When I woke up this morning I couldn't believe where I found myself. "I'm dreaming," I thought, but then I remembered yesterday's long-ass haul, the unnervingly bumpy flight across the Atlantic. I'd been so worked up, so nervous that my flight would crash just to spite me. Survive an epic around-the-world adventure only to die in the home stretch? But now I'm back, trepidation is behind me, and the familiar allergies I always seem to get in this house have started up. It's like I'm allergic to all the bad memories from high school or something. Home is where the suitcase is, I guess, and this place is no exception. Did all that really just happen? Did I really graduate from college six months ago, move to Alaska to commercial fish salmon (WTF?!), grab the bull by the balls and travel to South Korea, Russia, Mongolia, Russia again, Germany, Ireland, sail around the Med with a salty old Brit and his dog Jack Sparrow, go back to Germany, and fly... here... woah. I have some serious digesting to do.
My bedroom looks much the same as it did when I left, minus a few conspicuous things. My stuffed animals have been pushed into a box, the space cleaned of clutter, binders and books and grown-up shit stacked on my desk--a formidable to-do pile. My nerdy collection of elf and knight and animal figurines still prances around on my bookshelf, though my second bookshelf, housing the overflow books that had to be set up in the hallway, has vanished to my parents' retirement house in the country. I love lying on my bed and gazing at the posters, cut-outs, photos, CDs dangling from the ceiling that send rainbow refractions dancing over the walls. It's a kid's room, a kid who believed in magic. I want to go back in time and tell her to keep believing--it's out there, I've seen it, experienced it. Not a fairies-really-do-exist type of magic, but a realization that the world is rife with beauty, mystery, love. A sunrise witnessed from an airplane 32,000 ft in the air. Never-ending movement in the human anthill of Seoul. A Russian angel who saved my life on the train when I thought I was dying of poisoning. Barren eloquent hills in Mongolia. Germany, the country that will always love me no matter how many times I come and go. A cat and mouse trapped hundreds of years ago and mummified behind the organ in Christ's Church Cathedral in Dublin, never to catch, never to flee. The sea, moody, expressive, ephemeral. Bonifacio, the Corsican city perched out over air, barely supported by cliffs white as snow. And those Alaskan mountains, alive in the never-setting sun. Oh yes, magic does exist.
People will want to know about the highlights. Alaska is the coolest place I have ever been to, ever. Outside of the US, Mongolia was my favorite country and Seoul was the most different place I went. Russia was pretty rough; I had to actively try to survive, which comes with its own charm and sense of accomplishment. Traveling in Germany hardly counts as traveling. Ireland was a breath of fresh air, simply because of the English factor. And sailing was my favorite activity, Tim and Jack two of the best characters I hung out on this trip. Spending time with one person for a whole month was wonderful, especially since I was feeling a bit lonely after months of solitary nomadic existence. So, in sum, sailing in the Med wins the blue ribbon as my favorite experience. Mongolia gets second place, and Germany third. I learned things about myself and the world everywhere I went, sometimes good things, sometimes bad, sometimes just things to think about.
Speaking of experience, I'd say the single most important thing that has happened to me in the past six months was the beating, the moment when Nikko smacked me so hard I spun around into the ground, stood up with my head ringing and the room pulsing. I finally understood that there are people, useless cruel people, who will hurt you just because they can. Being cute and having the gift of gab will only get me so far; wits and common sense count for something, and even then you can't control the actions of others, not completely. I suppose I should be grateful to Nikko for the lesson he taught me (I might not have survived Russia unscathed if it hadn't been for what he did), though if he were to die in some terribly painful fashion I can't admit that I'd mourn. Death by bear attack would be acceptable. I may not be actively angry, but I think about what happened a lot. I pity him for his purposeless cruelty. He's doomed to an unfulfilled life, probably in prison.
Now and here. Today is Thanksgiving. I timed my return perfectly. The house smells like my all-time favorite Thanksgiving food, fried sweet potatoes, savory and buttery. We're going to Rhonda's for the big feast. She's an old foreign service friend of my parents' and has two kids--Aly, who's a couple years older, and Bruce, a few years younger. Bruce is a fellow Leo and a fellow writer. Someday we're going to scribe the Great American Novel together. We're not sure yet what it will be about, but the deep shit in it will rock your future world.
Things to do once my favorite holiday is over: figure out my money situation, find a job or two, buy a bike so I have a means of transportation, reconnect with friends in the area, reconnect with friends not in the area, go to a million and a half doctors' appointments for the Peace Corps, get back in shape, work out how I'm going to live here without fighting with my mother every other day. It's all possible. I'm buoyed on my energy and the success of my journey. Life is just beginning, but I'm not stupid enough anymore to think I'll always feel this optimistic. Stress will rear its ugly head and I'll feel like a stone at the bottom of the ocean, crushed by insurmountable odds. Whatever. Today I am a superhero. Today I'm thankful for everything--my life and the people in it.
My bedroom looks much the same as it did when I left, minus a few conspicuous things. My stuffed animals have been pushed into a box, the space cleaned of clutter, binders and books and grown-up shit stacked on my desk--a formidable to-do pile. My nerdy collection of elf and knight and animal figurines still prances around on my bookshelf, though my second bookshelf, housing the overflow books that had to be set up in the hallway, has vanished to my parents' retirement house in the country. I love lying on my bed and gazing at the posters, cut-outs, photos, CDs dangling from the ceiling that send rainbow refractions dancing over the walls. It's a kid's room, a kid who believed in magic. I want to go back in time and tell her to keep believing--it's out there, I've seen it, experienced it. Not a fairies-really-do-exist type of magic, but a realization that the world is rife with beauty, mystery, love. A sunrise witnessed from an airplane 32,000 ft in the air. Never-ending movement in the human anthill of Seoul. A Russian angel who saved my life on the train when I thought I was dying of poisoning. Barren eloquent hills in Mongolia. Germany, the country that will always love me no matter how many times I come and go. A cat and mouse trapped hundreds of years ago and mummified behind the organ in Christ's Church Cathedral in Dublin, never to catch, never to flee. The sea, moody, expressive, ephemeral. Bonifacio, the Corsican city perched out over air, barely supported by cliffs white as snow. And those Alaskan mountains, alive in the never-setting sun. Oh yes, magic does exist.
People will want to know about the highlights. Alaska is the coolest place I have ever been to, ever. Outside of the US, Mongolia was my favorite country and Seoul was the most different place I went. Russia was pretty rough; I had to actively try to survive, which comes with its own charm and sense of accomplishment. Traveling in Germany hardly counts as traveling. Ireland was a breath of fresh air, simply because of the English factor. And sailing was my favorite activity, Tim and Jack two of the best characters I hung out on this trip. Spending time with one person for a whole month was wonderful, especially since I was feeling a bit lonely after months of solitary nomadic existence. So, in sum, sailing in the Med wins the blue ribbon as my favorite experience. Mongolia gets second place, and Germany third. I learned things about myself and the world everywhere I went, sometimes good things, sometimes bad, sometimes just things to think about.
Speaking of experience, I'd say the single most important thing that has happened to me in the past six months was the beating, the moment when Nikko smacked me so hard I spun around into the ground, stood up with my head ringing and the room pulsing. I finally understood that there are people, useless cruel people, who will hurt you just because they can. Being cute and having the gift of gab will only get me so far; wits and common sense count for something, and even then you can't control the actions of others, not completely. I suppose I should be grateful to Nikko for the lesson he taught me (I might not have survived Russia unscathed if it hadn't been for what he did), though if he were to die in some terribly painful fashion I can't admit that I'd mourn. Death by bear attack would be acceptable. I may not be actively angry, but I think about what happened a lot. I pity him for his purposeless cruelty. He's doomed to an unfulfilled life, probably in prison.
Now and here. Today is Thanksgiving. I timed my return perfectly. The house smells like my all-time favorite Thanksgiving food, fried sweet potatoes, savory and buttery. We're going to Rhonda's for the big feast. She's an old foreign service friend of my parents' and has two kids--Aly, who's a couple years older, and Bruce, a few years younger. Bruce is a fellow Leo and a fellow writer. Someday we're going to scribe the Great American Novel together. We're not sure yet what it will be about, but the deep shit in it will rock your future world.
Things to do once my favorite holiday is over: figure out my money situation, find a job or two, buy a bike so I have a means of transportation, reconnect with friends in the area, reconnect with friends not in the area, go to a million and a half doctors' appointments for the Peace Corps, get back in shape, work out how I'm going to live here without fighting with my mother every other day. It's all possible. I'm buoyed on my energy and the success of my journey. Life is just beginning, but I'm not stupid enough anymore to think I'll always feel this optimistic. Stress will rear its ugly head and I'll feel like a stone at the bottom of the ocean, crushed by insurmountable odds. Whatever. Today I am a superhero. Today I'm thankful for everything--my life and the people in it.
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