lindsayliveshere.org

Janelle

I met Janelle in second grade, but we weren’t friends and she claims I wore the same pink dress with a cat on it every day. Likely. The next school year I was transferred to Sheridan Hill and didn’t see Janelle again until junior high, when she sat in front of me in like five classes because of alphabetical order. Then we were partners in French class. Then she had knee surgery and needed to be wheeled around, by yours truly. Then we were jointly shunned from dinner with our lunch-table friends before the 8th grade dance, thanks in part to Janelle’s crippled status. Then we swapped Christopher Pike novels and copies of Seventeen magazine and had sleepovers piled into the same bed with Sarah, and drank milkshakes made by Janelle’s dad, and dreamed about the future, and boys, and couldn’t believe we were leaving for college, and then — we kept in touch. And now I am visiting her in Taipei, and remembering how strong and radiant my good friend is, and am feeling lucky.

Memory holes

Last time I hung out with my two younger sisters, they brought up “the time we visited Deanna in Rochester”. I like to think I have a good memory. I like to think that I can at the very least conjure up a mental snapshot of a moment. Barebones: I can remember that it happened. But I did not (and do not) remember visiting Deanna in Rochester with siblings in tow. The blog tells me that the visit occurred. I’m linking to the post because it made me smile to think about how long Deanna and I have been friends, longer than I can remember.

String

On this trip I feel like a child following a string. I picture a skein of red yarn, thrown from a great height, unspooled, bounced down a staircase, chucked around the corner and down a deep dark tunnel. The string feels sticky, or dusty or damp, is crammed between the wall and the floor, is caught on a rock, or is fraying and holding on by a thread. When I was living in D.C. we wrapped a strand of pink yarn all the way around the White House. The yarn became its own urgent emblem, its own entity, much more valuable than what you’d pick up in Jo-Ann Fabrics, though that’s probably where it came from. (Almost exactly 7 years ago.) And this string feels similarly important. There’s something waiting at the end, good or bad, I’m not sure.

Street corner in quiet section of Taipei, afternoon

taipei corner smaller

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Need to decide which flavor to order at Cold Stone Creamery in Taipei?

cold stone

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This decision-making tool may be of little use. But the ice cream will still be delicious. Whatever you decide. (Me: peanut butter cup with extra peanut butter cups.)

Guatemala post: Three seconds of zen

lake vid

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The Geographic Cure

“Perhaps it goes without saying that I believe in the geographic cure. Of course you can’t out-travel sadness. You will find it has smuggled itself along in your suitcase. It coats the camera lens, it flavors the local cuisine. In that different sunlight, it stands out, awkward, yours, honking in the brash vowels of your native tongue in otherwise quiet restaurants. You may even feel proud of its stubbornness as it follows you up the bell towers and monuments, as it pants in your ear while you take in the view. I travel not to get away from my troubles but to see how they look in front of famous buildings, or on deserted beaches. I take them for walks. Sometimes I get them drunk. Back at home we generally understand each other better.”

- Elizabeth McCracken, An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination

See also: Pulling a geographic.

Time away

I have this hokey belief that like a radio I can tune in to the hearts of my very-very-beloved ones and feel that they’re ok and that they love me back. It’s one of those weirdo beliefs that I don’t dwell on or think about consciously. I cooked up this idea sometime in high school and it stuck, that intuition is real. But I’ve lost a little of that here in Taiwan — maybe that feeling of being loved is just the knowledge that I can text or call at any time, and you’ll be awake, and we’re both under daylight or both under nighttime. I’m too many time zones away.

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Possibly related. I just flipped through my Guatemala journal and saw that I wrote: “My big fear is that I will end up traveling alone in my 40s without kids or a husband. There I said it. Fuck you, feminism.”

Guatemala post: Scorpion

Times I’ve been legitimately terrified:

1) A mugging, in the company car, one night in D.C.
2) Domestic fights involving the throwing, the yelling.
3) An otherwise calm starry night, in Guatemala, the scorpion bite.

Four of us were about to head to sleep, after a long day of classes. We all lived in the same rental house, so we walked together, flashlights trained on the path ahead. Then a yelp – She looked at her ankle and said she’d been bitten by something, and when I looked down I saw the scorpion scuttle off into the underbrush. The next part I can only describe as panic. I can’t speak but she’s spun loose: “In a few minutes I won’t be able to breathe.” “Call my kids and tell them I love them.” Her son had been bitten by a scorpion in Mexico and almost died, the key won’t fit into the lock of our house, someone has sting medicine, no one has a phone, someone has a phone, a phone, calling our trip leaders, sending someone back to the workshop houses, ring, ring, ring,….

Helmut picks up my call and tells us that scorpion bites in Guatemala aren’t poisonous.

Blink.

Breathe.

Relay this news.

Blink.

Breathe. She wipes tears away, we hug her.

Then we bust out mugs from the kitchen and open three bottles of wine. And breathe.

This morning in Taiwan

Today I found a Dunkin’ Donuts.

Yes I’ve had local food.

Yes it is freaking delicious.

Noodles, dumplings, crepe-like pancakes wrapped around egg and veggies, custard tarts, pearl tea.

Have chopsticks. Will eat it.

BUT DUNKIN’ DONUTS!
So. Happy.

Guatemala post: Around the circle

In San Marcos I took a writing workshop. Ok, that’s not quite the correct phrasing. Lemme start again. There’s the idea of “break your eye open” — which is maybe an art school term, but I picked up from an episode of Six Feet Under where Claire goes to art school, and it means seeing things in new ways. The phrasing always sounded more precise, and closer to the feeling of really seeing something in a new way. So I forgot about Six Feet Under but remembered that phrase. Break your eye open.

Our routine: Wake up at 6am, breakfast of fresh fruit, granola and local yogurt, writing workshop all day, break for lunch, more workshop, break for dinner, wine and readings. Then sleep.

I could say: I took a writing workshop and then I went to sleep and then I woke up. But it was more like: A writing workshop broke my eye open and then sleep drowned me and morning dove under and pulled me out.

How to become an early riser

Switch time zones! It’s 4:42 am here and I am wide awake.

Wide awake and half a world away, says the song that I can’t remember now — Google tells me it’s by Less than Jake and maybe I’m taking it too literally but listen, I can’t help what thoughts come at 4:42 am.

Reasons it is hard to blog in San Marcos

1) The internet cafe’s six computers are all in use by a swarm of backpackers.
2) There is a shrieking mostly naked hippie child sitting on the floor of the internet cafe that makes you never want to have children, never ever.
3) You forgot to bring enough quetzales for the amount of minutes that are rapidly accruing, and there is no ATM in town.
4) The satellite that provides the internet to the town is not working.
5) You finally got on a computer but have the worst stomachache ever and can’t sit still more than five minutes.
6) All of the above.

Therefore! Though I’m in Taiwan, Guatemala updates are forthcoming.

Yo, Tokyo

I guess I’m in Tokyo, though maybe the actual city is quite far from the Narita airport. I was asked to take a survey by a very worried-sounding man wearing an armband that looked made by a fourth grader with a dot matrix printer. It said “TOURIST SURVEY” and I took their very adorable survey (“Would you go to shop near the airport if you knew where to go?” I checked “If my schedule allows”. The other option was “No I would not.”) And I received a free pair of chopsticks for my troubles. On to Taipei in about an hour.