Since I tend to be an observant person, I really like it when chaos is happening around me. Not to me per se but mostly around me. This Sunday afternoon that chaos manifests itself at the Westlake/Macarthur Metro Station. As I stand at the 200 bus stop - taking in the heat - feeling it tan my skin while I am waiting and waiting I notice that there is so much commotion around me. The outsider or the passerby may also agree with me. Sizzles to the right, people in their cars talking to each other, someone yelling out "queso queso" I stand there thinking I am out of place but at the same time I'm delighted by the fact that no one seems to give a care.
If you ever get off at that station the pleasant smell of urine sort of hits your nose as you reach the surface level streets. I notice that the blue tiles to my left have not been wiped since who knows when. And the couple in front of me are groping each other and snippets of "licking" and other body parts are mentioned. Delighted I must say.
Yet there is something about Westlake that I like. Maybe it's the fact that if you replaced every Latino person with a Vietnamese person it would be just like Vietnam. I know that sounds strange, but the organized commotion that is happening around me makes me very nostalgic. Macarthur park is well known for it's "dangerous activities." There is a story that bodies are dumped in the lake. There was another story that once the lake was emptied and no bodies were found - but perhaps I am mixing this up with Echo Park Lake. Lake stories are funny. It's like there isn't too much "real nature" in L.A. so our interactions and stories with any sort of nature - like things turn out to be urban legend of sorts.
The other day I climbed into the L.A. River. L.A. has a real river that runs through it that is 52 miles long. It runs really fast and is also apparently "dangerous."
Today I touched a ginko biloba leaf. I was really excited to find ginko leaves in Chinatown near the Alpine Recreational Center. Part of this delight is due to my new appreciation for leaves after living in Vietnam for two years.
I learned many things from the girls in the Mekong Delta. Girls whose homes I had to trek through mud for. Girls who took little canoes to school. Girls whose homes were miles and miles away in the mountains and could not be reached by motorbike. Girls whose home were near rivers. Girls who woke up at 3 am to catch fish or whatever sea creature she said. Girls who picked chili for 17 cents a kilo. I learned many things from these girls and the biggest thing was a larger appreciation for trees, leaves and fruits. These girls completely schooled this Berkeley graduate in this category. I knew absolutely nothing. I knew that a tree had a trunk, branches and green leaves. These girls knew which tree bore what fruit. They could look at the leaves and know exactly what fruit it would give. We would look at a fruit and wonder what it was. There was so much curiosity to our surroundings and I absolutely fell in love with that. I started to ask questions since I knew they had so much knowledge about it.
Chi Kim! Do you know what tree this is?
No...
It's a papaya tree!
Chi Kim! Do you know what this is?
No....
It's a blah blah blah tree.
Chi Kim.
Miss Kim.
These days youth call me Miss Kim or just Miss. In Vietnam they called me Chi Kim. In English we don't use these types of monikers in our daily language. In Vietnam we did. Chi Kim sounds really enduring and I miss it very much. It was a sign of respect, it was endearing, sympathetic and so human all at once. It made you realize that they were thinking about you. They thought about your age and their age in relation to yours. Whatever they called themselves was what they thought of you. All this in a matter of seconds.
I too learned how to do this in a matter of seconds. I learned what to call myself in relation to others. When a guy would call himself Anh in an enduring tone I knew what he was trying to do. I laughed because it was so simple to tell. Things seemed much simpler in Vietnam.
I'm going to stick to my story of how I listened to my heart and it told me to be in Los Angeles. Sometimes I don't believe this and sometimes I do. I am unsure whether I had thoughts of doubt in Vietnam but I've definitely had it here in Los Angeles.
Oh well what is a wandering soul to do? One that floats like dust? A girl who travels? Whatever the heck I label myself as. Of course this is exactly what I want - unsettling discomfort - anything else I would of been out of here already.
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Time to orchestrat'
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There lays many opportunities in front of me.
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Love it... but "per se"!
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