shokufeh is…home

I moved to Shenyang at the end of August 1995. I left home knowing not a word of Chinese, nor the name of the person who would pick me up from the airport. There were many tears saying goodbye to my family (I still remember sitting in the front seat of the red Saturn, crying as my favorite song at the time, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, played on the radio, as we drove along the airport access road), but I guess the excitement and anticipation of a new adventure carried me forward. I arrived at night and stood in front of the small airport, alone and scared, waiting for someone other than the taxi drivers to approach me, as dust swirled in the air. In a movie, I would have been wearing a skirt, my feet straight and together, and my hair would have been blowing in my forlorn face. In real life I was wearing jeans and had hair too short for blowing.

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We got back to Honolulu yesterday morning, six hours before we left Beijing.

On my first Sunday, May 23, I:
- said goodbye to Shenyang, my Mom, and Anis
- left luggage at the Beijing airport, and took a cab into the city
- had a mini-meltdown due to frustration and fatigue
- ate at a noodle place where each party’s arrival was announced and all the waiters responded loudly – no shy employees there
- marveled at how hot and sunny it was, when it was grey and dreary the weekend before
- read Digital Fortress
- slept
- was amused by the woman nearby putting on a mask, as I coughed from the dry air
- watched on the screen as our plane taxied and took off in Tokyo, via a camera mounted in the front of the plane

On my second Sunday, May 23, I:
- watched on the screen as our plane landed in Honolulu (I kept thinking it would be morbidly funny to suddenly see grass on the screen instead of runway)
- slept
- did laundry and picked up some groceries
- watched tv

Now I feel rather tired. The advantage of measured time is getting to live the same day twice, in two very different ways. I was thinking that the disadvantage of measured time is jetlag. But, as I thought about it, I realized that Polly O’Keefe, a real time L’Engle character, in A House Like a Lotus, sat in the sun in hopes of avoiding jet lag. So, whether you live in the O’Keefe’s world or the Austin’s, I guess travel takes its toll.

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In the past five days, I’ve:
- read Running with Scissors
- climbed the Great Wall in the fog
- taken a luge type thing down from the Great Wall
- discovered my Mandarin isn’t as forgotten as I thought
- wandered through the Forbidden City in the rain
- gone shopping
- been amazed by how much Shenyang continues to change

Oh, yeah – I’m in China.

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Last night, I wanted to use a couple of items in the fridge before they left their prime. Specifically, a bunch of basil and a large bunch of fresh spinach. So I made pesto.

Into the food processor went garlic, walnuts, the basil, and the spinach. Then salt and pepper to taste, and olive oil to make it “creamy.” The spinach made up the bulk of the pesto, and I chose not add any cheese, so I didn’t feel bad at all about piling it on the pasta. And when I stuck some of the combined pasta and pesto in the microwave for lunch today, no weird texture issues that you sometimes get with a heated pesto-with-cheese.

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I am often awed by the greatness that is nature. My father and I are separated by thousands of miles of land and ocean. Yet, on Saturday night, we both turned out the lights in an attempt to prevent swarming termites from coming inside. It’s amazing how those suckers are hardwired to do the same thing, at the same time, no matter where they are.

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I lost touch with Julie Sullivan several years ago. But I think of her almost every day.

Whenever one of the numerous pigeons that congregate near my office building swoops over me, I dodge away from it, and remember Julie saying, “You know how the birds in the park always come dangerously close, but they always avert collision at the last minute? Well….”

I don’t want a bird in the head like Julie Sullivan once experienced.

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Today, I’m wearing jeans that I’ve had since 7th grade – 19 years! The way they fit me has evolved, but they still go on. They’re not trendy and bootcut, but I think they look okay. I’ve lost the ability to tell if they look really dated.

What’s your oldest piece of clothing?

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The past few weeks, I’ve been thinking that I’d fallen off the SELF Challenge wagon. But then I would make it to the gym, and think that maybe a better analogy would be that the wagon’s moving along, with me dragging behind it, with an ankle caught in the door of the wagon.

But, today, I brought my exercise clothes to work, and didn’t work out. And I’m eating 2 (two!) lunches. I think someone opened that wagon door and set me free.

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