Letters from a Sojournista: March 2017

Monday, March 20, 2017

Life with Chinese Characteristics, Chapter 8: To a Singapore Sunset

At a swanky bar

that soars above the sea

by 57 stories

the skyline steals your breath away

as Jamiroquai sings a song

that more than suggests

you should

Just Dance

So you smile and you groove and you sway

To the sight of a Singapore sunset

Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Because you came to see me in my dream last night

I am doing okay
except
sometimes I still catch the sob in my throat
and hot tears pool in my eyes
making goosebumps raise on my skin when they fall down my face
and I remember
the night this summer
when I looked at you
looking at me
memorizing me
wondering how much of you
you left with me

and I wonder
didn't you leave it all?

Unaccustomed Earth

This winter I was reading Jhumpa Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth, a collection of short stories about Bengali characters transplanted from India onto American soil. Lahiri opens the book with a quote from Nathaniel Hawthorne, an author who is infamous in my classroom for writing my students' least favorite book, The Scarlet Letter. "Human nature will not flourish, any more than a potato, if it be planted and replanted, for too long a series of generations, in the same worn out soil. My children have had other birthplaces, and, so far as their fortunes be within my control, shall strike their roots into unaccustomed earth," quotes Lahiri quoting Hawthorne. I don't consider Minnesota worn out soil--there are always fresh faces and new places to explore, and close family and friends are only worn the same way your favorite blues jeans are--but Hawthorne's words ring true. Despite my struggles with change, I find myself restless--craving newness, challenge, culture--seeking a deeper understanding of myself, the world, the Universe. And so soon I embark on a crazy, anxiety-inducing, super exciting trek that will take me from one America to the next. Here is the place where I recount my trials and triumphs. Come along with me...