about a week ago, and we've already been to Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Sri Lanka.
Them: Oh, didn't you just LOVE Thailand/Laos/Vietnam/Cambodia?
Us: Yeah, we did. We feel really lucky to have--
Them: When you were in Cambodia, did you get out to that really remote temple that no one's even heard of? Because we did, and it was SOOOO much better than Angkor Wat or Bayon.
Us: Um, no, we didn't even know about that. But we loved--
Them: And wasn't Hanoi amazing? We thought the hubub was fantastic there.
Us: Actually, it was a little overwhelming to us.
Them: Really? Hmm... well then you better be careful in Delhi, because if Hanoi freaked you out then you're going to have a really tough time in Northern India.
Us (walking away): Um, thanks for the advice. Have a good trip!
And see, when I type it out like that, it doesn't quite convey how annoying it can be to have this kind of conversation with someone. But the conversation usually occurs when we're standing around waiting for a bus or a train, and really, we're all sort of lost, otherwise, WHY would we be halfway around the world when there are perfectly acceptable things for us to be doing in our countries of origin? But practicalities aside, is there really any NEED for that kind of conversation? Do I really CARE that I missed out on the really remote temple that no one's even heard of, particularly considering that I really enjoyed seeing the temples that I did see? Well no. Except that yes, sort of, I DO care.
At least, I care until I remember that in the end, this trip isn't about comparing ourselves to anyone else, or hearing about anyone else's experiences. In the end, this trip is about our experiences and our journey. This trip is about the fact that lately, when I find myself with time to sit and think, I find my mind drifting to happy things like an old friend's upcoming wedding, or how excited I am to live in Boston, or how cute all my nieces and nephews will be. I sit around and smile to myself, which is basically the reason I went halfway around the world. And then there's also the fact that I know myself well enough to know that in a few months, if I run into someone traveling to Saigon, I'll be quick to offer them my opinion about how much cooler Saigon was than Hanoi. You know, just in case they're curious.
Sixty-Day Status Report
Written in Cochin, Posted from Kumily, Kerala, India
In case you're curious, and even if you're not, we wanted to let you know how we're doing now that we're over halfway into this journey. So we categorized some of the top-priority items and wrote up our thoughts on them. Basically, it's a list of all of the things we had concerns about, most of which we shared with you, and how we're dealing with them so far. Without further ado, our status report:
Accomodations: After our disgusting four-nights-stay at Big John's Backpacker Hostel in Bangkok, Thailand, our standards increased considerably. We decided that we don't need to be hardcore backpackers and that we outgrew dorm rooms sometime around the day we graduated from college (and actually before, but we were RAs, so we couldn't really knock them). Dorms are fine for single travelers, but hard for couples. When we can't sleep near each other, we're not as nice to each other the next day. And then there's the fact that in a dorm room, we're 10-12 years older than our bunkmates. We now pay an average of $18 a night for a room. Sometimes that gets us AC, sometimes it doesn't. We are loathe to pay more than $20 a night and when we do, we are splurging. That $25 per night room better have AC and sheets so clean we can sleep on them without wearing pajamas!
Water: Still not drinking it
Vegetables and Fruit: We TRIED not eating raw vegetables. We really did. But we can't. So we are. So far, we haven't eaten any that were grown in someone's poop. And in fact, the vegetables we've eaten are delicious -- they actually taste like actual homegrown vegetables. And fruit? Did you know that there are over 150 types of bananas? Neither did we. We've eaten about 8 different kinds and so far, they're all delicious.
Cravings for American Food: The cravings are high but not presently as high as they were in Southeast Asia. Which is in part due to the fact that we caved and ate McDonald's when we were in Bangkok that second time (a cheeseburger never tasted so good). Since we love Indian food and we've eaten it loads of times before now, it tastes a little bit more like home than Beef Noodle Soup with Fish Balls tasted. On the other hand, when we're watching an episode of Friends, we occasionally drool when we see what they're eating. Especially if it's pizza. Oh, pizza.
Mosquito Bites: I have about 32 visible bites. Matt has about 10. But the ants love him and stay away from me. We use DEET to try to scare away the bugs, but really using it is more about the psychological factor of feeling like we're DOING something, since the bugs don't seem to care whether we're DEETed or not. Thank goodness for Malarone.
Tummies: For the most part, our tummies are fine. We both suffered a bit in Southeast Asia and for that period of time, neither one of us could handle the local cuisine. But we got through it and so far, India has been kinder than we expected. Though the mantra "if it's spicy on the way in, it will be spicy on the way out, too" still holds. And is repeated often. Except for Matt's current aversion to rice, we're loving the food. And when he's sick of rice, there are a host of breads to make up for it.
Crohn's: So far, so food. When my stomach was bothering me in Cambodia, I had that feeling of "here it is, this is it, my intestines hate me so much that we're going to have to go home so I can go back on steroids or something." But then I remembered the combined wisdom of Andy and my GI doctor: sometimes an upset stomach is an upset stomach. I concluded that mine was a classic case of "you've been in Southeast Asia for a month" and took it easy and listened to my body and made no rash decisions to change our itinerary. I ate a lot of sandwiches. By the time we got back to Bangkok, I was ready to eat street meat again.
Traveling as a Couple: Sometimes it's harder, but most of the time, it's easier. A lot easier. There are times when we bicker, but just like at home, 99.9% of the time, it's because we're tired or hungry. We've had an actual fight on two occasions, both while we were in Vietnam, and both within a day of each other. But both times we had the time to actually talk it out which is something that's actually easier here, given that we HAVE to spend 24/7 together. In fact, I think that's been the biggest gift of the whole trip -- the time we've had together. We realize that those opportunities will get harder to find as we get older. We're doing our best to savor it now. And I think that's makig it so that we're a little gentler with each other. For the first time in a long time, we have a chance to actually understand where the other is coming from.
That Thing you Don't Talk about with your Parents: Which is why I'm not going to talk about it here either, since our parents read this blog. Suffice it to say that when you have the time to actually understand where the other is coming from, when you know exactly what their day was like because it was your day too, and when at the end of that day you're still excited to hear their perspective on something you both experienced, well, then you have time to... you know.
Grooming and Beauty: We're generally dirtier here than we are at home. We shower every day (though much faster than we do at home, particularly when there's no hot water) but Matt shaves about once a week and even though I shopped diligently for the perfect all-in-one makeup pallette, I have yet to use it. When it's too hot to wear my hair down, it's too hot for mascara. Our hair! It's long, so very long! And my hair gel totally hates me -- it's the one thing that keeps exploding.
And if you're still reading, then you're probably the only person interested in our superlatives list, which is here:
Lowest Price for a Decent Room: $6, Julie Guesthouse in Chiang Mai, Thailand
Cheapest Big Meal: $3 for two, an all-veg place in Munnar, Kerala, India
Best Tea: Toss-up between the black tea in Sri Lanka and the Chai in India
Best Night Train: Thailand (Bangkok to Chiang Mai)
Cheapest Laundry: 10,000 kip/kilogram in Laos
Cheapest Western Food: Two Cheeseburgers, Two fries, Two Cokes = $5 in Saigon, Vietnam
Best Coffee: Toss-up between Sri Lanka and Vietnam
Best Pool: The Angkor Palace Resort in Cambodia
Best Rickshaw Driver: Manish in Munnar, Kerala, India
Best Night Market, So Far: Luang Prabang, Laos
And if you've gotten this far, then WOW, do you love us. Is there anything else you're just burning to know? Anything you wish I would have written about but didn't? If there is, let us know in the comments section and we'll write it up specially for you with love.
In case you're curious, and even if you're not, we wanted to let you know how we're doing now that we're over halfway into this journey. So we categorized some of the top-priority items and wrote up our thoughts on them. Basically, it's a list of all of the things we had concerns about, most of which we shared with you, and how we're dealing with them so far. Without further ado, our status report:
Accomodations: After our disgusting four-nights-stay at Big John's Backpacker Hostel in Bangkok, Thailand, our standards increased considerably. We decided that we don't need to be hardcore backpackers and that we outgrew dorm rooms sometime around the day we graduated from college (and actually before, but we were RAs, so we couldn't really knock them). Dorms are fine for single travelers, but hard for couples. When we can't sleep near each other, we're not as nice to each other the next day. And then there's the fact that in a dorm room, we're 10-12 years older than our bunkmates. We now pay an average of $18 a night for a room. Sometimes that gets us AC, sometimes it doesn't. We are loathe to pay more than $20 a night and when we do, we are splurging. That $25 per night room better have AC and sheets so clean we can sleep on them without wearing pajamas!
Water: Still not drinking it
Vegetables and Fruit: We TRIED not eating raw vegetables. We really did. But we can't. So we are. So far, we haven't eaten any that were grown in someone's poop. And in fact, the vegetables we've eaten are delicious -- they actually taste like actual homegrown vegetables. And fruit? Did you know that there are over 150 types of bananas? Neither did we. We've eaten about 8 different kinds and so far, they're all delicious.
Cravings for American Food: The cravings are high but not presently as high as they were in Southeast Asia. Which is in part due to the fact that we caved and ate McDonald's when we were in Bangkok that second time (a cheeseburger never tasted so good). Since we love Indian food and we've eaten it loads of times before now, it tastes a little bit more like home than Beef Noodle Soup with Fish Balls tasted. On the other hand, when we're watching an episode of Friends, we occasionally drool when we see what they're eating. Especially if it's pizza. Oh, pizza.
Mosquito Bites: I have about 32 visible bites. Matt has about 10. But the ants love him and stay away from me. We use DEET to try to scare away the bugs, but really using it is more about the psychological factor of feeling like we're DOING something, since the bugs don't seem to care whether we're DEETed or not. Thank goodness for Malarone.
Tummies: For the most part, our tummies are fine. We both suffered a bit in Southeast Asia and for that period of time, neither one of us could handle the local cuisine. But we got through it and so far, India has been kinder than we expected. Though the mantra "if it's spicy on the way in, it will be spicy on the way out, too" still holds. And is repeated often. Except for Matt's current aversion to rice, we're loving the food. And when he's sick of rice, there are a host of breads to make up for it.
Crohn's: So far, so food. When my stomach was bothering me in Cambodia, I had that feeling of "here it is, this is it, my intestines hate me so much that we're going to have to go home so I can go back on steroids or something." But then I remembered the combined wisdom of Andy and my GI doctor: sometimes an upset stomach is an upset stomach. I concluded that mine was a classic case of "you've been in Southeast Asia for a month" and took it easy and listened to my body and made no rash decisions to change our itinerary. I ate a lot of sandwiches. By the time we got back to Bangkok, I was ready to eat street meat again.
Traveling as a Couple: Sometimes it's harder, but most of the time, it's easier. A lot easier. There are times when we bicker, but just like at home, 99.9% of the time, it's because we're tired or hungry. We've had an actual fight on two occasions, both while we were in Vietnam, and both within a day of each other. But both times we had the time to actually talk it out which is something that's actually easier here, given that we HAVE to spend 24/7 together. In fact, I think that's been the biggest gift of the whole trip -- the time we've had together. We realize that those opportunities will get harder to find as we get older. We're doing our best to savor it now. And I think that's makig it so that we're a little gentler with each other. For the first time in a long time, we have a chance to actually understand where the other is coming from.
That Thing you Don't Talk about with your Parents: Which is why I'm not going to talk about it here either, since our parents read this blog. Suffice it to say that when you have the time to actually understand where the other is coming from, when you know exactly what their day was like because it was your day too, and when at the end of that day you're still excited to hear their perspective on something you both experienced, well, then you have time to... you know.
Grooming and Beauty: We're generally dirtier here than we are at home. We shower every day (though much faster than we do at home, particularly when there's no hot water) but Matt shaves about once a week and even though I shopped diligently for the perfect all-in-one makeup pallette, I have yet to use it. When it's too hot to wear my hair down, it's too hot for mascara. Our hair! It's long, so very long! And my hair gel totally hates me -- it's the one thing that keeps exploding.
And if you're still reading, then you're probably the only person interested in our superlatives list, which is here:
Lowest Price for a Decent Room: $6, Julie Guesthouse in Chiang Mai, Thailand
Cheapest Big Meal: $3 for two, an all-veg place in Munnar, Kerala, India
Best Tea: Toss-up between the black tea in Sri Lanka and the Chai in India
Best Night Train: Thailand (Bangkok to Chiang Mai)
Cheapest Laundry: 10,000 kip/kilogram in Laos
Cheapest Western Food: Two Cheeseburgers, Two fries, Two Cokes = $5 in Saigon, Vietnam
Best Coffee: Toss-up between Sri Lanka and Vietnam
Best Pool: The Angkor Palace Resort in Cambodia
Best Rickshaw Driver: Manish in Munnar, Kerala, India
Best Night Market, So Far: Luang Prabang, Laos
And if you've gotten this far, then WOW, do you love us. Is there anything else you're just burning to know? Anything you wish I would have written about but didn't? If there is, let us know in the comments section and we'll write it up specially for you with love.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Have Toilet Paper, Will Travel
The View from Halfway In
Written and Posted from Goa, India
When we started this journey, 54 days ago now, I didn't really have any thoughts on toilet paper. I mean, if someone would have asked me my thoughts on the subject, I would have told them that I prefer soft to scratchy, 2-ply to single, maybe ridges to smooth if I was being really picky. But that would have been about it. I would have offered no dissertations on the importance of the mere presence of toilet paper, nor would I have expressed profound affection for flush rather than scoop toilets and the effect that the later have on toilet paper. But 54 days later, walking around city after city with a half-used roll in the same over-the-shoulder bag that carries my ever-important camera and journal, I'll tell you that toilet paper is an essential part of THIS traveler's experience in the world, that men have it easy with their ability to use the facilities, at least half of the time, without the stuff, and that those little trashcans residing next to a scoop toilet don't gross me out as much as they did, say 53 days ago.
I feel confident that when I look back on this trip in the weeks, months, and years after we return, I won't often think of my bathroom experiences. In fact, I think my eyes will glaze over as I remember how I felt when I was standing under Buddha's gaze at Wat Po, my stomach will rumble when I think of those spring rolls on the beach in Koh Lanta, my fingers will tingle as I remember how much I wanted to tickle the tummies of those kids in Laos, my ears will ring with the sounds of horns honking and roosters crowing, and my mouth will water every time I taste a lime, wishing that it was drinking down a refreshing lime soda like the ones in Sri Lanka. Yes, I think I will sense all of those things again when I get home, that I will privately re-live those experiences whenever someone is bold enough (and probably bored enough) to ask me about this trip. But I also have a feeling that every so often, walking into a bathroom somewhere unpleasant, I will be reminded that once upon a time, I walked into a bathroom in an airport in Goa, and every single stall was devoid of toilet paper, each instead sporting a faucet-like nozzle attached to a hose.
In a way, it's all of these things together that make up a trip like the one that we're on. It's the feeling of quietly studying another statute of Buddha, while also calculating in the back of your mind just how many other people stood there in that same spot, as barefoot as you are, and wondering, silently, if any of them suffered from athlete's foot. Before we left, some people who had traveled more than we had told us that at some point, we would get used to it. It's like Europe, they told us. After a while, a church is a church is a church. Except that so far, I haven't felt that way at all. Every Wat or Temple we see, even the ones that don't feel particularly spiritual to me, are amazing. There's always a child to watch, or a woman in prayer, or a particularly interesting plaque to read. Every single day I experience a moment where I think to myself, "holyshit you are in Thailand!" or "Laos!" or "India!" Every single day I have a moment where I catch my breath, feel my stomach clench, and think, "you are so lucky to be here, experiencing this." And I'm not even exaggerating when I say that it happens every day. Even on the days that I don't like, the days when I'm feeling particularly lonely for home, or the days when every thing I eat makes me want to puke. Yes, even on those days I feel lucky. Lucky to say to myself that I will be so GLAD to go home and get a hug from Julie or my Dad, or so GLAD to drink water right from the faucet. Even on the days when it's hard, I feel lucky to be in a place that reminds me of how happy I am in the familiarity of home, just as happy, even, as I am when a child in Vietnam points at me and giggles, calling my hair "noodle hair" and laughs out loud when I laugh out loud too and shake my hair at her for fun.
If the next 54 days are anything like the past 54 days, they will fly by. They will be filled with colors and noises the sights and sounds of which I have never really seen or listened to. There will be days when I think that I could remain in that one spot forever, and other days when I wish that there were magic planes that could transport me home in an instant. If the next 54 days are anything like the past 54 days, I will check my bag before I head out the door, taking care that I have enough toilet paper to get me through the day, and double-checking that my camera battery is charged enough to record all of these experiences. If the next 54 days are anything like the past 54 days, I will be lucky enough to experience a few more bits and pieces of the world, I will feel how lucky I am at some point every single day, I will turn to Matt and smile at our good fortune at having found the one person with whom I want to share this expeirence, and I will go to sleep excited to see what the next day will bring, good or bad, clean or gross, spiritual or commonplace.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Speaking of War
Written and posted in Phnom Penh, Cambodia
We went to the killing fields today. We saw piles and piles of human skulls. We saw a box full of bones and teeth. They are all that remains in the wake of Pol Pot's destruction.
We went to the killing fields today.
When we first decided to go to Cambodia, people told us that other than Angkor Wat, there wasn't a whole lot to see in the country. "Go straight to Siem Reap," they said. And when I told them that I wanted to go to Phnom Penh to see the killing fields, they looked perplexed. Maybe rightly so. It's not that I WANTED to see the killing fields, it's just that, after spending thousands of dollars on a plane ticket to come to this part of the world, it didn't feel right to abrogate my duty to pay my respects to the thousands of lives that were lost at the hands of an outrageous killer. And that's exactly how I saw it: coming to Phnom Penh, having the day that we had, it was my responsibility.
And so we went to the killing fields today.
We have no pictures from our day, only the grim images that will most likely remain in our minds for a long, long time, if not forever. We will remember the holes in the grounds where hundreds of Cambodians were left to rot, and we will remember the school-turned-prison with its bloodstains still on the floor. We will remember that tower of skulls, and the photographs that were meticulously taken of each prisoner. We will remember the shackles and the chains, the instruments of torture, the peaceful grounds that used to be a nursery.
We will remember that as we sat, grim-faced, heading from the prison to a temple, we were both thinking of the destruction going on in the world today. We thought about Darfur and Sierra Leone. We thought about the Sudan and Kenya. We thought about Guantanamo and Baghdad. We thought about Palestine. We will remember that those devastations, like Pol Pot's devastation, occured in our lifetime. In OUR lifetime.
Sitting in that tuk-tuk today, I thought about my parents and grandparents. My parents could not have stopped these atrocities, just as my grandparents could not have stopped Hitler. And I cannot stop Darfur and Kenya and Guantanamo. Oh, but I will remember.
At the end of our dark day, we asked our tuk-tuk driver to take us to that aforementioned temple. I wanted to say a prayer, because at the end of a day of death, prayer seemed fitting. And it didn't matter to me, not even a little bit, that the prayer couldn't be said in a place where I might normally pray. A house of God is a house of God, and if it was to Buddha to whom my prayer was directed, it was Buddha who would help me find peace again. I will tell you what I prayed for, because it is a message that I wish I could send around the whole world, to people who read this, and to everyone they know, and to everyone THEY know, and so on.
I prayed first for the people whose lives were lost, for their families who could not bury them, for the babies they could not have. I prayed for humanity, for the soul of humanity, which gets inexplicably lost in times of war. I prayed for the child-soldiers who carried out Pol Pot's plans of utter destruction, because I believe in my heart that when the soul of humanity is lost, even the purest of hearts can be persuaded to engage in evil. I prayed for justice, because I believe that I understand that word, because I took an oath to seek it out, and because justice, justice, I shall pursue. I prayed that Matt and I will be able to explain to whatever children we will someday be lucky enough to have, that these things do happen, and that we must remember them. I prayed for old people, that they might be able to forget. And I prayed for all of you, and for all of your children, that we all might someday know a world where these prayers simply aren't necessary, that humanity will find its soul, that justice will prevail. I ended my prayer with a note of thanks, thanking whatever deity was listening, even the one residing right there within me, for the man sitting next to me, for the ability to pray, and for all of the good and wonderful things that I see around me all of the time.
As we drove back to our hotel, I saw an old man playing a version of badminton with what I'm assuming was his grandson. I thought of the stories Matt told me of playing badminton with Tom when they were little. I felt the corners of my mouth curl towards a smile, at the old man and the young boy, and the child versions of Matt and Tom. I took a deep breath, exhaling this day, and decided to write this to you.
We went to the killing fields today. We saw piles and piles of human skulls. We saw a box full of bones and teeth. They are all that remains in the wake of Pol Pot's destruction.
We went to the killing fields today.
When we first decided to go to Cambodia, people told us that other than Angkor Wat, there wasn't a whole lot to see in the country. "Go straight to Siem Reap," they said. And when I told them that I wanted to go to Phnom Penh to see the killing fields, they looked perplexed. Maybe rightly so. It's not that I WANTED to see the killing fields, it's just that, after spending thousands of dollars on a plane ticket to come to this part of the world, it didn't feel right to abrogate my duty to pay my respects to the thousands of lives that were lost at the hands of an outrageous killer. And that's exactly how I saw it: coming to Phnom Penh, having the day that we had, it was my responsibility.
And so we went to the killing fields today.
We have no pictures from our day, only the grim images that will most likely remain in our minds for a long, long time, if not forever. We will remember the holes in the grounds where hundreds of Cambodians were left to rot, and we will remember the school-turned-prison with its bloodstains still on the floor. We will remember that tower of skulls, and the photographs that were meticulously taken of each prisoner. We will remember the shackles and the chains, the instruments of torture, the peaceful grounds that used to be a nursery.
We will remember that as we sat, grim-faced, heading from the prison to a temple, we were both thinking of the destruction going on in the world today. We thought about Darfur and Sierra Leone. We thought about the Sudan and Kenya. We thought about Guantanamo and Baghdad. We thought about Palestine. We will remember that those devastations, like Pol Pot's devastation, occured in our lifetime. In OUR lifetime.
Sitting in that tuk-tuk today, I thought about my parents and grandparents. My parents could not have stopped these atrocities, just as my grandparents could not have stopped Hitler. And I cannot stop Darfur and Kenya and Guantanamo. Oh, but I will remember.
At the end of our dark day, we asked our tuk-tuk driver to take us to that aforementioned temple. I wanted to say a prayer, because at the end of a day of death, prayer seemed fitting. And it didn't matter to me, not even a little bit, that the prayer couldn't be said in a place where I might normally pray. A house of God is a house of God, and if it was to Buddha to whom my prayer was directed, it was Buddha who would help me find peace again. I will tell you what I prayed for, because it is a message that I wish I could send around the whole world, to people who read this, and to everyone they know, and to everyone THEY know, and so on.
I prayed first for the people whose lives were lost, for their families who could not bury them, for the babies they could not have. I prayed for humanity, for the soul of humanity, which gets inexplicably lost in times of war. I prayed for the child-soldiers who carried out Pol Pot's plans of utter destruction, because I believe in my heart that when the soul of humanity is lost, even the purest of hearts can be persuaded to engage in evil. I prayed for justice, because I believe that I understand that word, because I took an oath to seek it out, and because justice, justice, I shall pursue. I prayed that Matt and I will be able to explain to whatever children we will someday be lucky enough to have, that these things do happen, and that we must remember them. I prayed for old people, that they might be able to forget. And I prayed for all of you, and for all of your children, that we all might someday know a world where these prayers simply aren't necessary, that humanity will find its soul, that justice will prevail. I ended my prayer with a note of thanks, thanking whatever deity was listening, even the one residing right there within me, for the man sitting next to me, for the ability to pray, and for all of the good and wonderful things that I see around me all of the time.
As we drove back to our hotel, I saw an old man playing a version of badminton with what I'm assuming was his grandson. I thought of the stories Matt told me of playing badminton with Tom when they were little. I felt the corners of my mouth curl towards a smile, at the old man and the young boy, and the child versions of Matt and Tom. I took a deep breath, exhaling this day, and decided to write this to you.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
The Devil's In the Details
A Post About All the Little Things
Written from Luang Prabang, Laos
I gathered my shower things -- shoes, towel, soap, shampoo, conditioner, flip-flops, razor, bottle of water -- and made my way down the hall to the bathroom. Once there, I locked the door, hung up my towel and turned around to contemplate the room. Sink, check. Toilet, check. Shower head, check. All seemed to be available and in working order. After brushing my teeth and carefully ensuring that not a drop of water from the sink comes even a millimeter too close to my toothbrush, I set about determining how to use the shower. There was the telltale external hot water heater, which was a good sign that I would, in fact, have a hot shower. But after turning on the water from the shower head, being careful to avoid the bucket of water next to the toilet that's used to scoop-flush the toilet, I found that the external hot water heater was not cooperating. I walked over to the wall of switches, flipped the breaker, and went back to test the water. Eureka! A hot shower! A hot HAND-HELD shower, to be more exact. But here I am, ten minutes later, showered, dressed, shaved, writing to you about the experience.
There were so many things about traveling to Asia that all the Lonely Planet books and blogs in the world couldn't have prepared me for. I didn't know, for example, that when you use toilet paper here, you throw it in a waste bin next to the toilet, rather than IN the toilet. And that in order to flush the toilet, you use the aforementioned pot of water next to the toilet to wash down whatever you've done. Squat toilets I'd heard of, and I knew that I'd have to travel with plenty of Purell, but I was totally unprepared to throw my dirty toilet paper into a trashcan. I was also unprepared to encounter what looked like a spray faucet next to the trashcan. Most people here don't use toilet paper at all and instead use the spray faucet to wash themselves after they've done their business. An overheard conversation in a youth hostel the other day revealed that most travelers use the faucet to wash...their dirty feet.
Now that we're in Laos, everything is touched by a lingering French influence. This didn't disturb me in the least when we were able to eat decent chocolate from a street vendor last night. But this morning, contemplating the fact that I have one hand in which to hold the shower head, and another to, um, clean myself, I was cursing that French influence and all of its requisite charm.
Today at around 3pm, we'll come back to our guesthouse to pick up our clean, folded, slightly warm laundry. It costs less than a dollar per kilo to do laundry, which, for those of you not well-versed in the kilo, means that it's quite cheap. We allow ourselves to get down to one or two pairs of underwear, put all of our dirty stuff in one big bag, then drop it off somewhere to be perfectly laundered. And thanks to my dad's warnings of all of these years, we know to request that it be washed AND dried. So far, we haven't had any problems, and the only remaining question is if we'd prefer that they iron our socks. True story.
Every single day I find myself wondering what my friends and family members would think if they were here. Would they walk out? Would they use the squat toilet? Would they get used to carrying around a roll of toilet paper with them wherever they went? Granted, if we were staying in places that catered to Western tourists, or were slightly above Lonely Planet's "budget" category of accommodations, we wouldn't be met with some of these Asian charms. But we're slowly but surely getting used to them, and now that we're getting used to them, they feel like part of this whole thing. Like, I'll get to look back on this experience and think, "not only was I in Laos, but I also braved a hand-held shower and scoop-flushed my own toilet!" This, people, THIS is why you travel.
Written from Luang Prabang, Laos
I gathered my shower things -- shoes, towel, soap, shampoo, conditioner, flip-flops, razor, bottle of water -- and made my way down the hall to the bathroom. Once there, I locked the door, hung up my towel and turned around to contemplate the room. Sink, check. Toilet, check. Shower head, check. All seemed to be available and in working order. After brushing my teeth and carefully ensuring that not a drop of water from the sink comes even a millimeter too close to my toothbrush, I set about determining how to use the shower. There was the telltale external hot water heater, which was a good sign that I would, in fact, have a hot shower. But after turning on the water from the shower head, being careful to avoid the bucket of water next to the toilet that's used to scoop-flush the toilet, I found that the external hot water heater was not cooperating. I walked over to the wall of switches, flipped the breaker, and went back to test the water. Eureka! A hot shower! A hot HAND-HELD shower, to be more exact. But here I am, ten minutes later, showered, dressed, shaved, writing to you about the experience.
There were so many things about traveling to Asia that all the Lonely Planet books and blogs in the world couldn't have prepared me for. I didn't know, for example, that when you use toilet paper here, you throw it in a waste bin next to the toilet, rather than IN the toilet. And that in order to flush the toilet, you use the aforementioned pot of water next to the toilet to wash down whatever you've done. Squat toilets I'd heard of, and I knew that I'd have to travel with plenty of Purell, but I was totally unprepared to throw my dirty toilet paper into a trashcan. I was also unprepared to encounter what looked like a spray faucet next to the trashcan. Most people here don't use toilet paper at all and instead use the spray faucet to wash themselves after they've done their business. An overheard conversation in a youth hostel the other day revealed that most travelers use the faucet to wash...their dirty feet.
Now that we're in Laos, everything is touched by a lingering French influence. This didn't disturb me in the least when we were able to eat decent chocolate from a street vendor last night. But this morning, contemplating the fact that I have one hand in which to hold the shower head, and another to, um, clean myself, I was cursing that French influence and all of its requisite charm.
Today at around 3pm, we'll come back to our guesthouse to pick up our clean, folded, slightly warm laundry. It costs less than a dollar per kilo to do laundry, which, for those of you not well-versed in the kilo, means that it's quite cheap. We allow ourselves to get down to one or two pairs of underwear, put all of our dirty stuff in one big bag, then drop it off somewhere to be perfectly laundered. And thanks to my dad's warnings of all of these years, we know to request that it be washed AND dried. So far, we haven't had any problems, and the only remaining question is if we'd prefer that they iron our socks. True story.
Every single day I find myself wondering what my friends and family members would think if they were here. Would they walk out? Would they use the squat toilet? Would they get used to carrying around a roll of toilet paper with them wherever they went? Granted, if we were staying in places that catered to Western tourists, or were slightly above Lonely Planet's "budget" category of accommodations, we wouldn't be met with some of these Asian charms. But we're slowly but surely getting used to them, and now that we're getting used to them, they feel like part of this whole thing. Like, I'll get to look back on this experience and think, "not only was I in Laos, but I also braved a hand-held shower and scoop-flushed my own toilet!" This, people, THIS is why you travel.
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Why We Chose Laos
Posted on our last day in Chiang Mai, Thailand
It was over 15 years ago that I first learned about Laos. My mom, a guidance counselor at Central High School (255!), was assigned to the students whose last names began with the letters "Gr" all the way through those whose last names began with "Lao." I will never forget the piles and piles of recommendations she painstakingly put together for her students, the hours she spent at our dining room table stuffing envelopes and contemplating the higher education choices of her students, or the fact that many of her students were originally from Southeast Asia, and had, through some combined miracle of fate and really hard work, made their way to Central.
When I was about 12-years-old, my mom had a student who truly tugged at her emotional heartstrings. Kaoli was 15, a sophomore in high school, Hmong, and engaged to be married. While Kaoli expressed interest in pursuing a career in nursing, family and culture dictated otherwise, and Kaoli was instead intending to drop out of school so that she could have a baby. My mother worked tirelessly to persuade Kaoli's parents to let her continue with her high school education, and for a time, my mom's best efforts prevailed. Kaoli continued to see my mother, and even at that age, I knew that they had a bond that went beyond a counselor-counselee relationship. It was one of the few of those bonds my mother made with her students of which I wasn't jealous, and I curiously sought out time with Kaoli every time I went to visit my mom at school.
One year, Kaoli invited our entire family to attend a Hmong celebration. It might have been New Year's, it might have been another festival, I honestly don't remember. But I remember that everyone marveled over the curliness of my hair, and generally made me feel welcome amidst a sea of people whose language I did not understand. It was the first time I was immersed completely in another culture, and while I remember feeling nervous about feeling so different, I can still close my eyes and see the colors of the clothes that the Hmong women wore, and the smell of the food I'd never before eaten.
Kaoli ended up transferring from Central to a high school in Detroit, where her husband's family moved sometime during her junior year. She kept in touch with my mother for a time, but they lost touch when my mom got sick. Through her few remaining connections to Philadelphia and Central, she learned of my mother's death and sent a touching note to our family. She didn't become a nurse, after all, but she had two healthy and beautiful children, and I couldn't help but smile at their picture, one which I still have, tucked away in box somewhere.
It is fitting then, that on January 9, 2008, fourteen years to the day that my mother died, I will be setting foot in Northern Laos for the first time. Matt and I planned to be in Laos for this anniversary, and the timing has worked out in our favor. We will be in a country that my mother, purposefully or not, introduced me to. We will visit a place that made an indelible impression on my young self, a place that perhaps helped to inspire my desire to learn about new cultures and new foods and new people, even before I could properly locate it on a map.
While spending this annivesary in Laos is really quite different from the way I usually mark this date, it feels totally appropriate for this time in my life. I think that in some small way my mom would be happy to know where I was, and that she may even be there with me, smelling the smells, experiencing the colors, right alongside us.
So it is with these memories in my heart that I set out for our three-day journey to Laos today. Thailand has been wonderful and beautiful and spiritual in ways that I can't quite even begin to grasp. And starting tomorrow, I will have a whole new country to absorb, to soak up, and to experience from every angle.
** The spelling of Kaoli's name was wrong in my original posting. Many thanks to Harriet, who remembered the proper spelling and emailed to let me know that she had a dream where she could see my mom's papers with Kaoli's name on them. I can't quite explain how grateful I am that Harriet has dreams like that, but it makes me feel amazing to know that there are people in the world who are still so very connected to my mom.
It was over 15 years ago that I first learned about Laos. My mom, a guidance counselor at Central High School (255!), was assigned to the students whose last names began with the letters "Gr" all the way through those whose last names began with "Lao." I will never forget the piles and piles of recommendations she painstakingly put together for her students, the hours she spent at our dining room table stuffing envelopes and contemplating the higher education choices of her students, or the fact that many of her students were originally from Southeast Asia, and had, through some combined miracle of fate and really hard work, made their way to Central.
When I was about 12-years-old, my mom had a student who truly tugged at her emotional heartstrings. Kaoli was 15, a sophomore in high school, Hmong, and engaged to be married. While Kaoli expressed interest in pursuing a career in nursing, family and culture dictated otherwise, and Kaoli was instead intending to drop out of school so that she could have a baby. My mother worked tirelessly to persuade Kaoli's parents to let her continue with her high school education, and for a time, my mom's best efforts prevailed. Kaoli continued to see my mother, and even at that age, I knew that they had a bond that went beyond a counselor-counselee relationship. It was one of the few of those bonds my mother made with her students of which I wasn't jealous, and I curiously sought out time with Kaoli every time I went to visit my mom at school.
One year, Kaoli invited our entire family to attend a Hmong celebration. It might have been New Year's, it might have been another festival, I honestly don't remember. But I remember that everyone marveled over the curliness of my hair, and generally made me feel welcome amidst a sea of people whose language I did not understand. It was the first time I was immersed completely in another culture, and while I remember feeling nervous about feeling so different, I can still close my eyes and see the colors of the clothes that the Hmong women wore, and the smell of the food I'd never before eaten.
Kaoli ended up transferring from Central to a high school in Detroit, where her husband's family moved sometime during her junior year. She kept in touch with my mother for a time, but they lost touch when my mom got sick. Through her few remaining connections to Philadelphia and Central, she learned of my mother's death and sent a touching note to our family. She didn't become a nurse, after all, but she had two healthy and beautiful children, and I couldn't help but smile at their picture, one which I still have, tucked away in box somewhere.
It is fitting then, that on January 9, 2008, fourteen years to the day that my mother died, I will be setting foot in Northern Laos for the first time. Matt and I planned to be in Laos for this anniversary, and the timing has worked out in our favor. We will be in a country that my mother, purposefully or not, introduced me to. We will visit a place that made an indelible impression on my young self, a place that perhaps helped to inspire my desire to learn about new cultures and new foods and new people, even before I could properly locate it on a map.
While spending this annivesary in Laos is really quite different from the way I usually mark this date, it feels totally appropriate for this time in my life. I think that in some small way my mom would be happy to know where I was, and that she may even be there with me, smelling the smells, experiencing the colors, right alongside us.
So it is with these memories in my heart that I set out for our three-day journey to Laos today. Thailand has been wonderful and beautiful and spiritual in ways that I can't quite even begin to grasp. And starting tomorrow, I will have a whole new country to absorb, to soak up, and to experience from every angle.
** The spelling of Kaoli's name was wrong in my original posting. Many thanks to Harriet, who remembered the proper spelling and emailed to let me know that she had a dream where she could see my mom's papers with Kaoli's name on them. I can't quite explain how grateful I am that Harriet has dreams like that, but it makes me feel amazing to know that there are people in the world who are still so very connected to my mom.
Saturday, January 5, 2008
Right Now: Chiang Mai
This might be the first real-time post in a long time. I am sitting at a bar that has free wi-fi in Chiang Mai, drinking my draft Chang beer (so much more on that later...) and reading Dumas's The Man in the Iron Mask. It's a good life. I'm on my own today because Lizzi is taking a Thai cooking course, which I'm sure she will tell you all about.
Chiang Mai is a beautiful city. It's full of the culture and history, and it is so much more laid back than Bangkok ever could be. The people are friendly and always have a smile for you. We arrived here with a grand plan of walking tours of temples and daily massages, but that has yet to materialize. So far, we've visited one temple, and the only massage has been to scratch our itchy mosquito bites. But we are only ourselves immensely. I can only imagine what it would be like if we had a year to spend. I don't think we would change our destinations, but I think we would come to enjoy a more intimate appreciation for each one.
With that, my battery is about to die, and I should finish my beer.
Chiang Mai is a beautiful city. It's full of the culture and history, and it is so much more laid back than Bangkok ever could be. The people are friendly and always have a smile for you. We arrived here with a grand plan of walking tours of temples and daily massages, but that has yet to materialize. So far, we've visited one temple, and the only massage has been to scratch our itchy mosquito bites. But we are only ourselves immensely. I can only imagine what it would be like if we had a year to spend. I don't think we would change our destinations, but I think we would come to enjoy a more intimate appreciation for each one.
With that, my battery is about to die, and I should finish my beer.
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Wherein I Talk About Traveling With Crohn's Disease
Many of you already know that when I was 19, a surly gastroenterologist with no bedside manner whatsoever diagnosed me with Crohn's disease. The diagnosis was actually welcome news to me, as I'd spent the previous four months or so eating a diet of white rice and water, as it seemed to be the only food that didn't, uh, move right through me. I'd lost about 15+ pounds in those four months, and for what was my then-quite thin frame, that was a lot of weight to lose. It was enough that people, my boyfriend at the time included, would try to entice me to eat that which I knew I could not digest. I didn't know WHAT was wrong with me exactly, but I knew for certain that something was wrong, and that I was not anorexic.
I have lived with Crohn's for 10 years now and have been very, very lucky. I have never had surgery, and I spent only the first two years after my diagnosis on and off the steroids that I would now refuse. (Boy did I gain that 15 pounds back, and then some! Have you SEEN these hips that I sport?!) While I still watch what I eat (absolutely no spinach or corn, avoid the spine of most lettuces, keep a low-fat diet, avoid fried things), I have been lucky that I have been ABLE to eat. I eat regular meals, I obviously enjoy food a great deal (there's those hips again), and I haven't, knock-on-wood, had a serious flare-up since my initial diagnosis. I have had bouts of uncomfortableness, but nothing that rendered me mute from pain, crouching on the floor of my dorm room, as I did night after night in 1998.
In November 2005, at the advice of my most favorite GI doctor, I went off all of my meds. This was a huge triumph for me, a total coup, as one of the most debilitating and annoying things about my diagnosis was the Pentasa -- a drug that helps control the inflammation, but requires an irritating 16 pills a day. The second most debilitating thing about my Crohn's diagnosis is that I still don't know how it will affect me when I try to get pregnant, a fact I think about too often. The research isn't good (surprise, surprise), in that there hasn't been a whole lot of research. Most of the information I've learned about it, both from my own physicians and the terrifying amount of information available online, gives the 30-30-30 rule for Crohn's patients who are also trying to conceive: 30% of patients will get better, 30% of patients will get worse, and 30% of patients will stay the same. Getting worse, obviously, is to be avoided, as Crohn's patients who are flaring during their pregnancy suffer an increased risk of miscarriage. Andy assures me that the 30-30-30 statistic is a doctor's way of telling me "we have no clue what will happen to you, so here's some information that's not really meant to be reassuring, but is simply meant to be information." Ah. It's so clear now. Riiight.
So I went off my meds in November 2005 because, as my doctor and I thoughtfully concluded, I was not pregnant, nor was I intending to become pregnant any time soon. We agreed that going off the meds would be a good experiment, since, if I could tolerate it, it would be nice to be off the meds when I was actually attempting to become pregnant.
For the first several months, I felt great. I wasn't taking any medications for Crohn's at all, and I was eating basically what I wanted to eat, still avoiding the high-fat foods and the ever-evil spinach. But a few months after we moved to Pittsburgh, I started to experience some symptoms. They were typical symptoms, nothing too awful, but they scared me enough to tell Matt. And Matt was scared enough to encourage me to find a GI in Pittsburgh. My GI (the first female GI I'd had!) wanted to put me on meds right away, but I told her that I'd rather know for sure that I was flaring before I took meds, and even though this meant yet another colonoscopy, I really wanted to know for sure before I went back on meds. (As an aside, I've had four colonoscopies in my short life! So if you're over 50 and you haven't yet been checked for polyps in your colon, you will get no sympathy from me. Go get yourself a goddamn colonoscopy and get checked for polyps, since colon cancer can be detected early!) I was also confident that the colonoscopy would show that I was simply overreacting, that my so-called symptoms were a manifestation of how much I hated Pittsburgh, and not a manifestation of how much my intestines hate me.
Of course, if you know me at all, or you know even a little bit about Crohn's disease, or even a little bit about mental health, then you know that sometimes, when you hate something in your life, your body decides it's not too thrilled with you either. In short, the colonoscopy showed angry and ferocious ulcerations in my terminal ileum. So the pain in my belly wasn't just caused by the pain in my psyche, but it did mean I'd have to go back on meds.
I was understandably sad. And also a lot more vocal about my discomfort. The final admission of the fact that I do, actually, suffer from Crohn's disease, always occurs when I tell my dad how I'm feeling. The mixture of sadness and concern in his voice is something I'd always like to avoid, so I put off telling him until I feel that I absolutely have to. I use my telling him as a measure of how strong I think I am. If I can tell my dad that I'm sick, then I can deal with the fact that I'm sick. So I started back on my meds (Pentasa now comes in a form where you only have to take 8 pills a day) and braced myself for that phone call. My dad, obviously concerned, said, "oh honey, I'm sorry." And then, almost without missing a beat, "what about your trip?"
It hadn't occurred to me that my Crohn's would affect our trip. That was probably partly because I didn't even want to stop to think about whether it would affect our trip, but mainly because I generally labor under the misbelief that my Crohn's will miraculously disappear just as quickly as the flare presented itself. Of course, this is never the case when you have a chronic illness. Otherwise they wouldn't call it an illness, or even better, chronic.
I talked it over with Matt. I didn't want the Crohn's to affect our trip.
"We're still GOING on this TRIP," I informed him, sounding like that 4-year-old brat he DIDN'T fall in love with.
"Yes, of course we're still going on this trip," he said. "We just need YOU to talk to your doctor about the fact that we're going on this trip. She can probably help us."
Duh.
In between that conversation and talking to my doctor, I talked to everyone else. Julie was worried I'd get really sick, and confided that Cris was really worried too. Andy echoed Matt's advice about talking to my doctor, and other Crohnies (friends with Crohn's) expressed concern. The Internet told me that I could definitely travel with Crohn's. To France. My dad was convinced I'd probably literally crap my brains out, a concern I expressed to my physician when we met.
"You're not going to die," she told me. "But don't be an idiot."
Did I mention that I like this new doctor? She's matter-of-fact and interesting. She also likes to tell me all about the science behind Crohn's Disease and Crohn's treatment. It makes me feel like she thinks I understand what she's talking about. I appreciate this.
Don't be an idiot. This is good advice. Generally, but specifically here, where the food is different and the water is not potable. So what did I do to prepare for going on this trip? Well for starters, I got all the vaccines I'd need. I didn't get any live vaccines, since Crohn's can leave you somewhat immunosuppressed, and it seemed unwise to inject myself with something that was alive and crawling. I filled my Pentasa prescription so that I'll have enough Pentasa to last me for the entire time we're gone, with a little extra for good measure. I had a doctor I know write me prescriptions for things that could go wrong with my intestines, and I double-checked those prescriptions with my GI doctor. I had a long conversation with my GI doctor about the trip, and she reminded me that as a Crohn's patient, I will most likely be quick to assume that anything that goes wrong or hurts is related to my Crohn's. She reminded me that everyone who travels in a country where the water isn't potable has a belly ache from time to time. She reminded me not to be an idiot. She elaborated on this to mean that I shouldn't under any circumstances, drink the water. I can eat street food, but only if it's piping hot. In India, I can eat vegetarian street food but not meat, and in the rest of Southeast Asia, I can probably eat whatever. I should stay away from vegetables that would ordinarily look hard to digest, so basically, things that look like spinach. And I should try new foods, take my meds religiously, and be honest with myself about my body.
So far, so good. I have had a belly ache from time to time this week, but it hasn't been anything that's kept me in the bathroom for longer than usual. I've obviously been trying all kinds of new foods, but I'm staying away from things that look like they'll hurt me. I have only had bottled water to drink. Well, bottled water and beer, but whatever.
In the months to come, I hope to keep you guys updated on the progress of my tummy. Not because I think you're curious, but because I want other Crohnies out there to know that it IS possible to travel to Asia with Crohn's disease. It's possible to spend 31 hours on a plane with Crohn's disease. It's possible to carry around a heavy-ass backpack with Crohn's disease. It's possible to eat new and interesting food with Crohn's disease. And so far, it's possible to be diligent about taking your meds, and possible to find a bathroom when I need it, even when though I don't speak the language and no one in my host country has even heard of Crohn's disease. I don't expect my Crohn's not to be present here; it is, after all, a part of who I am, a chronic part. But I expect it to be as present as it usually is, which is to say that I live with it, and I respect it, but I respect the rest of myself just as much if not more, and I will do my best not to limit my experiences here because of my disease.
I have lived with Crohn's for 10 years now and have been very, very lucky. I have never had surgery, and I spent only the first two years after my diagnosis on and off the steroids that I would now refuse. (Boy did I gain that 15 pounds back, and then some! Have you SEEN these hips that I sport?!) While I still watch what I eat (absolutely no spinach or corn, avoid the spine of most lettuces, keep a low-fat diet, avoid fried things), I have been lucky that I have been ABLE to eat. I eat regular meals, I obviously enjoy food a great deal (there's those hips again), and I haven't, knock-on-wood, had a serious flare-up since my initial diagnosis. I have had bouts of uncomfortableness, but nothing that rendered me mute from pain, crouching on the floor of my dorm room, as I did night after night in 1998.
In November 2005, at the advice of my most favorite GI doctor, I went off all of my meds. This was a huge triumph for me, a total coup, as one of the most debilitating and annoying things about my diagnosis was the Pentasa -- a drug that helps control the inflammation, but requires an irritating 16 pills a day. The second most debilitating thing about my Crohn's diagnosis is that I still don't know how it will affect me when I try to get pregnant, a fact I think about too often. The research isn't good (surprise, surprise), in that there hasn't been a whole lot of research. Most of the information I've learned about it, both from my own physicians and the terrifying amount of information available online, gives the 30-30-30 rule for Crohn's patients who are also trying to conceive: 30% of patients will get better, 30% of patients will get worse, and 30% of patients will stay the same. Getting worse, obviously, is to be avoided, as Crohn's patients who are flaring during their pregnancy suffer an increased risk of miscarriage. Andy assures me that the 30-30-30 statistic is a doctor's way of telling me "we have no clue what will happen to you, so here's some information that's not really meant to be reassuring, but is simply meant to be information." Ah. It's so clear now. Riiight.
So I went off my meds in November 2005 because, as my doctor and I thoughtfully concluded, I was not pregnant, nor was I intending to become pregnant any time soon. We agreed that going off the meds would be a good experiment, since, if I could tolerate it, it would be nice to be off the meds when I was actually attempting to become pregnant.
For the first several months, I felt great. I wasn't taking any medications for Crohn's at all, and I was eating basically what I wanted to eat, still avoiding the high-fat foods and the ever-evil spinach. But a few months after we moved to Pittsburgh, I started to experience some symptoms. They were typical symptoms, nothing too awful, but they scared me enough to tell Matt. And Matt was scared enough to encourage me to find a GI in Pittsburgh. My GI (the first female GI I'd had!) wanted to put me on meds right away, but I told her that I'd rather know for sure that I was flaring before I took meds, and even though this meant yet another colonoscopy, I really wanted to know for sure before I went back on meds. (As an aside, I've had four colonoscopies in my short life! So if you're over 50 and you haven't yet been checked for polyps in your colon, you will get no sympathy from me. Go get yourself a goddamn colonoscopy and get checked for polyps, since colon cancer can be detected early!) I was also confident that the colonoscopy would show that I was simply overreacting, that my so-called symptoms were a manifestation of how much I hated Pittsburgh, and not a manifestation of how much my intestines hate me.
Of course, if you know me at all, or you know even a little bit about Crohn's disease, or even a little bit about mental health, then you know that sometimes, when you hate something in your life, your body decides it's not too thrilled with you either. In short, the colonoscopy showed angry and ferocious ulcerations in my terminal ileum. So the pain in my belly wasn't just caused by the pain in my psyche, but it did mean I'd have to go back on meds.
I was understandably sad. And also a lot more vocal about my discomfort. The final admission of the fact that I do, actually, suffer from Crohn's disease, always occurs when I tell my dad how I'm feeling. The mixture of sadness and concern in his voice is something I'd always like to avoid, so I put off telling him until I feel that I absolutely have to. I use my telling him as a measure of how strong I think I am. If I can tell my dad that I'm sick, then I can deal with the fact that I'm sick. So I started back on my meds (Pentasa now comes in a form where you only have to take 8 pills a day) and braced myself for that phone call. My dad, obviously concerned, said, "oh honey, I'm sorry." And then, almost without missing a beat, "what about your trip?"
It hadn't occurred to me that my Crohn's would affect our trip. That was probably partly because I didn't even want to stop to think about whether it would affect our trip, but mainly because I generally labor under the misbelief that my Crohn's will miraculously disappear just as quickly as the flare presented itself. Of course, this is never the case when you have a chronic illness. Otherwise they wouldn't call it an illness, or even better, chronic.
I talked it over with Matt. I didn't want the Crohn's to affect our trip.
"We're still GOING on this TRIP," I informed him, sounding like that 4-year-old brat he DIDN'T fall in love with.
"Yes, of course we're still going on this trip," he said. "We just need YOU to talk to your doctor about the fact that we're going on this trip. She can probably help us."
Duh.
In between that conversation and talking to my doctor, I talked to everyone else. Julie was worried I'd get really sick, and confided that Cris was really worried too. Andy echoed Matt's advice about talking to my doctor, and other Crohnies (friends with Crohn's) expressed concern. The Internet told me that I could definitely travel with Crohn's. To France. My dad was convinced I'd probably literally crap my brains out, a concern I expressed to my physician when we met.
"You're not going to die," she told me. "But don't be an idiot."
Did I mention that I like this new doctor? She's matter-of-fact and interesting. She also likes to tell me all about the science behind Crohn's Disease and Crohn's treatment. It makes me feel like she thinks I understand what she's talking about. I appreciate this.
Don't be an idiot. This is good advice. Generally, but specifically here, where the food is different and the water is not potable. So what did I do to prepare for going on this trip? Well for starters, I got all the vaccines I'd need. I didn't get any live vaccines, since Crohn's can leave you somewhat immunosuppressed, and it seemed unwise to inject myself with something that was alive and crawling. I filled my Pentasa prescription so that I'll have enough Pentasa to last me for the entire time we're gone, with a little extra for good measure. I had a doctor I know write me prescriptions for things that could go wrong with my intestines, and I double-checked those prescriptions with my GI doctor. I had a long conversation with my GI doctor about the trip, and she reminded me that as a Crohn's patient, I will most likely be quick to assume that anything that goes wrong or hurts is related to my Crohn's. She reminded me that everyone who travels in a country where the water isn't potable has a belly ache from time to time. She reminded me not to be an idiot. She elaborated on this to mean that I shouldn't under any circumstances, drink the water. I can eat street food, but only if it's piping hot. In India, I can eat vegetarian street food but not meat, and in the rest of Southeast Asia, I can probably eat whatever. I should stay away from vegetables that would ordinarily look hard to digest, so basically, things that look like spinach. And I should try new foods, take my meds religiously, and be honest with myself about my body.
So far, so good. I have had a belly ache from time to time this week, but it hasn't been anything that's kept me in the bathroom for longer than usual. I've obviously been trying all kinds of new foods, but I'm staying away from things that look like they'll hurt me. I have only had bottled water to drink. Well, bottled water and beer, but whatever.
In the months to come, I hope to keep you guys updated on the progress of my tummy. Not because I think you're curious, but because I want other Crohnies out there to know that it IS possible to travel to Asia with Crohn's disease. It's possible to spend 31 hours on a plane with Crohn's disease. It's possible to carry around a heavy-ass backpack with Crohn's disease. It's possible to eat new and interesting food with Crohn's disease. And so far, it's possible to be diligent about taking your meds, and possible to find a bathroom when I need it, even when though I don't speak the language and no one in my host country has even heard of Crohn's disease. I don't expect my Crohn's not to be present here; it is, after all, a part of who I am, a chronic part. But I expect it to be as present as it usually is, which is to say that I live with it, and I respect it, but I respect the rest of myself just as much if not more, and I will do my best not to limit my experiences here because of my disease.
Friday, December 14, 2007
Like, Um, What Are You Wearing?
So do you ever have the Forest Through the Trees problem? I do. And it happens to me most often when I’m in the middle of planning something huge. I tend to get fixated on the wrong thing, and then there I am, stuck and fixated on this wrong thing, and I can’t get unstuck or un-fixate until I’ve dealt with whatever I’m stuck on.
Some of you may remember that this happened when I was planning my wedding. There I was, twenty-four years old, just finished my first year of law school, about to make the biggest commitment of my life, and the only thing I could think about was the fact that the chairs at our reception venue were ugly. And to be fair, I’m not talking run-of-the-mill ugly. I’m talking straight-up, flat-out, UGLY, ugly. Fugly. And even though Julie assured me that no one was going to be looking at the chairs, and my dad assured me that there was no way in hell that he was paying for chair covers, I couldn’t stop thinking about the fugliness of those chairs. They haunted me, those chairs. Ultimately, I managed to pull my head out of my ass and realized that chairs were low on my list of priorities next to such important things like, oh, the fact that I was getting married. But there was a time there, a shameful, egocentric time, when chair covers mattered a lot more than the vows I was about to take.
The chair covers incident became a marker for me. Whenever I find myself getting fixated on the wrong thing, I tell Matt that I’m being all "chair covers" about it. But now that I’m the one making most of the decisions in my life, I have the luxury of being all "chair covers" about something without having to worry that I’m going to screw up my dad’s idea of the perfect wedding by demanding that chairs be covered at the expense of feeding his guests, or something.
Lizzi, get to the point! Okay. Here it is: I’m coming clean about my chair covers incidents for the trip. There were two. Yes, I know, TWO. But these two particular chair covers incidents were enormous to me. So huge, in fact, that I dreamed about them, night after night. And here, in a moment of cathartic revelation, I am going to share them with you.
Chair cover # 1: Wedding Bands
Yes, Matt and I are already married. And yes, we have perfectly acceptable wedding bands that we wear every day. Except when we go to bars and take them off. Just kidding! Ha! Fooled you. Anyway, wedding rings. I love my wedding ring. But somewhere many, many months ago I read some stupid thing on some stupid website about the fact that we shouldn’t wear our actual wedding rings on this trip. And I got it into my head that we needed NEW wedding rings and that they needed to be gold wedding rings and that they needed to match. As if we don’t look enough like Americans already, right? Right. So I spent weeks, WEEKS people, looking online for wedding rings. Um, I found them. Online. They’re fine. And ever since we got them in the mail, I’ve totally and completely forgotten about my incessant obsession with wedding rings. Oddly, the space leftover in my brain did not immediately make room for physics equations as you might think it should. It moved onto obsession number 2.
Chair cover # 2: Like, um, what are YOU wearing?
Clever readers will notice that this is the very same title of this post. Clever readers will realize that this was the crux of my issue for several months of planning this trip. And even cleverer readers will realize that it took me THIS long just to make the point I set out to make in the beginning here. I have GOT to get better at sticking to my point.
So here’s the thing: when you’re leaving on a trip like this, you can only take a backpack. One backpack. And as the name implies, you carry the backpack on your, uh, back. So it has to be as light as possible. When you factor in the fact that you have to carry a pharmacy with you for all of the just-in-case illnesses you might acquire, as well as seven different Lonely Planet guides, a computer and two cameras, you quickly realize that you cannot, under any circumstances, take too many clothes. And even more disastrous, you must limit your choice of shoes. If you are me, and you get stuck on stupid shit like what you’re supposed to wear to a temple in Thailand, this clothing issue becomes a catastrophe. And the catastrophe mounts into a full-on chair covers incident. And then you find yourself staying up late revising your “List of Things to Pack” and telling Matt that if you only take one pair of yoga pants instead of two, you can take two pairs of shorts, even though you really don’t like shorts all that much anyway.
And then, if you’re lucky, help finds you. And it finds you in the form of one lovely world-traveler named Holly. Holly can be found at www.nothingbutbonfires.com where she wittily writes about life and travel and love and The Bachelor. She’s a seriously gifted writer, and I don’t mind at all if you go over there and read her blog more than you read mine. I would if I was sitting on the other side of the computer.
So a little over a year ago, Holly and her partner went on a trip that was really similar to ours. You can read all about it in her archives, brilliantly titled “Travel—Or How I Lived on $10 A Day For Three Months.” I did. I read every single post she wrote about that trip. I read them so closely that I felt like I was EATING her posts. Because there she was, traveling about, enjoying it, and seemingly not at all worried about what she was wearing. And I knew right then and there that I HAD to email her. So I did. I emailed a perfect stranger and told her about my chair covers and asked her to please help me. Holly delivers, people. She delivers. She wrote me back within a few days and gave me a list of things I’d want to take with me, assured me that it was okay to take more than one pair of flip-flops, and generally just wrote my packing list for me.
These are my favorite excerpts from her email, which I printed out and ate, just in case that would help me:
I mean, she’s a genius, right? I have never met this woman, and she lives all the way across the country in sunny California. But I’m so not even kidding when I tell you that she’s partly responsible for my sanity right now. Because I’m glancing over at my pack, filled with all of the things that she told me to take, all of which worked beautifully on their test-trip to Africa, and I’m feeling calm, and as though all of my chairs are covered. Now it’s just a matter of donning those new wedding bands, putting all of those clothes on my back, and reminding myself that the point behind all of the madness is actually way more exciting than the madness.
Some of you may remember that this happened when I was planning my wedding. There I was, twenty-four years old, just finished my first year of law school, about to make the biggest commitment of my life, and the only thing I could think about was the fact that the chairs at our reception venue were ugly. And to be fair, I’m not talking run-of-the-mill ugly. I’m talking straight-up, flat-out, UGLY, ugly. Fugly. And even though Julie assured me that no one was going to be looking at the chairs, and my dad assured me that there was no way in hell that he was paying for chair covers, I couldn’t stop thinking about the fugliness of those chairs. They haunted me, those chairs. Ultimately, I managed to pull my head out of my ass and realized that chairs were low on my list of priorities next to such important things like, oh, the fact that I was getting married. But there was a time there, a shameful, egocentric time, when chair covers mattered a lot more than the vows I was about to take.
The chair covers incident became a marker for me. Whenever I find myself getting fixated on the wrong thing, I tell Matt that I’m being all "chair covers" about it. But now that I’m the one making most of the decisions in my life, I have the luxury of being all "chair covers" about something without having to worry that I’m going to screw up my dad’s idea of the perfect wedding by demanding that chairs be covered at the expense of feeding his guests, or something.
Lizzi, get to the point! Okay. Here it is: I’m coming clean about my chair covers incidents for the trip. There were two. Yes, I know, TWO. But these two particular chair covers incidents were enormous to me. So huge, in fact, that I dreamed about them, night after night. And here, in a moment of cathartic revelation, I am going to share them with you.
Chair cover # 1: Wedding Bands
Yes, Matt and I are already married. And yes, we have perfectly acceptable wedding bands that we wear every day. Except when we go to bars and take them off. Just kidding! Ha! Fooled you. Anyway, wedding rings. I love my wedding ring. But somewhere many, many months ago I read some stupid thing on some stupid website about the fact that we shouldn’t wear our actual wedding rings on this trip. And I got it into my head that we needed NEW wedding rings and that they needed to be gold wedding rings and that they needed to match. As if we don’t look enough like Americans already, right? Right. So I spent weeks, WEEKS people, looking online for wedding rings. Um, I found them. Online. They’re fine. And ever since we got them in the mail, I’ve totally and completely forgotten about my incessant obsession with wedding rings. Oddly, the space leftover in my brain did not immediately make room for physics equations as you might think it should. It moved onto obsession number 2.
Chair cover # 2: Like, um, what are YOU wearing?
Clever readers will notice that this is the very same title of this post. Clever readers will realize that this was the crux of my issue for several months of planning this trip. And even cleverer readers will realize that it took me THIS long just to make the point I set out to make in the beginning here. I have GOT to get better at sticking to my point.
So here’s the thing: when you’re leaving on a trip like this, you can only take a backpack. One backpack. And as the name implies, you carry the backpack on your, uh, back. So it has to be as light as possible. When you factor in the fact that you have to carry a pharmacy with you for all of the just-in-case illnesses you might acquire, as well as seven different Lonely Planet guides, a computer and two cameras, you quickly realize that you cannot, under any circumstances, take too many clothes. And even more disastrous, you must limit your choice of shoes. If you are me, and you get stuck on stupid shit like what you’re supposed to wear to a temple in Thailand, this clothing issue becomes a catastrophe. And the catastrophe mounts into a full-on chair covers incident. And then you find yourself staying up late revising your “List of Things to Pack” and telling Matt that if you only take one pair of yoga pants instead of two, you can take two pairs of shorts, even though you really don’t like shorts all that much anyway.
And then, if you’re lucky, help finds you. And it finds you in the form of one lovely world-traveler named Holly. Holly can be found at www.nothingbutbonfires.com where she wittily writes about life and travel and love and The Bachelor. She’s a seriously gifted writer, and I don’t mind at all if you go over there and read her blog more than you read mine. I would if I was sitting on the other side of the computer.
So a little over a year ago, Holly and her partner went on a trip that was really similar to ours. You can read all about it in her archives, brilliantly titled “Travel—Or How I Lived on $10 A Day For Three Months.” I did. I read every single post she wrote about that trip. I read them so closely that I felt like I was EATING her posts. Because there she was, traveling about, enjoying it, and seemingly not at all worried about what she was wearing. And I knew right then and there that I HAD to email her. So I did. I emailed a perfect stranger and told her about my chair covers and asked her to please help me. Holly delivers, people. She delivers. She wrote me back within a few days and gave me a list of things I’d want to take with me, assured me that it was okay to take more than one pair of flip-flops, and generally just wrote my packing list for me.
These are my favorite excerpts from her email, which I printed out and ate, just in case that would help me:
Okay, as to what sort of clothes I brought with me, I'll tell you this: NOTHING WHITE. Seriously, you can't imagine it right now, but ANYTHING white that you bring will get dirty within three seconds of you putting it on.
You will bring WAY more than you need. You just will. And I would encourage you to really, really, really try not to -- you'll end up wearing the same things over and over and over again anyway, so you really don't need that much variety.
I also brought a pashmina, which I found invaluable, since it doubled as a wrap when it was cold, a cover-up in temples, and a blanket on buses. (So I guess it tripled. But whatever.)
I mean, she’s a genius, right? I have never met this woman, and she lives all the way across the country in sunny California. But I’m so not even kidding when I tell you that she’s partly responsible for my sanity right now. Because I’m glancing over at my pack, filled with all of the things that she told me to take, all of which worked beautifully on their test-trip to Africa, and I’m feeling calm, and as though all of my chairs are covered. Now it’s just a matter of donning those new wedding bands, putting all of those clothes on my back, and reminding myself that the point behind all of the madness is actually way more exciting than the madness.
FINALLY!
As I sit here typing this in our empty apartment, Matt is taking his very last final. In fact, he's taking the very last final, for the very last graduate school class, for the very end of BOTH of our graduate educations. How awesome is that? In just a few short months, we'll be able to FINALLY tally up the total amount of money we owe to Sallie Mae, who everyone knows is NOT getting a Christmas card this year.
Anyway. Matt's last final. Empty apartment. People, do you know what this means? It means that tomorrow, TOMORROW, we’re leaving Pittsburgh. We are LEAVING PITTSBURGH. This kind of news deserves all capital letters because that’s exactly how I feel about this fact.
Now Pittsburgh, don’t get your panties in a bunch. We still love that you put fries on everything, and we’re a fan of your football team and your bridges and rivers. We like that you can put on a show for winter, and that you have the best fireworks we’ve ever seen. But Pittsburgh, let’s be honest here: we are not friends. And tomorrow, we part ways amicably. You go your way, we go ours. And from the way I see it? Our way is SO much cooler.
Here’s how things have been since I got back from Africa: the weekend was surprisingly active, but we didn’t manage to get a whole lot done for the trip. Monday was spent avoiding the fact that we were supposed to be packing. Tuesday was spent actually packing. Wednesday we loaded up the UHaul, drove our stuff to Ohio, and unloaded the UHaul into a storage unit. Thursday we drove back to Pittsburgh from Ohio and Matt pretended to study for his final while I pretended to clean our empty apartment. And now it’s Friday. I’m really anxious for Matt to finish his final because then he can feel what I finally felt on Wednesday night after Matt and Tom squeezed the last item into the storage unit: excitement. I’m so not even kidding. After all of the worry and planning of the past few months, after feeling ambivalent about everyone and everything, after even wondering distractedly if we should even go on this trip, I found myself surprisingly excited on Wednesday night. I slept better on Wednesday than I have in weeks, and ever since Wednesday, I’ve been just itching for Matt to finish his final so that he can feel excited to. This is it! We’re SO doing this.
These are the people without whom this week wouldn’t have been possible:
Tom and Amanda – my rockstar in-laws who have been an immeasurable help to us ever since we started planning this trip. We can’t even think of ways to adequately thank them, because it’s really hard to thank people for just being the wonderful people that they are.
Saul and Ciera – our friends in Pittsburgh who are letting us stay in their apartment while ours is empty, and who are taking care of Tinker while we’re away.
That guardrail in Augusta, Maine – thank you for not hurting Dan. A seriously hurt Dan would have made this week a lot harder. (It’s okay if you don’t understand this one, the person to whom it is directed will get it.)
Lee and Char – because they gave us Starbucks giftcards for Christmas and even when it seemed like we just couldn’t pack another box, the sheer force of caffeine was bound to get us through.
FedEx – thank you for sending our packets of information through the mail to all of the people who needed them. We feel great comfort knowing that the people who need to know exactly where we are in the world will know exactly where we are in the world, and will be able to help us out if we need help from halfway around the globe.
Zappos.com – thank you for having free shipping! I’m really psyched to try out my new flip-flops.
Those of you out there who read this blog – I can just tell, all the way in Pittsburgh, that you’re reading these posts and feeling excited for us. Some of you have emailed to tell us that you’re excited, others have called. But really, I can feel the power of the Internet working in our favor over here, and it’s really nice. Because just when it feels like I’m about to engage in the real-life equivalent of stepping off of a fast-moving train, you guys are there with mattresses and cushions all spread out on the ground, ready to cushion my fall. Thanks for that. It’s really cool.
In the next few days, I’m hoping to put up a few more blog posts. There are a few things we really want to write about before we leave, so we can address them again while we’re gone without giving you a long and unnecessary backstory. So look for such interesting topics as “holyshit we’re really doing this” and “traveling to far-flung lands with a chronic illness that hates your intestines” with a dose of “ohmygod we’re leaving tomorrow” and perhaps some “does Matt really think I’m only taking one pair of underwear with me?” thrown in for good measure. I know you’re excited. I sure am. And in exactly two hours and fifteen minutes, Matt is going to be right there with me!
Anyway. Matt's last final. Empty apartment. People, do you know what this means? It means that tomorrow, TOMORROW, we’re leaving Pittsburgh. We are LEAVING PITTSBURGH. This kind of news deserves all capital letters because that’s exactly how I feel about this fact.
Now Pittsburgh, don’t get your panties in a bunch. We still love that you put fries on everything, and we’re a fan of your football team and your bridges and rivers. We like that you can put on a show for winter, and that you have the best fireworks we’ve ever seen. But Pittsburgh, let’s be honest here: we are not friends. And tomorrow, we part ways amicably. You go your way, we go ours. And from the way I see it? Our way is SO much cooler.
Here’s how things have been since I got back from Africa: the weekend was surprisingly active, but we didn’t manage to get a whole lot done for the trip. Monday was spent avoiding the fact that we were supposed to be packing. Tuesday was spent actually packing. Wednesday we loaded up the UHaul, drove our stuff to Ohio, and unloaded the UHaul into a storage unit. Thursday we drove back to Pittsburgh from Ohio and Matt pretended to study for his final while I pretended to clean our empty apartment. And now it’s Friday. I’m really anxious for Matt to finish his final because then he can feel what I finally felt on Wednesday night after Matt and Tom squeezed the last item into the storage unit: excitement. I’m so not even kidding. After all of the worry and planning of the past few months, after feeling ambivalent about everyone and everything, after even wondering distractedly if we should even go on this trip, I found myself surprisingly excited on Wednesday night. I slept better on Wednesday than I have in weeks, and ever since Wednesday, I’ve been just itching for Matt to finish his final so that he can feel excited to. This is it! We’re SO doing this.
These are the people without whom this week wouldn’t have been possible:
Tom and Amanda – my rockstar in-laws who have been an immeasurable help to us ever since we started planning this trip. We can’t even think of ways to adequately thank them, because it’s really hard to thank people for just being the wonderful people that they are.
Saul and Ciera – our friends in Pittsburgh who are letting us stay in their apartment while ours is empty, and who are taking care of Tinker while we’re away.
That guardrail in Augusta, Maine – thank you for not hurting Dan. A seriously hurt Dan would have made this week a lot harder. (It’s okay if you don’t understand this one, the person to whom it is directed will get it.)
Lee and Char – because they gave us Starbucks giftcards for Christmas and even when it seemed like we just couldn’t pack another box, the sheer force of caffeine was bound to get us through.
FedEx – thank you for sending our packets of information through the mail to all of the people who needed them. We feel great comfort knowing that the people who need to know exactly where we are in the world will know exactly where we are in the world, and will be able to help us out if we need help from halfway around the globe.
Zappos.com – thank you for having free shipping! I’m really psyched to try out my new flip-flops.
Those of you out there who read this blog – I can just tell, all the way in Pittsburgh, that you’re reading these posts and feeling excited for us. Some of you have emailed to tell us that you’re excited, others have called. But really, I can feel the power of the Internet working in our favor over here, and it’s really nice. Because just when it feels like I’m about to engage in the real-life equivalent of stepping off of a fast-moving train, you guys are there with mattresses and cushions all spread out on the ground, ready to cushion my fall. Thanks for that. It’s really cool.
In the next few days, I’m hoping to put up a few more blog posts. There are a few things we really want to write about before we leave, so we can address them again while we’re gone without giving you a long and unnecessary backstory. So look for such interesting topics as “holyshit we’re really doing this” and “traveling to far-flung lands with a chronic illness that hates your intestines” with a dose of “ohmygod we’re leaving tomorrow” and perhaps some “does Matt really think I’m only taking one pair of underwear with me?” thrown in for good measure. I know you’re excited. I sure am. And in exactly two hours and fifteen minutes, Matt is going to be right there with me!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
