Someone got hurt today. A lexus turned, and three girls on a moto fell straight sideways. None were wearing helmets. Two scrambled up. One wasn't moving, clearly unconscious. No blood, but the bowels went, and the thing was -- she was just not there. Maybe she was dead, or maybe just knocked out. It was surreal, the friends shaking her, trying to get her up -- no doubt making any injury more severe. The driver wanted to leave, of course. For a culture that hates conflict and avoids blame at all costs, it goes against everything. It doesn't make it right, of course, but it's clear where it comes from.
I always thought watching something like that would be painful, violent. I guess if she was bleeding it would have been different, or if I knew her. But the thing is, it was clear that it was the ones around her that were suffering. But her, she was just gone.
She was young. Her life was too short. But that was a fight for the living, for the present. They are the ones for whom it is violent and unfair. Of course dying is awful for some people, but just then I thought, it's simple. Death is once. When you go, you're gone. Whoever she was, whatever she wanted to do, however much her family and friends loved her, she had gone, and she was at peace. It was the world around her that screamed, but she was simply not there. She had moved on. Maybe she came back, I don't know. I don't believe that her soul "went" somewhere, but either way it was gone, faded, what had mader her "her" was not there.
I fear death. For those I love, for the emptiness, and for myself, not having enough time and for the pain it would cause those I love. But seeing this was strangely calming. Yes, it reminds me to always wear a helmet, and be careful, and that it could all be gone in a single flash, and yes, it's scary. But it also tells me that death is simple, like opening a door. It is only violent in the aftermath, and no, she probably didn't deserve to die, or be injured. If she did, she did. Deserved, forced, at fault or not, whatever it was that she was, was gone. And I had the overwhelming impression that she was, in that instant, perfectly all right.
Death is not something to be sought, and under no circumstances caused (I'm quite firmly in the 'never justifiable' camp), or excused. But I did think that maybe it's not something to be feared.
Monday, April 29, 2013
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Living or Traveling: Culture divides and people like me
Ever since my year abroad there, I have wanted to live in Paris. I can't explain what it is, just that I have never felt so at home in any other city. I feel like I belong there. It's not just the city -- I've met a lot of people who have great things to say about the city and nothing good about the people, but I love the people. I speak the language more than just the words.
But I didn't go to Paris after graduation, I went to Cambodia, and I've found all sorts of amazing opportunities here that are exciting and interesting and I'm quite sure that it's a fantastic place to begin my career. The problem is that sometime over the past several months, I got it into my head that I could never actually live in Paris and do what I want. In Europe, maybe, but not in Paris. That is, of course, ridiculous.
As you know, I just went back to Paris, and was quite surprised to find that I still loved it just as much as before, perhaps even more, and felt just as home as before. In fact the amount to which I did feel at home was really disturbing -- after the first day, when I felt like a tourist and THAT was upsetting -- so much that I kept forgetting in I was in Paris, this grand city and word that was this far-off, inaccessible place in my mind. I guess in self-defense, I decided that since I could never live there, I should forget how much I enjoy being there. The Ego is a crazy thing, isn't it?
What I mean to say is that for the last several months, my life has been nothing but cultural divides and language barriers. The experience I'm getting, the amount I'm learning and growing, is already noticeable to me and to others, and I have no doubts whatsoever that years down the line, it will count as one of the most marking experiences of my life.
However. It's strange, I hate saying this, because I do love learning about new cultures and immersing myself in them, seeing what it's like on the other side and in some ways it feels like dissing this place. But I'm not, and I don't have to be.
The fact is that I want to spend my life somewhere where I am not a stranger, where I get the culture and the language and have a mutual understanding with the people around me.
Here, walking out my door brands me immediately. I cannot go anywhere anonymously. The Cambodian people are warm and friendly, but I will never be one of them, never truly belong. I am Barang. And then everything else, but first I am white.
I don't want to say that Cambodia is not a good country, the culture is bad, or anything of the sort. It's just different, fundamentally and in every possible way, from what I know. Because of it, there is and always will be some disconnect between us, a gap that is just too wide to leap. We will always be negotiating, meeting in the middle.
I don't want to live forever like that. I count on staying, as I've said, for anywhere between two or three more years, and intend on using that time as fully as possible. But after that, it will be time to find some place where I can be home. Whether that's somewhere in the world with my parents, or even better, in Paris (and that's always on the list, always the place where I am going).
In many ways I feel more French than American and often feel like a stranger in America. Paris needs to be where I end up -- and therefore I'll find a way to do what I want there -- because it is home. It is where I am at home, where my energy syncs up with the energy around me, and living is as easy as breathing.
Going back reminded me how beautiful that is.
But I didn't go to Paris after graduation, I went to Cambodia, and I've found all sorts of amazing opportunities here that are exciting and interesting and I'm quite sure that it's a fantastic place to begin my career. The problem is that sometime over the past several months, I got it into my head that I could never actually live in Paris and do what I want. In Europe, maybe, but not in Paris. That is, of course, ridiculous.
As you know, I just went back to Paris, and was quite surprised to find that I still loved it just as much as before, perhaps even more, and felt just as home as before. In fact the amount to which I did feel at home was really disturbing -- after the first day, when I felt like a tourist and THAT was upsetting -- so much that I kept forgetting in I was in Paris, this grand city and word that was this far-off, inaccessible place in my mind. I guess in self-defense, I decided that since I could never live there, I should forget how much I enjoy being there. The Ego is a crazy thing, isn't it?
What I mean to say is that for the last several months, my life has been nothing but cultural divides and language barriers. The experience I'm getting, the amount I'm learning and growing, is already noticeable to me and to others, and I have no doubts whatsoever that years down the line, it will count as one of the most marking experiences of my life.
However. It's strange, I hate saying this, because I do love learning about new cultures and immersing myself in them, seeing what it's like on the other side and in some ways it feels like dissing this place. But I'm not, and I don't have to be.
The fact is that I want to spend my life somewhere where I am not a stranger, where I get the culture and the language and have a mutual understanding with the people around me.
Here, walking out my door brands me immediately. I cannot go anywhere anonymously. The Cambodian people are warm and friendly, but I will never be one of them, never truly belong. I am Barang. And then everything else, but first I am white.
I don't want to say that Cambodia is not a good country, the culture is bad, or anything of the sort. It's just different, fundamentally and in every possible way, from what I know. Because of it, there is and always will be some disconnect between us, a gap that is just too wide to leap. We will always be negotiating, meeting in the middle.
I don't want to live forever like that. I count on staying, as I've said, for anywhere between two or three more years, and intend on using that time as fully as possible. But after that, it will be time to find some place where I can be home. Whether that's somewhere in the world with my parents, or even better, in Paris (and that's always on the list, always the place where I am going).
In many ways I feel more French than American and often feel like a stranger in America. Paris needs to be where I end up -- and therefore I'll find a way to do what I want there -- because it is home. It is where I am at home, where my energy syncs up with the energy around me, and living is as easy as breathing.
Going back reminded me how beautiful that is.
Saturday, April 13, 2013
Re-entry: calm and chaos
Mosquitos. Horns. Loud and busy and why the heck is it raining. Shop fronts and no sidewalks. Loud. Where did that moto come from and driving slowly with a helmet this time. Power cuts and internet spottiness.
I am so tired. Sleeping on the airplane -- my lucky string of discovering the rows with only one other person continues -- did no good. A 3-hour nap I barely dragged myself up from, in bed at eight and awake after nine and still couldn't get up. Another 1.5 hour nap today, and if things don't change, another in the works.
Twelve hours on the airplane and back to the humidity and in a tuk tuk. Side saddle on a motorbike and a plastic bag of trinkets distributed to the dancers. Everything as it was, as though untouched, as though it all froze for a month and only by touching it it came back to life, animated like a wind-up toy.
Everything as it was but it's not, precisely as I remembered but the reality is shocking. I am the only one who has changed, one month away and rediscovering worlds I once knew that became home, became beloved once more, and then left them to their own devices to re-enter this one and I admit as we dipped and descended towards Malaysia, the awful propaganda video playing in front of me, I thought, what the hell am I doing here.
When we descended into Phnom Penh, I was asleep. There was no one in the row with me, no window at the end for whatever reason, just fuselage, and so I closed my eyes instead and only knew we'd arrived by the bump of the wheels hitting the ground. Then I opened my eyes and blinked once into the madness, clambering into a tuk tuk and staring around me.
I knew it. Knew it all, expected what I saw, not the wide-eyed astonishment of the first time, but this time reentering a place that had become familiar, comfortable, easy, and now was strange and chaotic (it was the chaos I missed those first few days in the manicured, carefully crafted first-world streets.)
I know what I'm doing here. I love the opportunities, I'm excited about what I can do here, I have ideas and projects. I have friends. I love the opportunities and so I learned to like the life. I have purpose and a path.
My head knows this, and somewhere I think my heart does too.
But for right now, changing lives three times in one month has left me confused and dazed, stumbling back into a life I used to know so well with blank and unseeing eyes. I'm sure within a few weeks, it will be all I remember and this cloud of culture shock will have lifted. It always does, eventually. But the old saying is true: once you begin traveling, you cannot go home again.
Or maybe, you can, except "home" is different, home is where you are at the moment, and reentering old moments is jarring and uncertain. But the thing about that too, is like the great poet T.S. Eliot wrote:
We shall not cease from exploration,
and the end of all our exploring
will be to arrive where we started,
and know it for the first time.
I have returned to where I started, and indeed knew it for the first time, and each time I return I will know it again, and again, rediscovering more of each world I never thought to look for. For that, I am blessed, and acknowledge it freely.
But right now, all I want to do is bury my head in the pillows against the chaos and sleep until I wake and find the eyes I had before, and that this place that I used to know is once again comfortable.
I am so tired. Sleeping on the airplane -- my lucky string of discovering the rows with only one other person continues -- did no good. A 3-hour nap I barely dragged myself up from, in bed at eight and awake after nine and still couldn't get up. Another 1.5 hour nap today, and if things don't change, another in the works.
Twelve hours on the airplane and back to the humidity and in a tuk tuk. Side saddle on a motorbike and a plastic bag of trinkets distributed to the dancers. Everything as it was, as though untouched, as though it all froze for a month and only by touching it it came back to life, animated like a wind-up toy.
Everything as it was but it's not, precisely as I remembered but the reality is shocking. I am the only one who has changed, one month away and rediscovering worlds I once knew that became home, became beloved once more, and then left them to their own devices to re-enter this one and I admit as we dipped and descended towards Malaysia, the awful propaganda video playing in front of me, I thought, what the hell am I doing here.
When we descended into Phnom Penh, I was asleep. There was no one in the row with me, no window at the end for whatever reason, just fuselage, and so I closed my eyes instead and only knew we'd arrived by the bump of the wheels hitting the ground. Then I opened my eyes and blinked once into the madness, clambering into a tuk tuk and staring around me.
I knew it. Knew it all, expected what I saw, not the wide-eyed astonishment of the first time, but this time reentering a place that had become familiar, comfortable, easy, and now was strange and chaotic (it was the chaos I missed those first few days in the manicured, carefully crafted first-world streets.)
I know what I'm doing here. I love the opportunities, I'm excited about what I can do here, I have ideas and projects. I have friends. I love the opportunities and so I learned to like the life. I have purpose and a path.
My head knows this, and somewhere I think my heart does too.
But for right now, changing lives three times in one month has left me confused and dazed, stumbling back into a life I used to know so well with blank and unseeing eyes. I'm sure within a few weeks, it will be all I remember and this cloud of culture shock will have lifted. It always does, eventually. But the old saying is true: once you begin traveling, you cannot go home again.
Or maybe, you can, except "home" is different, home is where you are at the moment, and reentering old moments is jarring and uncertain. But the thing about that too, is like the great poet T.S. Eliot wrote:
We shall not cease from exploration,
and the end of all our exploring
will be to arrive where we started,
and know it for the first time.
I have returned to where I started, and indeed knew it for the first time, and each time I return I will know it again, and again, rediscovering more of each world I never thought to look for. For that, I am blessed, and acknowledge it freely.
But right now, all I want to do is bury my head in the pillows against the chaos and sleep until I wake and find the eyes I had before, and that this place that I used to know is once again comfortable.
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Lost in Paris (Again)
It has been a year. One full year, one year of life and a few hundred lifetimes. I dove into, discovered, adapted to, and built a life inside another world that had nothing to do with the life I had previously, and what was my plan before has melted down and built back up into something entirely surprising. Where I am is not where I thought I'd be. What was immense passion has become sheer obsession, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
And now--yes I know I haven't updated in forever and there was a whole life in Colorado that you missed because I didn't want to stop to put it in language, didn't want to waste time on words when living was enough--I've returned to a life I had.
Two years is not a long time. And it is.
The last time I was in Paris, I was still a student, still fresh off the experience, still reliving it every day. Now, I've entered into the Big Bad World of Adulthood, and have spent eight months in an entirely different universe, and Paris became a word.
Not a place, but a word, a word that means a time, a moment in my life when everything changed, when I changed and everything I thought was my essence was burned away, and what remained was so much more than before.
But just a week ago, I pushed on the word and found it a door, and behind the door was a world, a city, a place that exists and lives and breathes. Not a dream, but flesh, rock, and bone, and not just a place but a place I know in my bones. It took a couple days, but it's not Paris the city of light, the grand European city that everyone talks about and loves, but a place I know.
The streets, the metro, the buildings, it's familiar. It's not out there but right here, not a city in the world but a city in my heart. A different language, but one that came rushing back after a day (albeit still imperfectly) to the point where I've started dreaming in French again, and the first language that comes out of my mouth.
I have to say -- it's confusing as hell. It's equally as disconcerting as returning to the United States was after my year abroad. There is a girl in Paris who I knew, the girl I became, but I don't really know her anymore. My life is different now, I'm different now. How do we live together?
It's perturbing, to say the least, to reenter a dream you had. I don't know how to explain it, even to find the words to say why it's so perturbing. Is it good to be back? I don't know. Bad? Can't say that, either. It's not what it was and yet it's exactly how I left it...and that's as much as I can say.
Of Paris, I have no idea what to think. But as for the people here, it has been a very great joy to rediscover them and I have enormously enjoyed it. It makes leaving, once again, very difficult.
Paris is beautiful, but it makes my heart hurt.
And now--yes I know I haven't updated in forever and there was a whole life in Colorado that you missed because I didn't want to stop to put it in language, didn't want to waste time on words when living was enough--I've returned to a life I had.
Two years is not a long time. And it is.
The last time I was in Paris, I was still a student, still fresh off the experience, still reliving it every day. Now, I've entered into the Big Bad World of Adulthood, and have spent eight months in an entirely different universe, and Paris became a word.
Not a place, but a word, a word that means a time, a moment in my life when everything changed, when I changed and everything I thought was my essence was burned away, and what remained was so much more than before.
But just a week ago, I pushed on the word and found it a door, and behind the door was a world, a city, a place that exists and lives and breathes. Not a dream, but flesh, rock, and bone, and not just a place but a place I know in my bones. It took a couple days, but it's not Paris the city of light, the grand European city that everyone talks about and loves, but a place I know.
The streets, the metro, the buildings, it's familiar. It's not out there but right here, not a city in the world but a city in my heart. A different language, but one that came rushing back after a day (albeit still imperfectly) to the point where I've started dreaming in French again, and the first language that comes out of my mouth.
I have to say -- it's confusing as hell. It's equally as disconcerting as returning to the United States was after my year abroad. There is a girl in Paris who I knew, the girl I became, but I don't really know her anymore. My life is different now, I'm different now. How do we live together?
It's perturbing, to say the least, to reenter a dream you had. I don't know how to explain it, even to find the words to say why it's so perturbing. Is it good to be back? I don't know. Bad? Can't say that, either. It's not what it was and yet it's exactly how I left it...and that's as much as I can say.
Of Paris, I have no idea what to think. But as for the people here, it has been a very great joy to rediscover them and I have enormously enjoyed it. It makes leaving, once again, very difficult.
Paris is beautiful, but it makes my heart hurt.
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