bay area integration

I've arrived home in Los Angeles. I use the term "home" loosely. Its where I grew up. Its where my mom lives. And when I come home to visit her, its here. Even when the apartment changes, its still LA--a topic which deserves it's own article, so complex are my feelings about this city. But I'll get to that later. For now, my thoughts gravitate to the list of friends that must be contacted, get together dates set, connections that I have only a brief time to revisit and tend to, my little desert cacti garden, dry but juicy.

But I know that somehow it will work out, as it has the last two and a half months, which has been absolute magic on the friend front.

The Bay Area, where I was just at, offered the most eclectic web of friends. I felt this interesting convergence of my different parts. My different social groups were all at once validating my presence, I could see who I was through their eyes. With Q, I am sweet college Karen, who she met in '98 when I was her resident. With Cybil and Gwen, I am Kazzie, the spastic balikbayan, American Filipino returning home to the Philippines. With Reggie, I am Kaz, former night owl in the Manila scene. With Deborah and Sharz, I am a fellow yogini and Mysore friend. With Randan, Reggie's beautiful partner, well, aside from a brief encounter 7 years ago, she got to know me for the very first time.

Recently, I've been mulling over this feeling of personal disintegration. There was my island life, my Manila life, my LA life, my life as a poet, my yoga life, my life as a writer. They all seemed so compartmentalized. There was some mingling here and there, but for the most part, each bit felt separate from the other--which I do recognize as a normal occurrence as well.

This last weekend, however, as I traipsed across the East Bay and SF to spend time with this eclectic assemblage of friends, I felt not disintegration but integration. Though these different segments didn't meet each other, they met the same person, me, who I am, the total amalgamation of my sum experiences, habits, personalities.

Most people, if they are objective and fair, will see what you let them. Perhaps, in the past I showed people a few pieces of the jigsaw puzzle out of my own reluctance and lack of self-confidence. I showed friends what I thought they would like about me. I anticipated judgment because I was judgmental of myself. This is hard to admit, let alone write. And to be honest, I didn't really understand it myself until now because as I type this I feel a knot loosen in my chest, a sign that this must be true. (I feel like I should apologize for such poor behavior on my part. It wasn't intentional, I promise...)

But recently, the events in the Pacific Northwest (heart ache induced stress followed by realization and acceptance) have forced some veils to drop. I feel the effects of it. I feel more real and vital, I feel more whole, I feel more certain of the world around me and of who I am. Something shifted. I stopped getting in the way of myself. And since then, I've let myself be. And this is who stepped off the plane in Oakland, the sum total of me, unabridged, uncensored, a little snotty-nosed, a little worse for wear, but wholly totally me.

To those lovely folks in the Bay Area who appeared out of the woodwork to greet me, thank you, I love you. Thank you for being a part of this journey!

berkeley revisited

Hours from leaving the Bay Area. The air is so cool and crisp here. It feels positively cleansing. So far, everything about this part of my trip has felt like a boon. As if the Universe, fully recognizing that I'd had my fair share of crazy recently, decided to finally give me a break.

For one thing, coming out here has created space. I'm far enough from the elements that were giving me discomfort to see more clearly, more objectively. You can only see so much when you are at the center of a whirlwind.

Also, coming out here is an important part of my journey. One that I probably needed to do on my own too. Its been over 7 years since I've been back in the Bay Area. But I have history here. When my family first moved to the US, we first landed in South San Francisco. I spent Grade 5 in a small Baptist school there, a new immigrant, totally awkward and uncertain.

I returned for college, taking a BA in Literature and a minor in Creative Writing at UC Berkeley--still awkward and uncertain. After I graduated, my sister did her undergrad in Berkeley too, then lingered on in Oakland before moving to New York, giving me reasons to return and visit.

Last Saturday, I took my less awkward and less uncertain self on a long walk through my alma mater. I ambled across campus and through Telegraph Ave. I walked up College Ave, past my old apartment, and all the way to Rockridge where I eventually met my old college friend Q, who drove down from Sacramento to break some Zachary's Pizza with me.

Overall, I feel how things change, yet at the same time things feel the same. Throughout my walk that was a major theme. There is a newness, probably inherent to all college towns, new students, new establishments, new buildings. At first, I felt disoriented, the newness threw me off a little. Soon enough though, the paths became more and more familiar. Names of buildings started to pop back into my head, along with memories of classrooms, lecturers and fellow students.

I walked past my favorite spots, the Eucalyptus Grove, the Life Sciences building, Moffit and Doe libraries where I worked, Bancroft--my favorite building with its Mary Poppins roof, the Study Abroad offices. When I got to Wheeler Hall, where many of my English classes were held and where many of my English teachers held office hours, I felt the urge to go in. Check things out.

Despite all the changes, there is also a feeling of consistency. The essence of Berkeley is unchanged. The spirit of learning lives on, though the torchbearers that flow through constantly. There's always another me, an archetype of me, walking about campus, discovering for the first time the meaning of being free.

Berkeley was the first place where I felt I could start to explore who I was as a person, as a sentient being. I remember the sensation of seeing my family drive off after helping me get settled into my dorm that first move in day. And then the excitement as I wandered down Telegraph with some dorm mates. I didn't know anything about anything. And it was glorious, this feeling of uncertainty, everything was full of possibility.

I am feeling that now--and have done so many times this trip, whether I was walking around the brownstone lined streets in Brooklyn, or absorbing the stunning scenery of Colorado, or jumping up and down a trampoline to take a glimpse of Mt. Rainier in Seattle's Capitol Hill, or contemplating the sunset going down on Puget Sound in Washington. Sometimes this feeling is good, blessed. Sometimes it is fraught with anxiety.

I feel grateful that there is a continuity in that feeling, that somehow that thread of light has lit the way across the landscape of my experiences. There were times when I had less or no hope, and those were always the darkest moments. But times like now, when I fully acknowledge the incredible creative potential that comes with the unknown, I am filled with awe of the gifts not yet presented, so many lessons and so much love yet undiscovered. Yes, I welcome change. If the infinite potential of the universe comes with it, how can we not embrace it?