Illuminated Manuscripts and Two Gears Back From Houston

In 1977 our family took our one (and only) family vacation. We went to Norfolk, Virginia and then southward to Florida. The second moment on the trip was when we pulled up to a Fort Lauderdale motel and my mother cried out, "you've been here before! You have a girl friend!" My father was angry, not because she had started an argument with us kids in the car, but because she was right. It took about 3 or 4 years later before that truth became more evident. They say that the chances are about 90% that a second marriage will also end in divorce if it began as adultery. Well not my father and step-mothers, but their misery is undeniable. My father: "Divorcing your mother was the biggest mistake I ever made". I told him that years ago back before he even got a lawyer, but who's gonna listen to a 15 year old, right? He was destroying a family system. My mother did not want a divorce.

The divorce left a terrible mark on my psyche. I think of all the hard times in my life and how much harder they are without a family system that can see me through whatever crisis.

And I still remember that argument in the car, in the parking lot of Happy Holidays motel in Fort Lauderdale. It was sweltering heat and I wanted out and into the wonderfully air conditioned rooms, the fat fluffed-up pillows, the freshly cleaned sheets and blankets, and beds so nicely made, and all the neat toiletries wrapped in plastic thoughtfully placed, like gifts.

A few days later we'd cross Alligator Alley at night. It seemed fraught of danger driving through all that blackness and the roar of insects and night creatures. If the car broke down, what would we do? Would an alligator eat us??

At the end of Alligator Alley is the wealthy town of Naples. We drove up the coast to Silver Springs. My father's girlfriend had a condo just outside Naples and her mother's home (where he now lives) just outside of Silver Springs. So he was scoping out his new life and scheming.

I can't imagine what my mother went through, spending her mother's inheritance to buy the family vacation at my father's urging, only to discover he had an secret agenda. I don't think she was on to his whole scheme then, but thank God for that. Really.

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I was just looking at an old book I purchased at a miserable job I had in Houston (1991). It's a book on Illuminated Manuscripts. I was fired from that job and drove all the way back to Chicago in a car that only had two gears: 2nd and 4th. 1st, 3rd, 5th and Reverse did not work. Incredible as it seems, I made it back, although somehow I knew I would. I was determined and I was careful. I keep the book not because it's interesting but because it's physical evidence the whole nightmare of those 6 months were real and me, and my car, had survived it.

Opportunity

Hello from an area of Chicago that goes by many names: North Uptown, South Andersonville, SOFO (South of Foster Avenue), West Argyle, etc. My block--a particularly long East-West one--is predominantly made up of Asians, young urban hipster parents, middle aged gay men, young lesbians, and a lot of artists and actors.

Moving here was a great opportunity to tell the folks back home, "told ya' so!", because they never understood why on earth I chose Chinese as a foreign language for my undergrad degree at NIU. Unfortunately, I forgot most of it, but living in this neighborhood would be a lot more fun if I still knew it!

My professer, Dong Shu Zong, called me 'Lan Qiu' ("lan-shee"). He said it meant "very blue". He was referring to the color of my eyes. He was fascinated by them in a tourist-y way.

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2013 has been a rough year and many ongoing changes. I feel sure that one day I will look back on the changes in some kind of positive light.

I have been re-reading old journals from 1988-92. In retrospect, it was an awful time, but I got through that. They were big changes but they happened slowly. The changes were all for the better, but I wasn't able to view it as such until afterwards. It's hard to not see now as a parallel of what's going on in my life.

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It is 1990-1. I was at the bars and dancing. It is still winter and I don't need to wear my coat when I leave because I danced hard. I always did. It was like a form of athleticism.

I stop at the 7-11 for a Big Gulp and head back to I-55 to the south suburbs. Home. I roll down the window to let the cold night air keep me alert and my eyes on the road.

This Charlatans UK song, "Opportunity" reminds me of the time:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itOlgJBsSeY

I feel the spirt of my 25 year old self in my song, still. I wore fashionable Girbaud jeans and t-shirts. I loved 'loose fit' jeans, and thier sexy bagginess. Although no one really wore boxers at the time, let alone let our jeans be loose enough so they'd show!

I wish I had photos of myself from that time.

I wish I could have one more drive down I-55 listening to this song and just really loving myself, because I didn't love myself back then. I admit it. I dreamed about the open road, but I didn't live it. At least we can have the songs now, still, and live the open road in them, in memory. Maybe at the time, I was living an open road while listening to the song, while a dead world spun madly on outside the comfort of my car--the warm stereo LED lights, the heater turned on, my Big Gulp, being able to sing along or tapped my hand on the dashboard in time--a hand drum.

I don't think I live an extraordinary life in any exterior sense, by any means, but I am interested in my life as I look for small treasures through the way I inclined to perceive and explore it.