An Amulet of Red Jade

My mother was a refugee from South Vietnam and she came to the United States in the first wave of boat people in 1975. Bill and Miste were her sponsors when she arrived in America. They opened their home to her, helped her find her first job, and taught her about the ways of the American people, including eating bologna and hot dogs. I never remembered meeting Bill and Miste. They were always such an intrinsic part of my life, closer than family. Their son, Nick, is my oldest friend. He was a year younger than me, and I never let him forget it.

Life was busy, and we were in and out of touch. They moved from New Jersey to Seattle to Virginia and back to Seattle, while we moved from NYC to Chicago to New Jersey. My brothers were born, and I bossed them around just like I bossed Nick around. His parents thought he was a stubborn kid, but Nick always let me have my way. At nine years old, I attended my first wedding when Nick's sister Kathie married someone in the army. Nick was my first ever partner on the dance floor.

Fast forward forty years, after more weddings, kids, divorces, and retirements, I went to visit Bill and Miste in Tacoma, Washington. Miste had had brain surgery, and her recovery was taking longer than anticipated. She had always been fiercely independent, and I knew it must have been difficult for her to accept help. Yet, she was so gracious in coping with her new state of being that it made me ashamed every time I complained about having a bad day. When she kissed me in greeting, she said, "You look just like your mother."

Now, I resemble my mother quite a bit, the same wide eyes with sparse eyelashes so uncommon in Vietnamese women, the same long black hair so typical of Vietnamese women, and we had very similar gestures, so I thought nothing of it. Before dinner, Miste called me aside and pulled out a small, delicate red pouch. As she opened it, I saw it was lined with satin and I knew there was something very familiar about it, but I could not place exactly where I had seen it before.

A beautiful amulet of red jade fell into her outstretched palm. "Your mother gave this to me before she left my house. I have kept it for over forty years. It's time it was returned to the family. You should have it."

I had never seen this piece, but I had no doubt it was my mother's jewelry. I had seen accompanying bracelets and now I recognized the pouch, a very distinctive set of pouches hand-sewn from Taiwan. Only my mother and grandmother had those pouches.

A tear slid down my cheek as my fingers reached out to touch the amulet. Despite all the times she moved and downsized in forty years, Miste had kept this keepsake of friendship from my mother. The jade grew warm in my hand, as if it became alive. It was a vivid blood red shade, the color of marrow, deeper than even bone. I thought about family as I looked at the intricately carved amulet, the afternoon sunlight filtering through the windows and shining upon the jade amulet so that it seemed to glow, an exquisite spark lit from within. Family was blood, and that was undeniable. Miste and Bill, they were more than that. They were beyond blood and beyond bone, the most profound marrow of connection between one human being to another, one family to another.
They are our sponsors. The word "sponsor" originated in Latin, meaning a pledge, a guarantee, a solemn promise. That is what they are to us and we are to them. A living promise.

Meeting Anita Diamant

Who is Anita Diamant? She is a respected writer on contemporary Jewish living, and the author of The Red Tent, a NY Times bestselling novel about Dinah, the little-known daughter of Jacob, and the sister of Joseph in the Old Testament. Moreover, she created a new genre of literary fiction, a wave of biblical literature that remembers the voices of forgotten women. Invisible women, silenced women, women of seemingly "little consequence." She affirms the message: as women, we all have consequence. Each and every one of us. We all have stories, and other women want to hear those stories.

As you can tell, I am a huge fan. I read The Red Tent when it was first published in 1997, back when I was in college. Two years later, I bought a secondhand copy of the first paperback edition with my newly depleted college graduate's budget. (Being Asian, we typically don't buy books when we can borrow them from the library. But I had to have this one.) I did not know then how much this story would inspire me, but the journey of Dinah, her courage and authenticity, stayed with me as I traversed the Middle East: Israel, Jordan, Egypt, as well as ancient cities like Ephesus, Cappadocia, and Corinth. When I struggled in my spiritual journey and began writing the tale of Simon (St.) Peter's wife, Anita's book became a bedside reference that continually drew me into the lush, vibrant Old Testament world and gave me a path to a beautiful and visceral New Testament world of my own imagining.

I was excited. And nervous. I boarded the subway at the MBTA red line Braintree station at promptly 5pm, and arrived at Coolidge Corner at around 6:15pm. I was forty-five minutes early to her event at Brookline Booksmith, and I realized I had not eaten dinner yet. Frantically, I paced the neighborhood looking for food, but I could not find anything that suited my appetite. So I rushed back at 6:45pm hungry.

There she was, looking elegant in a black polka-dot sundress and matching sweater. She even brought a wedding cake for the occasion, since she was promoting her latest, The Jewish Wedding Now. (Note to self, cure for the stomach rumbling.)

I gingerly approached Anita and introduced myself, and she was gracious enough to sign my worn, dog-eared, twenty-year-old copy of The Red Tent. Then I presented her with a copy of my novel and signed it, citing her as one of the major inspirations. In between, we chatted and I mentioned we shared the same initial literary agent, Carolyn Jenks, but the traditional publishing route did not work out for me, so I self-published and went on my own. Anita did not seem to disapprove, and she asked me what I was doing to promote it. Was I talking to churches? Good, she nodded, and I realized it was probably a more effective venue than I gave it credit for. We took photos together, and then I sat down in the second row of the audience.

The New Jewish Wedding was actually Anita's first book, which she wrote in 1985 because she needed a similar guide for when she got married and could not find one. It has been revised and updated twice, every 16 years to be exact (once in 2001 and again in 2017). Concepts of huppah, mikvah, and klezmer were all new or vaguely familiar to me, but I was intrigued by the richness and vitality of the Jewish wedding traditions. She spoke about how the times have changed, and how the Jewish community has become much more open and inclusive in the last 32 years. What struck a cord with me, even in my ignorance of this heritage, was how the authenticity of the Jewish identity seemed to be preserved in the evolution of the traditions. And how welcoming it seemed, even to this South Vietnamese-American Catholic.

So I bought a copy of that book, partly for my Jewish friend who had very little to do with most things Jewish but seemed to be searching nonetheless with two young daughters who may want to know these traditions someday. The other part was that I was impressed by traditions I had never even thought about it, and wanted to peruse the book at leisure before giving it away to my friend.

Her presentation ended after maybe twenty minutes, and Anita began signing books and chatting with fans. I had a piece of cake, adorably adorned with wedding photos, and broke my sugar-free fast, but to be fair, it was really good cake. Then she began congregating with family and friends, and I realized that Brookline was now her neighborhood, and this was a community gathering of folks she knew well. Still I lingered. I didn't know what I was waiting for, but it was such a memorable moment for me that I wanted to prolong it somehow.

When I went to say goodbye, Anita said to me, "I am so glad the book meant so much to you. But I need you to tone it down. I am just me." I was suddenly embarrassed. Even then, I was grateful for her humility. "Other authors who are not as accomplished as you are not so down to earth," I said. She smiled. "Success after forty...you don't expect it."

I walked (well, walked for few blocks and rode the MBTA red line) home with a profound lesson. Anita Diamant reminded me of the intrinsic value of being human, and that we are all "just us." No matter how successful, wealthy, famous someone may become, they are still just a human being who can connect to me as another human being. We are all equals and we are all "just us."

Remember your place.

It was a fundamental lesson in self-respect.

One I am not apt to forget.

Thank you, Anita.

Broadway Buddy for a Day

Here was my schedule for Saturday morning:

5AM: Wake up

6AM: Leave for the airport

7AM: Board the plane

8:30AM: Arrive at Newark Airport

9AM: Take train to Penn Station

9:35AM: Take taxi to Broadway

Why, you ask? Why all the sleep privation and hassle from Boston to New York? My love of Broadway musicals, of course. There is a culture and subculture of denizen theatre goers who enter the lotteries, queue up at rush ticket lines, and wait for standing room to see their favorite shows.

So at 9:50AM, I arrived promptly at the Broadway Theatre, and scurried onto the very end of the line for rush tickets for the revival of Miss Saigon. The box office opens at 10am, and there were about 25 people ahead of me in line, and I very much doubted whether I would be able to see the show. Chances are, tickets would be sold out by the time I got to the box office window.

As I stood there pondering, a pleasantly faced old man in his sixties with a baseball cap approached me. He was standing at the front of the line, and his niece just cancelled on him, so would I like a good seat at the front of the orchestra with him? I was immediately exhilarated, and accepted without a suspicion in the world. I waited for him while he came back to the box office window, and as he anticipated, he scored front row orchestra seats at Miss Saigon. So I paid him for the ticket ($39), and he proceeded to tell me to meet before 2pm, when the matinee starts, when I decided to buy him coffee. A kindness for a kindness.

So I asked him why he picked me, out of the 25 folks standing in line. He replied that I looked conspicuously unattached. Hmm...I have to think about that one...

Thus began my friendship with John. He was a mild-mannered New Yorker, who had seen the city transform over the course of 50 years, back from when he saw West Side Story in the 1960s for $1.50. He had an expansive knowledge of all 41 theatres in this metropolis I thought I knew so well, how the Winter Garden theatre was constructed in the 1920's, how the nondenominational Times Square Church was being sold for $35 million, the new renovation of the Brill Building, and how the Ambassador Theatre (where Chicago was playing) had a secret apartment upstairs. He affectionately chided Phantom of the Opera as the show that elevated Broadway prices from affordable to prohibitively expensive...($50 a seat when they opened in 1988!). We even toured the old locations of the Paramount Theatres and other now defunct icons of a glorious movie culture, now replaced by stolid looking office buildings or the ubiquitous storefront of some big consumerist franchise glimmering in Time square lights.

He shared how he happened to auspiciously be at a certain phone booth during the David Letterman Show, how he was called to be an average Joe guest after an audacious wave, and how those programs are much more scripted than one might think.

Coffee became an invitation to lunch at Emmett O'Lunney's Irish Pub, one of his favored hangouts where I had my first ever shepherd's pie. Apparently, this dish originated from the Irish shepherds out tending their sheep on the pastures without much besides potatoes and lamb. John was an investigator for 30 years with the city of New York, and recently retired due to a knee injury. (Now that's why he was such a good judge of character.) Not to let that stop him, he now works part-time as security at the Tropicana casino in Atlantic City, picking off cheaters from the blackjack table.

He told me how his aunt and uncle left him an apartment in Hell's Kitchen, the playground of Broadway actors, and ironically how he goes home to his place in Atlantic City because he doesn't want to disturb his nephew and girlfriend (lucky girlfriend) currently living in his midtown abode. He talked about old fashioned Irish virtues and work ethic, how he was a summer delivery boy at one of the old Stockbroker houses as a student, how he was hired into the financial industry upon graduation, and how he managed to study and break into another field, just as the brokerage firm went under.

Then he showed me St. Malachy's Church where the actors worshipped, the amalgam of creativity, inspiration, and faith. How I would love to imbibe that energy.

His face radiated pride when he spoke of his nieces and nephews, one a percussionist for Broadway and currently playing in the orchestra for Beautiful: The Carole King musical, another a business man in South Korea, and the young college student at Columbia University who cancelled on him today because she was working a last minute waitressing shift and needed the money. When he spoke about his wife and her twenty-five year struggle with cancer and how they couldn't have children, I saw the tears glisten in his eyes.

1:30 pm arrived before we knew it, and John showed me the interiors of Broadway Theatre, with wide entrances because it also used to be grand movie theatre in the same vein as the Paramount. Sure enough, our seats were front row orchestra and the view was amazing. He also pointed to the balcony, and laughed about how the rich folk of the city used to be more concerned about exhibiting their extravagant clothes then seeing the shows, since balcony seats sported terrible views in his opinion.

Miss Saigon was just as affecting and beautiful as I remembered it. I saw it in the early 1990's (without Lea Salonga, I might add) when my student budget only afforded a seat high up in the "nose-bleed" section. Being of South Vietnamese heritage, it reminded me of the trials and tribulations of my people in a particularly visceral way.

It also annoyed me about how they always managed to find Filipino singers for the role of Kim (why never Vietnamese?) and how the costume design was clearly inauthentic because the long flowing black satin hair of Vietnamese girls, our unique signature among Asian women, was ignored in favor of these hideous buns atop the head like a Laotian, Thai, or yes, Filipino girl. (Only wives bun up their hair in those times, certainly not the image an escort/call girl/prostitute would want to convey to customer.)

Nonetheless, I was grateful to John for this experience; for the show, for his memories, and for his stories. We exchanged phone numbers and I do hope we can keep in touch, but these encounters often amount to a memorable day or two and nothing more. Yet, it is in these moments that we truly share ourselves with strangers, our dreams and our heartaches, things too deep or too familiar to share with our loved ones. We allow ourselves to laugh, cry, and sing without fear of being judged. It is in these moments that we remember our humanity, that in living it is in the connecting of random souls, weighted down by baggage and yet we stubbornly seek the buoyancy of the soul, somehow hoping to rise above it all. For John, it was filling his time with Broadway shows, with music and fantasy, and occasionally a kindred spirit.

For me, it was a break from routine, this constant culture of going and doing. It was a space and a silence in which I did not have to achieve, did not have to perform, did not have to impress. I can just be.

There we were. Broadway buddies for a day...

Evolution of Gypsies (the Pick-Pocketing Kind)

Back when I visited Italy in 2003, I encountered gypsies for the first time. It was in Taormina, Sicily, early in the morning as we were descending from the active volcano of Mount Etna. I distinctly remember a bedraggled gypsy in a tie-dyed shirt, orange hair, and seemingly pregnant, although whether her belly was full of alcohol or a blossoming child, I couldn't tell. She was begging. I even wrote a poem about her. My mother once said that seeing a beggar first thing in the morning denoted bad luck. Coincidental or not, I woke up early to watch the sun rise on my last night in Sicily, got completely carsick on the bus ride to Sorrento, and ended up missing the boat tour to Capri.

The next time I spotted gypsies was in Rome, filthy little children crowding around my friend and attempting to open up her fanny pack. Luckily, she was a feisty sixty something-year-old (Italian in origin as well), and she slapped their hands back, scolding them in a way only grandmothers could. It's funny how reprimands are universal, and Gloria, grey haired and pug nosed, was every bit as intimidating as their native women folk could be.

Fast forward 11 years to Berlin in 2014, when I made my third reconnaissance with gypsies when they were, no joke, posing as market researchers, carrying clipboards and asking people questions. However, being a market research professional for many years, here are the signs.

1) They move in groups: Market researchers typically work alone to cover as much ground as humanly possible. It is counterproductive (and more expensive) to gather survey responses in a group, so if there is more than one surveyor congregating together, chances are, it is a subterfuge.

2)Papers on their clipboard are old: Typically, responses to market research questions are recorded on fresh printouts, since questions change until the very last second. There is usually a substantial width, and the information recorded on these pages are more valuable than the paper itself. However, the papers carried by the gypsies are never used since it is only a façade. So, they get old and yellowed, and becomes very clear they are unused.

3)Their attire is the slightest bit unkempt: Market research is a profession, and researchers dress for the job in serious looking clothing. If you look at the gypsies, while their appearance is hugely improved from their beggar days, they are wearing brightly colored and clean t-shorts, or coats, but they don't aim for professionalism. Also, their hair still tends to look uncombed.

So what's the lesson? Gypsies are evolving, changing with the times. The better they get at disguising, the harder it will be to identify them. So they steal from us. They ruin vacations. They create logistical nightmares to sort out your paperwork. Sometimes I wish they would disappear. Other times I don't blame them. After all, they are just trying to make a living. What allowed me to be educated and enabled me to find a job where I can travel? What kept them from education and the finer things in life? One could argue manifest destiny, the fruits of our hard work, our parents, ancestors etc. We like to give ourselves more credit than we deserve. But at the end of the day, it is just plain dumb luck. A lottery draw that separates those with access to education and those who continue to exist on the fringes of society.

NY Times Bestseller, Here I Come!

Okay, not quite.

Not quite NY Times. Amazon Kindle

Not quite for weeks on end. Two Days. May 16 and May 19. (Only smart enough to screenshot May 19)

Not quite Bestseller among All Categories. Two Categories

Top FIVE in Historical Romance!!!

Top TEN in Christian Literature!!!

Hey, you have start somewhere.

For a dream, I am making some headway.

This is when a dream makes that transformation into a goal.

A determination.

A destiny.

An identity.

For today, I am a BEST-SELLING AUTHOR.

(I have 48 minutes left until midnight)

Back with a Book!

Since I last posted, I have published my debut novel The Fisherman's Bride!

Why did it take 4 years to get back to blogging?

The answer is life. I got a new job back in 2013, one that stretched my professional abilities (not to mention I was doing the work of 3 people without any additional compensation.) Oh well, such is the plight of the kind, compliant, and capable Asian woman. Otherwise known as the curse of the competent. Was I ever promoted? Of course not. But I still am employed.

I was also traveling nonstop around the world for work, and it always sounds inordinately much more glamorous than the reality.

Then I was dumped by my agent, and needed to find a way to self-publish my novel. A lot of crying, praying, self-doubting, and perhaps not an insignificant amount of commiserating with friends and family. The beloved of artists know all too well how much support, reassurance, and time we need, to bring the creative visions inside our heads to the world. And it can be a painful and exhilarating process, like heaven & hell at the same time. But once you do it, it is a badge of courage.

So now I am back, and shamelessly promoting my book.

Why, you ask? Because I made it happen. Because it's my dream.

Call me naïve, but I am still a chaser of dreams.

Chatting with Channing

It had begun ordinarily enough. Back in 2007, I was flying home from a wedding in St. Petersburg/Tampa, Florida, home of the famed Salvator Dali museum and retirement mecca for Americans aged 65+. Weddings had become routine to me, particularly since I was not acquainted with either bride or groom, and I was attending purely out of the social obligation of being a plus one. Nonetheless, I enjoyed dolling up and looking pretty and dancing on the arm of a less than perfect man. Particularly in a ballroom flooded with light high atop a famed hotel, sunshine accompanying every movement of everyone in that narrow circle of sunset.

I sat in an exit seat, besides a fellow who was so tall his legs extended to the next row and so he looked awkwardly cramped, even with extra leg room. He seemed good-natured (and kind of cute), so we began talking. Apparently, he was also flying back from a buddy's wedding to the New York area. "But I live in LA," he added.

"So, are you some kind of consultant?" I wanted to know.

"Actually, I'm an actor."

"Really? What's your name?" I did a double-take. He had chiseled good looks, sort of statuesque, like a Greek god, but seemed too approachable to be an actor.

"Chan. Channing Tatum." What an odd name.

"Never heard of you. What have you been in?"

"Have you ever seen She's the Man with Amanda Bynes?" I hadn't.

So he began to explain the premise of the movie, working with Amanda Bynes ("she's a sweetheart") as well as details of life as an actor, like how they get health insurance (through an actor's union), and then we discussed fame, Tom Cruise, celebrities, "Anonimity is like air. You don't realize you've got it until you've lost it." The he began talking about how he broke into the industry. He used to play sports and after an injury, he was rather lost. Then he got into modeling, one thing led to another, and a path opened to the silver screen. Acting was just the beginning, though, as he told me of his plans to write and direct. In fact, he was already working a screenplay. Then I discussed my analagous plans of writing, the children's fantasy novel I was working on, my dream of being a writer. He believed in dreams, and told me I could succeed if I continued writing. We all could.

The flight attendant began the safety preamble, and we promptly turned off our cell phones. His was pink and glittering; I recall the rhinestones flickering as he sheepishly put it away. "It's my girlfriend's," he admitted. His face glowed as he spoke about meeting Jennie on a movie set, how they couldn't keep their eyes and hands off each other, how they couldn't help being together, the chemistry that was so intense when you knew you were meant to be with someone.

When inquired about my relationship, I replied it was serious and I was actually considering marrying the man. Channing looked at me quizzically for a moment.

"You don't seem to be that excited about it."

"Well, you know, it's a big committment, a lot of change, and I just wasn't sure exactly how everything was going to pan out. Where we would live; how we would make it work. So many details to be ironed out." I felt myself blushing.

"You just don't seem to be in love with him."

My perplexity must have showed in my face. Channing laughed. "When you are in love with someone, the whole world knows. You can't stop thinking about the other person. You can't stop talking about the other person. When you are in love, your eyes light up at the simple thought of them. Like me and Jennie."

He was right. Six years later, he and Jenna are probably one of Hollywood's happiest young couples.

Whenever I think of Channing Tatum, I don't think of one of the World's Sexiest Men, or critically acclaimed actor, or celebrity on the rise. I remember a kind fellow who told me the unadulterated truth about myself.

One I am still figuring out six years later.

Post Script: Rules of Machu Picchu

After the smoke clears in Peru, what is left? I distinctly remember Machu Picchu as a place where all things break; rules, relationships, restlessness. Back in 2008, there was a sign that stipulated the following: 1) no food and drink allowed (I carried a bottle of water with me, maybe two) 2) no shouting (I sang atop Huayna Picchu) 3)no urinating. Although rule # 3 was improvised by me, I am quite sure there was an unspoken law against this, and probably broken by many (like my companion)as the restroom at the entrance was so far from the rest of the site it was inevitable someone couldn't control himself.

In times of crisis, we discover ourselves. Our true, authentic self is bared in all its glory and all its ugliness. I came back from Peru knowing I needed to change my life. And I was resistant until change happened to me. Career, love, health, everything came crashing down like debris from a burning skyscraper, and in vain I searched amid the rubble for who I am. I learned that I write, thoughts flowing into stories, a river of consciousness that became real under my pen or my word processor. I was the channel. I write because I have a need to be understood, to share, to materialize a fantastical vision awakened somewhere between dreams and reality. I write because it is my connection to the universe; I write because I am compelled to write, and it is as natural to me as eating or sleeping or talking, except that sometimes I forget myself, my true self and the writing itself becomes dormant.

I also realized that I am confused about love. If the passion was intense and you truly believed you were in love, shouldn't you feel something after a love affair ends? I found that I felt nothing, complete indifference and nonchalance. Nothing residual, nothing nostalgic, none of the lingering desire or regret that always seems to accompany a love story with an unhappy ending. Was it romanticism that was conveyed in literature and Wong Kar Wai films, but simply doesn't exist in this all-too practical life? Did I only imagine I was love, but was actually in love with love itself? Or was it that negative things outweighed the good, and I was too exhausted with trying that there was nothing left to remember?

Confounding.

L'eau Vivre in Lima

Lima was an engaging city. The saffron colored San Franciso Cathedral, emblem of the capital, could have been just as easily named after Pizzaro as much as the saint from Asissi. I remember the vibrant yellows of the historic city center, Spanish Neoclassical and baroque architecture, and the sunniness of the Peruvian disposition. And above all, a French restaurant.

L'eau Vivre, Living Water, was an elegant, high end joint boasting the best French cuisine in the city, run by French Carmelite nuns. Housed in a exquisite pale pink palace, the walls were reminiscent of salmon and delectable strawberry macaroons. Rumors of a serenade of Ave Maria accompanied dinner, but we went for the far less expensive lunch menu. L'agneau and vin du rose. For the dessert, les crepes au Cointreau en flambe. The match lit the alcohol, and I saw my partner on the other side of the dancing flame, his features somehow blurred by the proximate heat. I blinked and continued to eat, the flavor of intoxication burning my tongue. Suddenly, I realized he was not what I wanted, the very fundamental fiber of his being was so different from mine. I swallowed as he continued to talk, to charm the nuns with his fluent French. I nodded, catching a word here and there about adventures and promises and oh so many wondrous things. When they wished us a lovely future together, I began to feel sick inside.

Then we were promptly ushered out, as the lunch hours were 11am-1pm and we had apparently overstayed our welcome. The guests dissipated and I took an inordinately long time in the rest room, as ladies sometimes do. The restaurant was sealed shut, and we sat on the bench across the street, deciding where to go next. The nuns scurried to the side of the building, where a queue was already beginning to form. The men and women who gathered were dirty, unkempt, and their stench was unmistakable, drifting across the thoroughfare. They carried stained bags and tattered parcels, and we knew they were homeless. Then the nuns began distributing soup, a piece of bread, and a potato to all who waited. The line magnified and stretched as we watched, and they ate ravenously, perhaps it was their first meal in a while. Yet they all had the same hungry look in their eyes, even after their appetites were satiated.

I had seen that look before, in ubiquitous places and on the faces of strangers as well as friends. Then I thought about hunger, my own hunger for the wonders of this world, and intangible things that my partner could never understand, as he hungered for things equally alien to me. I thought about all things that one would risk to fulfill that hunger, an amorphous spirit that always seems to plague us, all the things that we want. Want. Desire. Desperation. Perhaps we are all hungry.

On the Precipice: Peru

I stood on the precipice overlooking Machu Picchu. It had been a sweaty climb to the top of the Temple of the Sun, but well worth it. It was breathtaking. The fog had finally dispersed over the Andes Mountains and views of the Lost City of the Incas were riveting, magical, and surreal. Here, we could see the symmetry of their walls, stone upon stone and edge upon edge slanting in the same direction, the building of an awesome civilization. Sacred geography. Water gushed along the crevices, an ancient watering system that still fed into the hot springs of Aguas Calientes for common folk at the foot of the mountain. The sun warmed my cheeks and I was an eagle, yearning to fly.

At the same time, I am afraid of heights. Beside me stood the man I loved. Little did I know we would part before the year ended. The path downward was infinitely more difficult than climbing up. The steps were jagged and broken, too narrow to contain a whole foot and people wound up tiptoeing sideways while balancing the gravitational pull to the center of the earth. I stopped and stared. I thought I was going to die. Gingerly, I stepped down and then tripped, hanging onto a branch for dear life. I trudged forward again and slipped, clinging to rocks for survival. Then I decided to descend on my reliable behind, muddying the seat of my jeans beyond recognition. I was never able to wear them again.

I often wondered what would have happened had I continued to climb up instead of down. There was another summit, a more beautiful and loftier peak Huayna Picchu, rumored to have been the resting place of a moon goddess. I wanted to keep going , but my companion warned me of the time and the litany of activities he planned afterwards. Plus, he needed to go to the bathroom. So I went down, on my butt.

Perhaps we must fall before we can fly. My life crumbled shortly afterwards and I remembered the image of rain beating down on stone, submitting it into the shape that it willed. I had succumbed to fear, to expectations, to the will of others. I had lost myself and I did not even notice until I saw myself in the mirror one day and did not recognize the person who was going about her daily business. Life may do this to you. Work may do this to you. Society may do this to you. The intentions of others, no matter how well-meaning and kind, may lead you astray if you are not true to your own heart.

Where was my heart? I embarked on a journey to find out. I am still on that journey. Many things are still uncertain. I still have dark, unholy nights filled with self-doubt. Yet there are flashes of truth and inspiration, spurring the genesis of my novel and birth of my blog. I know I am enough. When you find an inkling of yourself, your authentic self, you need very little else.

Love in the Lost City of Petra

It's easy to become intoxicated by atmosphere. In the lost city of Petra, rose-colored sandstone and scintillating skies render a hotbed of love, albeit the most unlikely love. Love flushes and blushes like a young bride in this wonder of world, brought to international attention by Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Al Khazneh, the Treasury, stands as centerpiece of this architectural marvel, carved with beauteous colummns and friezes of a pink that seemed to glow. Instead of Harrison Ford flashing his famous whip, tour guides lead gentle donkeys bearing tourists. All the guides belong to the indigenous people, the Nabateans, a people ancient as the Bible itself. They are modern-day bedouins, shepherds who make decent money showing impressionable tourists around the city of their ancestors.

That's not all. Nabateans also have a particular way of wooing. They show eligible female visitors that this is where they grew up, where their grandfathers tended goats and where their mothers churned milk. They show the lofty monastery atop the mountain where they climbed as children, and iridescent walls where they hid from their parents. Then they show the women their tents, where they proceed to do the thing that men and women do. Afterwards, these modern and curious ladies (often American) decide to stay. No joke. They marry into the Nabatean tribe, and live their lives in shepherding villages. Apparently, it happens all the time.

Thank God I was with my brother. The Nabatean guide atop our donkey was young and as dusty as they come, save for the designer Tommy Hilfiger jeans he sported. My fiancee, he said, is an opera singer in Chicago, showing a photo of striking brunette on his smartphone. She already got me a ticket for the States, and then we will be back here to get married. We will live here, among my brothers and uncles. Any chance they will live in America? No, he shakes his head, most of the women who visit here stay here. They are happier.

Was it love? Or infatuation? Or the call of a simpler life? First-world luxury and conveniences somehow paled in comparison to the rough and tumble, sweat and grime of the Nabatean life. What was it that fulfilled these women to the point of giving up modern livestyles?

I never knew because I never went inside those tents. The sun began to set, casting a red light over the city and the stones seemed warm, alive. Then the wind blew and the sand swirled in glistening ruby-red speckles, the beginnings of a mirage. And I gazed through that thing of beauty, wondering if I was dreaming.

Species of Travelers

There are many types of travelers, like there are many kinds of people. After spending so much time in airports and hotels, I've learned to identify them by their attire, behaviors, and natural habitats.

The Consultant: This particular species of traveler is unmistakable. Young, intense, immaculately dressed in black or navy suit and starched shirt, the textbook uniform of a young billable consultant making an impression senior management. They look about 2-6 years out of college; their skin is luminous and yet unlined, save for the potential frown when they are engaged in deep thought. They are often absorbed in responding to emails via blackberry, Iphone, or labtop. If they do look up and speak, their language is apt to be reassured and measured, diction reminiscent of an Ivy league education or some coveted university in the top 10 lists. They have been around the world, or the country, in a matter of speaking, for some lexicon of a project where they have seen many things at lightning speed, but have never taken the time to savor. Time, they would tell you, is a coveted possession they currently do not have, and their homes are more of a concept than a reality; so little time do they spend there. Due to the mileage they have covered, they are usually found in airline lounges for frequent fliers, or rather exclusive hotel spaces reserved for VIPs.

The Vacationer: The vacationer is usually middle-aged (let's keep in mind that modern definitions of middle-aged is 40+) with a rabble of kids somewhere, complete with a camera and tourist book, and clothes bespeaking of leisure like the flowered Hawaiian shirt and straw hat to keep out the sun. They usually flock to tropical locations in a group, a tour, or a cruise, where they have to do as little thinking as possible. Even in easy-to-navigate European cities, they opt for an overpriced hop on/hop off bus and spend as much time buying souvenirs (possibly more) as they do exploring the destination. Traveling is somewhat of a novelty for them (perhaps it is their first or second vacation in a long time) and they are overwhelmed by all the stuff they want to take back home, and all the things they have to see. They are often loud and boisterous, not because they are obnoxious, but because their joy is contagious at this glimpse of a new world. And by the way, they spend way more money than anyone else.

The Seasoned Traveler: This type tends to travel light and alone, or in small numbers (2-4). They are less cognizant of social perceptions and more aware of cultural rules of the nation they are visiting. Very often, they understand the language or have been here or lived there before. They are focused and usually maintain a plan of things they would like to do, realizing that one could never see or do everything in one visit, and they leave room for spontaneity. If you spot them, ask for their advice. They have invaluable tips, like how to not get ripped off by a taxi, how much to tip, the best way to avoid a crowd, and delectable food recommendations. They may also share lengthy stories, and inevitable comparisons to other places, so try not to feel intimidated by the wealth of their experience. Some may even be a bit skeptical, with a penchant to be unimpressed or underwhelmed, and there is usually an emotional or professional reason why they are there. They tend to be the most varied regarding age, sometimes it is a retired gentleman or a young graduate student.

The Backpacker: These are the easiest to spot, as they are colorful and take up the most space. They carry their homes on their backs, like a turtle or snail, tightly bundled paraphenalia of camping gear and sleeping bags and all their possessions in one bulky mass they lug around. They are usually younger, some poor students, some adventurous professionals, who take pride in "roughing it" and building a camaraderie with strangers who share the same purpose. Even if they start off alone, they end up congregating, as they sleep in communal hostels and wind up building relationships that may last them a trip or a lifetime. They move at whirlwind pace, a city/site every one or two days, rain or shine, and are amazingly efficient at finding the cheapest deals for transportation. They are usually found at bus depots or internet cafes or everywhere else, since they are rather conspicuous. Very often, they seem to be in transition. Students on holiday contemplating their futures, professionals thinking of a career change, people seeking a break from the orderliness of their everyday lives, romantics hoping to find or forget someone. Or they could be simple blokes stretching a very thin budget. Inevitably, they smell like their adventures, nature, sun and sea and sand and sweat embedded on their backpacks like a badge of courage.

Perhaps there is something admirable about doing things the hard way.

Fatima Awaits

Long before I discovered Mary in Epheseus, I convinced my mother to go to Fatima, Portugal. Not that I was a fan of the shrine; rosaries and processions seemed a bit nonsensical to me. In fact, I despise the word "religious" because it implies dogma. Nonetheless, Fatima was my mother's dream. For her 60th birthday, she yearned to sojourn to this sacred place of apparition and healing energy, and my mother is a woman for whom few dreams have come true. So I booked airline tickets to Lisbon, Portugal followed by a short excursion to Barcelona, shortly before her 59th birthday. I don't believe in waiting. Birthdays, timelines, ocassions, are all rather arbitrary. So we wait. In the meantime, people die, revolutions arise, natural disasters occur, the physical world or our own physiological systems could deteriorate while we anticipate the "right" time. I say, Carpe Diem. The right time is now.

Perhaps I should share another anecdote. My godmother, my namesake, my beautiful Aunt Catherine died of Stage IV cancer at the age of 44. She was a Georgetown graduate, a dentist, and such a wonderfully tempered woman, so at the end, she was comforting her neurotic, healthy sister Agatha undergoing a bad case of pre-marital jitters. Aunt Catherine had made only one request of me in twenty-six years, to spend a weekend with her at the beach. In my heart, I heard her plea. I even envisioned myself beside her. But no, I was a consultant, and I was on a deadline. Also, Agatha's wedding was the following weekend and I had already slated vacation days for that event. So I told my godmother I would see her at the wedding. Unfortunately, she never made it to the wedding. The few designated days she asked me to spend with her were the last days of her young and vibrant life.

It was a dangerous mistake, and a bitter regret, one for which I am still trying to forgive myself. The only amends I can make is to love those who are currently living. There was a time when I longed for that idyllic romantic love, exquisite perfections we read about in fairytales and immortal, unforgettable men like A Tale of Two Cities' Sydney Carton or Pride & Prejudice's Mr. Darcy. I was waiting. I was stagnant. I was enamored of an ideal, a fictionalized ideal at that. Then I realized that the great love in our lives may already exist right before our eyes, even though we may not recognize it. Love may not necessarily be what society defines it, as the right partner. It might be a parent, a child, a friend, a sibling, a pet. Love is any relationship that challenges us to think beyond ourselves, to care for another creature, to grow in our capacity to give. Because our sacred calling as human beings is not gratify ourselves, but to expand in our ability to love, each day, each month, each year. I think about who it is, whose smile uplifts my heart and whose happiness is more important to me than my own.

I have found my true love, in this day, in this moment. It doesn't mean that I may not have others, but in this moment, that person is my soulmate. And no, it does not look conventional at all.

There is Something About Mary

I never quite got Mary. Catholics are taught to have a reverence for the Virgin Mary, the holy woman whose obedience rendered an extraordinary destiny. Catholics also believe in apparitions, when she had appeared to simple peasants or children, asking them to pray. She was thought to be the symbol of peace. At my mother's behest, I dragged myself to Lourdes and then Fatima. Beautiful shrines were erected in the midst of prosaic villages. I often found my spirituality was often in the surrounding woods or barren paths on the other side of town, bare spaces where it was easier to listen to the silence. So I trudged along, going to processions out of habit, and avoiding rosaries whenever I could. I thought the true ordeal she endured was watching her innocent child die, and Mary was not alone in that in our current crime-infested world, so I thought, what's the big deal?

A few miles outside of Epheseus, Turkey, was the house where the Virgin Mary lived before she died. I was skeptical, another Marian shrine. However, I found a small, dilapidated wooden house with few furnishings and long lines. Outside the site were plaques engraved in Arabic, lines from the Koran heralding the mother of Jesus and juxtaposed were biblical verses. Then I walked inside that cramped hovel, and saw a cramped room. Crowds of Catholics, and Muslims (indicated by their colorful head scarves) stood side by side praying, kneeling, and meditating. Each was respectful of the other's space and need for proximity to Mary, the things she touched. Many were so moved by their presence so near to Mary, that they began to cry. Inaudibly, tears rolled along a myriad of cheeks. Some opened up their prayerbooks; Bible and Koran were indistinguishable while the soft chanting seemed a universal murmur.

I too, began to cry. Nowhere else in the world can Christians and Muslims stand side by side in worship of the same. Even the greatest diplomatic efforts have failed to bring these two peoples together. Here they were, mostly women, I should add, close enough to touch one another. They spoke the same language. It was motherhood; it was unconditional love; it was complete surrender and utter faith. They all bowed to the same holy woman with the same name. Interesting how God seems somehow divisive by comparison: Yahweh, Jesus, Allah.

There's something about Mary.

Coffee with Olivier

I traveled by water taxi on stormy days in Amsterdam. Rain pitter-pattering on the roof, the drone of tourist recordings heralding bridges or sites, and the voice of Sarah Brightman drifting from my Ipod. Despite the loose behavior one would associate with legalization of victimless crimes like prostitution or smoking marijuana, Amsterdam is surprisingly pristine. Canal waters were clear and grey reflecting the ambivalent skies, not dirty like the waters I've seen in China's Suzchou or Venice. While trolleys and cars were accepted means of transportation, bicycles were by far the most common. There were more bikes than people. In fact, the greatest hazard while crossing the street is being run over by a bike. Bicycles had their own lanes beside the sidewalks. The Dutch were fit due to the physical exercise exerted to get from place to place. Only tourists were obese.

At Amy's advice, I headed to the house of Ann Frank promptly at 9 in the morning, since later hours would engender massive lines. Unassuming from the exterior, aside from glossy life-size photos of Ann and her girlish script denoting the museum within. Upon entering, there was a model of the building which served as a store, and the Secret Annex, where the Frank family hid from the Nazis for nearly three years. Living quarters were minuscule, even by New York City apartment standards, tiny shoe boxes connecting room to room. They had an airless, claustrophobic feel and I could not imagine an inquisitive girl growing into womanhood, writing and dreaming and falling in love, cooped up with only a few feet of shared space. Suburban Americans hold the concept of space very dear. As mortgages became more accessible, their physical boundaries expanded. Nowadays, a 2000 sq. ft townhouse with three bedrooms is deemed "too small" for a family of four and having a child necessitates a mini-van, as those little darlings occupy so much space. Imagine six rooms with seven people, three hormonal teenagers, sharing about 500-600 feet of living space all the time. Even though Ann did write of feeling stifled, it made Peter's proximity even nearer and the escape into her diary all the more dearer. The Secret Annex's bareness and simplicity resembled prison cells. I began to see the human ability to adapt to conditions that were previously regarded as "unlivable." Viktor Frankl compared the human ability to endure hardship to a gaseous entity; it always swells to the size of the container. Deprivation of liberty certainly falls into this category, and I garnered new respect for Ann.

As I left, I saw a postcard of a window that has been boarded up, the only window in the Secret Annex. It looked out into the courtyard where trees were blooming in midsummer, and leaves were an evanescent green. This must have been what Ann saw. It was hope. It was the future. It was the life she would have led once the throes of Nazi domination ended. It was a life that was never to be.

Then I sauntered over to the Van Gogh Museum, whose mad genius compelled him to construe torturous sunflowers on the canvas and to cut off his own ear. Even his brushstrokes were violent, streaks thick with pigment and pain, vibrancy owing to the anger that seemed to ravage his soul. Perhaps art is less about context than emotion; I felt his brusqueness on my psyche long before I discovered his history of mental illness. Nonetheless, his work was breathtaking and I reveled in his misshapen flowers far more than his most famous piece, Starry Night. To me, Starry Night is less about emotion than illusion, staring through the orb of darkness with an eye for the surreal. As through a mirror, darkly.

One of the key features of Dutch Museums is that there are more native collections of artifacts than in typical European cities or any international metropolis with a sizable financial economy and appreciation of art, for that matter. While Paris or Rome or New York or Prague are famed for their museums, it has become a competition for a similar body of work. For example, each of these prestigious museums boasts a Monet, Rembrandt, Picasso, something by Da Vinci, etc. Unless one is seeking to view a specific work (yes, I have frequented the Guggenheim to view Picasso's Woman Ironing many times), one is ultimately looking at the same collection of artists everywhere. After a while, it all begins to look the same. In Amsterdam, I was able to see so many things that were uniquely Dutch.

Remember Olivier from Munich? He studied in Uetrecht, an hour away from Amsterdam by train, and we met up for coffee in the afternoon. Mint leaves were steamed in tea, an emerald green reminiscent of spring on this dreary day. Olivier was tall and hairy, with luminous eyes and sympathetic face. He seemed much older than me, even though I was a few years his senior. There was something about his expression that denoted a profound wisdom, and he reminded me of the way Jesus must have looked, with his careless abandon of materialism. We talked about politics. In the Netherlands, politicians are apt to be "plain clothes" men, to resemble your next door neighbor in their no-nonsense speech and manner. That was what the Dutch related to. Olivier praised American politicians for being "visionary,"acting with the panache of a celebrity, sporting designer clothes and hobnobbing with movie stars. I didn't know how to tell him so much of that was a media creation, with the wondrous aid of a teleprompter and a lot of make-up. Besides, Americans like sweet-talkers, men who make delectable promises and even more honeyed excuses for breaking them. In the Netherlands, politics was "rather straightforward," Olivier confided to me. In America, politics is anything but.

Amy and Amsterdam

When I returned to the hotel that evening, Amy surprised me with a birthday dinner along with her colleagues. Together we gorged ourselves on tasty Dutch cuisine. A carnivore at heart, I ordered stamppot, a heavy concoction of mashed potatoes, sliced carrots, and rookwurst, a delectable sausage. We also shared a serving of bitterballen, crunchy deep-fried orbs are battered in a breadcrumb coating and filled with a mixture of chopped beef, beef broth, and spices. As I bit into the core, hot juices exploded into my mouth and my eyes watered. Amy and I laughed about how bitterballen resembled xiao long bao, Shanghai soup dumplings. Asian girls in Amsterdam; she was Taiwanese and I was Vietnamese, both of us born and raised in America. We went to the symphony one night, and we shared glasses of wine over an exquisite concerto.

Friendship was like peeling away layers of an onion. Beneath her veneer of Princeton-educated reserve, Amy was sensitive, self-deprecating, and direct. She had an aversion to cell tower radiation, the same electromagnetic source as microwaves. She seemed to get headaches and nausea whenever the signals was too strong. She always asked me to turn off my cell phone or my IPOD. At first, I was skeptical. After all, this is the new millenium and it was rarer to find areas without wifi/cellular signals. Science has not really explored this.

Then I remembered my godmother who suffered from Stage IV metastatic breast cancer, and how using cell phones or being proximate to a microwave caused her pain. Amy shared that working in telecommunications, she was exposed to radiation for many years before she began feeling its affects on her body. When she did, the impact was potent and she now uses a lead cloth to insulate her space when she travels. It was a fine fabric that resembled a glittery accessory for an evening gown, the sort one could envision on a glamorous movie star.

So negative health effects may result from an overexposure to this kind of radiation. At what point does exposure become overexposure? I began thinking of 25 different wireless networks that penetrate my apartment everyday. Excess, the root of all evil in Buddhist philosophy, has also been the cause of many diseases of the human body. Diabetes, an excess of sugar. Obesity, an excess of fat. High blood pressure, excess of sodium. Depression and anxiety, an excess of neurotransmitters.

So yes, I became a believer. It was years before tobacco became linked to lung disease, or alcohol was linked to liver failure. Or maybe it was less about faith and more about friendship. About acceptance. Amy was dedicated to bringing to light the ill effects of cell tower radiation, building a website and writing articles about it. I applauded her courage.

My days in Amsterdam invariably followed the same pattern: exploration by day and soul-searching conversations with Amy at night. It was the perfect balance for me, freedom to follow my natural affinities and yet not coming back to an empty room. I had learned everyone was susceptible to loneliness and my sojourn across Europe taught me that we all need someone, at one point or another. Amsterdam was an exercise of moderation for me. Appropriate too, in the most tolerant city on earth. Amsterdam was a silver city to me, grey skies, iridescent canals, slate cobblestone roads. People were free to pursue their happiness, be it museums, cuisine, music, marijuana, or sex. There was no judgment regarding race or gender or orientation or social class.

While much of Europe is quite accepting of Asians nowadays, the Netherlands sports acceptance as a tradition. In the National Dutch Museum,I saw portraits of the early traders and owners of the East Asia Trading Company in the 1500-1600's. Their wives had Oriental features! Black hair, almond eyes with a prominent lilt at the edge, and golden complexions. In an age where interracial marriage was practically unheard of, here were wealthy, prominent businessmen who flaunted their Asian wives as equals, standing at the same height in portraits.

Only the Dutch.

Red Light District

It was my birthday. I hopped on a flight at EWR on a certain evening in March, and awoke on the morning of my life anniversary in Amsterdam. Amy, my idiosyncratic and brilliant friend, had invited me, or rather I had invited myself and she did not decline. She was in the Netherlands on business, training consultants for the telecommunications company her parents owned. I was a woman of leisure. I arrived promptly at 10:15am to a quaint boutique hotel de Filosoof, where a key was waiting for me and a plethora of guidebooks, maps, tourist paraphenalia that Amy had prepared. I might add that at this point, I actually didn't know Amy well. We were acquaintances in the same bible study small group, where Amy was silent and mysterious and I was vocal and controversial. (A Lone Catholic in the midst of Protestants is bound to be interesting, no matter how pacifist we all were) All I knew was that she was very sensitive to cell phones.

Jetlagged, I decided to walk and become familiar with the city. I was particularly curious to see the ConcertGebow, world famous music hall and acoustics where the most accomplished symphonies and composers had reigned. Of course I was lost, my sense of direction was pathetic and it was very cold besides. I inquired after my destination in abbreviated form "Where is the Gebow?" and got strange stares. Apparently, Gebow is a general term for building, and I was actually asking "Where is the building?" in a streetful of buildings. No wonder I seemed confused.

I got to the ConcertGebow at around noon, where there were free concerts every Wednesday, a 30 minute rehearsal open to the public. Listening to the lilting instrumentals resound throughout the high ceilings seemed to open up a new world of possibilities to me. I was on fire, inspired by music, by creation, by ideas that somehow found their way through this labyrinth of human frailty to exist in the fiber of our world. I realized it was no accident, that beauty comes into being by sacrifice, threats of judgment and failure hang over the head of every artist like a noose and to stray into that tempting circle means certain death.

I continued walking, tracing the path of sunlight by my footsteps since it was so frigid that I could only endure the weather by the additional warmth of the sun. Entranced by the canals, the elegant and minimalist three-storied house with fronts facing the water, I wandered the city, watching the rooftops as much as streets. I approached a busy area, close to the train station and lots of people were milling around. Colored banners highlighted one of the streets, so I diverted to more serene side streets sporting that same lovely architecture.

I passed a row of glass windows peeking out from an alley, all empty except one with a particularly voluptuous mannequin. However, she seemed a bit too fleshy for a mannequin, her goods all but falling out of a flimsy black and pink negligee, and then I assumed she was a poster. Then I thought I saw a flicker of movement so I stopped and did a double-take. She was definitely alive. She caught my eye and peremptorily pulled open the glass door, pulling at my sleeve with amazing strength. I jumped, stumbled on my buttocks, and ran out of there with more speed than I thought my short legs were capable of. It was pure adrenaline, and the shock at the prospect of being sexually propositioned by another woman, one who was selling herself. Didn't she know I was female? Perhaps I looked like a skinny, androgynous boy. Perhaps it didn't matter. "Well, you know," Olivier told me later, "business was slow."

Welcome to the Red Light District.

Mayan Legacies

Jenny and I stared upward at the Temple of Kukulkan, the renowned step pyramid and centerpiece of the archaelogical ruins of Chichen Itza, capital city of ancient Mayan civilization. Built in homage to the feathered serpent deity which maintains its name, there were carved serpent heads at the ends of the balustrades.

Underwhelming.

Perhaps our expectations were too high. Perhaps National Geographic had glorified Chichen Itza in its flawless photography. Whatever the reason, my kindred spirit and I exchanged kindred glances and we were thinking the very same thing: underwhelming. To the naked eye, the Pyramid was composed of rather large, symmetrical limestone building blocks. Yes, it was vast. Yes, it seemed imposing. Yes, it made for some rather interesting photo ops, of which we took full advantage and Jenny took a rather carefree snapshot of us, energetically leaping in the air with Kukulkan's namesake in the background. But Wonder of the World was stretching it.

The tour guide showed us the supposed location of the phantom serpent shadow that appeared writhing along the stairs at the spring and autumn equinoxes. Jenny raised a perfectly arched eyebrow, given that it was December, invisible, and therefore unimpressive. I wondered if we were jaded, or if we had traveled and seen too much in an abbreviated period of time, or perhaps we had lost that exuberance, that child-like sense of wonder when everything was new and fresh and exhilarating. Perhaps we were a bit distracted. Nevertheless, we explored Chichen Itza with a lingering sense of disappointment and rather lethargic pace, since we also insisted on being stylish under the boiling Mexican sun.

At one point, Jenny retreated into the velvet shade along the Temples of the Jaguars, with a dessicated mural portraying a divine battle scene, where she rested her feet and I proceeded onward. Whether it was my penchant for exploring or my relentless curiosity, I kept walking through one set of walls to another, sparse columns, ballcourts. Unknown, unnamed, and uncomplimented ruins struck my fancy far more than the lauded expectations of someone else.

Then I entered the El Caracol observatory temple, a conspicuously round structure in the midst of all the angular ruins, pointing like a vector towards its spiral staircase. Here was where the Mayans watched the planetary movements and the stars traversing the firmament. Intrigued, I asked our tour guide, descended from the ancient Mayans himself and thereby visibly affronted by our lack on interest in his ancestral homeland thus far. Reluctant at first, he shared with me the Mayan prophesy of 2012.

"Does that mean that the world will come to an end on December 21, 2012?"

He shook his head vigorously.

"It is not some apocalyptic ending. It means that the energy of the world is shifting based on the alignments of the planets with the sun, something that happens only once every 26,000 years so it will be the beginning of a new age, a new era, a new beginning. All the planets and constellations of the zodiac will be aligned with the sun and it will bring natural disasters to the earth. This will signify the end, and the beginning."

"Right now, only three of the planets are aligned and we have already witnessed storms, hurricanes like Katrina. When all of the planets are aligned, the gravitational energies of the earth and the celestial forces will change, and there will be more."

This conversation happened in 2009, when Katrina was the greatest devastation to hit my beloved country. Looking back, this was shared with me prior to the Tsunami and nuclear meltdowns in Japan, prior to Hurricanes Irene and Sandy, and prior to the vast destruction experienced by cosmopolitan New York and her less refined neighbor of New Jersey.

Manhattan was pitch black, the insipid darkness of lack, and the cold denizens who freeze within their luxury apartments without heat.

So we have been warned by the earth, the heavens, and those intuitive enough to read them. And yet, we go on living as if we will always have tomorrow.

Searching in Cancun

Cancun was a place I had never intended to go, but there is something wondrous about saying "Yes," accepting an invitation and extension of a friendship that ultimately became a kinship. My friend Jenny was traveling on a business trip there, and the resort was such a vista of paradise that many of the conference attendees brought a significant other. I walked the white sand shores in the morning, and studied the transparency of water throughout the day. It was more than just examining the many shades of aquamarine; I was searching for a familiarity, a story that had begun with the sea.

Let me explain. Sometimes we find ourselves through the journey of others, whether real or imagined. I had begun writing a story about an abandoned woman who lived on the edge of an ancient lake in ancient time. As long as I found a thread of inspiration in her life, and the events that precipitated in the glorious burst of creation, I could find my own way along the winding road of my life. At least I could make do. Yes, I had begun to feel lost after months of searching for myself. In some ways, I could see how people could go on searching forever, trip after trip, degree after degree, relationship after relationship. Bohemian wandering, continental sojourns at times were preferable to admitting a deep truth within yourself and realizing you have to change.

I had scoured the museums of Paris, looking for the face of my heroine, among those immortalized on the canvas. I didn't know exactly what I was looking for,a restlessness in the gait, a certain ingenuity in the eyes perhaps, a moment of surprise when one is shaken out of resignation. I never did find a face that satisfied me, but in the searching, I discovered more about my character. And perhaps about myself.

As I was searching for inspiration, Jenny was searching for potential wedding venues. Jenny and I lived oddly analogous lives, and I recognized the symptoms well. Not wearing the engagement ring, not settling upon a date, not mentioning the very fact to people we just met, as if by omission it would cease to be true. Yet, she would exert herself identifying all the elements of the perfect wedding, like a mechanical exercise. What is it about women that we keep hoping even when the blatant hopelessness hits us in the face like a slap? Maybe it was love, and maybe it was arrogance, the illusion that we could actually change another.

Somehow, between the void in my life and the absence in hers, we became like sisters. Perhaps kindred spiritship was borne in mutual pain, as well as good times and a similiar sense of fashion. It is only when you fall that you discover who will help you up, encourage you, and stiffen your resolve to become more than you currently are. I remember so many epiphanies in the past year, yet straddled with many nadirs of self-doubt. And in the midst of it all, the sister who was overwhelmingly supportive, and always patient, was Jenny.

Silhouettes of Strangers Who Became More

My memory has never been linear. Europe has been a litany of experiences and people that somehow melded into one as I recounted that journey westward, a Dejas-vous of all the things that have touched my life. Some remembrances are crystal clear; others are blurry and indefinite as things that seemed to have never happened.

I had encountered Kyle, an army officer on leave while on tour of Dachau. Afterwards, the English speaking group gathered for a drink and I joined them for typical peripheral small talk. The group dissipated except for us two, keeping each other company before our respective trains, his destined for Vienna or Salzburg and mine destined for Prague. It seemed military men were extremely lonely. I thought nothing of it when he asked for my email address, but he consistently wrote me long emails for months afterwards. He even wished he had kissed me, but perhaps the romantic fancies are far more potent than the reality. He had a rather pleasant, clean-cut face with chiseled features, and I would altogether not have minded kissing him. Then again, looks could be deceiving and he might have slobbered all over me.

There was Jasmine, an independent Greek girl studying towards an economics degree in Zurich. We walked all over the city and sat in cafes, lamenting her love life, since she apparently had a successful, doting boyfriend whom she loved not. I watched her justify why she should be with him while sensing she longed to unfurl her wings and fly in a different direction. I wondered if she would be relegated to the status of luxurious wife with this fellow, or if she ever had the courage to break free. I never knew, except she introduced me to soft gingerbread cookies encrusted with chocolate, which became my daily staple in the midst of expensive Switzerland. The Swiss believed that one should pay for the quality of fresh fruit and produce; therefore everything was exorbitantly priced for us American bargain shoppers. Even the idea of bargain shopping is considered an anomaly in Switzerland, as good quality needed to be properly reimbursed and why would you not want to pay for it? Nonetheless, gingerbread cookies typically bring me back to La Suisse.

Then there was Sophie, a Quebec student who traveled through Europe by the labor of her hands. She picked grapes in Provence and Tuscany, did odd jobs like waitressing and cleaning in Paris, Berlin,and Milan, any place that welcomed a cheap and migrant labor force and international worker's permit from Canada. She told me that being on the road was often lonesome and that she tended to become much more easily infatuated with friends on the road than back home. And I wondered if it was that exciting newness, of being able to grow and to reinvent yourself, of becoming more of the version of yourself you have always wanted to be, in this itinerant lifestyle that causes you to be more open to love. Or the idea of love, since these amorous liaisons rarely last. But you find yourself inevitably changed.

Sophie also alerted me to one of the best kept backpacker secrets: couchsurf.com. This free service concerns itself with matching a backpacker who needs a place to stay in a given city and the host who offers free accommodations in their home(i.e. a couch). She was currently sleeping on someone's couch as we spoke. In the backpacker world, there is an unspoken law of hospitality and mutual help without thought of gain. We were all traveling on a budget, hoping to see the world and willing to rough it. It brings out the very best in human nature, this egalitarian sense of giving what you can and taking what you needed. Non-institutionalized, completely voluntary, and without exchange of any currency. What would the world be like if money was abolished?


Of course, I couldn't forget Raphael, a German Christian socialist who was studying engineering or physics in Zurich. He was in his early twenties and intense, with smoldering eyes and a very particular manner of speaking. I felt sure he would become a politician, and he didn't deny the ambition. I don't know if it was the intensity or the ambition that attracted me more, but after the exchange and a few espresso, it seemed I had been conversing with someone who would change the world. I met him on my last day in Zurich, and he kept trying to arrange subsequent rendezvous even after I had left the country. Perhaps he will remember me, perhaps not, but someday he will hold the reins of power, when the European union has become an archaic institution.

Then, there were the shadows of Matthias, with whom romance fizzled and David, with whom it was never kindled, both of whom surfaced in and out of my journey.

Perhaps they were individual people in certain times and places, but I remember them like a long line of ghosts, people whose details fade, but for the indelible imprint they have made on my life, the gifts they gave me, the things they taught me, the joy they brought in making my existence richer and fuller. For that, I will always thank them.