Within a week, I said goodbye, moved halfway across the world, and started saying hello to guests in my new home in a new city in a new country that I loved. I watched bulls chase the man that I would fall in love with down an ancient stone street. I let myself go, lost myself, and loved. It's been a good year, full of friends, luck, love, loss, sorrow and hope. I wish this perspective for all in the year to come. Feliz An~o Nuevo.
Amber 2 Jan 2002
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| In one month my life changed.
I found some one i can call a sister, though we have no blood relation. I found someone i can call a lover, though people are against it.
I opend up, a friend died, and i celebrated my first holiday in 7 years. My "Sister" gave me a birthday present, and i burst in to tears. 22 years old, and crying. I later realyzed that the trauma-like-problem i had for 7 years, since my girlfriend died on my birthday, had never left. Until now. Until her. She opend me up, and made me live. I owe her.
I found games, and a purpose. I found love, and a reason. After 22 years, this year, i've grown to adulthood.
Timo van Buuren, netherlands {timovanbuuren@hotmail.com} 6 Jan 2002
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The first time I remember thinking about 2001 was when I was in my early teens. It seemed infinitely far away - in the land of science fiction. I remember when "2001" came out as a movie. The year was even farther in the future than 1984 was. I would be forty years old, unimaginable.
This July I had my fortieth birthday. It has been a long time. I (we) now live in the time of science fiction - but also very much still in human history, very human.
I had a good warm (if rainy) day to celebrate, good food, many friends, family, choosen community, a good day. This first part of my life has been good and I eagerly look forward to the next 40+ years (Lady willing...)
Eric Leventhal Arthen {ericla@ultranet.com} 6 Jan 2002
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| I had already been brought down by the long-standing fear and self-hatred that have been snapping at my heels since childhood.
The only things keeping me in motion were work and liquor.
Like many of my peers, I was laid off in 2001. I had to return to Texas, greatly humbled by my non-successes on the West Coast.
Then I decided to give up drinking.
This period of unemployment and sobriety left me with little to do but think about the kind of life I had hoped to live, and how far I had gotten from it.
And so I began (half of necessity, half from perversity) to experiment with an unknown mode of existence. One based on freedom, joy, optimism and gallows humor.
A slight change in perspective is all it took. I feel now the same kind of hope I had as a child. The present is something to be enjoyed, rather than endured, the future seems inviting, not threatening. And the past, as historians have shown us, can be read in many different was.
2001 was the year I came back to life.
Greg Dean {gsd68@earthlink.net} 7 Jan 2002
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July was cool and beautiful in upstate NY.
I had my bridal shower. It was pretty cool to have all those women there, some who have known me for all of my life, some just for 5 minutes. The party was fabulous, elegant, and my mother did a great jobhe bridesmaids, bless them all, came all the way to RI for the event. We also decided on bridesmaids dresses, FINALL, after a shop tried to stick us for an extra $60 per skirt.
Surgery. Caretaking. Worrying. Dear God, let him be safe. We haven't even started yet, don't take him from me now.
One {one@absquatulate.com} 8 Jan 2002
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| Last summer I briefly returned to my native land, the good ol' US of A, bringing my Korean wife with me. She had seen the States before with me, but not like we were going to see it this time: a whirlwind tour from sea to shining sea, leaving us with a whirlwind of memories. (We stayed from the end of June to the beginning of September, but July was the heart of our tour.)
We started in New York, where my family lives (upstate), and drove more or less straight down to Houston, Texas. When we weren't staying with friends and family we camped, although there was a hostel or two thrown in for good measure. It's hard to believe we did all of it in five weeks, as there seem to be enough memories for a whole year...
After leaving New York, all my wife wanted to know was when we were going to see the desert (there's no desert in Korea). Every oil rig we passed in Texas she got out and took a picture. Even after I started refusing to stop she continued taking pictures as we sped along.
Houston
Spent a few days with one of my old friends from university. He used to be a big-city lawyer in New York, but now we tease about being a medium-sized city lawyer. Ruth's Chris Steakhouse is cheaper here than it is in New York, though. Other than that, wasn't too impressed with Houston, or Texas for that matter.
The Four Corners States
Probably my favorite portion of the trip. We spent a good deal of time here, so a lot of my memories are of the southwest. Feeling completely dwarfed by the size and grandeur of Carlsbad Caverns... camping out in the middle of White Sands, watching an electrical storm over the alkali flats... getting lost in the mountains on the way to Taos, camping in the woods in the middle of nowhere, listening to the coyotes howl at night during a thunderstorm and pretending not to be nervous (for my wife's sake)... watching the Fourth of July fireworks over the Rio Grande Gorge outside of Taos... listening to a Native American park ranger tell coyote trickster stories at night in Mesa Verde... hiking down into the Grand Canyon and lying in Bright Angel Creek, letting the cool water flow over my entire body, trying not to think about the hike out the next day. Would I do it again? In a heartbeat.
The West Coast
Immediately after getting out of the Grand Canyon we drove straight through to San Francisco, where we stayed with another friend of mine from university. My first time in San Fran, and it was not what I expected. It was downright cool, for one, and a fog always seemed to hang over the city. Berkeley, where my brother lives, was much sunnier, more my idea of what California should be like.
Definitely an interesting group of people, though. We were riding a street car one day when a clown got on. I thought nothing of it until clowns continued to get on at every stop. Then they started "fighting" with each other. Being from New York, I sat looking straight ahead, trying not to notice. Being from Korea, my wife took pictures of them.
We then drove up the West Coast, Highway 1 (and later 101), stopping every now and then to dip our feet in the chilly Pacific. It was fun, stopping for no reason at all and sitting on a deserted beach, watching the waves come in. After the hectic life of a graduate student/translator in Korea, it was somehow reassuring to know that those waves had been caressing that shore since long before I was born, and would continue to do so long after I became fertilizer. It was almost therapeutic.
The Pacific Northwest
We spent a good deal of time on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington, visiting the national park. Hoh Rainforest, with it's old trees draped in moss... you could literally feel the age of the forest. We drove out to Neah Bay, in the Makah Indian Reservation. After several unsuccessful attempts at buying the local smoked salmon we had heard about, a local Makah gave us some for free. We had had the foresight to bring little token gifts from Korea with us, so it became a very meaningful exchange of gifts, not to mention cultures. We drove east and, rather than driving all the way around to Seattle, we took the ferry over, watching Seattle emerge from the mist.
Back to New York
From Seattle it was a beeline back to New York, stopping to camp in the Badlands, eat some Chicago pizza, and watch the fireworks over Niagara Falls at night. We spent the rest of our time in New York, making side trips to Boston and D.C. when my sister-in-law flew in for a two-week stay. I also took her to see Les Miserables on Broadway, fulfilling one of her life-long dreams. Then, a few days before we left in early September, four of us--my wife, my sister-in-law, my mother and I--toured lower Manhattan. We took the Staten Island ferry, just so I could show them the views. Then, as we were walking up Broadway, my sister-in-law asked, "Is that the World Trade Center?" I barely even glanced at the buildings I had seen so many times before I grunted, "Yeah." If only I had known.... Thankfully, my story ends here. Others have told what happened next.
I definitely think the whole trip meant more to me because I don't live in the States anymore. In a way it was like visiting a foreign country, but it also had a familiarity that was comforting. And although I may live elsewhere, I still am, and always will be, an American. Maybe even more so than I was when I actually lived in the States. Sometimes you need to step outside of something to put everything into its proper perspective, and then you appreciate it even more. That's my story.
Chuck 18 Jan 2002
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july 2001 was a month that i finally said i needed to just give up on us. so many years worth of being put through things that never made any sense only to have my heart and body desired by her again and again finally came to an end and it's now past but unable to leave to memory.
sarah, granted, had a lot of issues that from time to time drove me nuts and towards the end made me feel like the possiblity of a heart attack would be right around the corner but through it all it was the most painful thing to tell her that i needed and wanted her to be out of my life. i care for her so much and want her life to be happy (i worked very hard to do my part to aid such). i think that is why i let myself go back into her arms to often. i care for her deeply. she hurt me a lot.
things moved on pretty quick but of all the memories all i can remember is her walking on the beach, playing with our cat, sewing, cooking, studying, her butterfly tights, her smile, her laughter, when we went to get our hair dyed together, moving together, the look when i first gave her a rose and the million or so thereafter, her caress and hugs when i needed it and the kiss that coming home to was the first priority of interest everyday, us going out to eat, to the parks, rose gardens, forest, wateralls, oceans, rivers, cemeteries, munching truffles, making her food, ice cream in bed while reading books to eachother, feeling her heart beat when i held her. there's so many more things that i cherish but above all it was her presence in every activity.
this will be the first year (2002) since we met that we won't be together. there won't be another. it feels odd. she's not within a few minutes distance anymore or living with me. we talk and we write letters. i'm getting a camera for her to see our pudy. july 24th 2001 was going to be our 5th anniversary and this all happened the night before... this month changed me as i got a new opportunity in life to live with a new candle to burn time out with. however, it's hard not to miss the old fire of my life (which i had wished would never burn out).
robert {relmore@in-box.net} 20 Jan 2002
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| It was a warm night. I drunk with aguardiente and chuchuhuasi in Iquitos, the Peruvian Amazon, with my young friends from the university. I told them stories about the whale that scared me kayaking in California over new years and then about the first whale I ever saw, when I was likewise toasted and also listening to someone play 'wish you were' here on an old guitar. In Alaska with my first humpback blow, I was on the beach; now we were on a back street of a mid-sized sylvatic city. This time it was Peter playing the guitar, and soon he switched to Echoes... quite a trip to hear on an accoustic, especially so far from home where the only music on the radio is either technocumbia or 80s hits.
Our chuchuhuashi finished, we went up to the boulevard by the waterfront and got some beers. More people, lots of laughter. Brian ended up holding a kid's cigarette and gum tray, and I took a picture. I broke a cheap Peruvian beer stein by toasting too hard. Drunker still, I met Jimi Hendrix in the bathroom... he had chewing gum stuck on his thigh.
Outside again, and magic happened. The lights went out. We joked about running away and ditching our bill, but we stayed for one more round. Our waitresses brought out candles. When I went to pay, the lights sputtered on. The cashier blew out her candle and instantly the lights went back out. She re-lit it, I paid, and the lights went on again. I moved to blow out the candle, which got an energetic "No no no!", but I followed through. Phooof! Flame extinguished, and a second later the electricity failed again. What fun!
We walked over to the balcony and looked out towards the water. I was reminded of times when the streetlights would go out back home in the rolling Tennessee hills of oaks. You could see the stars and the fireflies. But there never were as many fireflies as were in front of us this night. It was the time of year when the rivers were lowering, so there was a bit of a mudflat between us and the Amazon. In the coming weeks I would walk out there and talk to a fellow planting watermelon on the flats, but now I could vaguely make out a new growth of brush on the banks and hundreds of fireflies zipping about. I wanted to run down there but my friends wouldn't let me. I talked about the river flowing a thousand and more kilometers to the east through brazil, past things and people whom none of us had ever seen. Besides the fireflies, the moon, and perhaps a passerby's cigarette, the only lights to be seen were a mile or so away, across the river, cast by someone's kerosine lamp.
Gove {gove@nature.berkeley.edu} 22 Jan 2002
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it was july, 2001, and i'd been broken up with my only serious girlfriend, who i'd been with for 3 years, since december. i had gone home from school that summer, and all i wanted to do was work and hang out with friends. i didn't really want to have anything to do with her cause it just hurt too much. then the oddest thing happened, the dream i never thought would be reality. the girl next door moved in. she was 3 years younger then me but from the moment i saw her i knew she was special.
by the 1st part of august we were together and she opened my eyes to realize there were more girls out there in the world. we stayed together until school came, it ended sour, she hooed up withmy best friend's brother, but still i knew all along she would be what shes remained, a summer fling. i thank her for those 2 months thatmeant more to me thenanything in my life up to that point.
it's janurary now and my old girlfriend of 3 years and i got back together a month ago, but i am smarter now cause my fling made me realize that i was meant to be with my 1st true love, thank you Heather.
Jason H. {jlh99grad@aol.com} 26 Jan 2002
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