Glutter

It's been a bit of a secret but actually I misplaced my passport and only just found it today. My last conversation with my mother, she kept saying, "You have your credit card? You have your passport?" and I kept saying, "Yes, mom. I do." When in fact, it was "Well, I know it's in my apartment and I have no idea where it is actually."

It was good when I found it because I was about to cry. I really had looked everywhere I thought it might be, and had no idea where it was. Except I didn't lift up a painting I made a while back, as behind it was a box filled with all the important documents. So I have my passport, my credit card, my ticket information, and now all I need is my clothes and important things I feel I need to bring with me.

That means packing.

And for some reason, I feel a bit paralyzed in doing so. In fact I have been somewhat nervous about organizing this trip.

When i first decided to go, that's all I can think of. I was so happy I was on my way. I was also soooo happy to finally decide I was going to law school and the courses I was going to take. I was so utterly happy that I was grinning to myself as I walked down the street and would giggle as i talked to my friends.

I was a happy happy girl.

Then somewhere along the line, I started to really enjoy my life in Hong Kong, and with a blink of an eye happened on a new life. New friends, new people to date, new schedule, new life. It's the life I always wanted with the kind of people I really enjoy. It just the right group of people at the right time, and each new relationship that was added to the mobile phone, made my life just that little bit fuller.

I believe every girl needs a few things in life:

a) One good girlfriend who you can tell everything to, and gives good advice

b) A few good girlfriends you have dinner with whom you can discuss the state of relationships, feelings on exes, your love life. Plus the ability to talk about wardrobe choices, where to buy, compare beauty treatments, and then switch gear to careers and politics.

c) One good wing man who vet your dates, give you hugs, give his perspective on men, and occasionally get into rousing arguments about whether Bush is stupid or not, what the liberals are doing wrong, and know good restaurants and get you in good clubs.

d) One fabulous gay friend who owns a black American express card and likes the finer things in life, so you can live vicariously through his credit rating.

e) A party omisexual (gay) friend who has good parties, knows everyone who thinks you're "lovely" and invite you his dos that are always fun and full of interesting characters like airport architects who is really impressed by your democratic leanings and handbag designers who went to the school next to you.

f) a bunch of interesting guys you think are cool, you might be friends with a few maybes

g) a sarcastic and dry guy friend to keep you on your painted toes, who makes you laugh and will share conversations about making documentaries and im you amusing anecdotes throughout the day

h) Someone who goes hiking and camping

i) A solid and happy married couple friend who you can go to for career and life advice.

j) a surf, skate buddy.

k) a good yoga instructor

l) a great photographer who doesn't yell and will pay you well to assist.

i: All of whom is always ready to send an SMS into your phone or an email on Tuesday to discuss the plans for the weekend
ii: You can call up anytime to see what they are doing
iii: Can have brunch with on Sundays
iiii: Know and feel comfortable that if shit hits the fan, they will allow you to turn up on their couch and use up a box of tissues

All of which I never had in Hong Kong, and surely not at the same time, which one morning I woke up and realized I now have. Which obliterated all the reasons that was pushing me out of town, and why I wasn't always happy.

So now, I sorta have a happy balanced life. Including a nice schedule with yoga classes and gym. Plus a new career change that i am most excited by. I feel a bit torn in leaving. I am actually NOT leaving right now, I am only going away for two months, but I also know that life flashes by and within two months things would be different, and people get closer or not, and when I return it will all bit not as I remember again.

I also know this might be the best time to jet and leave as I am on a high and all is well.

But it feels sad, as I am leaving. Maybe not exactly this very second as I will come and go, but I don't think I really feel I live here anymore. I am coming back for a visit on my way somewhere else.

I was thinking about what it means to be a home. And I thought how although I must have spent much less time in Milan than I had in London. I always felt Milan wasn't a just a visit, it was the start of a new home. I looked around the place as i saw it in terms of my life, where I fitted in, what I would like to do next time. I saw myself existing in that place, making a life, building friends and relationships. I thought about where I was going to school, whether I liked the place, and if there was any decent Chinese food. I looked for a place to see if I could get a Chinese maid, a nanny, a woman to help me run a house one day. I looked around at neighbourhoods to see which one I would like, and thought about the future. I had keys that were mine, a place that was mine to fix, a mobile phone number that would be mine on and off. I saw it with a far more critical eye, in terms of who I was. I didn't always like it, but I could see a life.

London on the other hand, always had a feel of transit. I was on the way somewhere. This was a base. it was where I was spending the summer before I went home to my school friends. it was the place I was visiting. I always saw London as a place that belonged to my friends. I watched their lives, and saw how they lived. I felt my relationship with it in terms of an outsider, a foreigner, tried to understand it for the time being. I didn't need a favorite neighbourhood or a season ticket for the ballet. I didn't have to remember how people dressed in certain parts of town so when I returned I could get it right. I didn't have to work out how to get there or where it was or that if i needed something that's where I needed to return.

I think the difference between a place and a home is whether you want to get to know it in terms of yourself.

When you visit a computer store or a mall, or a supermarket if it's a place that you are only travelling through, you only need the item on the list and then you are gone. If you plan to stay, you meander, you remember, you track and tack. You place invisible post its in your brain for a shop or an item, or person or a place. You try to remember its name, or how to get there or when it is a good interval to return or avoid completely. When i was in Milan I used to walk around the supermarket all the time. I can't remember what reason I had for it at the time, but in retrospect I realized it was because I was planning. If there was one thing I needed to know was what was available and what I could cook. I couldn't read the menus, and when my boyfriend wasn't around, I was on my own. And if i needed or wanted something exactly as I wanted, I had to make it myself. I couldn't find the right place to order it, or explain what I wanted. The only way was that I was to cook.

It's a very well know fact I don't really like Italian food. I hate Italian pizzas. The only thing I would want to eat for myself was the sandwiches in Rome. Sandwiches you can't get in Milan. I don't really like ice cream too much either, and if there is one place on earth that feels they don't need foreign cuisine, not interested in fusion, that is Milan. And all really I eat is fusion food, Californian vegetarian mush and shanghainese. The occasional burger, mushroom and steak pie, a kebab, or roast duck. None of which one can get in Italy, not even in Milan. There was one okay tapas restaurant in the neighbourhood, and that was it. And oh my god, no soy milk, not anywhere.

Mainly, now I think back to my twice daily trips to the supermarket in Milan, it was because I realized I was screwed. If I stayed there it would mean a death of the palate. It would mean all the great food that was a hop, step and jump from where I lived in Hong Kong would dissipate. The famous Chinese writer Shen Tong once was asked if he wanted to leave China, and he replied, "No, what would I eat?" I laughed like everyone else, and thought, "Yes, I know the feeling. Outside my shit relationship, it was probably the biggest reason not to live in Europe." I wanted to stick my hand out just to agree.

But you know, even if I thought exactly the same thing in London, it never bothered me. I didn't stare at products on a shelf feeling worried. I just thought my friends were crazy to stay that long, and was shocked at what they put up with as food. Which is why I have always liked Australia. There is soy milk everywhere, unimaginably good fusion cuisine, and fantastic Chinese and Asian food. I felt misty eyed when i saw tofu pock in the mall in the chichi noodle shop in downtown Sydney, because I knew no matter what -I know I would not starve. Laksa amd Lee Kum Kee (imported by my uncle I might like to add) at every supermarket shelf, including in non asian areas. I knew I could live in Sydney. But that's because I was looking.

And sometimes you don't even have to look. It's just so obvious. Like New York. I always felt like I could be there, live there, because without trying I was just there. I knew New York really well just by the feel. I would just wander and find what I wanted. I would discover cool little places my friends hadn't heard of. I would call them to meet me somewhere that they already knew. I never got too lost in New York, not least my their sensible street naming system. You could never go the wrong way too long, as the street numbers would straight away let on. If you're going 100 to 101 you know you're going north, if it's 4th to 3rd that's down. You can always work out exactly how far you are, and near which part of Manhattan you are standing at.

And with Hong Kong island it's even simpler. I don't even have to think. I know the exact location of the fridge for Ben and Jerrie's ice cream at the cause way bay Wellcome. I know which small street it is for a short cut. I can probably walk blindfolded through certain parts of the city, and know which camera shop has the cheapest Fuji film. I can look out at the sun and know what time it is, and feel exactly the day when summer is over. I can tell if something bad is happening in the news, just by the look of people's faces. The woman at the corner store knows exactly what brand of cigarettes I am going to buy, and which magazine I am looking for. I can think of somewhere to go all the time if given a minute. If I need something, I never have to ask because I know exactly where it is I can find it.

It's not like that when you are not home. You have to ask, and you have to try and you have to really look and remember.

I am a little bit nervous about going back to LA. I had a look at the MTA line. I realized this is not the LA I knew before. As I had no idea there was a train system that broad and wide. And once the transport system is put in, then the movement of people and places change accordingly. I don't even know what the weather is like in November. I can't really remember it. What did I wear in previous thanksgiving? What does one pack if you're invited to a desert party on the weekend. Will it be cold? Will the sun keep me warm as I remember it? I wonder what they have knocked down in the last few years. I worry I will hate all the changes they have made to my campus. Is the bike path still there? Will I be able to see the seals and the butterflies? I heard there was four storey car park. Is my little shrine my then boyfriend and I helped decorate in the forest still there? No doubt it's gone.

The weather is different in California and everywhere else. Not just Fahrenheit and Celsius. It's different because of the humidity and the open sun, 24 c means different things in different countries. 24 is cold in HK, but really hot in London, and cool in New York. It's probably 5pm in LA on a summer day because it always gets chilly in a desert at night. When I look at the numbers on the weather channel, I have to make sure I take into account of all the factors. If it's somewhere I don't know. It's just a guess work. If it's somewhere I call home, I can picture it in my head, and can figure out what it feels like on my skin. If it's somewhere I visit, I probably don't really know the answer.

And somewhere you call home. You always have a lot of people who can ask and you might even bump into them on the streets. When it's somewhere you are just travelling to, you don't know a soul except the few people you are visiting. There will never be any chance encounters. One never wonders if someone is near or there. I can never just pop by to see someone. When it's a place you know well, that is easy. You know where your friends hang out, or where they work, you know where they live. There are memories to the place. "Oh, that's where I met so and so the other day." "It's what's his name's favorite restaurant." "Yeah, remember the time we walked pass there just after that happened." There is no history, no memories, no expectations. One can't compare and contrast, talk about the time before or what it used to be. There are no funny stories, interesting events, or life changing moments.

You have to start making them the moment one arrives.

But then again, you have to do that all the time, every day, all the while, otherwise what's the point of living?

I am now ready to go pack.

yanxxx