Wanderlustress

My Cup Runneth Over

It’s not even November yet but all my weekends are booked full for the month!…starting with this coming weekend in NYC to hang out with a girlfriend, see a photo exhibition, attend a birthday bash, and feast at a Sunday brunch. Next comes a weekend in Belleport, Long Island, with friends and their one year old baby girl. Then a trip to Newport, Rhode Island, for a special birthday treat for me ; ), followed by a weekend in Albany, New York, to see my mother’s new house. Then I think it’ll be Thanksgiving and my niece’s fifth birthday, and we’re already on the brink of December.

In between, I’m tasked with renting my apartment, selling my car, packing up my furniture and belongings, moving it all into storage and moving myself somewhere temporarily until January 15th, preparing and packing for Uz, changing my address on everything, and spending as much time with my family as I can.

Emotionally, I continue to struggle with the mental preparations of living in a new world, one where I have been advised to show up late to drinking functions, learn to throw vodka shots behind my back without getting noticed, and know how and when to give bribes to local officials, bus drivers, and to whoever can ensure my safe journey. Closer to home, I have been blessed with a marriage proposal I don’t know what to do with given the impending distance that will be placed between us. How do two people stay together in such uncertain circumstances? How do I fit another person into such an insane way of living? Yet, how can I live without the security and luxury of love along the lonely roads I take? And why is all of this happening to me NOW?!

I feel like I’m trying to swallow two life-times in one big gulp! Hopefully, I’ll be able to chase all of it down with a healthy dose of happiness.

"Doubt is a pain...

...too lonely to know that faith is his brother" -- Kahlil Gibran

My final divorce papers are in Spanish. Tony handed them to me at the Dome Cafe on Tanjong Pagar Road. Despite the searing tropical heat in Singapore, we sat outside where there was more space, and we were surrounded by palm trees and exotic potted plants. The tall standing fans blew a feverish bath of warm air around us, no relief to the thick, humid hothouse of life on the equator. And with concrete and marble office towers looming over us, I could barely stand the weight.

Still, it was amicable and easy. It always had been.

His trip to the Dominican Republic was brief, business-like, despite the reputable beaches and renowned SCUBA diving. It was the only country we could find that would grant two globe-trotting citizens of the world their divorce without a residency requirement. Well, a one day requirement = arrival + departure. Tony probably didn’t even take swimming trunks, just my Power of Attorney entrusting anyone of official rank to execute the transaction on my behalf. I wasn’t about to go half way around the world just to sign some papers because I wasn’t the one who wanted to marry the daughter of a Korean-American Baptist preacher, who happens to look just like me.

What an attitude. When I was the one who left him.

Under the cozy pine-green comforter in our shoebox one-bedroom apartment on the Upper East Side of NYC, we had decided:

T: “Dee, you should tell them the pay package doesn’t even matter. They don’t even need to pay you.”
D: “Yeah, I just want to go to Singapore, even to work for free!”
T: “What a great experience it will be. I’ll join you when I graduate from business school.”
D: “And we can plan our honeymoon together after you arrive.”

We planned everything together. We had been the best of friends for seven years.

We were introduced to each other one week before graduating from college, by mutual friends who knew that we both had found jobs in NYC. We never saw each other again after that first introduction, but after two miserable months alone in my tiny rented room in Lower East Harlem, barely eking out a salary in the not-for-profit-but-intellectually-rich world, I received a postcard from Tony who was on his summer holiday in Asia:

“Hi Dee,
I’ve been in Hong Kong for a few days now but I really haven’t gotten around to much yet. All I have been doing is hanging out with my dad and playing golf…

…I hope your job is going well and everything is ok in NYC. I’ll call you when I get back.”

Family

I’m sure that everyone has their own reference, but I can never listen to Bread’s, Everything I Own , without thinking of my mom. The following post originally appeared in my Peace Corps blog, but I thought I’d post it here, too. Afterwards, I’m off to spend the rest of the afternoon with the most wonderful woman in the world, my MOM!

16.9.03
“Yesterday, I broke out in a strange fever. My body ached and alternated between fiery sweat and icy chills. At some point in the delirium, I cried out for my mom. I cried out for her because I knew that she would do anything to make me feel better. And after nurturing me for so many years, I knew that she would know how to make me feel better. Mostly, I just wanted her company, that combination of over concerned pampering combined with her humour and quirky ways.

In the end, I did not call her last night even though she is only fifteen minutes away. I labored through the aches and took medicine that plain knocked me out. I have been away from home for many many years, and have certainly battled sickness on my own before. Although mom is close to me now, I didn't want to indulge myself to be under the care of others. I kept thinking that when I'm in the Peace Corps, I may not have anyone nearby to turn to and how I might have to suffer through such episodes alone. I wondered how I would deal psychologically with the same situation thousands of miles away, without anyone as dear as mom.

The worst of my fever was gone by morning, but the first thing I did was to call mom. After a night of suffering, I needed the concern, the pampering, and especially the home cooked meal. When she came over, I accepted all of her recommended medications, ate her chicken noodle soup, and listened to her neighborhood gossip. I laughed. I felt better. I cried when she left. I cried because I felt my family's love and knew that I would miss it when I'm away. But while I may not have mom's chicken soup or her warm spirit when I'm out in the field, I will know deep in my heart that I have a family's love to carry me through the difficulties that lay ahead. It is my family's love that gives me the strength to pursue all of my endeavors alone. It will be enough to know that if I asked her to, my mom would fly half way around the world to bring me chicken soup. This thought alone will lift me out of a cold sweat and bring a smile to my face.”

Ch...Ch...Ch...Ch...Changes

The changes in my life did not occur in one sudden cosmic bang, as it may have sounded in ”Somewhere There’s a Beginning” Before anything could happen, it took one long illogical period of misery. It just didn’t make sense. When counting my blessings I would run out of fingers and toes…I was at the prime of my life, at the peak of my international career, had an expanding bank account, a beautiful flat, great friends, loving family, life-of-the-party boyfriend, a spa membership, frequent flyer miles, a bulging passport, a revolving wardrobe, weekly parties, monthly island-hopping…I had it ALL! Yet, I was miserable.

My first thought every morning for at least a year was “Fuck!”, followed by "Fuck! Fuck! Holy fucking hell! How am I going to get through today?!? F U C K!!!"

Behind the veneer of my blessings was an over bearing, high-pressure job that required 100 hour work weeks, including Saturdays, Sundays and on-call in between. My love life consisted of me chasing the life of the party around while he was chasing down triple whiskeys and water, along with the shortest skirts he could find around town. I filled my free time with liberating jaunts into the cocktail mix of whatever was at hand, wherever I could find it in the remote exotic locations of Southeast Asia. I let myself b e l i e v e I was living the high life, big silver screen style...Oh I was high alright, but it wasn't on life.

My consciousness was numb. I had no passions. My bank account was filling up while my spirit was draining....and so it went until I realized that the years hadn’t been lived for ME. I had been chasing other people’s prescribed dreams. I was a “success” to everyone else, but not to myself. What were my ideals again? I had no clue. And when I realized I no longer had ideals, everything finally fell into place so clearly…I used to be full of ideals about the world and my place within it. How do I get them BACK?!

There was nothing else to do but to free myself from every defining constraint I had in my life to find ME again. It meant giving up my job, boyfriend, apartment, and leaving Singapore. I stopped living my life on a treadmill and jumped off, and onto a plane to Africa…the place of my dreams, and my ideals.

I don’t want to be misleading here. It IS totally insane to give up a well paying job, BELIEVE me. My reflex to reach into my wallet used to be more natural than blinking. And, ironically, it’s the accumulation of all those paychecks that helped me to take the big leap in the first place. I’m very fortunate in that. But however futile it may seem now for me to have “given it all up”, in actuality, I have gained the world, my future, and my passion. I may still live through the ups and downs everyday. But at the end of the day, the days are mine.

"They deem me mad for I will not sell my days for gold; I deem them mad for they think my days have a price." -- Kahlil Gibran (1883 - 1931)

Role Models: Living Possibilities

Today, back in the retreat of my home, I find myself looking up my role models, people I can relate to, respect, and hopefully, emulate their successful lives. We are all drawn to those similar to ourselves for comfort. Role models give us hope, especially the famous ones because they are not considered freaks. To me, they are the living possibilities of my dreams.

One of my role models is Harriet Chalmers Adams, the pioneering female explorer-photographer who “before her death in Nice, France, in 1937, had retraced the trail of Columbus, crossed Haiti on horseback, and, according to the New York Times, “reached twenty frontiers previously unknown to white women.”” To me, she exemplifies the fact that life, dreams, and passion are timeless, and that they also surpass the imaginary limitations of gender and age.

My contemporary role model is Jodi Cobb, the only woman staff photographer at the National Geographic Society. She makes my quest very real to me when she says, "You can have a life in the field, or you can have a life at home. But it’s hard to have both." In an on-line feature of Woman Photographers at National Geographic, the author describes the sacrifices as follows, "There is always a price to pay for what you take in life—an emotional balance sheet. This, then, is the price of choosing to be both a photographer in the field and a spouse, mother, sister, friend at home. Marriages that will not hold. Friendships that decay. Children who grow up without you." Indeed, Jodi has made these sacrifices in her own life, but look at some of the things she has brought into our world:
- Saudi Arabia: The Women Behind the Veil
- 12st-Century Slaves
- The Enigma of Beauty

Both of these women teach me about the possibilities and limitations to what I can do, while their success gives me the spirit to try and do everything!

Freak

Going to a wedding alone and single can really help to distinguish you from the rest of the crowd, especially when you don’t know anyone else there but the bride and groom who are fluttering about in a surreal dream. Their sincere friends would introduce themselves to me and marvel at the fact that I had taken all forms of public transportation to arrive at the rehearsal dinner in nine grueling hours, carrying only a backpack in which they imagined could only contain a pair of sneakers and sweatpants (for a wedding?!)…There were ensuing anxious whispers as to what I would be wearing to the ceremony as a Huppa holder, a very central image in the posterity of photographs to be taken on the special day.



During dinner there was plenty of keen interest in the summary of my life, which I described in snippets between sips of wine and bites of chicken marsala. As usual, the husbands and boyfriends were enthralled, while the wives and girlfriends were fearing for their lives that this wanderer with a backpack may unseat their reign with tales of facing off corrupt customs officials and digging pit toilets. Still, they listened attentively as their partners reassuringly rubbed their shoulders and gave them occasional kisses on the nose, the usual “you’re-still-my-honeybunny” gestures. As I shared, each took their turn with their travel tales and adventures, and I would reciprocate in kind with another regal tale. It was all good fun until I had this overwhelming sense from their looks that I should shut up or I was about to be abandoned in a corner as the pathological lying freak.

I laid awake that night wondering if everyone would have been more comfortable if I had been there with a partner? At least my life would have had some semblance to their own domesticated bliss. It would have reassured them that I was as weak and needy and human on the inside as they are…I wondered if I should have told them I once worked at McDonald’s?

Nurturer of Harmony with a High Libido

Thanks to Wendy and Alicia, I have just taken personality tests for the first time. Here are the results, for better or for worse...

MEYERS-BRIGGS

ESFJ
Extroverted (E) 66.67% Introverted (I) 33.33%
Sensing (S) 66.67% Intuitive (N) 33.33%
Feeling (F) 54.29% Thinking (T) 45.71%
Judging (J) 71.88% Perceiving (P) 28.13%

"Seller". Most sociable of all types.
Nurturer of harmony. (Mahatma Gandhi was an ESFJ.)
Outstanding host or hostesses. (I LOVE feeding people!)
12.3% of total population.

More descriptions of ESFJ personality type can be found here. But how about taking the test yourself and letting us know?

ENNEAGRAM

This test revealed that I am a wise idealist who comprehends the big picture, and prefer serenity to the hustle/bustle existence. A desire to improve the world motivates me. And I prefer to work alone rather than bother with the annoyances if typical workplace drama. (Hhmmm, I wonder if this applies to relationship drama, too!?!)

Additionally, it is easy for me to trust others and I finish most things I start (Yeah, I'm always "finishing" off dead-end relationships!) I am very physically affectionate. I am very calm and fairly decisive. I show my strong feelings and I tend to be conforming. And I have a high libido! (Oh my, how do they know THAT?!?)

And my varient is Sexual, so I am Type 1w9, Sexual. (Ooohhh, I'm defintely going to look that one up!)

Domestic Day

Views of my day at home...

It was such a glorious sunny day today that everything sparkled. As I was coming home, I noticed the sun soaked details of my house…the pattern of trees, light and shadow of my street; my bright pillows, and details in the kitchen where I’m preparing a pot of green curry for my friend’s dinner party tonight.

Because I will be leaving this place soon, I'm recording how I wish to remember it...then perhaps I should also take a photo of the piles of paper on my desk surrounding my loyal PowerBook, all the books just read, those patiently waiting, and the spiders that make their way up from their nest below, forcing an arachnophobe to constantly confront her fears...

Here I Am

We live in a skeptical world, suspicious, cynical, and judgmental. Our very existence requires validation by passports, driver’s licenses, I.D. badges, fingerprints, passwords, voice recognition and so on. And it’s all so well documented in mounds of paperwork from birth certificates, to tax records, to credit reports, to résumés and health records. So if you are wondering whether the people who’s blogs you’re reading are authentic or not, you may want to request any of the above items from them.

I’ve been debating for some time if I should post candid photos of myself or not, rather than relying on the obscured one mainly framing a dog, albeit a cute dog. There is some value in the relative anonymity, which can serve as a shield against prejudice and preconceptions. However, skepticism lingers about my really summitting mountains, all of my travels and various experiences.

Perhaps I’m just using this as an excuse for vanity. Nonetheless, I’ve included pictures of myself in About Me. It may be more than you want, but here I am…

Dinner for One

After being hungry for hours, I walked into the kitchen and found myself flouring chicken fillets with Turkish roasted chilies I brought back from Istanbul in July. The red and black flakes are less spicy than they are fragrant, infusing a bouquet from the fire fueled by Istanbul breezes.

The fillets joined the already caramelized garlic and shallots in a pan luxurious with olive oil. The bittersweet morsels quickly seared onto the chicken, crispy and piqued with flavor. To that, I finished off some left over sun-dried tomatoes and simmered it all in a basil pesto. Capellini never had better company.

I was half tempted to call a dear friend over to join me, especially when I opened the Bordeaux. But I resisted in better judgement of recent emotional revelations this dear friend had for me. I can't reciprocate in kind.

Tonight, its dinner for one.