[Oe List ...] Jaime for Friday ST

[via OE]

Going Home


 
Home Alone is acomedy film of a large family heading for a Christmas vacation in Paris whenthe parents realized that they were missing one of the brood, an eight-year-oldplayed delightfully by Macaulay Culkin when he was still cute.  This reflection is, however, not about themovie.  It is about my return to Chinafrom an extended visit and farewell to North America.
 
Just to be clear, the "going home" metaphor is emotivemore than geographic.  Since the imageexplosion of the "earthrise" in 1968 in human consciousness, my"home" had become the planet and my citizenship has become global.  But as a colleague in North Carolinacommented, we are at an age when resources have become scarce and a long haulacross the planet takes considerable effort, so she and her husband, colleaguesacross the miles, understood my farewell.
 
It shall have been 50 yrs. this August when I took a 20-daysail to San Francisco from Manila, and our farewell is essentially a completionof that journey.  It had been a roller-coasterride, from crisscrossing North America save Vermont, Price Edward Island,Newfoundland, Labrador, New Brunswick, the Northwest and Nunavut territories,to puffing ganja the prolific grassof the Blue Mountains of Jamaica, trekking through Guatemala, Brazil, Chile,Peru, and Venezuela.  We drove on theleft side of the road in both Islands of Kiwi land, but left the driving tofriends in Oz.
 
The salty-mists of Micronesia with Nauru 'cept islands northof Saipan became nasal familiar; the alohasway of Hawai'i, Samoa, and Tonga got us to the shore short of becoming a whalerider.  Mosquitoes delivered malaria inNigeria curtailing plans for the Victoria Falls in the Zambezi and Mt.Kilimanjaro in the highlands of Kenya. We had our fill of Om inMaharashtra but our countenance would not hold train rides to Gujarat andCalcutta or to Kerala and Bangalore.
 
A nodding salute to London's Westminster and fish-and-chipsby Piccadilly Circus, Paris' crepes by Montmartre after losing all my Francs atthe Latin Quarters, sangria by Madrid's plaza mayor and plaza de españa, and sidewalktables for pasta at Roma's piazzas including Pietro's across the Basilica,acknowledged my inheritance of Europe's meta-brain.  Mainland and maritime Southeast Asia, however,was my stomping ground, and now, Far East Asia, particularly in Dong Bei China.
 
This recent farewell trip saw us elbowing with colleagues inthe Realistic Living Institute whose covenant attended to our spirit disciplinefor thirty years.  Two daughters sharedtheir family hospitality and the precocity of their children (two each); also, theelder facilitating the revisit with heartbreaks of Ohio.  In the Bay Area of SF, Ilocano classmatesfrom INHS60 shook with Iloko mirth, and a colleague of Visayan hospitality leftus with a treasured afterglow.
 
David Thompson who opened resorts in Banff and Jasper cappedthe head feathers when we joined DCHS'59ers (Davao City) in a wondrous trampthrough the lower Canadian Rockies.  Thefamily of Thompson's namesake without the "p", a Donald rather than aDavid, plus a James of a Becky and a Lainey, hosted my visit to the province oftar sand of the global fossil fuel market.  I watched buckaroos perform ranch skills ascowhands raced chuck wagons, twirled ropes, and rode bucking broncos, and thecowgirls impressed in turning the attire of boots and hat into a fashionstatement.  On a bus trip to Edmonton,"To Dee I sing" became my theme song of gratitude for the Thomson's warmthin Calgary.
 
INHS60 friends expressed hope that they had not seen thelast of my shadow, and one who lives in Walnut Creek will keep tickling ourclass' bones with her regular posting of jokes and other interesting cyberspaceforwards.  Boni's Airlines and his Adeleof South SF promised to bring the cap I left behind to the next class gatheringin Pea Eye 2015.  Objective statisticalprobability, extremely limited resource, and personal intention closes out mydoor to Amerigo Vespucci's continent, and I will now tend to my garden in Manchuria'sPlain till I complete breathing my allotted oxygen in this planet.
 
I am not being melodramatic. I am simply being objective about my continuing journey.  The world has become too small for its 7-billion-somehomo sapiens.  The selfhood and consciousness of each isinvaluable not only for the enrichment of the specie but also the survival of astressed planet.  Consciousness trumpsdecay any day!  I invite readers to writeof their own reflection as well.  
 
As I bid adieu to America, I remember a foothill in theRockies bellowing smoke.  I now see on TVhundreds of fires raging across the Northwest.  Nature's wilderness is aflame.  I know of friends in California eking a livingin the three-year old drought of its inland valley noted for fragrant orchardsand verdant farms, now gone dry, while many poor souls in Canada and China bobtheir heads above flooding waters.   Amajor climate change is happening in the planet.  A major tectonic shift is shaking the firm foundationsof mine.
 
How's your life journey coming along?


j'aime la vie
pinoypanda2031 at aol.com

yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today. participate. In all, celebrate!

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.wedgeblade.net/pipermail/oe-wedgeblade.net/attachments/20140714/efba508a/attachment-0001.htm>