It's really happening! Two nights ago G and I booked our tickets to Hawaii. We'll be there for three weeks, a time frame which I can already tell will be far too short to do and see everything I'd like to there, but at least it is something.
My mother, of course, is ecstatic about us coming. As are Barb and Doug, her best friends who are like my second parents and have seen me through every period and development in my life until this point. I already envision the long and dirty hikes we'll take through the mountains, rivers and forests that I learned to appreciate the beauty of far too late. I know that we will keep to the tradition of having sunset picnics at the beach where I took my first steps, looking out on the rock where we scattered Doug's father's ashes so many years ago. I know that everything and everyone around us will slow down to adjust to Hawaii Time while we are there, that we will stuff ourselves with fresh raw fish and tropical delicacies unheard of anywhere else in the world, that the air will smell like salt and rain and overripe mangoes hanging from the trees. But aside from all that, I wonder if I will be going back to the same little island that I left behind over six years ago, if two years has been long enough to change it as much as the two years therefore.
I've never had a problem with change. If anything, I've embraced it, excited to see where it would take me, how it would shape me as a person. But I think I owe this openness, in part, to the fact that deep down I've known that this little island paradise I called home for the first eighteen years of my life was always there, always ready to welcome me back with open arms, and remaining, for the most part, the same place that it always was. This time around, however, I have no way of knowing what to expect when I arrive. I know, for example, that Barb and Doug have spent the last few years making renovations in the house that I spent a huge part of my childhood in. I know that many of the people I knew there have moved on, like me, leaving that little piece of paradise in the middle of the Pacific behind in search of new adventures. I know that the development of the island has continued, that the secluded and secret little beaches of my youth have long since been raved about in the travel guides and opened to the public by means of paved roads and showering facilities. So the question that keeps nagging at me now, despite my excitement and my longing to be back there, is whether or not I'll be returning to my Hawaii or to a place that bears only a faint resemblance to it.
Either way, I'm so happy that I will be able to introduce G to my mom and allow him to see yet another tiny piece of myself. I'm happy that he will get to see Barb and Doug again and spend time getting to know them better. He is the third person that I have taken home with me to meet my family and see my home since moving away. The first was Q, even before I had decided to pack my bags and hop on a plane to Europe to start a new life here. He stayed for two weeks, charmed the pants off of everyone and everything around him and left a permanent impression that would follow him through his several other visits over the next few years. Then there was a boyfriend in my second year at uni that, despite my better judgement, I took home with me for the summer. This visit, in contrast, turned into a complete disaster which resulted in us breaking up before we even set foot on my island and fighting viciously until he got sent home just a few days after our arrival. My relationship with my mother is still recovering from this nightmarish experience, which is why I completely understand her mix of excitement and apprehension about this visit. Luckily, I was able to introduce G to Barb and Doug a few months ago when they were here on vacation and despite the fact that they only spent a few days with him, they left singing his praises and reassuring my mother with their approval.
It is interesting to me how allowing someone to become a part of your life includes showing them all the things which make you the person you are. Not just the good, the happy, and the beautiful aspects, but also the difficult, complex and harshly real elements as well. I know that G will fall in love with my island, with the traditions, customs, and sheer aesthetic beauty of it all. But I also wonder how he will react to what lies beneath all that. Will he understand my difficult and turbulent relationship with my mother? Will he be able to appreciate that the beauty of everything there is lined with undertones of astonishing poverty? Will he realize how difficult it is for me to accept that tourism is a vital economic element there, yet that I sometimes have to resist the urge to tell the odd tourist how I despise him and his bloated, pale, spoiled children for littering on our beaches, tearing up our protected roads with his rented SUV, for his thinly-veiled pretense of superiority and grating mainland accent that incite pure contempt and hate that I never knew I had inside me? I think he will. Because I will take the time to explain these things to him, to show him how even these things are vital elements which make up my past, my present and, undoubtedly, my future. Because he is open, flexible and understanding, which are some of the things which made me fall in love with him in the first place.
I am going home! And I am taking with me an important piece of my new home, connecting one part of my life and myself to another. I have no way of knowing what exactly lies in store for me when I get there. But I am looking forward to it more than I ever could have imagined. Mahalo E Ke Akua No Keia La!
Showing posts with label thoughts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label thoughts. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Twenty-five.
It's 6:30pm on a Wednesday night and I'm home. Today is my best friend's 25th birthday and as tradition would have it, we should be out with more friends spilling cocktails and birthday banter at some little cafe in the city, but the reality is that most of our friends are out of the country or writing their theses, or simply too caught up in the chaos of their post-study/pre-graduation lives to meet up for the occasion. Not to mention the fact that the birthday girl, herself, has to work tonight.
So here I am, contemplating the prospect of turning twenty-five myself within the year and trying, unsuccessfully, to compose a to-do list of tasks to complete, assignments to hand in, and appointments to make over the next few weeks. I reason that if everyone else is so absorbed in sorting their affairs that we can't get together to celebrate one of us taking another step closer to the scary age line, that I might as well use my free time just as efficiently as well. The longer I sit here, however, the more off-track I seem to get. Perhaps I set myself up for failure on my way home from the city today. After meeting with the birthday girl and a good friend of hers for lunch this afternoon, I decided to stop and pick up a few things to make my productive evening flow more smoothly. I made my way through the city center to my favorite little bookstore and silently vowed to spend no more than 15 minutes inside picking up the gift I'd already decided on for the birthday girl, and perhaps a copy of The Economist, which is one of the few sinful indulgences I allow myself on my students' budget these days. Once inside, however, I reasoned that I hadn't been there in quite some time and that it couldn't hurt to peruse the new titles in stock for a few minutes. I started in the travel literature section, made my way to the poetry racks, then lingered at the classic fiction table just long enough to strike up a conversation with a distinctly nerdy-looking (yet undeniably cute) boy holding a copy of de Beauvoir's "Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter" in his hand (bastard, I'd been looking for that for months!). I made some cheesy comment about how secure he must be in his manhood to buy such a flamboyant piece of feminist literature, and he smiled sheepishly and said it was for his sister.
"Good excuse", I laughed.
"Actually" he responded cheekily "it's just a ploy to pick up chicks."
"Nice." I said, "obviously a good technique."
"I found it quite brilliant myself, but in all honesty, I'm much more into solid works. You know, Tolstoy, D.H. Lawrence."
"Drama queen" I shot back.
"I suppose."
"Yeah, easy call."
We exchanged a few more witty remarks before it suddenly dawned on me that I was technically on a tight time schedule there. I smiled politely and wished Mystery Boy a good afternoon, then headed to the cash register to pay for the birthday girl's gift and my copy of The Economist. When I got there, however, I was greeted by a huge queue that seemed to be going nowhere fast, and allowed myself a few more minutes to check out the magazine racks. Twenty minutes and fifty-seven euros later, I left the store with my initially planned purchase in hand, and copies of The New Yorker, Poets & Writers, Brilliant Corners (A Journal of Jazz and Literature) and the latest edition of Political Science Quarterly. I zipped my sweater up, pulled my gloves on, and told myself confidently that I would stop quickly at the supermarket to buy some things for breakfast the next morning, then go home and start my night of productivity.
I only made it a few steps, however, before turning the corner and (literally) running into my friends Jorge and Natasha from university. I hadn't seen them for months and figured I couldn't squander such an opportunity to catch up with them, so we stood there for awhile swapping updates and stories about what we'd been up to lately, and before I knew it, another half an hour had passed. Realizing it was much too cold to be standing outside talking, we exchanged goodbyes and promises to keep in better touch, and I continued on to the supermarket. I poked around the fruit & veg section, grabbed a box of muesli and some yogurt from the dairy aisle, then passed by a huge shelf advertising artesan prosecco on sale for just 9 euros. "Prosecco will not help you be productive, whatsoever" I reasoned. "But on the other hand", I thought, "how long has it been since you've treated yourself to a nice glass of prosecco? You love prosecco" (which I used to sip casually in the sun with a roommate of mine on the balcony of our apartment in Granada until we were both so sunburnt and tipsy that we could do little more than retreat to our rooms and indulge in long and decadent siestas). I hesitated for a few more seconds, then grabbed a bottle and headed to the check out. Now I sit here, my second glass of the infamous prosecco in hand, and am finding it harder and harder to concentrate or be, in the least bit, productive at all.
The greatest problem with being an undergrad student in the last study phase before graduation is the complete absence of pressure. I work well under pressure. At times it seems to be the only thing which motivates me enough to lift a single finger, and now suddenly, in the middle of my third year of uni, it's all but completely dissipated. I'm now suddenly left with 1,001 options, opportunities and ideas and no real vision or guidance, nor any sense of urgency to make a choice. I need to finish up a few loose-ended assignments and grab a few credits with some elective courses, find a decent internship and write my thesis, and I'm done- the world is my oyster. So why is it so bloody difficult all of the sudden? My mind is swimming with thoughts of pursuing the PoliSci track and applying for MA programs in International Relations, European Law or something of the like, yet my heart screams for consideration of other tracks which will keep me writing, writing, writing. My biggest source of doubt with the writing track comes from the fact that it is simply such a hard business to penetrate. I've written since I was a child out of enthusiasm, desperation, complete and utter release, but never with the idea that I would ever be able to turn it into a career. Yet sitting here now, contemplating the overwhelming advantages and pitfalls of turning twenty-five, I'm suddenly wondering how I could ever be truly be happy doing something else.
Twenty-five. The idea alone simply boggles the mind. Twenty-five. This is only the beginning. Twenty-five. Get it together. Twenty-five. Enjoy another glass of prosecco, dabble at your little list, and enjoy the fact that, no matter how scary it sounds, twenty-five is just a number, and one that still gives you plenty of time to figure out where you are, what you're doing, and, most importantly, where you will go from here.
Twenty-five.
So here I am, contemplating the prospect of turning twenty-five myself within the year and trying, unsuccessfully, to compose a to-do list of tasks to complete, assignments to hand in, and appointments to make over the next few weeks. I reason that if everyone else is so absorbed in sorting their affairs that we can't get together to celebrate one of us taking another step closer to the scary age line, that I might as well use my free time just as efficiently as well. The longer I sit here, however, the more off-track I seem to get. Perhaps I set myself up for failure on my way home from the city today. After meeting with the birthday girl and a good friend of hers for lunch this afternoon, I decided to stop and pick up a few things to make my productive evening flow more smoothly. I made my way through the city center to my favorite little bookstore and silently vowed to spend no more than 15 minutes inside picking up the gift I'd already decided on for the birthday girl, and perhaps a copy of The Economist, which is one of the few sinful indulgences I allow myself on my students' budget these days. Once inside, however, I reasoned that I hadn't been there in quite some time and that it couldn't hurt to peruse the new titles in stock for a few minutes. I started in the travel literature section, made my way to the poetry racks, then lingered at the classic fiction table just long enough to strike up a conversation with a distinctly nerdy-looking (yet undeniably cute) boy holding a copy of de Beauvoir's "Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter" in his hand (bastard, I'd been looking for that for months!). I made some cheesy comment about how secure he must be in his manhood to buy such a flamboyant piece of feminist literature, and he smiled sheepishly and said it was for his sister.
"Good excuse", I laughed.
"Actually" he responded cheekily "it's just a ploy to pick up chicks."
"Nice." I said, "obviously a good technique."
"I found it quite brilliant myself, but in all honesty, I'm much more into solid works. You know, Tolstoy, D.H. Lawrence."
"Drama queen" I shot back.
"I suppose."
"Yeah, easy call."
We exchanged a few more witty remarks before it suddenly dawned on me that I was technically on a tight time schedule there. I smiled politely and wished Mystery Boy a good afternoon, then headed to the cash register to pay for the birthday girl's gift and my copy of The Economist. When I got there, however, I was greeted by a huge queue that seemed to be going nowhere fast, and allowed myself a few more minutes to check out the magazine racks. Twenty minutes and fifty-seven euros later, I left the store with my initially planned purchase in hand, and copies of The New Yorker, Poets & Writers, Brilliant Corners (A Journal of Jazz and Literature) and the latest edition of Political Science Quarterly. I zipped my sweater up, pulled my gloves on, and told myself confidently that I would stop quickly at the supermarket to buy some things for breakfast the next morning, then go home and start my night of productivity.
I only made it a few steps, however, before turning the corner and (literally) running into my friends Jorge and Natasha from university. I hadn't seen them for months and figured I couldn't squander such an opportunity to catch up with them, so we stood there for awhile swapping updates and stories about what we'd been up to lately, and before I knew it, another half an hour had passed. Realizing it was much too cold to be standing outside talking, we exchanged goodbyes and promises to keep in better touch, and I continued on to the supermarket. I poked around the fruit & veg section, grabbed a box of muesli and some yogurt from the dairy aisle, then passed by a huge shelf advertising artesan prosecco on sale for just 9 euros. "Prosecco will not help you be productive, whatsoever" I reasoned. "But on the other hand", I thought, "how long has it been since you've treated yourself to a nice glass of prosecco? You love prosecco" (which I used to sip casually in the sun with a roommate of mine on the balcony of our apartment in Granada until we were both so sunburnt and tipsy that we could do little more than retreat to our rooms and indulge in long and decadent siestas). I hesitated for a few more seconds, then grabbed a bottle and headed to the check out. Now I sit here, my second glass of the infamous prosecco in hand, and am finding it harder and harder to concentrate or be, in the least bit, productive at all.
The greatest problem with being an undergrad student in the last study phase before graduation is the complete absence of pressure. I work well under pressure. At times it seems to be the only thing which motivates me enough to lift a single finger, and now suddenly, in the middle of my third year of uni, it's all but completely dissipated. I'm now suddenly left with 1,001 options, opportunities and ideas and no real vision or guidance, nor any sense of urgency to make a choice. I need to finish up a few loose-ended assignments and grab a few credits with some elective courses, find a decent internship and write my thesis, and I'm done- the world is my oyster. So why is it so bloody difficult all of the sudden? My mind is swimming with thoughts of pursuing the PoliSci track and applying for MA programs in International Relations, European Law or something of the like, yet my heart screams for consideration of other tracks which will keep me writing, writing, writing. My biggest source of doubt with the writing track comes from the fact that it is simply such a hard business to penetrate. I've written since I was a child out of enthusiasm, desperation, complete and utter release, but never with the idea that I would ever be able to turn it into a career. Yet sitting here now, contemplating the overwhelming advantages and pitfalls of turning twenty-five, I'm suddenly wondering how I could ever be truly be happy doing something else.
Twenty-five. The idea alone simply boggles the mind. Twenty-five. This is only the beginning. Twenty-five. Get it together. Twenty-five. Enjoy another glass of prosecco, dabble at your little list, and enjoy the fact that, no matter how scary it sounds, twenty-five is just a number, and one that still gives you plenty of time to figure out where you are, what you're doing, and, most importantly, where you will go from here.
Twenty-five.
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