Out On the Town

part twelve

My necklace broke. Inevitably, shattered.

The bluestone ring, from Stonehenge. I wore it every day. I slept with it hanging from my neck as though it tethered me to this time, this place, but really it was a reference to what feels like way-back-when. Can it be called nostalgia when the memories aren't there, merely the feelings? I feel that I've lived another life these last few months since I've returned "home" and I'd twist the bluestone around my finger and remember my life back there. Back in England.

A short life, certainly, but an entirely separate one from what I'm living now.

I had nightmares about my necklace shattering. During the day I would anxiously twist it around my finger and at night I would anxiously dream of crumbling it in my hands, the shards slipping to the floor.

When it actually broke it didn't happen in slow motion, and it didn't make me sick to my stomach like the nightmares did. I unclasped the light silver chain with my mind in faraway places and suddenly it was on the floor in too many pieces to be considered a singular thing anymore and I stood above the shards, staring, one hand covering my mouth as I fought the urge to cry out, for help or pity, I wasn't sure.

When I finally dropped to the hard tile floor of my mother's bathroom my mind had gone from numb to chasing a vague notion of glue and tape even though I knew it wouldn't work. I scraped together every piece large enough to hold and tried to reconstruct the ring. And I was right, it didn't work; I've never been good with puzzles, let alone broken ones.

Eventually I tucked the chain and the three largest pieces into my pocket and quietly thought about how empty my chest and my neck felt and that feeling hasn't gone away since. I don't know if it will, but the pieces remain on my nightstand and there they will stay. It hurts when I wake up and it hurts when I sleep and I can't help but look at them. The necklace was worth far more to me than the twenty pounds I spent on it. I tried to find it in the online Stonehenge gift shop and even though they still carry the sheep hat I bought, the bluestone necklace is nowhere to be found.

Besides, I couldn't replace it, not really. I'd buy a new one and pay for the shipping but I'd know every time I felt it on my skin that it wasn't the real one, it wasn't the one I bought when I was there. Yet I still think a replacement is better than this empty lurching I feel every time I reach up and touch my neck and feel nothing at all.

In Hawaii I was told that if I threw a lei into the ocean and it came back, that meant I'd return someday. I was 11 and knew that was ridiculous because obviously the tide would wash the lei back to shore, but I threw one anyway and it came back to me. I returned three years later. In London I put the necklace on and told myself I'd wear it until I came back to Stonehenge, because that meant I had come back to England, hopefully forever. I feel disappointed that the necklace didn't last more than a few months, but then I feel disappointed that I believed it would last years (or more - the Queen only know how long it'll take me to find a way back).

But despite the pain, I can't get rid of the pieces. They will sit at my bedside and I will mourn them with every glance but I could never sentence them to some landfill. They will remain with me, even though I can't wear them, until I do, finally, make it to England for good. I will take them on the plane and carry them in my pocket and bury them in my backyard as the sun sets on British soil. 

Stars

part eleven

I had a good sense of humor in Denmark because I couldn't manage to stay up late at that point and I wanted to sleep until I was off the ship. I really liked what I was doing but I still felt like I was missing everything, including myself, and that didn't change until I was back in London.

I have roots in Denmark, stars that came from the island Mon, and as much as I liked Copenhagen I liked it better from afar. I felt myself fading and I wanted no more pictures taken. I only kept my camera out for the people back home who were excited that I was in the land of my ancestors. I didn't find any good souvenirs, though, and I felt bad.

No one can help but hold on to stars, even if they aren't the ones you thought they were.

I liked our guide but mostly I liked the water. I don’t think I’ll ever get over my fear of large bodies of dangerous, cold water but the pure, glimmering blue was so brilliant in the bright sun that I was willing to forego the safety of the distant bus in order to stare. I tried to take a picture to remember the first body of water I've ever been attracted to but I found I don't need help remembering (which is fortunate, as the pictures I did take greatly diminish the actual sight). I've always been interested in my heritage but I felt no bond with Denmark, and like many too-famous landmarks, the Little Mermaid statue was much smaller in person and I found I just didn’t care.

One Foot

part ten

The Republic of Finland has never actually been at war.

Technically, in 1809, Russia warred with Sweden over Finland and the history books call it the "Finnish War" but really, Finland is hardly worth fighting over. Even Russia knew it; when Finland asked for its independence in 1917, Russia just shrugged and let them have it.

I've never really wanted to go to India or France but I've always wanted to go to Finland. As it turns out, the reason why I wanted to go was much more interesting to me than the actual country.

My grandma and I used to play word games. This was her solution for me when I didn't want to be at the beach or the park or outside in the sun, but we were there anyway because it was a Saturday and my sister was bored, so she'd let me sit in the shade and say, "A! My name is Amanda and I'm going to Alaska and I'm bringing apples!"

And she'd say, "B my name is Billy and I'm going to Bermuda and I'm bringing boats!"

We'd go back and forth through the whole game and then we'd make up new games until we were laughing too hard to speak.

One time we were at the beach and my sister was playing in the surf with my step-grandpa and Grandma and I only made it to letter F before we stopped, because we'd already been through the alphabet game once and couldn't think of a country besides France that started with F.

"F! My name is Frida and I'm going to...um..."

"What country starts with F?"

"Um...well, I'm bringing...fish."

"I can't think of any others..."

"And I'm going to...um...Oh! I'm going to FINLAND!"

The tour guide in Helsinki very proudly told us how safe it is to live in Finland. She flipped her hair and grinned at those of us sitting in the front of the bus and said that the people of Finland would never dream of dropping their kids off at school, even the little ones walk by themselves. Which makes sense for a country that rents out patches of land for people to grow flowers on and prints every street sign and public notice in at least two languages to cater to anyone whose mother tongue isn't Finnish.

We went to a park in Helsinki and I took pictures of the cloudy sky and dew-soaked trees and a little green bench off by itself. I imagined growing up in Finland and sitting on that bench with Grandma. We'd play the alphabet game (in multiple languages because every Finnish child is required to learn at least three in school) and we wouldn't be able to come up with a country that started with U, and finally I'd shout "USA!" because that would sound just as funny to us as "Finland" did when we were at the beach.

Finland's Wikipedia page tries really hard to include itself in major wars of the last few centuries, but the reality is that Finland is just a quiet place known for its safety and lack of invasions. The most exciting thing I learned while there was that a fire destroyed all the wooden houses in Helsinki in the early 1800s, but even then, the tour guide glossed over the gory details in favor of detailing the eleven month maternity leave granted to each mother and the fact that college students don't have to pay taxes.

Grandma and I went to Finland together. It's important to both of us that we can say that now, and maybe I don’t want to live in Helsinki and maybe I loved London and Gothenburg and Tallinn more but what matters is that we were both there, together.

All Alright

part nine

The last time I looked at London wasn't from my familiar Gloucester hotel room but from the shuttle that took us to Hyde Park and back to the airport. I went to Heathrow and felt that there was nothing left inside my chest because it was all welled up behind my eyes and I couldn't let it out right there. I wanted London to be so much more than a one-night stand but I had to leave...and that was all right. Maybe not alright, because I was still burning out and I wouldn't sleep for 30 hours straight, but I knew in my head that it was all right. My chest would feel better when I no longer had to face that I was leaving, when I was just gone and had no choice. And indeed I felt much more at peace in the Heathrow airport terminal than the night before when we ate at the Hard Rock Cafe in London and I knew I was spending my last evening in the city for God knows how long.

All Alone

part eight

If ever a song reminded me of Tallinn it will always be this, for we spent so long tracking down these little dolls for my step-grandpa. We never found them and he had to buy different ones that he wasn't in love with, but that was okay. I loved the one I bought for my mom, but I bought it the moment I laid eyes on it and that's how you have to shop, I've decided. I loved feeling like I was all alone; we wandered the city without a tour guide and took our time finding the castle and listening to the men playing violins in the courtyard. If ever I return I will go by myself and I'll go through the same shops for nostalgia's sake, but the graffiti on the walls outside will probably be different. I probably won't find "Retrofuturism: Translinguistic Futurism" spray-painted on a fence again. I don't even know what that phrase means but I think it has something to do with the narrow, decrepit cobblestone streets with sleek white security cameras precariously secured to the peeling brick buildings.

I only wandered around Old Tallinn but I found buildings with strange metal rods attached to the walls for no apparent reason other than to help intrepid assassins reach arched rooftops. Street bands of teenagers played Western songs in every square for whatever coin you might be carrying, and how could I not give money and applause to the boys proudly trumpeting through "Eye of the Tiger"?

The McDonald's in Tallinn accepted any type of money and even though it's not called a "Quarter Pounder" in Estonia, the cashier understood what I wanted well enough and the ketchup even tasted the same - slightly more acidic than that of any other fast food restaurant. It offered free wifi, too, and for once I didn't mind being the tourist who goes to McDonald's instead of eating locally. In my defense I was traveling with my grandparents, which made for not quite an adventure as the backpacking-through-Europe trip I guess I was supposed to take (but really, is that any better a stereotype than being a tourist? I don't really see the difference, myself).

The street signs were confusing, though, even if they had English translations on the bottom. Our map was terrible but I liked getting lost. 

Why Am I the One

part seven

The evening after Stockholm, I sat on the top deck of the ship and pretended to read, long after the sun set and my fingertips went numb. I didn’t care for the tour we took that day, an hour and a half spent inside a single Jewish temple and barely any sight-seeing, so I should have either been happy the day was over or happy that I was one day closer to seeing London again, but still...

Still, I hated packing myself up to get back on the bus and back on the ship and back on the plane because why am I the one who has to go back? Why can't I stay and for once tell the others to go on without me? I think I would like that and I don't think it would be too much, not for me. I could stay away from the western towns and live in Sweden forever. Maybe not Stockholm, for as beautiful as it is it's also boring, but maybe Gothenburg, or the small little house on the edge of the forest with its own little dock that Grandma and I picked out as "ours" when we saw it through the window during dinner. I could buy it and live there forever and Grandma could come visit me, or live with me if she wanted, that would be fine with me, and for once we would know that we were home.

But I know very well that the little house isn't what I really want, it's just a way to get away. What I really want is to go back to the botanical gardens in Gothenburg and wander around without a guide to call me back. Usually I don't even like flowers, but I loved the beds of purple and black tiarella covered in raindrops. I loved the carved wooden dinosaurs for kids to play on and the distant clock tower peeking over the many kinds of trees that I couldn't identify. I don't even like rain but what I want is the smell of rain and the feeling of it dripping down my hair and blurring my vision as I look across the fields of dandelions and marigolds and roses. I don't like flowers individually because they mean nothing to me, but the gardens were beautiful and I wouldn't mind visiting every other weekend just to get away from everything in my life that does not have depth.

What I really want is the old church on the hill we visited before the botanical gardens. I think if I lived in Gothenburg I would start going to church again. It's one of those places where I could sit in the wooden pews and think "Why am I the one?" and not feel like I've had too much of...everything. I would probably still feel sad but maybe at least the wistfulness for something besides what I have would ebb.

But as I sat on the deck, cold and tired of thinking, I knew that even if I managed to be the one who stayed in Gothenberg and left everyone else behind, it wouldn't be what I really wanted. I might rail against those western towns and tourist points but truly my home is England, and I will live out my life there the way I want, even if there are days still where all I want is to stay in bed.

Everyone else comes up on deck to wave when we pull out of each port but this time I'm the only one who stays when they all return to the bars and dance floors and warm, cramped cabins. That's partially a punishment for not having a better attitude in Stockholm and partially a desperate attempt to look at land for as long as possible before we return to open seas.

I guess it was also a mourning for Gothenburg. It really was a shame I couldn't have gone there twice, or just stayed in London the entire trip.

But I'm a fool to think that nothing would go wrong before I made it back, or that the worst isn't yet to come.

It Gets Better

part six

I twist the ring between my fingers, the smooth spotted bluestone soothing against my skin and my nerves. I do this without thinking

I've done so many things but nothing is as great as standing where people have been standing for thousands of years. I can't cry with everyone around so I stem the flow and wish I could stand at Stonehenge under the stars. I can't believe it’s simply something that humans have done and then ruined because we ruin everything. Everything hurts me and I feel different from everyone else but I know it will get better, because I bet they all feel the same way and that hurts even more. I don't think I'll forget but I'm worried that I won't remember that this is really happening.

Standing before Stonehenge and trying not to cry because it's too much to take in even though I've been there an hour and really, it's just some upright slabs of stone, but it's too much to think about. It's a Moment, just like my first glimpse of Russia at 1:30 am through windows of the Solarium.

There were other moments, but I think about Stonehenge every morning when I put on my necklace I bought in the gift shop after I finally managed to rip myself away from it. It was simple and cheap, only a bluestone ring on a short silver chain, but I wear it every day and I think about it when I get nervous or stressed. I twist the ring around my middle finger, a new habit I've picked up these last few months, and I even have nightmares of it shattering. Twisting it only helps so much; it's never quite enough to calm me down. 

Carry On

part five

As I return to my cabin each night, far later than anyone but the staff still cleaning and preparing and smiling unfailingly, I seek out each security camera and make strange faces at the black lens.

I don't mind that someone will see because it's just a glass lens and it has to be refreshing for whoever’s on watch at 2 am to see someone who doesn't look half-dead (physically or figuratively, it's all the same here). I want to stop and scream that I'm not the ghost you are to me but no one would hear. Instead I just walk to my cabin and clutch my laptop and journal and nod at each passing attendant, using my headphones as an excuse not to engage in excruciating small talk. All I want is to just carry on.

I don't want the age thing to be such a big deal but if one more old person gives me that surprised look when I tell them I graduated from university already, I'm going to give them a deadpan stare and say "Why, how old are you?" I know that's not really playing fair but it's much harder to be respectful of the elderly when I've already listened to this album three times and my headphones are starting to press against my glasses and give me a headache and if I forget to say "university" instead of "college" they think I haven't actually accomplished anything yet.

We Are Young

part four






My dad likes this song, as I found out when he drove me to the airport on day one of my trip. He raised me on Beach Boys and Dr. Demento but I never did like the Beatles, and I know he doesn't like My Chemical Romance but it's good that he likes Fun. because they are my traveling anthem.

           

I desperately want someone to find new ways to fall apart with, but I don't lack for people to carry me home. Even though home can never be in the same place as my parents because I can't live in San Diego. I don't talk about serious things when we are driving to the airport because I can't bear to set the world on fire and then disappear without helping them put it out.

Some Nights

part three





For forty years, French architect Auguste de Montferrand designed and oversaw the building of St. Isaac's Cathedral in St. Petersburg, Russia, commissioned by Tsar Alexander I.

Montferrand died in 1858, one month after the cathedral's completion.

While Montferrand's widow grieved, Tsar Alexander I refused the man's last wish to be buried in the crypt of his masterpiece, for Montferrand wasn't Russian, or Orthodox.

The altar of St. Isaac's Cathedral is carved out of lapis lazuli and malachite. I've read about these stones in textbooks but I didn't expect them to be so deeply and painfully vivid; how can such color exist in nature? Maybe I was supposed to spend more time looking at the golden, shining paintings of Christ - they looked like someone had taken a long time to create.

Probably not as long as forty years, though.

My grandma came to stand next to me as I stared at the blue and green altar for the thirty-five minutes we were allowed inside. She whispered in my ear even though every other tourist wasn't bothering to be quiet. She said that she wished she could lie down on the floor and stare, forever, because only then could she truly manage to take everything in. I nodded in agreement and thought, if a man can spend forty years building a monument to a religion he didn't believe in, then we are all entitled to the eternal resting place of our choice.

St. Petersburg has no shortage of Russian Orthodox churches but apparently Moscow holds the more traditional ones. I felt more cheated by the lack of interesting souvenirs than in the European-style churches. I honestly couldn't tell the difference between them anyway, at least not from the exterior.

The Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood was built around the location of the assassination of Tsar Alexander II, thus earning it’s grotesque moniker. The altar isn't made of lapis lazuli but it does have a great origin story, for it was built directly over the pooled blood of the tsar. I wondered if they washed the blood away before they began construction or left it, a morbid stain to mark out the right spot.

The small girl picking daisies in the grass outside didn't know about the blood, and I wished I could have taken her in hand and shown her the lapis lazuli in St. Isaac's instead of merely spying at her from behind the wrought iron gates. Instead I went inside and ignored the floor-to-ceiling mosaics of New Testament stories and gazed upward at the colossal image of Christ's face bearing down on the worshippers. In his arms he once cradled a German bomb, which stayed live for decades yet never detonated, only to be discovered in the 1970s when restoration finally began.

I didn't want to spend forever in the Church of the Spilt Blood. Maybe because it's only a museum and no longer a place of worship, which I suppose made me feel a little cheated, just like I felt cheated out of good souvenirs. Fake Faberge eggs and cheap nesting dolls and vodka were all that any tourist shop had to offer.

Stupid or not, I expected snow and bears in Russia, and although both were conspicuously absent I did find a t-shirt that read "I've been to Russia and there are no bears." Whoever started that stereotype was an idiot but I'd love to meet him, just as I'd love to meet Montferrand and that little girl with her flowers.

Some Nights (Intro)

part two

The cruise ship was cold at night. I often had to pass through the outdoor pool deck to get to my chosen haunting grounds, because I kept taking the wrong staircase. An elevator would have taken me directly to the Solarium, but I quickly stopped using elevators; I always wanted to be alone and the elevator walls were made of glass and the ocean was always so very dark and close.

I'd pass the pool attendant shivering in his windbreaker, which might be enough during the day but at night the Baltic Sea feels freezing, even though it's far from that. We were sailing on the first crossing for the spring, and although the Baltic hasn't frozen over completely since 1987, it's still too icy to travel through until May.

I always tried to greet him pleasantly, the poor man on top deck duty, but all that would come out was an awkward half-smile as I hunched over and slowed my steps for the automatic doors. It was warmer inside, the Solarium artificially heated, jungle sounds playing softly and the spa jets humming even though by 9 pm I'd be the only one around. I could never quite pin down the theme of the Solarium, some mix between safari and wilderness and India, but it didn't matter because there were green chaise lounges and no one to bother me except the passing attendants.

So one night, like every other, I sat down in one of the lounges and turned on my Kindle and turned up my music and settled down to pretend I wasn't in the middle of the ocean. It took longer to get to Russia from Estonia than I would have thought, so these nights grew common, and I learned that George R.R. Martin is great for escapism and between fiction and Fun. I always managed to forget about the ship for a while.

I'd read for hours, stay out longer and longer each night, and feel relieved that I refused to carry that walkie-talkie my step-grandpa tried to force on me the first day of our trip (“I am twenty years old,” I told him, and the subject never came up again). I did have a cell phone, a red flip phone like the ones we had in middle school, but it barely got reception on the Baltic. So I'd read and listen and eventually come across some profundity beyond fighting and politicking and that night, like so many others, I paused to collect my thoughts. And like so many other nights, I thought the same things:

The people I wish would talk to me won't, because I'm a tourist in a group of so many camera-toting t-shirts and they are native and I can't leave the group, as much as I want to turn down a cobblestone street and just disappear. So instead I try to meet the younger crowd on the ship, but to do so in earnest would require me to visit the clubs and that's not my scene. Instead I just keep wandering by myself and reading for hours in the Solarium and going up to climb the rock wall, shuddering away from every accidental glance at the oceanic whitecaps.

If only I had the guts to stop the young girl I keep passing in the elevator and ask if she wants to hang out. I imagine exactly how the conversation would go:

"I know this sounds weird, but you're literally the first person I've seen in a week who wasn't 50-plus," I'd say, raising my hands in a gesture of peace.

The girl would regard me closely. "I'm 20."

"Me too," I'd tell her. "You don't look it."

"Neither do you," she'd answer, starting to smile.

"A fact I've been constantly reminded of since I left London," I'd sigh and roll my eyes.

"You're from London?" She'd ask, her own accent making it clear she's either American or Canadian. "I would have guessed America."

"I'm from California," I'd shrug, closing the gap between us and holding out my hand.

The girl would reach out and shake it briefly and then pause for a moment, wondering about the proper follow-up question. "So where are you headed?" she'd ask, settling for a change of subject.

"Well, it's dinnertime, so I guess I'll go eat."

"You know, if you want to wait, the buffet opens in half an hour." Her implied invitation would be clear, yet smooth in the way I never manage.

"I like the food there much more than the fancy shit in the dining room," I'd grin.

She'd laugh and agree, "And none of that ridiculous assigned seating!"

We'd continue to chat as we climb the staircase and spend the rest of the evening hanging out together. She wouldn't try to talk me into going to whatever party was happening on whatever dance floor and I wouldn't talk too much about things that don't matter, all those things that tend to spill out when I’m desperate for company, like obscure movie trivia and my favorite trends in young adult fiction and why I don't want to be from California anymore. We would just walk around the ship and laugh and agree to Facebook each other the moment we found working wifi, no pressure, just laughing and sharing our misery together.

But at some point I would always stop imagining this beautiful fictional friendship and remember that I don't "hang out," not with strangers on ships that I'm too shy to talk to. And I definitely don't use elevators anymore.

my life as told by fun.

part one

May 9, 2012. Four days after I graduated from university, I got on a plane with my grandparents and flew to London. We spent only five days there, but for the first time in my life, I learned a profound and honest truth about myself, without even trying. I learned that for once I actually knew myself and my heart. I had thought for so many years that I wanted to live in England, that I needed to be there; and the most important thing I learned in those four days was that I was incredibly, profoundly right. And after those five days, I got on a cruise ship and visited some other neat places and at the end, I was different. That I hadn’t predicted, and living life again as my old self was no longer possible, probable, or doable. 

In the end, all I had left was the desperate need to get back to England. It took me four more years to do so. In the meantime, I had Fun.

Transnational / Cinema / Reflections: Wonder Woman (Jenkins, 2017): A Film Interview wit...

Dr. James Wicks, professor at PLNU and one of my former professors, gave me this opportunity to speak about some of my favorite things, superheroes and feminism, over at his blog!

Transnational / Cinema / Reflections: Wonder Woman (Jenkins, 2017): A Film Interview wit...: Here is an interview with Emily Anthony, a former student of mine and a recent graduate from the University of Leeds in Leeds, UK, where she...