Pictures!

Hello everyone who reads this,

I think I've figured out how to post pictures on Web Albums (or something).

Here is the link for photos of my first week here:

https://picasaweb.google.com/114379609394765551921/KualaLumpurMelakaAndPortDickson?authkey=Gv1sRgCMut766yluyucQ&feat=directlink

You have to copy and paste it I think.

If that doesn't work, will someone let me know?  Thanks!

My cerulean heartbeat

Malaysia's beauty equates only to that of my dreams. Flowers drape from chandeliers and lights hang from the already mystical looking trees. Nature is fighting back and slowly winning, climbing up massive towers and wrapping itself around the concrete as if to suck the life out of it. I need some of that, some more nature, a more symbiotic relationship with myself. I feel like here my heartbeat is cerulean (I am trying to expand my color vocabulary), as it pumps out neon signs and round faced woman behind head scarves, prayer calls and public transportation I feel totally and 100% transparent, sort of gliding through this country, slipping in and out between conscious levels as I become aware of my alone-ness and slowly emerge from feeling lonely. Some moments are hard so far, when my heart aches to be filled with memories already created, like my mind has been overwhelmed with new visions, new temples to rest itself, new merchants to trade with, new museums and people to learn from, that it automatically reverts back to safer times to escape trauma. The thought that I am gone for a year hurts me sometimes, but then I reconsider reconsidering that phrase. I chose this. I chose this time, these new things, I chose to leave, and I am not gone. I am here, and my grandmother (my goddess) years ago drew a circle around this very place that I would be today, making it safe for me to feel these feelings, for my heart to bleed blue and for me to turn my skin inside out like the fishies and cow heads that I saw at the market the other day.

I hate sitting with emotions. I want to cuss myself out when I force myself to do it, I want to black out and feel other people's emotions, their terrible and empty insides, instead of having to traverse my own Amazon...the piranhas of my memory are very snappy recently and I would much rather canoe out than let them nibble on my already feasted-on body. It's like I literally have to take all that I know, all that I have and throw it on my back and walk step my step to the emotional landmarks that I want to go to. Metaphorically enough, I got rid of some of my extra baggage today. I really thought I was going to miss Grey Shirt and Blue Tank Top, but then I let it go. I have to do that, I suppose, and sometimes it sucks, more than eating entire baby fried and salted fish for breakfast. Yup, it can suck more than that, even when that fish is accompanied with rice and peanuts and fire (aka spice).

So, sometimes, when I eat spicy food here, I feel like I might die. It's not a sudden death, nope, it's calm, cool and collected, much like Malaysians are. Like repelling into hell blindfolded. That's how Asian spice here is. Not like Tapatio and Cholula spice, which, compared to this, is just pogo-ing in and out of wildfires, breathing in ice air each time you jump. And definitely not like African pepper spice, which is like sitting in a jacuzzi full of fire balls and watching your epidermis slowly fade away. This spice is much worse, but the thing is I love it. And I love it for breakfast, even though it sucks. How does that work? This spice makes me laugh because people will put a small plate of jalapenos next to my plate of devils' breath to cool me down and it works. It makes me laugh because, like my experience here in general, I will be going along, thinking my green and orange and brown meal is totally fine and delicious and then WHAM! I drank all my lychee drink before I got my meal and now I can't breathe. To make that analogy more clear, so far in Malaysia, I have had at least 7 experiences where everything has been great (“It's only a one hour bus ride”) and then all of a sudden WHAM it becomes 5 hours with 2 connections. And I drank all my water in the first hour. And I have to pee. I love it! How can I love it? It makes me feel raw, it really makes me feel like my skin is inside out. And I can't fight it, I cannot do anything about it, and I have nothing to do. It's the most surreal feeling.

My first day in Kuala Lumpur!

 

4/10/11

In the stillness of this first morning, I have found peace. I woke up today at 6:30, surprisingly late because I fell asleep at 9 after a long...I don't even know how many days of traveling. The cool darkness of the Malaysian gloominess spoke to me, as just the dirty buildings and slums that are the foothills to their reigning hotel mountains groan and sweat in the humidity. I am, so far, absolutely in love with this place.

I tried to nap yesterday but ended up just taking some time to myself before asking Ria, the front desk guy, where to go to eat. He promptly said the place next door which looked too expensive, so I asked him where his favorite place was to eat and he said, “go right, right left”. Ok. I emerged from low-hanging trees and careless motorcycle drivers to find market stall after market stall, swaying gently beneath the mammoth buildings that are people's decaying homes. I couldn't figure out if it was the type of place where people walked in the street or not, so I did what other Malaysians do until I got honked at. This place was incredible, an onslaught of sensory material. No matter how much of a smelly soccer mom I looked, walking around in my tennis shoes, smiling like an idiot with my camera out and ready, I was united and unafraid. I walked up to a food stand and stared at piles and piles of sea animals barely alive inside their sea shell homes. Typically, I would walk right past something like this, afraid to be approached and to have to gently say no, I don't want to eat I'm just curious as to what the hell this is, and have to leave their sad faces behind. Or I would let my travel partner do the talking while I study the trees or the colors in people's outfits. But I wanted to know more about these animals on ice. Had I been at home, I would have collected the empty shells and placed then in my room as a beautiful jewelery holder and not even worried about the poor blob of meat aimlessly and homelessly floating around. But this was something special. The most intricately designed shells and fish- smooth ones, brown ones, thin ones, red and white ones, ones with pink meat on the inside, whole fish with no skin, whole fish with all their skin but no skin on the head – had me captivated. The adolescent restaurant “host”, if you will, asked me if I wanted to sit (in plastic chairs lining the busy street, inches away from a cars' side mirror when they pass). I said no thank you, but proceeded to ask him a million questions. His face lit up! My face lit up! Cultural exchange! I giggled, not with him, but with the words he was saying. I pointed to a twisty blue and green coarse shell and said “what is the name of this?” “Snail”. Oh. So I pointed to a red and white small conch looking shell, waiting for him to tell me its name was conch menoris of the red and white sands of the Malay Sea. “Snail”. Ok. I pointed to a green and brown long skinny one with meat hanging off it and said confidently, “snail”. He vehemently shook his head and said with a slight air of pretension, which I love to hear slipping out of 14 year old's mouths, “No, that's bamboo la-la”. I had to laugh. Of course! Bamboo la-la. They can BBQ it or simply fry it for me if I'd like. I pointed to my stomach in an effort to explain that I had just gotten here and already thrown up all the airport food I'd consumed, so maybe later. He smiled and I went on my way.

I continued on, taking pictures of the fry your own jellyfish stand and random balls of other stuff stand, and a prickly fruit that looks like something you could play a fun sport with. I settled for an aggressively charming restaurant host that already had my table set up by the time I walked into his jurisdiction. His female side-kick, with a cigarette hanging out the side, of her mouth showed me pictures of the food and I saw the dish that looked most appealing and bland for my recovering stomach, “spicy chicken noodle soup”. I asked for medium spice. My food was delectable. I got so frustrated with myself because I wanted so badly to eat with my chopsticks but then I couldn't shovel it in my mouth like I wanted to. Which in the end could have been a good thing, because the medium spicy still felt like my noodles were served to me in a light fire.

Around me, I watched Malay men pushing strollers and carrying babies, and women selling food, smoking and walking carrying fresh lobster. I saw families in the slum apartments above me changing baby diapers and living their daily life and I felt like a total outsider...a sponge soaking up everything this place could possibly offer me, noticing tiny little quirks that I find hilarious (some people call me “sister” here, which has happened almost everywhere I've gone). I love it, from the way women wait in lines at the bathroom, by waiting in front of the stall they want to go into and not waiting for the next one to open up, to the way my mind tricks me into thinking that babies are driving but really, the steering wheel is on the other side of the car. I am here, I am filling up.

Oh my gosh. I'm in the Taiwan Airport.

My thoughts throughout this enormously long flight mostly centered around when I was going to eat next, shit what the hell am I doing, how 8 hours escaped me (and whether or not my cheap watch was smart enough to change the time by itself...which it isn't), and how the poor guy next to me didn't understand any of the languages that the TV had to offer so he just SAT there for 14 hours and looked at the wall.  This airport is the most creatively odd place I have been in at 5:30 in the morning.  There are giant colorful animated children hanging from the ceiling with matching clouds and pots of gold, depending on their hairstyle and dress.  It's something I would definitely want to see again, and my travel-delirium makes it all the more hilarious.  There are neat machines here, and I tried to use the one that looked like it could fill up my water bottle with ice cold deliciousness just by pressing one button.  But, like most things, I was wrong about technology.  I put my water bottle in this contraption and pressed the button and nothing came out except the machine-woman's voice telling me something that must have been embarrassing because the guy walking by me laughed.  Then, I saw regular water fountains right next to me.  For now, in this cultural newness, I think simplicity is best. 

I can't believe that yesterday (or was it 2 days ago?) I said goodbye to everyone, to my house, to my dog, my friends, my family, and now I am alone.  Whew.  I feel partly relieved to have made it this far, and partly terrified about not knowing what I want to do when I get there.  I get to make the decisions, how crazy is that?  I'm off to look at more funny art in the airport.  Next time I write, I will be in Malaysia! 

Here I go!

4/5/11

I’m glad I’m leaving on a Thursday, and not a Tuesday.  Tuesdays, yellow and bland, enchilada hot-lunches and weak, starch washed grade-school jumpers always made me queasy with the idea that the day took so long to be over.  But Thursdays, deep blue and pleasant, like a blanket of leaves in my tree-house on a sunny afternoon, make me think I could actually sleep on a plane for once.  This trip, however haphazard and catastrophe-strewn it turned out to be, seems magnificently deep blue…it’s sensory capacity is almost blindingly familiar…it feels like the cold rush I got when I held my grandmother’s hands.  Her hands were always the perfect temperature for holding, not too warm to feel elegantly grandmother-like, but wholesome and cool, like walking into a room with a ceiling fan and soft lighting after a day in the bright sun.  She will walk with me on this trip (I’m bringing a tiny rose-scented rosary with a Mother Theresa emblem). 

I’ve been looking back on the time I spent here, this precious post-college, real life time of realization and actualization of dreams lost and harsh 9-5 days found, and find that there have been so many achievements for me and those around me.  Then, like a shot of whiskey, mortality angrily percolates through my veins and I worry that with this time lost, with me not being here, that my face will fade from trees and streets and houses and turn into time-mulch, forever waiting for me to find myself and come back to it and most of all, feel ok.  Baby Jenna said my name the other day, which is a secret goal I’ve had for a while.  All that subtle whispering in her ear was a success!  When she looks at me, innocence and its impeccable beauty fall gently from her wide open smile and I feel all the voids within me fill with the calmness of new life.  Which is great, especially because I’m sure after months and months of teaching this little puddle of inner Becca-child will come rushing out of me and I’ll love to love little ones, like I would love to love myself as a child.  One day.

Oooooh, the things I will miss, the comfortability (not a word yet) I have found and am forfeiting, the friends and the family who I am finally really connecting with, will all have to be put gently aside as I, for the first time in my entire life put myself unselfishly first, to fill all of my gaps and holes, to wake up and ask what I want to do, to know me in my rawest form.  Here I go!

Malaysia - forethoughts

3/27/11

It’s a hard realization for me to see that I am alone and that it’s not necessarily a bad thing.  The grips of loneliness won’t come seeping through my cold wooden floors and nibble at my sockless toes while I sit there crying, unless I let them.  I can go to Malaysia on my own.  Going by myself is a way to allow me to touch those parts previously untouchable and masked by my desperate need for companionship.  I worry about my safety, I worry I will hate it there, I worry that I will not meet people, that I will go to bed early and sleep in late and miss out on an entire country.  But I have to do it; I have a strange enigmatic desire to see this place, I just have understand that Malaysia wants to see me too.

3/30/11

In my dream last night, some wise elderly woman, grey hair messy and in her face looking stern like Grandmother Willow, told me that something beautiful happens when, and only when, I can see two worlds at once.  When I can look at one thing and see two different things is when I would become enlightened, or I guess enlivened.  We were in a world full of illuminated bugs, who balanced and floated on top of a dark and pearly stream.  They had two faces; they’re ugly bug faces that I hated and then this beautiful white, glowing, angelic mask that gently lit up the water around them.  I'm not quite sure what this dream means, but I will take in into consideration that underneath what I usually think is my ugly mask, there is an angelic mask...I just have to look for it.

I'm still preparing....there's a lot I didn't acount for.

3/25/11

Ahh blogs.  I can’t figure out what that word means and please don’t tell me.  Google has really gone in-depth on the importance of regular blogging, and I’m tired of googling how to journal about my life.  Technological ignorance will always be bliss for me.  Once I get past the fear that there is “internet” lingering around me, I will feel confident enough to learn about things like networks and wi-fi and Twitter.  Blogging is about as far as I will go for now, sans text messaging, which I love.  Hopefully I can put pictures up one day.  This trip so far has been everything from a road trip, to a radiation-filled pipe dream, to a road trip in New Zealand, to drinking on the beaches in Fiji, to canceling and refunding all our tickets (the chance to buy a ticket anywhere in the world would make hearts turn purple with excitement), and now to teaching in Thailand for a year.  Gasp.  I have done the research, I have Google-imaged everything that has popped into my head about South-East Asia and from there decided that the only real things I want to see are rice paddies in Bali and tea plantations in Malaysia.  Those images are inspirations in and of themselves.  To nicely complement the heavenly pictures, I have had the fear of God barrel down on me in the form of my parents and henceforth spent a significant amount of time pale-faced and panicked at work researching the white slave trade, the Thai Mafia, and how much radiation it would take until….various weird things happen (real gems of advice, Mom and Dad, thank you ;)).  Regardless, I feel prepared and significantly indignant at the culture in which I currently reside through forced viewings of Fox News at the gym and my inability to go outside because of the rain to want to leave here and pick up somewhere else.  I finally think I feel ready.

Parts of it I will miss, and you know who you are.  I won’t go into yet because being in Thailand in a classroom full of six year old cuties won’t hit me until about two weeks into it and that’s when I’ll know.  Right now, I still feel that empty feeling.  If I were to look inside of me, there it would be, a little girl in a pink dress sleeping on the ground with my baby blue blanket on a yellow Tuesday.  I don’t know why my mind twists and turns like that, but I feel that small in these preparations.  For the past year and a half I have looked so inward to all this pain and discomfort, I have spoken out and gotten squashed, I have yelled and gotten my vocal chords sung out of me like Ariel from the proverbial Ursula.  My poor unfortunate soul is tired of feeling this way.  I got tired of it.  Tired of the dark colors, of the routinely brown and green meals, of the black and purple work attire, of the same temperature and interaction every day.  Tired of hearing about women’s journeys over the phone as I sucked in their broken hearts, fixed it, and gave them my whole one in return.  I always did this, this past year, I always did this.  I would be like, “Hey, you look broken.  I’ve been broken before.  I’ve fixed myself and although I’m not whole, I can bear the pain because I’ve carried the load for years.  Let me take your broken heart and put it in my chest and I will have your burden”.  I can’t do that anymore, so I back all the hearts faster than a Vegas Blackjack dealer and booked a plane ticket on the path to self-discovery.  And, despite how ready I feel, I am totally freaking out.

Later that afternoon...

I watched a tree cry, colors melting together through my steamy window looking like my warm little hands after I would hold a bunch of Skittles, and wondered how I wandered so far from that place, where words would fall from my mouth like delicious morsels, where I would write novels in bathtubs like King BidGood, where love was so painful it would wash me away in a self-inflicted puddle and happiness was a faraway storm cloud.  How could this creativity, this mass of neons and blurs of pastels, of Saturdays and fluorescent lights and circle beams have escaped me?  And then I feel worn down into a little nub.  Plain and simple.  It didn’t escape me, it was worked out of me. The colors have left me bland and smiling.  No more dark pit, no more addicted love I am cured of that.  I have normalcy and I dislike it, it stings my eyes like the dust from the back of pick-up trucks, causing my fear of cars going in reverse.  Like Gabriel Garcia Marquez I want to live in a dark and sweaty haze.  I can’t wait for that amorous gaze, those curtains in the wind overlooking sail boat toys in the water, strolls through cemeteries with black umbrellas wavering in the heat, houses full of boxes and boxes waiting to be unpacked and examined… here I come to a land without my language.  Now I’m getting it, now I’m excited!

Emotional preparation

Since this blog thing won't let me post what I've written in chronological order, I inserted the dates to give you a better idea of how grueling my thought process was before I embarked on this marvelous path.

3/23/11

I am wandering and I have to be ok with it, because for now, that’s what I am passionate about.  I have this emptiness inside of me, this part that knows I can’t stay here.  For so long I was like a lost child in the dark, running away from a terrible yet familiar monster. Running from darkness and into darkness, so horrified by what everything was and so pained by the obscurity of the future that I stopped running and sat down in the middle of everything and put my hands over my ears and shut my eyes tightly.  I can’t do that anymore, Santa Barbara has stopped being good sitting grounds, the storm has passed and although the monster still needs slaying I need to move on.  I need to go into the unknown, to stand up and stretch my legs for a while.   I’m taking with me a picture I have of the younger me, the four year old me, sitting on a bench and holding on to it tightly, but preparing to let go and finally stand up.

Later…

How do I prepare for something like this?  I’m worried that I’ll get there and feel nothing, like the last couple times I went anywhere and felt like not even a beautiful place could fill me up because I was empty.  This has to be wonderful, this has to be beautiful, this has to be me, being adventurous, discovering my Beccaroots…who I am, what I like.  Regardless of what everyone else thinks I like, I feel like I don’t know what it is that I actually enjoy doing.  I get a serious inferiority complex when I hear about other people doing other things and I am unsure if what I’m doing will ever match up to what they have done, what they are doing, what they want to do.  I simply have tried a lot, and still don’t know.  I know what I don’t want, and I know a little bit about what I’m good at, but that’s it.  I’m laughing at myself because I feel like I’m normal, and everyone else who knows what they want is out of their mind. 

Just so you know...

This blog will be like an X-Ray of this journey, a walk through my mind, an emotional brain scan.   Most of it will be unfiltered, unorganized, and I’ll probably forget important details from time to time (just like how I normally do). Enjoy!