Lost [In Translation]

Airports are the best places to people watch. Everyone is either coming or going. Arriving or departing. The push and pull of people like waves in the sea. You can see lost loves, families, friends. You can create storylines in your head for each character, creating a play-by-play of the conversation you think that they are having. This transience is a permanent fate for the airport terminal. A series of ghosts projected from one place to the next. A creepy eeriness, preserved in a snaphot glimmer of time.

* * *
February 1987. I was three, almost four years old. Everyone was taking pictures of me and my ma. Group pictures with me, lola and lolo (grandma and grandpa), and all my aunts and uncles too... I didn't understand why everyone seemed so sad. Why everything seemed so special. I felt so lost. They never took pictures. Why now, all of a sudden?

This was the day I would start my journey to the States, where I would live out my entire life. How do you explain to a child that you are going someplace far away, new, and different; and that the rest of your family is going to be left behind? You don't. You just take them along, like the luggage on your back, and hope that a "goodbye" will suffice.

There I was, in my favorite color pink, dark brown eyes in wonderment of a big world. The airport swallowed me whole. Spit me out. We were waiting for our connecting flight in Tokyo. Ma recalls I had made a friend. A little girl my age. We were playing and lost track of time. And, apparently, our mothers. We were lost, and the airport was so big. This was nothing like the supermarket. My concept of big was shaken and my worldviews stirred.

What if I am not found?

Two security men found us crying. They took us to our mothers. Somehow, they knew.

* * *
We lived in a duplex apartment, ironically, by the airport. Our neighbors next door that shared the other side had a little daughter my age; a blonde girl. I'm sure I looked absolutely alien to her. I'm sure I still looked lost. I didn't know English then, and the only thing I knew how to say was "My name is..." and "I'm from...". I told her where I was from. She said there's no such thing as that place and laughed. I cried. How could you invalidate the last three years of my small existence? How could you invalidate where I was from? Because I could no longer see my home, my island, did that mean that it no longer existed? Surely, if it was once tangible, then it is still there. Somewhere between time and space.

All my life, I've never felt like I've belonged anywhere. Slightly out of place. Maybe this was a bad start.

* * *
I am playing violin with a group of people from the town I have landed on for the last three years of my life. The town I had shared with my ex. The town I have now moved a mere 40 minutes away from. Driving back there triggers feelings. I shake back tears, even still, as Stone Temple Pilots play on the car radio; our first concert together, but apart; a disconnected experience. Tears do not come, but I am in awe of the expansive horizon and beautiful twilight purple-red hues reflecting across the mountains and on clouds.

The town sits past a drive of ranging cattle. This is rural country. The kind of town Other people wonder about inbreeding, in their quiet low whispered tones. The only asian in a sea of white, average, Christian Republicans. I am an outsider. What am I doing here? I scowl at the highschool with violin in tow. I brave the crowd and face my commitments.

Even now, where I live is too isolating. I have made friends, but I do not feel that this is my home. Still lost. Wondering where to next. Wondering my next move, if any. I still remember those airports vividly. Some are a blur, but others emblazened in my memory. PDX. LAX. Honoululu. Tokyo. Hong Kong. Manila. Cebu.

* * *
This transience flows through me like a gentle spring. Every once in awhile, a small rock plops into the pool creating a ripple effect; a reverberating reminder that transience pulls me. Perhaps there is a reason why LOST is my favorite TV show. An anachronistic space-time movement. Flickers of past, present, future in distorted random occurences; a mindfuck.

The current season focuses on the character's pull back towards the island. In the first couple seasons, they had spent all their time trying to get out of the island. Trying so hard to be found. What if I am not found? Now, they long to go back. They are destined to go back. The island wants them to. Whether on the island or off, the recurring theme in the character's lives is that they are lost, floundering, traversing life out of synch. The airport remains as a symbol to time, that all things, places, and people are impermanent.

My island is calling me. Tempting me to go back. Telling me that I will be found. My island exists and I must go back soon. The Philippines may be my next destination of permanent impermanence. This feeling, this calling, formulatating thought bubbles in my head that are starting to formulate a goal.

What if I am not found?

I have never been good with action, but inaction stirs me awake from slumber. The water flows gentle then rough as more rocks shake the current. A masters degree is calling my name in the city my heart belongs to. My home town. For now, the bubbles gather, waiting for decision. Lost in translation.

[Written for Sunday Scribblings: #152 Lost. Click for more lost wanderings.]