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2.01.2009
Culture Shock
Since I've returned from Costa Rica I have been in a haze of sorts. There was work to catch up on, my finances to manage and rearrange, my house to clean and chores to take care of. I plunged back into my gym routine and my eating habits as my favorite method of staying sane. I found myself last week staring at the wall of my office, unaware how long I had been staring, or what I had been thinking about, or why I was here at all. I was feeling warm wind in my face. 
I was staring out the window of a bus on a winding road in Costa Rica. I was feeling a blister form on the web between my thumb and my forefinger from my trekking poles. I was staring at night sky. Later that day, my mom asked me if I was doing alright. It seemed an odd question, of course I'm alright, you know? I have all my limbs and my mind and my health and a great job and I'm getting money back on my taxes. Yet...somehow there is something different.
These journeys to far away places - they add something to me...always unforeseen... unspecified... and un-asked for. I am learning that these journeys also take something away from me. It's like a Secret Santa of the Soul. Something in me gets wrapped up and traded for something from the place I'm in. It's as though when I buy my ticket I sign a voucher agreeing to release a part of myself for something that will benefit me more... Time has to pass before I realize what is gone, and what I've gained. I never miss what's been replaced. It just takes awhile to transition from the person I was when i left to the person I am when i return.
When I come home I usually talk to my mom the first full day of my return. No matter how tired I am, I call her and we talk. Well, she graciously lets me just talk and talk and ramble and unleash my torrent of words and jumbled moments onto her ever-patient ears. I sort and process and hold the experiences one by one. After the first few days... i let go. People, dear friends, acquaintances, everyone who cares asks how my trip was. I feel like an imbecile. To most people, it would be a quick and hearty reply and a few snazzy stories that encapsulate what The Trip was all about. I scratch the palm of my hand and mumble that it was wonderful, just beautiful, and I just could stay forever. How do you Snow Globe an experience of such a life-changing magnitude? How do you gift wrap an elephant? How do you tell what can only be shown?
Life is simpler Out There. You eat to live, to give your body the nourishment it needs to get through the day. You sleep like you've never slept before. It doesn't matter what pending flesh eating insects may or may not be in your bed or how hard that mattress is or what the odd sand is that coats the sheets... You smell life and sweat and earth and feces and growth. You feel every rock, every word, every raindrop. You taste the air on the inside of your nostrils and the dust as it settles in your mouth. Your knuckles have dirt ground into them, creasing them like an old lady. You use one scarf as your ultimate accessory - hair bandanna, cover up, neck coozy, belt, whatever. It works and it brings you joy. You are having a good day when you don't get delayed too much, when you wake up and don't have too many bug bites, your boots are dry and you take a shit. You appreciate a warm shower like there is nothing better in the world. I swear to you, a warm shower is worth millions of dollars. Your conversations are honest, there is no room for games and tricky social plots. People have families and for better or for worse, they love them. People may be shy but not necessarily insecure. They may be dirty, but they are proud of what they have.
Coming back to Orange County, I am alienated. I am supposed to come back and feel relieved. Feel overjoyed, fortunate and blessed. I feel confused. I feel lost. I feel massively and utterly lonely. The only things that matter are my family - my inspiring and supportive and wonderfully intricate relationships with my mother and my sister. And all the hot showers I can take (sometimes, even two
a day!). Okay, I love my big bed as well. With a single paycheck, I could probably buy a house in Sitio Mata. That baffles me completely. It was a beautiful day today yet a lot of people spent it inside watching football, on expensive TVs, drinking into oblivion, and then getting in their cars and risking death or murder to go home and sleep it off. They fight and divorce and cheat on each other. They hate their jobs and their lives and eat fast food. They drive their Land Rovers and their Ferrari's and wear shiny door-knob sized diamonds. And I'm supposed to go out there and mate with one of these morons. Eek.
There are a lot of charades we play here in America. Social games. Dating ploys. Ladder climbing. Status tricks. I don't understand this. I think people here have to much time on their hands, and not enough hard work in the day to take all the necessity for drama-creating shit like that out of them. There's a lot of chattering and clamoring and squealing and preening, but very little laughter and gentleness. I feel that I belong more at the Grower's Ranch talking with the guys that work their asses off daily there than at an upscale bar where it is now trendy and attractive to be the ugliest/tattooedest/greasiest-haired/skinny jean wearing goddamn thing you ever laid eyes on.
I was debating on this whole Kilimanjaro thing. Africa is Mike's gig. You gotta take a bunch of shots to go to Africa. My mom might draw the line at Africa. Then again, my mom gave me this wonderful book I'm reading
(Learning to Breathe) which is a true story of an incredibly brave and wild photojournalist (hint: read it!) and guess where she goes? Kilimanjaro. Okay, Kilimanjaro it is. And the John Muir Trail (this will alter me completely, I feel it). And New Zealand (Hello, Garden of Eden). And Patagonia. And France to visit Bob & Jean. And India. And Tibet. And whatever comes next... It was a relief and an I'm-Not-So-Alone moment when I read a sentence in this same book where the author states that people always ask her what she's running from and she answers that she always sees it as she is running towards something... That has been my going answer for awhile now. I just don't know what I'm running towards, but I am finding it all along the way.
So there's a whole crock pot of emotions and knowledge and changes brewing. Even though I feel really off balance and completely socially awkward - I am embracing this moment. This uneasy, skin-crawly, roller-coastery segment of time is always the immediate precursor to the realization of what has changed inside me. I have so much to be grateful for that I could never let even these uncomfortable days go without honoring them inside myself.
I was staring out the window of a bus on a winding road in Costa Rica. I was feeling a blister form on the web between my thumb and my forefinger from my trekking poles. I was staring at night sky. Later that day, my mom asked me if I was doing alright. It seemed an odd question, of course I'm alright, you know? I have all my limbs and my mind and my health and a great job and I'm getting money back on my taxes. Yet...somehow there is something different.These journeys to far away places - they add something to me...always unforeseen... unspecified... and un-asked for. I am learning that these journeys also take something away from me. It's like a Secret Santa of the Soul. Something in me gets wrapped up and traded for something from the place I'm in. It's as though when I buy my ticket I sign a voucher agreeing to release a part of myself for something that will benefit me more... Time has to pass before I realize what is gone, and what I've gained. I never miss what's been replaced. It just takes awhile to transition from the person I was when i left to the person I am when i return.
When I come home I usually talk to my mom the first full day of my return. No matter how tired I am, I call her and we talk. Well, she graciously lets me just talk and talk and ramble and unleash my torrent of words and jumbled moments onto her ever-patient ears. I sort and process and hold the experiences one by one. After the first few days... i let go. People, dear friends, acquaintances, everyone who cares asks how my trip was. I feel like an imbecile. To most people, it would be a quick and hearty reply and a few snazzy stories that encapsulate what The Trip was all about. I scratch the palm of my hand and mumble that it was wonderful, just beautiful, and I just could stay forever. How do you Snow Globe an experience of such a life-changing magnitude? How do you gift wrap an elephant? How do you tell what can only be shown?
Life is simpler Out There. You eat to live, to give your body the nourishment it needs to get through the day. You sleep like you've never slept before. It doesn't matter what pending flesh eating insects may or may not be in your bed or how hard that mattress is or what the odd sand is that coats the sheets... You smell life and sweat and earth and feces and growth. You feel every rock, every word, every raindrop. You taste the air on the inside of your nostrils and the dust as it settles in your mouth. Your knuckles have dirt ground into them, creasing them like an old lady. You use one scarf as your ultimate accessory - hair bandanna, cover up, neck coozy, belt, whatever. It works and it brings you joy. You are having a good day when you don't get delayed too much, when you wake up and don't have too many bug bites, your boots are dry and you take a shit. You appreciate a warm shower like there is nothing better in the world. I swear to you, a warm shower is worth millions of dollars. Your conversations are honest, there is no room for games and tricky social plots. People have families and for better or for worse, they love them. People may be shy but not necessarily insecure. They may be dirty, but they are proud of what they have.
Coming back to Orange County, I am alienated. I am supposed to come back and feel relieved. Feel overjoyed, fortunate and blessed. I feel confused. I feel lost. I feel massively and utterly lonely. The only things that matter are my family - my inspiring and supportive and wonderfully intricate relationships with my mother and my sister. And all the hot showers I can take (sometimes, even two
a day!). Okay, I love my big bed as well. With a single paycheck, I could probably buy a house in Sitio Mata. That baffles me completely. It was a beautiful day today yet a lot of people spent it inside watching football, on expensive TVs, drinking into oblivion, and then getting in their cars and risking death or murder to go home and sleep it off. They fight and divorce and cheat on each other. They hate their jobs and their lives and eat fast food. They drive their Land Rovers and their Ferrari's and wear shiny door-knob sized diamonds. And I'm supposed to go out there and mate with one of these morons. Eek.There are a lot of charades we play here in America. Social games. Dating ploys. Ladder climbing. Status tricks. I don't understand this. I think people here have to much time on their hands, and not enough hard work in the day to take all the necessity for drama-creating shit like that out of them. There's a lot of chattering and clamoring and squealing and preening, but very little laughter and gentleness. I feel that I belong more at the Grower's Ranch talking with the guys that work their asses off daily there than at an upscale bar where it is now trendy and attractive to be the ugliest/tattooedest/greasiest-haired/skinny jean wearing goddamn thing you ever laid eyes on.
I was debating on this whole Kilimanjaro thing. Africa is Mike's gig. You gotta take a bunch of shots to go to Africa. My mom might draw the line at Africa. Then again, my mom gave me this wonderful book I'm reading
(Learning to Breathe) which is a true story of an incredibly brave and wild photojournalist (hint: read it!) and guess where she goes? Kilimanjaro. Okay, Kilimanjaro it is. And the John Muir Trail (this will alter me completely, I feel it). And New Zealand (Hello, Garden of Eden). And Patagonia. And France to visit Bob & Jean. And India. And Tibet. And whatever comes next... It was a relief and an I'm-Not-So-Alone moment when I read a sentence in this same book where the author states that people always ask her what she's running from and she answers that she always sees it as she is running towards something... That has been my going answer for awhile now. I just don't know what I'm running towards, but I am finding it all along the way.So there's a whole crock pot of emotions and knowledge and changes brewing. Even though I feel really off balance and completely socially awkward - I am embracing this moment. This uneasy, skin-crawly, roller-coastery segment of time is always the immediate precursor to the realization of what has changed inside me. I have so much to be grateful for that I could never let even these uncomfortable days go without honoring them inside myself.
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