Passed Ports

I just opened up a Flat Rate Mailing Envelope from the US Government.

My new passport has arrived.

My old passport arrived to my college PO box. Box# 672. I was a couple months into 19. I was looking forward to going oversees for the first time to perform a children’s musical in Poland that summer. I opened the cover. The picture was ok. I was blonde with aqua colored contacts. I was probably wearing silver eye shadow. I was definitely wearing overalls. I wore no jewelry. My smile showed teeth.

I flipped the empty pages. I imagined where my stamp for Poland would go. I counted how many blank pages I had to fill before I’d have to get a new one. 20. I could visit 20 countries. I checked the expiration date. May 31, 2010. I could visit 20 countries in 10 years. 10 years. How ridiculously far away was 10 years?! I’d be well past graduated (hopefully! If I ever chose a major!), who knows where I’d be living… Maybe I’d be married? Yikes. (Hyperventilating.) I’m 19! I’ll cross the marriage bridge when I have to. What countries will fill the blank pages after Poland? What memories will those stamps conjure when I leaf through my passport in 10 years? Where was I going? Who would I be after I went?

2010 has come. I filled my first passport with stamps from Poland, England, Holland, Belarus, Turkey, Greece…A million memories would flood back from a glance at those stamps. Memories of getting my nose pierced in Athens by a man who had a framed picture of Jackie O, hugging a homeless woman in Minsk after I gave her my change…her face was so cold, coughing after communion in Warsaw because I didn’t realize it wasn’t grape juice, a Greek baker who sang to me everything he had to say for 20 minutes, a Turkish woman who lowered a basket to the street to be filled with bread, having my face covered in a rain of kisses by the children of a small polish town, missing every possible flight that I’d bought to England, Italy, and Paris and then calling home crying on a pay phone, a man telling me I was beautiful on a ferry and that I “must take this” and then handing me bubblegum with pictures of racecars inside, Crying with Bassia when we said goodbye knowing we’d never see each other again and we couldn’t say all we wanted to in each other’s language, Impersonating a monster for 2 weeks and then finding out that the girl had been saying “how are you” in Russian everyday…not “Godzilla”, Walking out of “My Fair Lady” in London and seeing a barefoot man with a sign saying his shoes had been stolen, dancing all the grass off the lawn at a Scheshlick (sp?), doing the robot with a man wearing a Buddha mask and then finding out we were being filmed for a Japanese Comedian’s Comedy show.

I didn’t fill all 20 pages, but the stamps I received are fuller than the pages they occupy.

It was sad to mail it in for its replacement. I’m a nostalgic soul that loves to page through memories before folding them up gently and placing them reverently back into the corners of my mind.

And, now, my new passport has arrived. It’s a different color. The picture inside is ok. It is of a redhead with grey eyes. I’m wearing a dress and makeup and dangling earrings. My smile shows teeth.

There is no trip being planned. I just want to be prepared. There are 20 new pages to be filled. Stamped. Remembered. 20 pages filled with artistic renderings of American scenes accompanied by quotes by great Americans that seem to be trying to emblazon in me that I’m “free to visit other countries but that America is still the best country to come home to”. It expires on July 30, 2020. 2020! How ridiculously far away is 2020?! What woman will mail this passport in when she seeks her next replacement? What hair color? What life stage?

I’m not sure I know anymore at 29 than I did at 19 what journeys are in store…

…but I’m ready.

I’ve got my passport.

I've made a list of 30 things to do before I turn 30...on that list is running a 5k.

To a lot of people, a 5k sounds like child's play, easy peasy lemon squeezy...not to me. I'm not a runner...at all. But, I've been following the "couch to 5k" training program...and, I may be slow...but, i'm doing this, america! I'm up to jogging for 25 minutes! This is a small miracle seeing as running for 1 minute intervals during the first week of training was difficult for me!

It's been so interesting to me how looking at something I have to accomplish 2 or 3 weeks out looks IMPOSSIBLE, sometimes I wasn't even sure if I could do what I needed to do for that day! BUT, if I just do it...somehow...I finish. The program has been preparing me for where I need to be...I've learned to trust the plan's faith in me more than I trust my ability. The curiosity of "what if I quit in 5 more minutes instead of right now" gets me 5 minutes farther and then I can ask the question again...and then suddenly I'm done! Keep in mind...again...that I am super slow. I am not impressive at all in my ability to run...and yet...I am in fact impressing myself. I'm so damn impressed with myself for running for 25 minutes without stopping!

Something else I've learned along the way...smelling a low hanging branch of lilacs while running = getting slapped in the face by a tree...I guess the STOP in "stop and smell the roses" should be applied to all flowers...leason learned.

Have you ever wanted something to exist so badly that when it finally comes to fruition you have to wonder if you had a small roll in the collective conscience that brought it to being?

Enter "Total Cinamon Toast Crunch".

YOU EXIST!

(Because of me.)

love?

he's just not that into me.

Giving vs. Gullable continued

So...the guy didn't get a hold of us yesterday...which at this time lends one to think that I may have fallen on the gullable side of this fence...which is not my favorite thing in the world. I realize what my fatal flaw is...my success in giving became dependant on him returning the gift. I was allowing him to borrow it based on his terms and conditions and therefor my experience is valid when he upholds those. I gave him the power to define if I am giving or gullable. I should have defined my own rules that were dependent on my own actions...I should have just given him the money with no way to give it back. I think that was my fatal flaw.


...sigh.

Giving vs. Gullable

Last night I sat in G's car in front of the movie theatre we were preparing to enter. We were finishing a conversation that in short was cycling through the following over and over:

G: You should really get more acupuncture...you can get it for 25 dollars which is a lot cheaper than a lot of people can get it for.
a: Yeah, but I tried it and all I really got was an early bed time and a headache...so, i don't know.
G: But, you need to go a couple times to get the benefits really.
a: sure, but going 4 times is 100 bucks, going twice is 50...and even 25 is significant to me right now.
G: But, the long term benefits are really good...and sure, any amount of money is something, i get it, but you can get it for 25 dollars which is a lot cheaper than a lot of people can get it for...

(and in the words of the King of Siam from "The King and I") etcetera, etcetera, etcetera...

As our conversation cycle cycled on... G had her car door open when a man in a car pulled up with his window open and his dome light on. He looked at me with his eyebrows raised as if to speak...and i screamed a little.

man in car: Excuse me ladies, I'm sorry to interupt your conversation, but maybe you can help us. We were coming back from oak park and my little sister blew out her tire, and we need to pay the guy who came to fix it, and I've left my check book in my jacket pocket at work...I'm a bell hop. my name is kevin. I can leave my license with you. anything. I just need to get 23 dollars to my sister--she's on the side of the road.
G: Sorry, dude, i was gonna pay for the movie with a card.
man in car: if there's anyway you can help...
G:doesn't your sister have a card or something?
man in car: she's 16.

This is where I take 23 dollars out of my wallet and give it to G who then gives it to him along with her business card so he can contact us to pay me back. I say something like "we're all part of humanity, and we need to take care of eachother." He remarks that he's totally going to pay me back and that his name is kevin, and thank you, and then he drives away.

G and I walk towards the theatre a little dumbfounded but manage the obligatory "that was crazy" and the small chuckle of awe that such moments require, and then I immediately begin an inward assessment of the actions I've just taken. G looks up at me at catches me in the middle of a "I'm not going to cry!" face. She stops as she looks at me..."woah...what's happening".

a: I just don't know if I was giving--the person I want to be...or guilable--a person I don't want to be.
g: Well, I think you chose to be giving.
a: yeah, but no one chooses to be gullable! They just are!
g: well, i hope that karma brings your 23 dollars back to you in some form or another.
a:(sigh of defeat/release)...Well, now we know that I definately can't do accupuncture...
g: yeah, I totally thought of that, but I didn't want to say anything.

After buying our tickets we stopped at the snack stand. g really wanted a hotdog and a soda...and i knew that...the problem was, on sunday, we watched the movie "fast food nation" and more or less have been trying to figure out what our social responsibility is in regaurds to ethical consumerism...at the end of the day, I don't think I can support meat packing plants because of how dangerous they are when all of their workers (some being illegal imegrants) don't have health insurance etc. It's a human rights issue, not an animal one, but whatever--it's my reason for my actions--I'm not really an animal person, but if I were to give up all meat in protest of how animals are treated...I'd have to give up milk too, because seriously, dairy cows have it ROUGH...anyway, neither of us have eaten meat since sunday night as we contemplate all of this. So, the silence in front of the snack stand wasn't empty by any means....it was filled with silent screams and grieving moos of horrors past and present.

g: ...can I get a hot dog?
a: why are you asking me for permisison?...I'm not your Jimminy Crickett. You can do what I want.
g: ...i know, but the question I'm asking is can I get a hot dog?
a: Look...Today is YOUR day....(her eyes lit up here) but, you cannot have a hot dog.
g: (gasp) oh, I got really excited for a second. oh, no. (eyes fill with tears) I'm gonna need a second.
a: oh, I'm sorry, I was kidding. Today IS your day. You can get a hot dog if you want one...it's totally your day.
g: (holds up a finger to ask for silence as she fights back tears) Ok, ok...I'm almost good....I'm getting a hot dog...
a: I support that.

The movie was good.