PBS and NPR

I don’t miss having television.  It has been 2 years now, almost, since I’ve had a TV.  I do, however, miss a few key shows and stations.  Here is what I long for:

-News Hour with Jim Lehrer

-Washington Week in Review

-The Food Network

-NPR (any of it, any time – especially Storycorps but NOT Car Talk)

-Comedy Central’s Daily Show and Colbert Report

-BBC news

Fortunately, the Internet helps fill some of the gaps…..yet I am less compelled to bother with that than if I just turned on the TV.  No matter, I still prefer my television-less household.

Samskara

The imprints of everything we’ve done, said, thought, lived.  It all leaves a mark.  The reactions we have to certain people, the way we deal with stress, our exercise routine, our eating habits.

These things become indelible marks and our reactions are the pathways we’ve permitted our brains to create, to respond.

My yoga teacher training last year finally have a name for something I’ve been working on.  Trying to change old habits.

Today, that meant smiling as I climbed the (small) mountain.  It meant being thankful for what I have as I walked down the mountain.

Daily, it means saying a lot less polluting information.  Trying to avoid idle gossip, talking about others.  Working on finding positives in every situation, in each person.  In daily moments, trying to unclench my tightened stomach, breathe into the emotion, and see the joy when I can let it all go, even for just a minute.

The Chinese doctor, quite unsurprisingly, has attributed my stomach issues to stress.  I’ve been paying attention to what that stress feels like in my insides.  It makes them feel continually clenched.  So I’m trying to breathe more and deeply to work out some of the samskara stored there.

Jack’s POV

A post from my friend, Jack, who visited me here in Taiwan…..

I had been traveling for close to three weeks already, which isn’t long except that I was on the move every four days and had to plan everything in advance. Most of my interactions were with non English speakers whose desire to help often outweighed their ability to do so. So I planned ahead, often for days at a time, getting friendly expatriates and supportive locals to write out my plans in Traditional Chinese for me to hand to cab drivers, bus ticket sales women, and Hotel counter staff. It was like a puzzle every day. I can say Hello and Thank You in Chinese thanks to J’s tutoring in Austin. Ever the teacher, she knew what I needed before I did. It is amazing how much you can accomplish with Hello, Thank You and smiling eyes.

So my arrival in Taipei was a welcoming thought on several levels. I would get to hang with Nellie for five days. I would meet her welcoming friends and I would be able to speak unbroken English to my heart’s content, and actually see understanding in the eyes of my companions. My weary heart raced at the thought of a local guide, not being responsible to pantomime with cab drivers, and ordering food without wondering what would come to the table.

I met J’s and my new friend Sherry at the airport with minor adventures in misdirection. It was bliss to find the locals able to answer in English and guide me to the next terminal. A quick cab ride to J’s and there were hugs and kisses all around, AND J has strong air conditioning and isn’t afraid to use it. Antibiotics are great and all, but whoever invented air conditioning gets my vote as the true savior of mankind. Taipei is like China except without the pollution, crowds, or bugs on sticks for sale at the market. There is plenty of unknown food for sale, but no bugs on sticks that I saw.

We ate lots; apparently the folks in Taiwan spend more time thinking about food than sex. I find this a little confusing, but ok. They have shaved ice desserts that are like eating flavored snow. No ice here, just melt in your mouth goodness than makes you think there may be something to this food obsession. They eat a lot here, and shop for clothes. It seemed normal after three weeks in China, I got used to every single thing being new, and so whatever happens is normal now.

So Taipei is like a ghost town after China cities, you can walk down the streets without dodging locals and getting bumped along. They also have temples on corners, kind of like the US has 7-11s. Just these random highly ornate temples that make Catholic churches seem austere. It’s like a seminary full of details packed into a 400 square foot efficiency. They have very bright colors and designs.

That is what all of Asia felt like to me, interesting and fun but without any overall theme. So go visit J, just don’t visit in the summer unless you like being in a sauna with your clothes on.

Sigh.

Sun showers.  Glimpses of green loveliness between the cracks of pavement.  Smiles from Taiwanese walkers.  Three mornings in a row of runs.  Lighter food.  Less sugar.

Waking up awake.  Even after only five and a half hours of sleep.

A nudging of clarity.  Around the corner I find part of me hiding, head peeking around the corner.  Finally, can I move from this spot?

It’s time, I think.  The grey is being broken up more often with more of what I remember being me.

A masterful funk it was.

The element of surprise

I have not posted in forever, it seems, though it is likely closer to three weeks. Post ideas have been flitting through my mind, but it seems the minute one begins to make an impression, indicating that it might make it to a full-blown written paragraph, it fades away and I am left with the space left behind by this phantom thought.

Though the others seem gone for good, this one has lasted the whole of two days and so it is that I must write about it.

Dreaming of colleagues teaching yoga, burning buildings, tea ceremonies and wheelchairs, my subconscious has been spinning in an effort to jolt me awake to something. I am back in Taiwan and though some things are new (apartment, courses, visits from U.S. friends), much feels old. And while some of it is comfortably worn, like a soft pair of pants, more of it feels boring, a la a loveless relationship.

Where is my joy in the moment?

I think much of the way I experience joy is through tiny daily surprises. And it hit me the other day that I have been lacking these surprises. The students seem cliché at times and my lessons rote.

This is entirely my own doing, though. My students are no more ordinary than anything else in my life. I have viewed them as such and pigeon-holed them into mediocrity. I haven’t allowed their comments, their insights, their spark to even enter the room, let alone me. They have seemed boring because I’ve deemed them to be so.

So why have I resisted this? To allow spontaneity in the classroom takes a great deal of planning and effort. Contradictory as that may seem, only in being fully alert and ready am I able to let them take over. And truth be told, I’ve been exhausted since I’ve returned and it’s all I could do to just hang on.

But I’ve caught up on some sleep this weekend and I’ve spent some time alone. In doing so, I’ve found some of that much necessary peace as well as preparation. Ready to start Oedipus, I feel open to surprises.

Now translating that spontaneity to the rest of my life is my next mission…..

Lounge Access

Today marks the one hundred and twelfth out-of-body experience of this summer.  China contained a plethora of them as did some of the frantic traveling between there and here, back in Hong Kong.  Completing the loop of the summer is only fitting and I can’t think of a better way than right where I’m sitting.

In a leather chair.  With free breakfast, cappucinos, and an adapter for my computer.

Miraculously, considering I was short of the miles needed to get into the Cathay Pacific business class lounge, the lovely boy at the counter took pity on my rather haggard, travel-worn self and waved me into the elevator.  I figured it couldn’t hurt to try to ask; I have a four hour layover here before I attempt to get back to Taipei, which has been for all practical purposes, shut down the last day, bracing for Typhoon Morakot.  It seems my flight is still on, and that gives me another hour and a half to enjoy this space.

It’s quiet, comfortable, and soothing with good feng shui.  There is food for my hungry tummy and calm for my spirit.  There are showers which I had beelined towards as soon as I got here lest they discover my fraudulence and kick me out.  The lack of sleep from the past few days is catching up with me and I feel a little spacey.  Austin was a whir of activity and emotion, which I haven’t begun to sort out.

I find myself thinking more than anything else right now about the energy of this summer.  It’s been a yang summer, and my moon side has been neglected.  I have been writing more this past week, largely for myself, rather than the blog.  This draw to writing and reading comes with my body knowing it needs to restore some yin.  I’ll try to be gentle with myself the first few weeks of school, try to get back to some stability.

So much seems uncertain: my arrival in Taipei with this typhoon, my new apartment and its (lack of) furnishings, two new classes to teach, and my own processing of the past two months.  Still, lessons from the past are contained in those new ventures, and I will work to integrate the two.

Still, thinking back on this summer, the overwhelming feeling is that of gratefulness. I finally have some money.  Not a ton, but more than I’ve ever had before.  This money allows me a flexibility in my travel that is quite new and lovely.  I can make decisions on the fly, do things last minute, and also splurge a bit.  I’ve been able to maintain a life abroad and still get home and catch up with dear friends.  Can this last forever?  Can I live this split life?  I’m growing more comfortable with the notion, but I’m going to have to work on how energy is allotted for all this catch up.  Packing in meaningful reunions is near impossible, so there must be a way to better develop and channel these experiences with old friends.

Any thoughts?

Summers

Over the years, I have had quite the ambivalent relationship with my hometown and, more specifically, my homecoming.   This homecoming usually occurs in the summer – as a student and now as a teacher, this is the time of year for family and friends.

Leaving college after my first year away to return to little Clarence Center, land of my birth and schooling, felt like a betrayal.  I missed my new best college friends days before I parted with them.  My heart ached in anticipation of three months of drudgery, crappy jobs, and small town life.  Family was no consolation, but a clan to be endured.

I dragged myself home the summer after second year of college, already missing friends and anxious about leaving to study abroad in Australia.  I was thrilled about leaving when I organized this year jaunt, but by the summer, I wondered if I had made the right decision.  I missed my friends, and felt like being alone all the time.  I awoke each morning, desperate to pull the covers over my head and sleep more.  I took naps in the afternoon, crying myself to sleep.  Sunk in gloom, I hardly knew my family was there.  I wasted away on my own.

When I returned from Australia, it was again with a great deal of anxiety about coming home.  I had missed home when I left, and now I missed Australia.  I felt like no one could understand how I had changed over that year, least of all my family.  I dreaded the anticipated judgment from family and friends about my weight gain.  There were few comments, but I suspect they were trying to be sensitive.

The summer after senior year of college found me at home for the least amount of time in any summer past.  After a graduation trip to New Orleans, I headed home to Buffalo for a few weeks before I started the training for my new job: New York City public school teacher.  These were still the summers before my dad’s future ribbing of “I hardly ever see you.”  Perhaps he was too busy taking care of the other siblings and hanging out with mom to worry too much about my time at home.  That concern would come later.

I made it home for a few weeks in 2003, the next summer, in between the grad classes I had to take in the city.  I didn’t know it at the time, but it was the last good summer with my mom.  It was the last time she was pretty healthy and I didn’t think to drink in every moment.  I wouldn’t have known to do so, but I wish I remembered more about it.  I continued to see M, L and S, assuming they were home, as I had every summer since freshman year.

The following summer began early and ran later than any other.  Mom’s cancer had spread and I knew in my gut that by May I needed to be home.  I left teaching three weeks early and headed back home to Clarence, to our big split level house in the country, on 9 acres of wooded land, with an inground swimming pool and a barn holding our R.V.  I spent that summer enveloped in family and GRE studying.  I was drowning under the anticipation of the end.  I ducked out to set up my new apartment in New York and go to two weddings.  When I got back, we had a few weeks left, though I could not have known the date.  On September 1^st, she was gone and we pulled off the memorial service that Mom had planned for herself.  It was almost Labor Day and mom had always reminded us girls of the fashion faux pas of wearing white past that date.

The next summer was a flurry of movement, of seeing old friends and saying goodbyes.  I was moving to Austin and needed to close up my New York life.  Dad came to New York to help me pack and I wished, for the hundredth time, that mom was there to help organize, to plan, to get things done.  At this point, organizing was new to me, though I had about a year’s practice at holding a family together.  I wasn’t particularly good at either skill, but I would learn over the next few years that the brute force willpower one can throw into packing is ineffective when it comes to rebuilding a family.

The next two summers were glorious respites from the Texas heat, and I hit a scheduling stride: I liked this teaching thing.  Great weather all year in Austin, and “summering” in Buffalo, my other home with this one glorious season.  I made arrangements to visit New York each summer, see old friends and spend time with dad, who had grown increasingly vocal over the years about my distance from my hometown.  Half-joking, more than half-serious, he wished I were home more.  But it was just the perfect amount of time for me.

The summer before I left for Taiwan was brief, or felt brief.  There was much to organize, and so much I wanted to finish up in Austin.  I wanted to see the bats under the bridge at sunset – I couldn’t believe that after three years there I hadn’t managed to do that.  I wanted to go tubing, drink more margaritas, and swim in Barton Springs.  I anticipated a dearth of Mexican food in Taiwan and ate to my heart’s content.  I saw old friends again, in Austin, Buffalo and in Virginia.  A mini-reunion of college friends was the highlight of the summer.

This summer has seen me return to Buffalo from the furthest place I’ve lived to date.  After a month traveling in China, two weeks in Europe, I landed at the Buffalo airport where my sister met me in her new car.  Showing off the features while she drove me home, I felt the wind whip at my hair through the open windows.  It smelled like it always does there, some indescribable mix of grass, streetlights, and fog.  I’ve treasured the little moments each day there because I am painfully aware of their transience.  I have my family and friends in front of me for a limited time and I want to breathe it all in.

Particularly striking this particular visit was the day spent with L and D.  I haven’t had the opportunity to sit and talk with D in many years now, far too long I kept thinking.  There was this immediate sense of connectedness from the moment they walked in the café.  I was not surprised by this, as I had known this is what would happen.  This was the start of a new chapter in our friendship and the day moved on too fast, and there was too much to say, and not everything could be shared or said.  I kept thinking how grateful I was to know the two of them, and to have known them – as kids, and now as insightful, amazing adults.

Back in Austin, gearing up for a Taipei return in a few days, it is my time to reconnect with my life here.  My friend V in Taiwan reminded me, before I left, of the importance of reconnecting with life in the States.  Each summer for the past seven years, she has returned from Asia to participate in her old life.  If I continue living abroad, I hope I can keep doing this, keep making reconnecting a priority, like it has been in so many summers before.

Adopted Parents

From June 21, 2009…..

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“We are not French, my dear.  We are Swiss.  From Geneva, actually.”

It was clear from the beginning that Claudio had no qualms making his heritage explicit.  It wasn’t until later that we realized this candor extended to all aspects of interactions with him.

We met Claudio and Rita (or Anna and Michel as they were mistakenly named on the table placards) at lunch the first afternoon on our Yantzge River cruise.  In their late 50s, maybe early 60s, A and I took an immediate liking to couple.  Claudio’s honesty was refreshing, and his round belly, curly grey hair, and somewhat sardonic laugh were so appealingly French that we knew we would get along.  Rita’s English was often halting, not close to on par with her husband’s, yet she still pretended throughout the course of our time together to understand all of what we were saying.  I would only come to realize the extent of her incomprehension by our third day together when she queried about certain details of A and my friendship.  Details we had already discussed on the first day we met.  Still, despite an element of lost-in-translation, A and I found that we got along with these two.

Good thing, also, as we were placed together at every cruise meal.  Joined also by a jaunty British fellow, we made up the nonconformist contingent on the boat.  The first dinner together commenced with individual declarations of rigorously individualistic, maverick behaviors.  We were the anti-cruise dinner table, a group determined to not become part of the group.  Barry declared his distaste for organized tour groups, Claudio announced that he liked to travel on a whim, and Rita expressed disapproval of all the “old” people on the boat.

By virtue of being under 50, A and I were acceptable rebellious compatriots, and Claudio and Rita took us under their wing.  This adoption came, unlike many superficial alliances, with a plethora of strings attached.

Our friend, S, who is currently living in Cologne, Germany, has regaled us with tales of older Germans who feel compelled to advise the youth in all aspects of life.  These octogenarians have harangued S about her biking etiquette, and a variety of other mundane inanities.  By virtue of age, knowledge, or sheer nosiness, the elderly have grandparented our friend into irritation.

This is not unlike the situation we found ourselves in.

At first amused and often delighted by our new friends, we grew increasingly weary of them the longer we spent in their well-meaning company.  Rita started in with the guilt by the end of our first lunch together.  It was subtle at first and we nearly missed it.

“Do you really like that dessert?  Hmmm.”

In fact, A and I did enjoy the dessert and went back for seconds, though at that point it wasn’t to spite Rita, yet.

At dinner that night, Rita commented to A, “Wow.  Are you really going to eat all that?”

A did not eat all her food, though that was less because of Rita’s comments than the pangs from her own digestive issues.

By the next morning when we gathered at our assigned table for breakfast, Rita, surprisingly quiet, had switched tactics.  Words had been replaced by looks, specifically the glance-down-at-the-plate-then-make-eye-contact-with-one-eyebrow-raised look.  We found this particular maneuvor even more grating in its subltley and we were certainly not appreciating the childhood guilt flashbacks.

Claudio, less critical, was nonetheless remarkably paternal, particularly in his ability to act like a man-child when things were not going his way.  In addition to his somewhat tiresome outbursts, he had a particularly at-first-charming-and-later-irritating way of wandering off.  Rita never quite knew where to find him and A and I got a few laughs out of that initially.

But then we had to travel with the two of them, and we had to do it with no plan in mind, a guarantee for things going awry.

If there is one thing A and I have learned during this trip, it is to maintain flexibility and remain calm despite the chaos around us.  We’ve gotten better at going with the flow.  You mean you don’t have any trains running to the next city on our itinerary? Okay, we’ll work something out.  You say it’s going to rain the entire time we’re in Lijang? No problem, we’ll just park it in a cute restaurant and watch the deluge with a cup of jasmine tea in hand.  To be successful at traveling without a real plan, you roll with the punches.

Turns out, that’s a lot easier to do with two people, rather than four.  It’s also a lot easier when those people do not include overbearing parental figures.  There’s a reason A and I have moved far away from home.

We had amazing luck at the train station when we arrived in Wuhan from Yichang and things seemed to be looking up.  Assailed almost immediately by a guy in his early 20s offering us help finding what we needed, I was so very close to brushing him off as I had so many other offers of “help.”  But something felt different.  Is it possible to sense when someone is genuine?

Jack, as we found out, was a university student who, when he saw the four of us looking lost, had run over to help if he could.  This was not the first kindness extended to us in China, nor will it be the last.  It was, however, potentially the most helpful.  He got us to a travel desk, his excellent English bridging the eternal language gap, as he arranged Claudio and Rita’s plane tickets, and shuttled us in taxis to get us to the bus station to pick up tickets for today’s Huangshan bus.

Having spent over an hour together arranging our travel, A and I were floored by his kindness.  What could have been hours of me trying to eck out some Chinese basics to get us tickets, turned into a relatively quick and painless series of solutions.  Wherever I’ve gone, I’ve been so fortunate to receive the unbelievable kindness of strangers.

Exhausted, hungry and very much over our long traveling day, we jumped into a car (arranged by Jack) to our hotel that A and I had booked with the help of Howard, our English guide on the cruise.  And that’s when it all started to come apart.

As much as I could communicate with the hotel staff, none of whom spoke a word of English, they had no rooms available, despite our supposed reservation.  Claudio started to get worked up, gesturing, asking again and again in English how much the rooms are, seemingly unaware of the meaning of “full house.”  He began to take on the persona of the obnoxious English-speaking tourist who expects everyone in other countries to be able to communicate aptly with him.

It only got worse when the kind lady at the front desk somehow managed to gesture that we should follow her down the street with our luggage to a hotel that had space.  What ensued at that hotel was a schooling in miscommunication.  I can do no justice to describing this situation, but suffice it to say that we were all starving (having not eaten in 10 hours), and Rita’s reminder that “sometimes it is good to skip meals” and Claudio’s ranting at the poor girl at the hotel desk only made the situation worse.

About twenty minutes later A and I dragged our weakened bodies up to our quite lovely room, bidding Claudio and Rita goodnight and goodbye.  As I drifted off to sleep on the rock hard slab the Chinese call a bed, I was thinking about parents, mine and others’.

They mean well, don’t they?  They want to take care of you, but the intention is so often thwarted by the way it’s presented or received.  Those two meant well, but man, were we relieved to be on our own again.

why shower?

Whenever I travel in developing countries, I come face to face with my western attachment to personal hygiene.  My childhood days of once or twice a week baths are long behind me, and I have been quite happy to shower every evening for the last twenty years.  Here in China, if I am lucky I can bathe daily, but the cleansing conditions are quite varient, something I am always loathe to accept.

For the most part, there are no bathtubs or shower stalls.  Instead, a lone nozzle hovers, semi-attached to the gritty tile, mere feet away from the toilet.  A single drain, usually miles away from the nozzle, attempts to collect the portion of the water that runs towards it, leaving the rest of the liquid to create a cesspool-like space in the opposite corner.

Showering is like walking a tightrope.  One must never place one’s feet near the polluted corner, yet the standing space available beyond that is often limited to a few square inches.  Often on tiptoe, somehow believing that I can somehow remain cleaner if my heels are spared, I dance in a square foot of safety.

The results of this experience is that you never really feel clean when you’re staying in hostels.  You get used to being dirty and come to some sort of terms with it, accepting less and often surprising yourself with your pleasure at simple hygiene opportunities.

You mean you have actual hand soap in the restaurant bathroom? Score.  A squat toilet with walls and a door? Today is a lucky day.

It’s all a matter of perspective, isn’t it?

Taking what I can get, the little things mean more.  Only having left Taiwan a week ago, it already feels like months and my “old life” feels unrecognizable.  You say that there was a time where I could eat fresh vegetables after a quick tap water rinse?  A time back in the States where I could drink water straight out of the tap?  Surely these experiences are legend, something I imbibed from a past life.

When you travel, it Is best to expect nothing to work out.  When something does, you are pleasantly surprised, and it is difficult for anything to really stress you out.  When you buy a bus ticket, like I did here in Dali, expect that the van won’t actually come to pick you up and you will have to figure out a way to get to the bus station.  When you get to the bus station, expect the bus to be very late, incredibly crowded, and filled with smoking, spitting Chinese men.  When it shows up only 15 minutes late, has a semblance of air conditioning, and the men are only hacking instead of spitting, you are quite pleased.

I am reminded of the comedian, Louis CK’s sketch called something like, “Everything’s awesome and nobody’s happy.”  He relates a story about his recent flight cross-country.  The airplane he was on provided wireless and the man sitting next to him pulled out his laptop.  About 10 minutes later, an announcement came: the crew greatly apologized, but the wireless was temporarily defunct.  The man next to Louis yelled out something like, “Dammit!  They say they have wireless and this freakin’ doesn’t work.”  Louis was thinking, Jesus, man.  What do we have to be unhappy about?  We’re on an airplane in the sky!  We should all be sitting here amazed thinking, oh my God, I’m in a chair in the sky!  I am part of the miracle of flight!

a great view in Tiger Leaping Gorge

When something doesn’t go right in my travels, I always have to remind myself of just how amazing it all is that I’m able to procure the money to do this, to be living at a time when transportation can get me to these places, and to have the good health to be able to get out and see these astounding places.

This gratefulness often takes quite a bit of work in daily life – it is easier to be grateful for the small stuff when you travel.  Grateful for a shower that drains, thankful for food that doesn’t make you sick, appreciative of good digestion and strong legs.  So, after something doesn’t go according to my travel plan, after I often get angry or frustrated, I eventually come back to, cheesy as it may sound, being grateful to be alive and exactly where I am.

Grateful even when I’m squatting over a cement river of urine and waste, sans walls, out there for anyone, none of whom cares, to see.

an open squat toilet in Dali, Yunnan province

Running without air

An attempt to catch up a bit from the summer travels.  Thanks to the Great Chinese Firewall, I hadn’t been able to post the whole time I was traveling there.

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Aching body, no yoga for days, and a wake-up to a hazy Guilin morning means that I am due for a run.  Grudgingly pulling on my old Asics, my soon-to-be non-existent Asics (trashed after China), I stopped at the hostel front desk on my way out to ask about the best route to take.  I just needed about a 30 minute jog, preferably not through the main thoroughfare of Guilin, China.

A and I have been in Guilin for two days now and e don’t seem to be getting stared at any less than when we first arrived.  Dodging cars across the main thoroughfare of Zhongshan Lou made me no less conspicuous, if only because I was running, rather than walk-weaving, as the locals do.  If not for my running shorts and tops, I might look like a panic-stricken tourist, so unsure of how to cross the streets in a country where no one follows a consistent traffic pattern, that I was sprinting for my life across the 6 lane road.

Safely across, having successfully navigated tuk-tuks, bicycles, scooters, trucks, buses and ancient cars, I set out.  Zipping past couples out for a stroll, grandparents with children hanging off arms, a few lone tai chi-practicing souls, I forced myself to stare straight ahead.  Not the most enjoyable way to run, it was, however, the only way to not take in every single stare from most every person I passed.  Guilin is not overrun with white people.  The few that do come for the Li River tours are certainly not running down the street.  I was a spectacle.

I was also short of breath.  The haze hung heavy in the sky and I visualized my lungs taking in black air and still trying to function.  A rather unpleasant mental image, it is likely a rather accurate one.  The past few days have found A and I blowing our noses more than usual, cleaning out the evidence of pollution.  Blackened buggars.  Dry noses.  Even drier eyes.  I have never experienced such pollution.  And this is with weeks to go before Beijing.

The cruise yesterday was breathtaking.  A level, calm river punctuated by spikes of conical-shaped mountains right at the water’s edge, each one with a story behind it.  Legends of dragons, of elephants, of mourning lovers break up the otherwise flat landscape in rising peaks of fantasy and sorrow.  I stood on the top deck of our boat, working to memorize the way the mountains feel.  Clicking away on my camera like a good tourist, the action felt somehow hollow as I realized the futility of capturing what this felt like.  Even video which could relate the sounds of the breeze would also unwittingly announce the harsh Canadian voices of the frat boys on the boat with us.

I wanted to remember the Li River the way it felt up there as I blocked out the background noise.  Memory, in all its unreliability, is all I have for that.  It is a poor substitute for the moment, but that is true of most any experience.  The beauty of travel is its ability to make you live in the very moment.  When you travel, you expect a new experience at every turn and are usually rewarded with one.

Life is no different from travel, but our expectations make it so.  Every day offers a new spread of experiences if we were only to look at it that way.  Travel is about the novel, the obscure, the different.  We can have those experiences at every turn if we were willing to change our mindset a little.  It is much more difficult to do this regularly if you do live in the same place for a long time.  As adaptable as humans are, we are also tied to habits and comfortability is the true enemy of new experiences.

A and I have arrived at the Guilin airport for our flight to Kunming, the far western area of China near Tibet.  An hour’s ride from the city over some pretty rough roads, the airport itself is surprisingly organized and western.  A is munching on some Chinese version of Cup-O-Noodle while I write.

Grating Chinese attacks me from every direction, but I better get used to it already.  It’s not going anywhere soon.