i send my SOS to the world- this is my message in a bottle. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bittersweet Beginnings I'm here. I live in San Francisco. It's taken me three whole days to find some time to sit down and write. I've been practically aching to write, wanting to chronicle each one of these fleeting passing moments in a very crucial time, but each minute has ticked by so quickly that here it is three days in and I haven't had any time to write anything at all. But needless to say, I've been writing it in my head, drinking in everything with each quiet scenic view and hiccuping laughter and conversation. I'm learning new people and learning myself again in the process. I feel like there is so much to say that it's hard to figure out exactly where to begin, find some sort of cohesive beginning point to a huge journey. On Wednesday, Emily and I ran errands and she took me to lunch at DaKine in PB. The weather was beautiful the two days before I left, typical Southern California days. Balmy and warm, people walked around PB in bikinis and flipflops. I sat at a table with a view of the water kind of took in all the things I love about home the best. The weather, the laidback streets of faces heading west towards the beach, hawaiian barbeque. Before I left, the friends all came out to Keith's to have dinner with me. I was really touched that I was able to see my friends before I left, especially considering I didn't think I was gonna have time to do it. Then, Jade, Dan, Gil and Cheryl came and watched me pack, put away all the things I love best into bags to unpack later, overpack and repack. We said our goodbyes and I waved to them from the open window of my car. I felt almost nostalgic for something that currently existed, drinking in their faces from the overhead streetlight as I pulled away from the street to go say goodbye to my grandparents. Saying goodbye to my grandparents was doubly difficult because there are no guarantees that they'll live until I return. I tried not to think of that, but it remains a realistic reality. I sat by my grandfather's bed, talking about my trip, life and leaving. I said my goodbyes, pressing my cheek to his wrinkled one, trying to somehow express in a hug to a frail body how I felt. I leaned in to get his last words of advice to me before I left, the oxygen machine hissed and he said into my ear..."Bring home the bacon." Hahaha. So I shall try to bring home good grades this semester to make him proud. My grandma was truly the one that got to me. She went to the hospital two days before I left, and while she seems stronger than my grandpa, there are no guarantees either. But we sat on her living room couch, looking at pictures while my grandmother told stories. In that moment I choked up but I stifled it well, I think. So as I was leaving, she handed me an envelope of money as a gift. She also passed on her words of wisdom to me as I hugged her in the doorway of her apartment. In her lilting filipino accent, she said, "Angela...don't trust ANYBODY." HA. And to reassure her, I patted her on the shoulder and said, "Don't worry grandma, I won't." I left the next morning, on Thursday. I spent all night repacking my things, loading the car and generally grooming so that I wouldn't look weird when I got to San Francisco. At 3am I went out to load things into my little white car, and the night was this still warm that only required a tanktop. The sky was so clear, and while I don't know if that was a perception of my leaving heart, I'll remember staring into the sky and knowing this was my last SoCal night in this chapter of my life. It seems very neatly marked, and while saying that is making a huge assumption about my time here, actually being here has not altered my idea that this is something that will mark different periods of my life and development. An interim perhaps. That morning, I almost laughed in spite of myself. An unexpectedly hard goodbye came...when I said goodbye to my dog. HAHA. He's my baby! I picked him up and kissed the stinky top of his head. I'll miss hearing him follow me around the house, his tinkling chain following me. Next was my sister, whom we visited at work and got coffee from. I got kinda choked up about it, but then we were on the road before I tried to think of it to much. I pulled on my purple aviator sunglasses and we were on our way. The only real crying came on the grapevine, on the empty stretch of road on the I-5 that seems like a straight line. It was quiet and I was driving and I popped in the CD I had made for the occasion. It was from my iPod's "Bittersweet Beginnings" playlist. I let each song kinda punctuate the moment, letting all the doubts and sadness I had about about leaving the people I loved come over me. Looking back it is the saddest CD ever full of songs about loss and love, but perhaps I needed a sort of catharsis to let leave it behind me and have that little time to lament so that I can really make the best of all of it once I was there. It was kinda poetic, but also slightly hazardous to drive, solitary tears emerging from beneath my sunglasses in the sanctity of the car. The weather was grey and overcast, and the further we got from SoCal the more the warmth dissapated which probably added to my sad nostalgia. It stayed perpetually foggy until we came onto the 580, and as we pulled through that space with the windmills, the sky cleared in patched, and it felt like entering another world. I know it's cliched but it felt so true. As we crossed the bay bridge, I saw the city lit up, full of activity and lights, white veins of lights running through the street and I felt my heart swell in a way that surprised even me. I kept trying to take pictures, but I gave up finally and watched it twinkle to me right. There was a warmth and an anticipation that took over me, a readiness to conquer this portion of my life that made me feel truly ready. Like I'm supposed to be here. And that's how I know I made the right choice. 1:55 p.m. - Sunday, Jan. 23, 2005 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
||||||
|
||||||