For more than half a year, the idea of moving to Vietnam has hung over my head. Dark and heavy, it was my cartoon rain cloud. I came to know my constant companion; not as you know an intimate friend, but as you know the mole on the back of your neck. Never having seen it in your life, you know the shape, the size, the hardness. And so the question inevitably became, just how big is this thing anyway?
It's eight months big.I first gave birth to the idea when I said it out loud in August of 2007. "I think I could live here." Six words. It wasn't much of a birth - a sad little preemie on life support. I never thought my little newborn would survive, but little by little the idea took root. It overcame so many growing pains. What would I do with all my stuff? What would I do with my car - my beloved Veronica? How would I earn a living? And now it's all grown up (for those who don't know this bit of common knowledge, one month in idea years is equal to 2 human years - my little baby was a young adult).
It's eight months and three parties big.The average going away needs to be fed one bon voyage party. My chubby little big boy needed three. The first one is only good for a month or two, then you get hungry again and need a midnight snack, as it were. The first party was a combined Super Bowl/Bon Voyage, teeming with friends who came out from under rocks. I love you guys. Really. And I hate those damn Giants. Seriously, the fricking New York GIANTS?! Damn but the Patriots deserved that win. We paid for it in blood all season long. Sigh, but I digress. The second party was a BBQ. Thanks, Emily, you rock. And the last was an impromptu gathering at Hog Island Oysters, my old SF haunt.
It's eight months and three parties and a dozen meals big.Memories are created in the stomach. It's true, science has proven this. The stomach bone is connected to the backbone, the backbone is connected to the jawbone... blah blah blah... is connected to the memory bone. Like a man on death row, I savored my last supper. Except that I had more than a dozen last suppers. Every meal etched on my memory. As I spend the next two-odd years eating Vietnamese food, these memories of foods forgotten will forever tie me to San Francisco.
It's as big as a jumbo jet.I was with friends until the last minute before going to the airport. I wouldn't have it any other way. As I stood at the window of the gate looking outside, I instantly recognized my constant companion. It was a jumbo jet, the physical incarnation of the last eight months. I gave the gate attendant my boarding pass. And promptly fell down the rabbit hole. I woke up in Taipei, still groggy from airplane sleep, that insidious whore-cousin of true, honest sleep. She'll go anywhere with you but she never gives you enough, always toying with you.
Oddly enough, Taipei seems to be populated with fuzzy people. Like fluffy white clouds, they resemble anything from unicorns to leprechauns to Hello Kitty. I rub my eyes to clear out the eye snot and everything sharpens. The unicorn becomes a beautiful girl. The leprechaun becomes the mewling brat from row 25. Hello Kitty becomes... Hello Kitty? I rub my eyes again, but Kitty will not go away. I've arrived at the gate to my next connection and apparently, it has been completely redecorated to become a "Hello Kitty" gate, complete with Hello Kitty-shaped gate podium. I wander the terminal and apparently my gate is the only one with special treatment. Rabbit hole indeed.
It's me.As I finally land in Ho Chi Minh City, the cloud which has been over my head these last eight months finally lifts and I see what it has been hiding. This thing which has been with me, this need to move forward, this need to explore, this need to find out for myself. It wasn't a separate thing after all. The whole time... it was me. It's who I am. It's what makes me tick. And thirty three years later - almost to the day - I'm finally home.
