Inferno

Warning! The inner circle is reserved for whining and was written for my own sanity since I have no one else to talk to. For light recap of current events please proceed to the shallow end.

It’s kinda like that time you tried to do the right thing but got in way over your head to the point where you really don’t care what’s wrong or right anymore, you just want out.

Yap, Micronesia. There are only a handful of reasons why people find their way here. The least common, in my opinion, is leisure. The only visitors to this island are divers who come to play with the manta rays. The only other thing that would bring an outsider to a place like this is work, a more common reason for visiting. Contractors, investors, consultants, missionaries, diplomats, and the peace corps. These are the professionals, off the top of my head, who frequent this island for work purposes. And then there is the most common reason for coming to Yap: Family.

My family is from the outer islands of this State. The “suburb” islands as I refer to them. For the past month we have been stranded on the main island of Yap unable to make my way to the “final destination” in our trip. We own nothing here, just as we owned nothing in the United States. We’re renting an apartment and a car, neither of which I think we can afford but at this point, I’m really the last to know anything.

I walked away from my life on the mainland to help my parents make the transition from the Western world (the only world I know) to this sally struthers commercial (the only world they want to know). I’m not going to go into whiney details on all the negative aspects of this island, because for everything bad I can say, I’m sure there's a local who learned the fundamentals of reading that can find me and beat me for it. No, instead I’ll tell ya why this situation bugs me in particular.

When I am here, I’m 7 years old again. Not in that Peter Pan, “I’m so happy to be a kid again” way. I mean in that “sit down and shut up and don’t question my authority or else you’ll be disowned by an entire culture” way. I’m 26 years old and I am just the backseat passenger of my parent’s life here. Back when I was stateside, in the event of such dramatic mission statements, I did something very original: I ran away. I lost myself in work, pointless nights out with friends, the uselessness of the internet, or the mind-erasing home theater escape. I made my own life outside of my family. Before, I could go anywhere at any time to get away from the responsibility of responsibility and now…I’m in Yap. I can’t go 3 steps without running into another relative. There is no escape.

I can’t be the only guy to feel overwhelmed by too much family and this place is like some kind of reunion that never ends. Out here, I’m not that important and I don’t think I ever will be. Not that it matters, really. All I want is for my parents to have a good home and live their remaining years comfortably. Isn’t that what every kid that loves their parents wants? My dad is something of a local hero so it makes my unimportance and the fact that I just don’t fit in that much more prevalent.

Every time I try to make a plan regarding leaving this place it melts down into an argument. I know it’s partially separation anxiety but I can tell that they really need help and don’t know how to ask for it. My parents are so nice that they let everyone and their mothers roll right over them. It makes me so angry that I overcompensate for their selflessness with heartless, acidic, criticism of anyone and anything that tries to take advantage of their kindness. I actually have to stay at home or inside the car because I can’t really keep my mouth in check anymore. I’ve fallen even farther from the state of disgrace I held when I was in VA. At least over there I felt like I mattered.

But I made a choice and now here I am.

Fuck.



INFERNO (shallow end)

Where to begin? My skin is browner, my beard is longer. Ha! Actually, I went to get my photo taken for my Micronesian passport and I look like a damn terrorist. But one of the few redeeming factors here on this island is “Appearance is NOT important”. So whatever’s whatever and I really just don’t care.

I watched a bunch of movies since that’s really the only thing to do here. Let me see if I can remember them all…

• Big Fish: Good. Oddly relateable.
• A Lot Like Love: I dug it. I don’t even like Ashton but I liked the movie.
• Syriana: Goddamn disc was scratched so I lost half the translations/plot.
• Blade 3: Ryan Reynolds is funny.
• Art School Confidential: Spot on as far as art classes go. Shoulda seen it with my classmates.
• Lucky Number Slevin: I thought this was cool. Only movie I rewatched parts of.
• The Lake House: yawn
• Pride & Prejudice: This was actually pretty good too. Surprised.
• Lost Season 1: Wow, this was great!
• Lost Season 2: Wow, season 1 was great!

Following the example of my good friend Saba, I am attempting to read 3 books at the same time. The first is called PIMP, recommended by Dave Chappelle and a gift from the aforementioned Saba and her partner in crime Lisa. That one’s kind of a tough read, lucky for me there’s a glossary for the 1930’s pimp terminology that’s lost on a honkey such as myself. One of the other books is something I’ve been carrying around with me for the last 2 years called “ART & FEAR” and the last is some book about building, owning, and maintaining homes out in Hawaii (everybody’s gotta have a dream to keep ‘em going, no?). The ART & FEAR book has some interesting perspectives and insights. I’ve only just started it but I’m interested in seeing where it goes.

Dreams. Been having lots of those lately. Or remembering them more vividly is a better description, I guess. Here’s one that freaked me out a little:

I was walking along the GW parkway in winter when one of those big trucks came plowin snow and almost hit a little girl who was standing in the middle of the street. I was running toward her when I saw her mother was on the sidewalk further ahead and even though everyone was screaming for the girl to get out of the way the mom didn’t move. And what was worse the girl just stood in the middle of the parkway. I yelled at the mom to go get her daughter but she just looked back at me and said, “be my guest”.

Now, this is the weird part.

I took one step out toward the middle of the street when I remembered something. I remembered walking out to go get that girl in that exact same situation but her father appeared out of nowhere and cursed at me for coming near his child. So I took a step back and didn’t walk out to get her. And then the little girl turned to look at me. Her mother did too and that’s when I woke up.

The weird part about that little scene is that my little déjà vu moment wasn’t a result of some previous life experience or subconscious fear of the father figure. It was from another dream I had earlier in the week. I remembered my dream while I was dreaming. Is that even possible? Like I said, weird.

I’m burning out my powerbook crunching video for the Peace Corps. I’ve been doing some freelance projects for them to avoid boredom and poverty. I don’t know if they sell RAM out here, but even if they did I’m sure they’d overcharge the way everything is overpriced out here.

Beyond that it’s just crummy little details. The walls of this apartment are a light lime. The floors of just about every air-conditioned structure on the island are made of linoleum and my bedroom has no curtains. Be it ever so humble…

We unloaded our shipping container today. Moved all the contents into another storage facility. Long story short: It was hard work. Hopefully we’ll find some useful tools and toys to pass the time until it’s time to ball out of here.

I’m getting tired now so I think I’ll just watch another DVD on this laptop and then head off to bed.

Maybe tomorrow something better will happen.

Maybe.