I spent the last two days in Boston where I had two job interviews. I accepted a job and am therefore ecstatic to report that I will be gainfully employed for the 2009-2010 school year. I returned back to Minnesota yesterday and proceeded to slip in and out of consciousness for the next 6 hours. It was an exhausting time in Boston, full of lots of tough decisions, intensive scoping out of Peter's bachelor pad to determine where I will be putting my stuff, and one verrrrry long drive to check out a school where I ultimately declined their (totally awesome and stellar) offer. The best part, of course, was catching up with my bestest friend and gay husband, Andrew. Our friendship picked up where it left off, though clearly we have both grown significantly wiser in the three years since we lived in Phoenix (and somehow we've also gotten better looking....:) ), a statement which can be corroborated by the fact that the evening didn't end with me cradling my head in my hands to keep the world from spinning while we discuss Jungian archetypes or read passages from Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Yup. We used to be *those* people, and probably still are.....
I am tremendously excited about the year ahead, and I know it will be truly awesome. I feel so good about all of the decisions that I have made up to this point in my life, and I now feel ready to attack this next portion of my adulthood as I settle down with the love of my life, and get all of my ducks in a row to prepare for several new chapters in my professional life.
In other news, I ate a McFlurry and some Easy Mac for dinner tonight, and my stomach is having as hard of a time readjusting to food in the U.S. as it did adjusting to the food/water in Thailand. Granted, there are no parasites involved at this point, but still.
The world is incredibly different to me now. I guess it takes coming back to realize how much you've changed, how the old benchmarks by which you measured your existence or guaged your neuroses are no longer relevant. And I had remained so present in my experience and my life in Thailand, particularly during the last six months, that I sort of forgot about my frame of reference in the U.S. This isn't to say that I forgot about the people that I love here, or that I somehow lost myself. It's just that I became completely absorbed in these places, these cultures, and in my role as observer. It was a tremendously quiet time for me wherein I spent a lot of time contemplating and meditating and just watching (hence part of the reason why my blog went semi-neglected for so long). I was writing, but mainly in my pen and paper journal that was colored with ticket stubs and postcards and other assorted memorabilia. It was a respite, a retreat, and it was certainly not without its ups and downs. But it is astounding to me how thoroughly transformed I feel as I emerge from the other side of it all.
I miss Asia tremendously. TREMENDOUSLY. I think about my experiences there frequently, and I will still plan on writing about them here and in my journals. I am working on a memoir, but it may end up being something that is only for my eyes. We shall see. And obviously I gained a ton in my two years, and I have the Buddhas and stones and pearls and scarves and elephants and silk photo albums and fabulous clothes to prove it. And seriously, try not to vomit when I say this (no, you're gonna have to try pretty hard.....), but I think I will remember that time mostly in what I left behind. That is to say, there was a TON of demon wrestling that went on over there (which I didn't really write about on here, though I may have alluded to my various struggles once or twice, and written about some general life lessons), but I really feel like I left them in Thailand. Thailand absorbed a lot of my crap and helped me to transform it into something useful. Like fertilizer. Though I didn't literally mean, y'know, my crap......
Anyway.......
So there is a gratitude that gives my memories about Asia its particular pastel-colored shade, and even the difficult moments were worth it. I still have more to say about it all. Just because my time there is over doesn't mean that the storytelling has to be.
Thank you to those of you who were with me every step of the way!
You haven't heard the last of me.....bwahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Friday, August 7, 2009
Patriarch
I've been back in the U.S. for over a week now, and the first order of business (other than recovering from jet lag and eating lots of cheese) was a family reunion. And while the energy of this coming together was joyful, the reason for the occasion was my grandfather's memorial celebration and spreading of his ashes.
My grandfather's true gift and legacy was his understanding that, in the words of my uncle, water always seeks its own level. He was accepting and loved all of us unconditionally. He was involved in real estate and newspapers and lecturing at universities and advertising. He made important contributions to political advertising--his firm came up with the idea of the political bumper sticker and lawn sign as ways of increasing a candidate's exposure--and wrote a book on the subject. He wrote poetry and cared for my grandmother during her long illness, and was by her side until her very last breath. He wrote poems and had all kinds of girlfriends and was liberal with his flower purchases. We wrote to each other once a week during my senior year in college--a tradition that I wish we had continued.
He was a complete and utter optimist. He spent time in an orphanage when my great-grandmother, newly widowed, could not afford to care for her children. He spoke with fondness about his time in an orphanage, and told stories about difficult times with a positive slant.
I guess I'm surprised at how much I miss him, and how often he tends to appear in my thoughts. We all expected him to sail past 100. He was the picture of health all the way to the age of 90. During the past few years his health started to deteriorate, but none of us knew how sick he really was.
I spoke with him during his final lucid moments. I told him how much I loved him, he told me he was proud of me. He asked about how things were "over yonder," and I told him that I would always remember him, that I would tell my children all about him.
They just don't make 'em like him anymore. He had a wonderful life, a life that he loved, and he will be missed.
I wrote this poem and read it--while wearing one of his fabulous and colorful sport coats--before we buried his ashes under the apple tree where we buried my great-grandmother's--his mother's--ashes.
PATRIARCH
(For Grampsie--August 1st, 2009)
This moment is somehow impossible
A reflection of your impossible mortality
How is it that the plaid shape of your personality
The piercing blue of your kindness
The ebullient rumble of your belly laughs
The hearty handkerchiefs of your eccentricities
Are no longer here?
Your presence instead
Glides over the collected pool
Of our hearts in mourning, dark like water that has been thickened with night
Glides over all of us like the reflection of morning birds
Memories of you are light white pinpricks rippling the surface softly
And permanently
Your past actions continually shaping our present moments, our futures
Like ripples transforming into waves, lapping at the shoreline
My grandfather's true gift and legacy was his understanding that, in the words of my uncle, water always seeks its own level. He was accepting and loved all of us unconditionally. He was involved in real estate and newspapers and lecturing at universities and advertising. He made important contributions to political advertising--his firm came up with the idea of the political bumper sticker and lawn sign as ways of increasing a candidate's exposure--and wrote a book on the subject. He wrote poetry and cared for my grandmother during her long illness, and was by her side until her very last breath. He wrote poems and had all kinds of girlfriends and was liberal with his flower purchases. We wrote to each other once a week during my senior year in college--a tradition that I wish we had continued.
He was a complete and utter optimist. He spent time in an orphanage when my great-grandmother, newly widowed, could not afford to care for her children. He spoke with fondness about his time in an orphanage, and told stories about difficult times with a positive slant.
I guess I'm surprised at how much I miss him, and how often he tends to appear in my thoughts. We all expected him to sail past 100. He was the picture of health all the way to the age of 90. During the past few years his health started to deteriorate, but none of us knew how sick he really was.
I spoke with him during his final lucid moments. I told him how much I loved him, he told me he was proud of me. He asked about how things were "over yonder," and I told him that I would always remember him, that I would tell my children all about him.
They just don't make 'em like him anymore. He had a wonderful life, a life that he loved, and he will be missed.
I wrote this poem and read it--while wearing one of his fabulous and colorful sport coats--before we buried his ashes under the apple tree where we buried my great-grandmother's--his mother's--ashes.
PATRIARCH
(For Grampsie--August 1st, 2009)
This moment is somehow impossible
A reflection of your impossible mortality
How is it that the plaid shape of your personality
The piercing blue of your kindness
The ebullient rumble of your belly laughs
The hearty handkerchiefs of your eccentricities
Are no longer here?
Your presence instead
Glides over the collected pool
Of our hearts in mourning, dark like water that has been thickened with night
Glides over all of us like the reflection of morning birds
Memories of you are light white pinpricks rippling the surface softly
And permanently
Your past actions continually shaping our present moments, our futures
Like ripples transforming into waves, lapping at the shoreline
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