Seasons Greetings, Spirit Animals, and Other Fluffy Things

It’s a new year, it’s time to reflect on the year’s past; right? This year the holidays snuck up on me. Being too consumed with trying to find work, housing, transportation to my new job, and handling visa papers, I haven’t had much room to reflect on the things we’re meant to reflect on.

The consequence of being a lone traveler relocating to a new town means being alone, and busy. I’ve been telling myself that it’s just any other day really, why hold so much importance to yet another day? As true as this might be, I can’t help but feel a little in denial. Even with all of life’s great distractions, it’s hard to not realize the lack of really close friends in proximity to me this season.

I had a moment of melancholy on Christmas eve, but after going on a walk and having a moment to think, I realized that I was exactly where I wanted to be. All of my actions in the past year have lead up to this moment and I was missing it in self pity for what I didn’t have. There’s great satisfaction in realizing I was living a scenario I had only dreamed of years ago. I realized then, that there will always be something a bit lacking in life. It’s up to us to look at what benefits us.

I also remembered that though I might physically be alone; my friends and family, far away, would be thinking of me as I thought of them. The cheesy cliches win out again in the circular pattern of my thinking. Love, positivity, and rainbows are realities sometimes; and I have become afraid of these bright omens, for they are uncool.

And now, on the eve of the new year, I’m sitting on my new back porch under a gum tree, watching the neighbor’s escaped rabbit run between bushes. I tried catching him this morning, but right now I’m content in knowing he’s having the time of his life right now. The rabbit and I are like kindred spirits- free to go where we please, if only for a now.   Well, I’m off to go party. Happy new year!

Home Shock

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I recently returned to my hometown after being away for over a year.

As my plane flew over my great salty lake and soured parallel to those ‘oh so familiar’ mountains, my heart began to beat faster. The excitement I experienced upon touching down at the airport easily rivaled the excitement I got from first leaving 14 months ago.

The plane needed to dock faster because I was about to surprise my friends and family and the exhilarating part was that no one knew I was even coming. I missed my friends, their familiar faces had frequented my dreams as I anticipated seeing them again. I had been planning this surprise arrival for months and what made me nervous was that they were going to experience the new travel me.

When it comes to travel, what we don’t often hear about is home shock. Often, most things remain the same back at home, yet us travelers have quite literally seen the world and travel has a way of speeding up the inevitable. Long exposure to change, differences, and experiences tend to alter a person, and the realization of the contrast can cause a bit of an identity tremor.

Accompanied with the excitement of seeing friends I hadn’t seen in a while, was a slight concern of my expected behavior. How much had I changed? Was it enough to shock the people who knew me? One thing I’ve noticed about human behavior is that folks tend not to like change. We appreciate when our friends and surroundings are familiar, and the dislike of alterations have spawned negative associations to the statement, “she’s changed.”

I’ve noticed something about the emotion of nervousness; it’s that it’s identical to the feeling of excitement only with different thoughts behind it. So I decided to sit comfortably, or as comfortably as I could, in my new skin. If I changed then I changed, and my friends and family would have to be happy for it.

I quickly found that the acceptance of my friends and family was the last thing to get nervous about, after all, I was still me and they love me. However, home shock came from an existential realization of change. We all eventually reminisce of days past and who we used to be; it’s the consequence of time.

Twenty years from now I’ll be a different person, and twenty years from then I’ll be another different person; and forty years from now you will be a different person too. This is because change always affects us, and change is inevitable. While driving along my old streets I realized that even my city will dramatically alter in another 50 years or less.

Culture shock affects us because it forces us to look at life and ourselves in another light. Home shock affects us because it forces us to look at our past, future, and present in another light. That new perspective on things lit up the realization that living in the moment is the only way to truly live.

Lets Connect

Human connection.

“Ugh gross, Zazz is going to be gooey and cheesy again in a post.”

Maybe, but my goal here is to be honest. If soft delightful fluff excrete from my brain mash, down and out through my fingertips to this keyboard, so be it.

Being in Asia, halfway across the world in a foreign land, I’ve found that my butt has been in a chair a lot lately. Reading, drawing, listening, eating, and berating myself for this.

Sure, I’ve finished a book and have gotten halfway through another one, (a person could describe that as productive) however, I can’t help but feel a little bit guilty about this.

“Why all of the facebook time Zazz? Shouldn’t I be exploring more? Maybe chatting up every person I meet who speaks English?”

After all, being surrounded by almost nothing but Cambodians for a week, I lack many opportunities to speak these days. Why would I not seek out that opportunity?

A good question, self.

But there is something beautiful about getting to know myself on this level. Mass quantities of self-reflection tend to bounce those shiny reflecting thoughts outward and all around. Like mirrors sporadically placed around me, I’m able to see multiple views from all different angles.

This is a good thing, a form of meditation, healthy for the mind, and a fantastic ingredient to begin talking to oneself.

Though a problem I’ve worried about is the distortion of the reflections causing views that are too oddly angled that I’m not seeing things clearly. After all, I am still the only viewer in this meat capsule.

Hence my rationalization for mass facebooking as well as a reminder of the importance of human interaction. We are, after all, the center of our own universe. There are only so many windows you can look out of yourself and into the world with. Human connection is not only emotionally satisfying, it’s also intellectually stimulating, world-broadening, and good for reality checks.

A personal balance of all things is important.

Time to stop berating myself for being antisocial for a while as well as stop being so frightened of lending out smiles to new people. After all, soon I will be personally subjecting myself to solitude at a ten day meditation course, I won’t even have Facebook there, (gasp) I need all of the human connection I can get.

New friend, little Likena- master of human connection

P.S. To all concerned and asking, my friend from the flood recovered fully. Warm hugs to Vanessa.

Chiang Mai Train Ride

Originally posted June 2013

A little soul on a train all alone.

How do you draw a great expanse of space and time? How do you write of the sensation of speeding past beautiful scenes on a clicking bullet; all the while being oddly aware, but not fully comprehending, the lands, mountains, and oceans separating you from home, friends, and anyone who knows your name?

I am simply a little soul on a train in a great expanse of land full of many. And there is something wholly awe-inspiring about that, something exciting as well as deeply lonely.

I plug my music into my ears and I can’t help but cry from the sheer beauty and power of this experience. Music, art, and literature are the tools we use to share and connect with the other humans around us. An artistic connection helps us not feel so alone in the world. But nothing can compare to the dizzying sensation of being completely in a moment.

I am not alone in my loneliness, therefore I’m not alone.

-zazz

Peter Bradley Adams everyone,

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