reflections

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back in the west indeed. immersed in the western culture for the past several months, in fact.

it is amusing for me to read back on some of my entries from southeast asia, remembering my lifestyle, my few belongings, and the feeling that i didn't know quite WHERE i was going, but i was certainly getting there in an interesting way. and then to compare this to my situation at this moment. i have only been here a few months, but asia seems like a dream-world, something i read about somewhere rather than something i did, just as the US seemed like a dream-world when i was in asia. sometimes i think the world is not spherical. it is flat like a coin, and i live back on the other side of the coin now.

far from sweat and cows and uncomfortable bus rides and foreign languages and attending to basic needs of food and sleep and safety, i am currently in a cozy local coffee shop, and it is below freezing outside. the music playing reminds me that my own sense of western music is years out of date. i am surrounded by a glowing sea of laptops and apple logos with peoples' faces uplit by the screens, and relaxed conversations over hot drinks.

until very recently, i defined myself, even to myself, as a "foreigner." whether way-gook or farang, whatever language, i became comfortable with the fact, and perhaps reveled in the idea of being a foreigner. perhaps i let myself mistake my "difference" for "importance." and yet here, i couldn't fit in more if i tried. from the steaming tangerine green sencha next to me, to the strengthening of my american accent, to the new macbook in front of me reflecting light on MY face. do the clothes make the woman? has the apple logo handed me the calling card of capitalism? which one is the "real" me? am i a poser now that i have come back to the US? was i a poser as i travelled in asia? or are people just flexible and adaptable creatures?

i read a book recently that had me believing that people are meant to be nomadic. this theory appeals to me, naturally, because it validates my traveling impulses. it seems almost obvious though, in the small scale of daily movement: going for a walk to clear your head, fresh air, endorphins. or perhaps just the distraction from your own meandering restless thoughts.

but being in a position here in the US where i was living with my brothers and their families, not working and not traveling much, i have to wonder at the things in my mind, that, because i was traveling for so long, i didn't deal with or think about. it seems that any kind of rest or stasis makes all your "problems" or "issues" more apparent. like how a skinned knee doesn't hurt til you stop and look at it.

readjusting after returning to the US has been more difficult in some ways than i had anticipated, but that is probably less a product of reverse culture shock, and more because nothing stays the way it was when you left it. or perhaps that is the reason for reverse culture shock. in 2006 when i went to korea, i was given 3 days to quit my jobs and leave my friends, my boyfriend, my life. i returned 2 1/2 years later to find that everything and everyone had picked up and moved on without me, seeming largely unaffected by my absence. it is something i expected, but it still surprised me somehow.

the trick now is to make new friendships, foster the old ones that have endured the time and distance, and keep traveling, all without letting the movement of travel simply distract my mind, but rather enrich it.

next stop: jan 7: playa del carmen, mexico, for the CELTA course.

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