Prelude to a family vacation

I miss it: The packing and list drafting and three-week foresight that comes with travel. I crave those restless nights that come before departure. I would find myself shifting all night in bed, sleepless due to excitement or the morphing list of things that still need to be done.

Distractions ensue, and the result always seems to be me dashing out the door in house slippers and breakfast on my chin. But I love it.

Midnight in Venice, Italy

I’d give anything to wake up to pitch darkness and the kind of silence that signifies how the world around you is still asleep. I embrace that feeling of being suspended in my 4 a.m. preparations, moving through an early-morning resistance as if the night thickened while we REMed. I love taking my shoes off at security, even though I can feel the cold of the tile seeping through my socks, bringing with it some backpacker’s athletes foot or toe jams or whatever nonsense feet absorb and disperse. I even love sitting next to that one passenger, the one who talks incessantly about nothing at all because that’s the ridiculousness that I remember when the movement has ceased.

The stories I could tell you that have taken place during transit, oh, they range from embarrassing to heart-warming. From hair products mistaken for sex toys to old Korean men who have offered the type of kindness that breaks harbored stereotypes.

I just love to travel.

Bag piping in Edinburgh, Scotland

I’ve grown accustomed to traveling alone, navigating and getting lost and discovering things by myself. This trip I’m taking, the one that starts on Friday, is of a different design and for an alternative purpose than what I’m used to. This week, I’m going on a family vacation.

Three weeks gone with parents and siblings and relatives and cousins. Three weeks with agendas and meal plans and beds that don’t have bugs and rooms that don’t house strangers. I’ll get room service and fancy dinners, a pirate-themed party thrown by a family-friendly Disney. Someone else will navigate and someone else will get lost, and I’ll be the one tagging along in the back, just along for the ride.

Lost in the outskirts of Seattle

Though it sounds like a trip induced by leisure, it’s in fact a result of family deaths and cancers and sicknesses. Like a home-owner investing in a house alarm after being robbed, my family is taking action. Together, we will experience the nuances of being related. I haven’t done this since ’96 and I have no idea how it’s going to go down, but I have my brother and an ID that says I can buy alcohol, so I’m well-equipped to endure anything.

Three days until I’m gone. Three weeks until I’m crazy.

Florida, Bahamas, Pennsylvania, Las Vegas. Oh good gracious, here I come.

Born to Depart

Three days, two dinners, one meeting and half a day’s work stand between an airplane and I. This is an intolerable amount of time considering how desperately I’ve been longing to get my feet off the ground. It’s been seven months since I’ve been thrown into travelers abstinence, grounding myself for the sake of education. I’ve endured the withdrawals of an ex-wanderer, pacing in circles to compensate for how stationary life has been.

So I’ve strapped myself down to the circumference of an island and thrashed under my own restraints until I've exhausted the need to take off. I’ve been depressed and hopeless and lonely, but I’ve recovered from my melancholy by drinking it down, throwing it up and hanging it over. It sounds like a reckless way to recover, but I’ve been optimistic and surprisingly sober for the better part of July. Cured, I say, or broken, I think.

What matters is that I’ll be in a terminal once again, moving through gates and metal detectors like a puppet flipping off its axis. I won’t even wear shoes that day 'cause I want to impress security with my obvious familiarity with their rules and regulations. Liquids? Drank, thank you, and recycled, you’re welcome. And I already know where all the emergency exits are located, naturally.

I’m hyper on reliving the feeling of leaving. I want to be a stranger and a brand newcomer and an explorer of a place I know little of. I want to leave this mound of sand to swish in the tides without me while I drink overly chlorinated water in the tourist hub of Orlando. I’ll get paid to reach high elevations, and being on the job will not bring me down.

There’s little use in recovery when, really, I was born to depart. 

Death of the First Born iPod

In lieu of my writers block, I'm going to pull an entry that I wrote back in 2007 during my second year in South Korea. I don't remember writing it, so stumbling upon it was glorious. At the time, I was living in a small farming village located in an isolated valley, which, at one point, I refer to "the punch bowl." Enjoy.

Korea is a map in which all corners are connected by trains, subways, taxis and buses. There is no one place that is inaccessible through these means of transportation. Here, traveling is accessible, affordable and, for the most part, comfortable. The one thing it is not, is fast. When I say that it isn't fast, I don't mean that the drivers are slow, because they are anything but. Travel is slow because the big cities are small and few in-between. So, to see Korea, one must truly go the distance.

Destinations are strangely and exactly one hour apart, as if these roads and speed limits were designed in such a way as to help regulate and simplify the bus schedules. Of course, the farther you are, the more hours it takes to arrive, so I am constantly traveling here. I gladly opt for the token hour-long journey from my punch bowl to the nearest city in order to escape small town stagnation. 

It was through these long drives in which my iPod became both companion and best friend. My iPod was the medium through which "This American Life" - a Korean bus-ride favorite of mine - could reach and entertain my brain. It was what connected me to Hawksley Workman, Belle & Sebastian, Regina Spektor and The Shins. For all I knew, I was front row, VIP, BFF with every band and singer that resonated through my ear canal.

So when my iPod died, it was more than just a portable entertainment device that went to Heaven. It was death to Ira Glass and all the ways in which I could live vicariously through him. It was the demise to my mind-blowing silent power vocal solos held discreetly between the window and the empty seat beside me. It was an end to my personal serenades, sung sweetly to only me by dashing men of multiple musical talents. It was the annihilation of a personal world in which bus driver and fellow passengers ceased to exist - a world in which a custom stage and face-melting pyrotechnics were mine.

So when my iPod died, I was left with a kind of silence that I didn't know what to do with. For hours and a multitude of bus rides, I'd sit and pout because I didn't know how to appreciate the lack of electronics. Except, there comes a time when mourning ceases to cut it, and when this happens, there is true silence. It is in this void that the change begins to happen and suddenly I am thinking, I am praying and I am creating. 

I've already dreamt up a series of South Korean folk tales, inspired by the forest that I just noticed that we drive through. I've been writing a lot more, mostly thoughts on my experiences, and have mapped out the direction in which I'd like to go in life. So, although there is a gravestone dedicated to my iPod, there is also a shiny blue mylar balloon that reads, "Congratulations. It's a brain." Indeed, my thoughts were being held hostage by the completed works of others, when what I needed most, was to create some work myself.

73. Take a Self Defense Class

Ah yes, another completed goal straight down the hatch. Despite being half-way there with my 101 Goals in 1001 Days, the list itself is coming along strikingly. Last month I took a free self-defense class for women at Smith Tae Kwon Do Center in Kaneohe, and proceeded to learn what it takes to kick villain butt. In fact, I subsequently wrote an article for The Kapi'o that may help to defend your honor if you so choose to take on the responsibility.

Needless to say, the class was wonderfully educational. Having the knowledge and the practice of defending myself against an attacker has made me feel substantially more safe when I'm alone. I have since purchased a vial of pepper spray, which I whip out with enthusiasm once the sun sets. Sometimes I go through the steps of defense in my head, prepared at all times to do what it takes to ensure that I am never a victim.

Read the article, take the class, defend your honor. Goal #73, you're so history.

Video Spam

I'm going to spam you with videos, are you ready?

MAKAPU'U CLIFFSIDE HIKE
The first is my most recent, though it was shot back in March during Spring Break. (Time has no respect for anybody). Jeff, Laura, Chris, Doni, Spencer and I made a date to hit up the area around Makapu'u Lighthouse. I could write a whole story for you, but then that would defeat the purpose of my poignant narration. Behold, a great outdoor adventure.



KAWAII-KON 2010
The second was an assignment from The Kapi'o, a small newspress run out of KCC. We had written an article about Kawaii-Kon a few weeks before the event began, though I didn't read it until it hit the stands the following Monday. I took the paper to my editor, begged to attend and it was done. Press passes were promised to me and I reserved the weekend of the 17th for nerdtastic fun. Oh, and it was a beautiful weekend indeed.




HUSTLED BY WIND (SKIRTS DON'T STAND A CHANCE)
This is another video taken during spring break when my friend, Ken, and I decided to go out for lunch together. Our spontaneity led us to a post-meal trip to Pali Lookout, where the winds were on high per usual. Inspired by the footage, I went home and had the video edited within a few days. Within the week, "Hustled by Wind" had over 1,000 hits, which I miscredited to my editing skills. Thanks to YouTube's Insight data section, I was able to discover that it was just an overwhelming amount of 55-64 year old men who were doing searches for "windy skirt." This is disgusting, but the video is not. Watch it.

So good at pushing away.

My cat and I have always had an unsteady relationship. She was introduced into our family by an ex-boyfriend who thought he was doing a romantic deed back in 2003. I really loathed all the ridiculous teen-movie shenanigans that he put me through, most of which were excessively contrived and stupid. 

But I digress. During this time, I was obsessed with the musical "Cats," which is about a clan of felines who sing and dance about the woes of living on the streets. It's fantastic. I had one particular favorite whose name was Magical Mr. Mistoffelees. As you can surmise by his title, he was magical and just about the greatest cat ever. Mr. Mistoffelees was jet black with white feet and the exact model of the feline that I was in the midsts of bribing my parents to adopt for me.

So when Ex-Boyfriend showed up at my house with a surprise in his car, I was both irritated and appalled at the stark white girl cat that was hiding in his back seat. Not only was she the physical opposite of what I desired, but she couldn't dance, do magic or even be sociable for that matter. Sugar, my new cat, was a ball of allergy for me, with nails that scratched ruthlessly while leaving swollen red welts in their wake. 

I broke up with my boyfriend shortly thereafter.

In the last seven years that I've been feeding Sugar, we have never gotten along. I draw pictures of cats incased within red circles with a vicious slash drawn across it. "NO CATS!" is usually printed on the bottom. It never mattered if she could understand or not, the point was that I was laying down the law, and I had every intention of reinforcing punishment. 

So when I moved to Europe and returned 18 months later with a renewed sense of patience and love, I was startled at how accepting I had become of Sugar. Suddenly, I was petting her, hugging her and letting her pass through my cat-forsaken doors. In fact, there were nights when I would let her sleep on the foot of my bed. When I began to experience major allergic reactions to my entire bedroom due to the constant existence of dander, I just took allergy medications and carried on. 

But the point of this story isn't about a rocky relationship with a cat. It's about the rocky relationship that I have with all boys. You see, shortly after I began to extend kindness towards Sugar, she fell in love with me. She would follow me around the house and take naps next to my work space. If I went to sleep without her in my room, she would sit at my door and complain until I let her in. Although this sounds romantic, it isn't. 

I began to feel like she was encroaching on my personal space, suffocating me. I felt like I wouldn't be able to love her as much as she loved me, so I told her to leave me alone and spare herself the heartache. "It's not you, it is TOTALLY me. We gotta just be friends, I'm so sorry."

And just as I was breaking up with my cat, I realized I had commitment issues. The story of my life unfolded before me, boy after boy after boy after boy after cat. It was a repetitive tale of momentary interest followed by a sudden disappearance. I can't tolerate people being close to me, and in this way, I have become so good at pushing away.

I put the NO CAT! signs back up, shampooed the carpet and changed my sheets, eliminating all traces of dander and unrequited love. I exercised the clean and neat parting that I've grown so proficient at: No commitment, no obligations, no disappointments, no cat, no relationship.

It sounds lonely, and it actually really is. I've endured years of being single before, though not for lack of trying. Attachments kind of scare me. A lot. Perhaps this is why I so often take off traveling, leaving home for another country faster than anyone would believe logical or even safe. I have a huge heart, but one that I keep to myself; secured and barricaded behind every defensive force imaginable. Truth be told, I don't know how to change.

But last week, I surprised myself by intentionally leaving my door open before I went to sleep. When I woke up in the morning, my cat was sleeping at the foot of my bed, already forgiving my love retraction. I took an allergy pill, gathered her up in my arms and told her that what we had was true love. 

And one day, I'll get it right in the human world too.

Age is just a number

But alas, this number discourages me from going out on a school night. I like my six hours of sleep. And season 3 of Heroes.