All the Little "Things"

I flew home this morning because I wanted to be with my family during this difficult time. I wanted to walk the dog and do the laundry and clean the house, whatever it took to ease my parents' load and help get life back to normal as quickly as possible.

Somehow, I found myself lying on the couch looking at a Venician plate and thin king about "things." That plate, the antique apple crates, the thesaurus collection, the silverware... they're all little "things" that make up a life. They are carefully planned purchases paid off over several months. They are trinkets and gifts bought on romantic getaways. They are family heirlooms.

It kind of got me thinking about my own "things." Moving every four months or so makes me acutely aware of just how many "things" I own. But they are my life. They are the things I've collected throughout my travels. They are the things I've purchased with my first paycheck. They are what oftentimes define me. Mostly, they're books, hundreds of heavy books. But that's beside the point.

Looking at my parents' "things," I started noting unfamiliar trinkets and toys... A new bookcase from my grandmother's storage, a new dresser, a redesigned bathroom, a new couch and TV, new computers. There are "things" here now that have nothing to do with me.

In a way, I'm slowly disappearing from this house. My senior picture is still in the dining room and I know where the spoons go, but this house is less and less mine. My running shoes no longer sit outside the garage door and my lips have never touched the new glasses. This house is changing just as much as I am.

It makes sense. A lot can happen in the course of a couple years. I've changed dramatically and am actually moving into a new place with some incredible women. With them, I'm sure to collect some of my own new "things," to outfit our apartment with owls and keys and fleur-de-lis (Oh, my!).

Things are just changing. As much as it pains me to say, the world is going on without me. If home truly is where the heart is, then I'm inevitably split between the two coasts. But if home is where my things are, San Diego is slowly fading away.

San Diego Harbor

Remembering My Summer with Cyrano

I wrote very recently about how incandescently happy I’ve been to be back in Boston. Yesterday, I went for a walk down Boylston and back up Newbury, straying at times to walk on Commonwealth or Marlborough (which is residential and absolutely stunning).

But this morning, when I was making my regular breakfast of fiber bread, toasted with butter and guava jam, I found myself thinking about San Diego.

Lowell Theater, Balboa Park

For my sixteenth birthday, my parents gave me season tickets to see the Summer Shakespeare Festival at Lowell Theater in Balboa Park. Every summer, The Old Globe selects three Shakespeare plays and puts them on from June through September on a rotating basis. The same cast performs in all three. So basically, you get to watch the same cast embody different roles, learn countless iambic pentameter lines, and play the same stage with a different set.

That year, I got to see Cyrano de Bergerac with my dad (not Shakespeare, I realize, but a fabulous French play nonetheless) and Twelfth Night (which is one of my favorites) with my mom. They actually saw the last one together. It was one of the most thoughtful, creative (and unexpected) gifts I’ve ever received.

A very unflattering picture of me with actor Patrick Page and his pup, Sophie!

I think about the shows I saw that summer often. Not only were they fantastic, but I also got to meet the actor that played Cyrano and Malvolio (and his little dog, too!). It was special because it was my last summer before I left for college and I got to spend some genuine quality time with my parents, one-on-one. We started the night off at a restaurant in the park and snuggled under scratchy blankets in the outdoor theater.

One of my senior pictures in beautiful Balboa Park <3

Balboa Park is one of the most beautiful places in the world. The park and the beach (and, of course, my family) are the few things that I miss wholeheartedly about San Diego. This year, the Summer Festival features The Tempest (a play I performed in and produced in high school that was also a CETA finalist) and Much Ado About Nothing. For the third show, the Globe has been venturing out and performing other non-Shakespearean plays (like Cyrano) with much success. This year’s third show is Amadeus. I’m bummed I’ll be missing it…

The Shis Outgrow Tiny PQ

Once upon a time, I wrote a post titled "Toto, We're Not in PQ Anymore..." about my best friend and our shared childhood and how somewhere between then and now, we grew up.

I talk to Bo on a multiple-times-daily basis. She is my rock and I her's... We'd probably fall apart if we were to be seperated from each other, but somehow by leaning on one another, we form some sort of Tee-pee-esque structure and stay afloat.

Bo recently moved to Georgia, as I've mentioned before. And having her on the same time schedule has been angelic. We talk all the time: Morning text, lunch chats, late-night vent sessions.

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Recently, one of the girls Bo and I grew up with had a baby boy with her husband. Bo and I have been talking about it, trying to decide if the recent birth made us feel old or young.

Honestly, it just makes me feel different. I'm 3,000 miles from home working my butt off in some cubicle. The notion of getting married or having kids sounds so far away, it's almost comical.

From there, the conversation transitioned to other people we went to high school with, particularly the losers we dated. Of all the people I dated or "talked to" or crushed on in high school, none left the state. A couple are in community college, a couple are in UCs or similar schools, and more than one have been through rehab. It's not like I'm attracted to bad boys (goodness, I'm not). But my school just didn't have the finest pickings.

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San Diego does not qualify by any means as a small town. But my little corner of the city (Rancho Penasquitos--shortened to PQ) functions very much like some tiny little podunk town. There are two high schools with enough of a rivalry to create stirs, there is one "town center" with the local hangout (Vons shopping center and Jack-in-the-Box, respectively), there are seasonal carnivals and PTAs.

And for as long as I can remember, I've wanted to get out, to see the world, to try something new. I always felt like my dreams (whatever they were that particular week) were too big for my little neighborhood.

In one of our daily ongoing conversations via various social media and technological networks, Bo wrote "Why do I feel that you and I are the only people from that town growing and changing? Obviously we were born for leaving..." and I got thinking.


Which came first? Was I born for leaving, therefore I grew and changed because I had to adapt in a new world? Or did I grow and change and therefore had to leave to find something bigger and better?

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I'm a city girl now, through and through. I actually looked at apartments with lawns the other day (obviously in other towns) and was turned off by how much space there was between apartments. What personality is there in thick walls? In matching furniture and manicured lawns? How am I supposed to entertain myself at night without being able to eavesdrop on my neighbors late night phone sex?

Whichever came first, Bo, we outgrew our tiny little town. Now, all we gotta do is take on the world. The world is a big place, even if my apartment is 8'x10'. Shi shi shii!!!

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