Souvenirs of Mind, Souvenirs of Material

Now, some people might call “souvenirs of mind” memories. However, when it comes to my thoughts about it, when I say a souvenirs of mind, I mean a buried memory, one that is to be brought out by smell, by taste, by touch, by seeing something that reminds you of something or hearing a song that gives you a flashback. Not those easily manifested memories of who, what, where, when, why, and how, but those experiences that you forgot that you had: the smell of milky chai first thing in the morning, looking at a scarf and remembering how your friend gave it to you as you celebrated your birthday thousands of miles away from your home, the lingering smell of a lover on an old, forgotten scarf, finding a letter written to you by someone you care about and remembering detail in there, the song in a different language you first heard blasting out of car speakers, the smell of a dirt road in a foreign country, the feel of a small hand in yours, the laughter of a stranger that sounds like the laughter of a friend far away…

Some souvenirs of mind come from having souvenirs of material. A scarf (TZ). A jacket (IE). A statue or t-shirt (NI). Even a German newspaper clipping that you can’t read. All of these have memories attached to them, places that come to mind with the feel of the material, of the paper, of the soapstone.

I like material souvenirs that come from places that I haven’t been to. Postcards from France or Japan. A t-shirt and Monopoly in French from Canada. Earrings from Mexico. A purse from India. A calendar, t-shirt, or necklace from Hawaii. It sticks out in my mind when somebody takes the time to get me something when they visit somewhere. It means that I came across their mind, even for a moment as brief as the bat of a butterfly’s wing.

This is why I collect little things when I go somewhere. Even a necklace can hold a lot of power. (That may be a thinly veiled Harry Potter reference, but hey, even he had various types of souvenirs on his journey).

So even if a souvenir is small, is cheap, or even better, not material at all, it is still important to the memory of that place.

Have a great Monday!

Goodbyes Part 2: When It Hurts to Say Goodbye...

There are times in my life where the only thing I wanted to do was to resist the challenge of leaving, stay in comfort, and continue whatever little life I had made at that point in time…

I had no trouble whatsoever leaving New Jersey. I was a little apprehensive, but other than that, completely excited to start a new chapter in my life. It was scary, leaving everything and everyone I knew behind, going to a school 3,000 miles away where I didn’t know a single soul, didn’t know the correct “slang,” didn’t know anything. But it was an adventure and that is what I was looking for.

Now, the prospect of leaving this place haunts everything I do. I officially move out of Los Angeles and down to San Diego on August 10th. I officially move out of Southern California on August 28th. I officially return to New Jersey on September 2nd. I don’t want to do any of this (well, maybe San Diego, because it is beautiful, but I do, in all honesty, prefer LA).

Los Angeles has captured my heart and my soul. I love my family and friends on the East Coast, and I look forward to unlimited (sort of) time with them, but it is going to be a hard adjustment to make. I have fallen head over heels in love with Los Angeles. The city. The proximity to the beach. The transit system. The backdrop of the mountains to the skyscrapers. All of it. The good and the bad. The homeless and the people walking by them with their Coach purses and Manolo heels. Skid Row and Rodeo Drive. The acrid smell of downtown streets and the fresh, salty air of Santa Monica. All of it.

I do not want to leave. But I have to. And it makes me extraordinarily sad.

As sad as I am, I am also very excited to start a new life for myself, to show the people I grew up around how much I have changed, to really have people take notice of my skills and my intelligence and my passions.

Despite all of this, I know I am going to have days where I am absolutely miserable at home. I’m also going to have awesome days. It is hard to be rational and emotional at the same time.

A more concrete example: Leaving Ireland was probably one of the hardest things I have had to do in my lifetime. I found love. I found friendship. I had immediately found people who just “got” me. I had never had that. I had companionship. And even though I’m glad I left when I did, both because of the experiences that came from leaving early, and the knowledge that the longer I stayed, the harder it would be to leave, I’m still getting tears in my eyes writing about it.

The fresh air of Ireland. Not a single building above three stories (in Galway). Truly being on my own, to cook, to clean, to do laundry, to take care of myself. Truly feeling like an adult, like I had a responsibility to myself to make up for how juvenile I had been when I went to Germany as a freshman in high school. And Niall (HI! I know you read this sometimes!).

Falling in love in a foreign country is a downright dangerous thing to do. Leaving love in a foreign country can be even more dangerous, for your heart, for returning home, for your dreams and wondering what could have been if you had only had the courage to leave all of your attachments and follow your heart. Even though I am far too sensible for that, it still crosses my mind. Love so intense that it produces an eight-page poem that just keeps getting stanzas added on.

Falling in love for the first time in a foreign country is even more dangerous. I had never felt companionship like that. Being taken care of felt amazing. Waking up to see his face in the morning, smiling. Getting used to the feeling of warmth on your back as you cuddle, of always having somebody around who will do whatever you want to do because they want to see you happy, of having somebody to adventure with.

Facebook. Twitter. Letters. Email. Blog entries. We can still stay in touch, and yet we’ve moved on.

Goodbyes are a funny thing, because sometimes you think you have forever and you go slow, and sometimes the goodbye looms eminent, always threatening to pierce your happiness. Either way, they are always the hardest when you don’t want to let go, whether you have fallen in love with a person, or a place.

That is why I both love and kind of dislike airports. So many hellos after a long time apart, and so many goodbyes that leave the air heavy.

I hope your weekend is going well so far.

Terrible Travels, Part 1

The first time I flew to USC, to actually go there rather than go to orientation or go to see it, was a terrible, terrible experience. My beautiful, wonderful, amazing friends had decided to throw me a surprise going away party to say “goodbye for now.” It was great! They signed posters, made me a cake, everything. The only problem was that my flight was the next morning, so early that my mom and I were leaving the house at 4am so that we could make it to the airport in time for our 6 or 6:30am flight (I can’t remember the exact time). My friends stayed until 2am…

So I had to rush to pack everything I would need for the first four months of school, ended up falling asleep for a little bit, and then we finally left the house around 4:45 or 5am, way too late to even begin to be on time.

When we got to the airport, the line was incredibly long for so early in the morning. Needless to say, we missed our flight, but only barely. Meanwhile, my mom is yelling (that is her go-to thing when she is frustrated) and I am crying (that used to be my go-to thing, not so much anymore) and there are people staring and it just felt awful.

So the airline nicely rescheduled our flight for an hour or two later, and we were on our way to Phoenix in no time. Oh yes, Phoenix, because we had to fly to my grandmother’s, where we then drove her car from there to Los Angeles. It wasn’t too bad, except for the fact that we got lost on the highway because if you do not know Los Angeles freeways, they can be pretty darn confusing. Now, I can’t imagine my life without them. Then, I couldn’t believe they were so huge!

We got lost, but we found our way anyway. Then, there was major traffic because EVERYBODY was moving in, and then we couldn’t find my apartment building. After that, it’s not too memorable, so I’m sure it was uneventful.

The trip started out terribly and ended normally. If you ever feel frustrated, just think of how much worse it can be, or how much better it can get!

Have a great weekend!

PS – I submitted the first part of my Peace Corps Medical Packet today!

There is nothing quite like... (a list)

There is nothing quite like…
- the view of downtown Los Angeles from the 10 freeway on a clear night
- the smell of Galway, Ireland after a rainstorm
- the feel of the sand between my toes at the base of the Santa Monica Pier
- the view of the sunset over the mountains from the top of the hill in Babati, TZ
- the smell of authentic Nicaraguan food being served in from of you
- the taste of homemade peanut brittle sold off the side of the road by the woman who sits there day after day
- the smile on my family’s face when I return home
- the laughter that rings in my ears from my friends when we finally get the chance to go out
- the feel of a strange child’s hand in mine
- the flood of urine down a PJ pants leg because I was too scared to go to the outside outhouse alone
- the shame of confessing that last one
- the silence and darkness of a village street with only the moon as my guide
- the view of the stars in the middle of a field in upstate NY, in Manague, Nicaragua, in Babati, TZ… all different, but beautiful, patterns of pinpricks of light in the night
- the taste of a new food, a new country
- the taste of authentic Swiss chocolate, bought in Switzerland
- the beauty of a new language as it rolls off the tongue of a new friend
- the songs that you bring back in your heart
- the experience of Travel.

(Feel free to add your own in the comments! I would love to hear them!)

The Reason for the Title of this Blog

The title of this blog may seem a little sad to some, but I think of it in a happy sense. When I travel alone, which I do a lot, actually, I get to do my own things, make my own plans, and best of all, it makes me put myself out there and get to know more people. For instance, the past two times that I have gone to Washington DC, I have driven there alone, and stayed there alone, and both times have amazing stories attached to them. I see the ability to be content traveling alone as a gift, really. I have started conversations with people I never would have reached out to had I not had somebody with me. Although, I have to admit, flying alone is sometimes no fun because then you have to lug your baggage with you everywhere you go, so if you have to use the restroom, you have to pile everything together and lose your seat at the same time. But other than that, as long as I have my cell phone so my parents (or whoever is looking after me, in a sense) know that I am okay, I love the freedom.

Don’t get me wrong, I love traveling with people too, but sometimes, when you only have a small amount of time in any given place, two people may not see eye-to-eye on where to go and what to do.

When I am alone, I am unafraid to venture out on my own, to meet people and befriend them, talk to them and get their stories, their opinions, their life experiences. When I am alone, I am free.

A famous singer once said, “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.” But, I don’t think so. Freedom is adventure, a way to escape a reality you may not find all too satisfying for just a little while, to do something you may not have thought of doing before. Traveling is freedom.

When Cars Suck

So yesterday was my 22nd birthday. It was nothing special, really, just a normal day. Except for the fact that my car broke down. Twice.

I love my car. Despite the fact that the gas gauge is broken, and the air conditioning, and the dash, I am still really attached to my car. It is my first… it is in my name, my responsibility alone. And even though it fails me sometimes, I think it is a brilliant piece of machinery, despite being over 20 years old.

But it is quite unfortunate when one of the only things that gives you the freedom to explore and travel on your own time decides that it no longer wants to abide by any time, and stops working. Especially when you are headed to work. On your birthday.

My car gives me freedom to move, to not be stuck in the small circle of busing around LA, to be able to drive my friends places and have that however-long car ride to deepen our connection, to be able to get away when everything seems to be going wrong. But my car also shackles me: to registrations, to license plates that fall off, to parking tickets for forgetting about street cleaning, to gas money, to the little odds and ends that come up that need to be fixed.

This post is just basically talking about how, when we are attached to something tangible, like a car or a train or a plane, or even a house, for those who do not like to travel, we are never really free. But the freedom that that object provides may just be worth it.

Goodbyes

I’m going to put this out there right now: I am a big, mushy sap. I cry easily both tears of happiness and tears of sadness, although this has become less frequent with age. I’m the kind of person who watches “The Lion King” and cries when Mufasa dies. That sappy.

And yet, goodbyes have become so easy for me that I am afraid I have lost a bit of human connection with the severity of the goodbye. I never cry when I say goodbye anymore. I don’t really cry when I say hello after an extended period of time, either, unless the person saying hello back is crying (usually my mother). I have become very good at leaving, and somewhere within my traveler self, that scares me a lot.

Let me give you a little background: I am extraordinarily close to my family. I grew up in a huge extended Irish Catholic family. My father’s entire side of the family (his brothers and sister, and their spouses and children) all live within an hour of where I live, with two of the families (one of my uncle’s and his wife and daughters, and my grandparents) living in the same town as me. Christmases and Easters were always family time. “The cousins,” as we like to call ourselves, now range in age from 26 years old all the way down to one year old. We even now have a cousin-in-law and a second cousin. That close. I’m the fourth oldest, and when my older cousins all left for college (all within NJ), they barely came home for the holidays to see the family. I always promised my littler cousins that I would never be that person. But I have been much, much worse than that, disappearing for months at a time to a far off place in search of a dream I have had since I was little.

Off topic, but relevant: When I say this is a dream I’ve had for as long as I can remember, it is more true than even I knew. I was going through papers this week and found a worksheet from 7th or 8th grade on “Creating a New Identity” (in case we needed to go into Witness Protection for some odd reason), and under where I would move were two things I wrote: Montana and California. And I made it to California. Even in high school, my friends called me a hippie and a California girl. It is like I was destined to move out there.

But, back to the topic: Goodbyes. Family. How it has become too easy. I saw most of my family at my graduation party a few days ago, and all of my cousins were asking when I was finally going to be home for good. No matter how long I am gone, they love me and they want to hang out with me.

I guess, for me, goodbyes have become something that just comes with living, especially as someone who is chasing dreams in far-off lands. It is so nice to come home to people who watched me grow up, who know who I was and how much I have grown, to people who don’t hesitate to offer me a ride from the middle of town to my house when it is raining. As much as I have complained about growing up in a boring suburban town that has everyone acting the same and was “so stifling” when I was a teenager, I am so grateful that I have had that experience. It makes coming home so much easier than if I absolutely hated it.

However, I don’t know if I can accurately call NJ my home anymore. I fit in there because I carved a few niches for myself there, because my family is there, because my best friends from high school are there, but I don’t feel truly alive there. I can handle small doses, but I don’t know how I am going to survive in the fall when I have to be there for a full four months. I’m so used to being on my own and doing what I want and reporting it to nobody, that having to live with my parents again, in a town that hasn’t really seen me blossom as my new self, so different from who I was when I left, scares me to no extent.

My mom asked if, when I return from the Peace Corps, I’m going to return to NJ or go back to Los Angeles. In all honesty, I’m hoping to go back to LA, but I don’t know if that is possible. I know LA. I have become an adult in LA. I know all of the highways, my way around downtown, which bus to take to get where, the fastest way to Disneyland. My sorority sisters are there. Some of my best memories have been made at USC. Being a graduate is weird. Knowing that I may be leaving forever in August is even weirder.

I think I’m going to cry when I say goodbye to LA because it may not be temporary. And that is the key to my goodbyes these days. They just feel temporary. My place, my home, at any given time, is temporary to me. Leaving NJ this time was so easy, and coming back is going to be one of the hardest things I will ever do, I think.

Have a great week!

Lots of Traveling!

Ok, so maybe not a lot, however, I did travel home on Friday evening. Easy drive to LAX, easily got through security (thank goodness they didn’t try to put me through the x-ray machine!), and then easily found my gate. I read while I waited to board, managed to fit both of my carry-on items in the overhead compartment (here’s a tip: If you have a purse, and you want to have two carry on items, leave enough room in one to fit your purse in, that way, you can still have your purse under your seat without having the trouble of not having any leg room), and sat down, ready to sleep until I landed in Charlotte, my one stop on the way home.

I love red-eyes for the sheer fact that I can fall asleep in one state and wake up in another. However, we hit extraordinarily bad turbulence about an hour into the flight. It was so bad, it had me on the edge of my seat, gripping onto the arm rests with white knuckles, and I’m a pretty seasoned, pretty calm traveler. It was scary, but allowed me to see something I have never seen before, a beauty which I cannot believe I have missed out on in the past (and obviously, I’m safe, so it was totally worth the bumpy wake-up call): a clear, star-filled sky. And between the few lights on the ground and the huge amount of stars, it was hard to tell where the earth stopped and the sky began. It was breathtakingly beautiful and it felt like I was flying gently through space. I cannot even describe the wonder that filled my heart at the sight. I didn’t know if I was going to be alright, but I did know I had just witnessed something extraordinarily ordinary.

I forget about the stars sometimes, living in Los Angeles. There are always lights and smog, so they only come into my consciousness when I’m looking for them, or when one happens to piece through the thickness of LA pollution. I can’t wait to be in Sub-Saharan Africa, able to see every star in the sky, the beauty in the calm. Although, right now, I would give anything to be back in LA. As much as I love my family, I really, truly feel comfortable in LA. I know the freeways, my friends are there, and the sunshine and warmth are so inviting.

There was more turbulence another hour or so later, worse than the first time because we were flying through the middle of a rainstorm. I literally just sat in my seat talking to myself “I want to see my mom. I want to see my dad. I want to see Brendan,” over and over again. It was a bit of a calming mantra. Although I say that I am ready to die, sometimes, in those moments of clarity, I know I have so much more that I can give with whatever time is given to me.

Also, my brother graduates high school tomorrow! So then he starts his life’s adventure (even though he is not as much of a traveler as I am).

Have a great week!

The Peace Corps

So in a little over six months, if everything goes as according to plan, this will become a “Peace Corps” blog for a little over two years. This is exciting a nerve-wracking and makes me want to cry tears of happiness everywhere. I have wanted this for so long, for as long as I can remember. And now, now it is so extraordinarily close, and it scares the living daylights out of me, because once we achieve our dreams, what are we left with? I can’t wait to travel and live somewhere completely different for two entire years, really being on my own, and hopefully learning as I attempt to help those around me.

As of right now, I will be leaving in January of 2012 for a French-speaking Sub-Saharan African country to do Health Extension work. So basically, I will be doing what I have always wanted to do. I am so excited! This will bring so many new adventures…

Have a great end of the week!