well, I managed to make it home in one peice.
I met a Japanese girl travelling solo on the plane and we shared a room in Taipei which definetly cut down on the hotel costs and gave me someone to take the bus with at 5am in the morning. She was a nice girl but we had very little in common, she has lived in Shinjuku her entire life and has never been to a club...case and point. But we had a fine time walking the streets of Taipei and eating at street vendors. I also indulged in Starbucks, a luxury I don't often encounter.
The plane ended up flying around the typhoon and after a 5 hour post-airport bus/train ride I managed to finally reach my apartment. Apart from the stangant smell of holed up tatami and a small army of ants having taken up residence, things look pretty much the same as they did when I left. The typhoon ended up hitting late at night and I had a hard time getting to sleep through the rattling of windows and shaking of walls.
As I laid on my dusty futon waiting for sleep to take hold I couldn't help my mind from wandering.
There are two ways of looking at absence. "Absence makes the heart grow fonder "and "Out of sight, out of mind." For most people the idea of absence isn't the most poingnant of topics but for me, someone who in a way lives her life "in absentia" it holds more clout. Having left my life back in Canada to come here, I suffer from a constant case of "in absentia". I constantly battle with both ways of looking at my absence, both in the way I deal with it personally and the way in which those back home deal with it in relation to me. There are certain people back home who have cut ties, whether intentionally or not. Emails go unanswered, phone calls unreturned. Perhaps for them "out of sight, out of mind" is easier. For me it the oposite. I find myself trying to stay tight with my life back in Canada in order to hold onto something that now often seems foreign and a little intimidating. The lack of reciprocity burns at times but I understand how it can happen. My lives are in juxtaposition to one another so each stays clearly at the forefront of my mind. I can lead my life in a constant state of comparisson, never letting either one slip away. The people back home however, don't have this and it's easy to just let one person slip away as they carry on with the usual.
Having just left my life in Japan for a month I have been forced to deal with the same situation here. The question is, what drives certain people to deal with it in certain ways. Why does the picture of someone's face fade for some while it stays vivid for others and why do the two parties involved often clash in the way in which they deal.
Some things are constant, some relationships forever, regardless of time and distance and phone calls and emails or lack thereof. Others, as I have learned, can become fleeting, precariously balancing on the edge of being forgotten or being guarded. I was expecting to return from Vietnam to something that has all but vanished in the month I was away. I have to admit that I was shocked when I came the realization that I had looked at my trip through the eyes of an optimist, "absence makes the heart grow fonder" while the other party involved either decided to, or merely drifted into the realm of "out of sight, out of mind." In reality there is nothing one can really do when confronted with this situation. You can start to slowly reintroduce yourself, hoping to regain the place you once held but how strong was that position if it was so easily dissolved? Perhaps you have been replaced? Perhaps you have become redundant? Regarless, perhaps things never were as they seemed.
Living as a single, white woman in Japan it is also my plot to live in absentia of intimacy and this can often lead the mind astray and creating things out of nothing, or at least big things out of small, castles out of dust. Perhaps that was where I was wrong all along. A house built of cards will always fall even if in your mind it's as steadfast as cement.
So alas, I will pull up my britches and carry on, it not the first and it won't the last time that I encounter something like this. Perhaps next time I will be more cautious however.
J
P.S on a lighter note, stay tuned for holiday pics.
I met a Japanese girl travelling solo on the plane and we shared a room in Taipei which definetly cut down on the hotel costs and gave me someone to take the bus with at 5am in the morning. She was a nice girl but we had very little in common, she has lived in Shinjuku her entire life and has never been to a club...case and point. But we had a fine time walking the streets of Taipei and eating at street vendors. I also indulged in Starbucks, a luxury I don't often encounter.
The plane ended up flying around the typhoon and after a 5 hour post-airport bus/train ride I managed to finally reach my apartment. Apart from the stangant smell of holed up tatami and a small army of ants having taken up residence, things look pretty much the same as they did when I left. The typhoon ended up hitting late at night and I had a hard time getting to sleep through the rattling of windows and shaking of walls.
As I laid on my dusty futon waiting for sleep to take hold I couldn't help my mind from wandering.
There are two ways of looking at absence. "Absence makes the heart grow fonder "and "Out of sight, out of mind." For most people the idea of absence isn't the most poingnant of topics but for me, someone who in a way lives her life "in absentia" it holds more clout. Having left my life back in Canada to come here, I suffer from a constant case of "in absentia". I constantly battle with both ways of looking at my absence, both in the way I deal with it personally and the way in which those back home deal with it in relation to me. There are certain people back home who have cut ties, whether intentionally or not. Emails go unanswered, phone calls unreturned. Perhaps for them "out of sight, out of mind" is easier. For me it the oposite. I find myself trying to stay tight with my life back in Canada in order to hold onto something that now often seems foreign and a little intimidating. The lack of reciprocity burns at times but I understand how it can happen. My lives are in juxtaposition to one another so each stays clearly at the forefront of my mind. I can lead my life in a constant state of comparisson, never letting either one slip away. The people back home however, don't have this and it's easy to just let one person slip away as they carry on with the usual.
Having just left my life in Japan for a month I have been forced to deal with the same situation here. The question is, what drives certain people to deal with it in certain ways. Why does the picture of someone's face fade for some while it stays vivid for others and why do the two parties involved often clash in the way in which they deal.
Some things are constant, some relationships forever, regardless of time and distance and phone calls and emails or lack thereof. Others, as I have learned, can become fleeting, precariously balancing on the edge of being forgotten or being guarded. I was expecting to return from Vietnam to something that has all but vanished in the month I was away. I have to admit that I was shocked when I came the realization that I had looked at my trip through the eyes of an optimist, "absence makes the heart grow fonder" while the other party involved either decided to, or merely drifted into the realm of "out of sight, out of mind." In reality there is nothing one can really do when confronted with this situation. You can start to slowly reintroduce yourself, hoping to regain the place you once held but how strong was that position if it was so easily dissolved? Perhaps you have been replaced? Perhaps you have become redundant? Regarless, perhaps things never were as they seemed.
Living as a single, white woman in Japan it is also my plot to live in absentia of intimacy and this can often lead the mind astray and creating things out of nothing, or at least big things out of small, castles out of dust. Perhaps that was where I was wrong all along. A house built of cards will always fall even if in your mind it's as steadfast as cement.
So alas, I will pull up my britches and carry on, it not the first and it won't the last time that I encounter something like this. Perhaps next time I will be more cautious however.
J
P.S on a lighter note, stay tuned for holiday pics.
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