Travel Memoirs: Circling Back to Find the Truth

Two years before we left the island, I remember my teacher, Mrs. Wantanabe, told the class about pidgin. She showed us a picture of her son. She explained to us that her son didn't speak English the same way we did. I wondered what that meant. I remember the humbling feeling, realizing for the first time there are multiple ways to speak the one language. I was eight years old. I thought, "Where had I been my whole life?"

I imagined Mrs. Wantanabe's son had a pet mongoose. He could have built the mysterious fort in the secret forest behind the playground. Maybe he even knew the correct lime-juice to hose-water ratio, and how to eat a mango off of the tree without getting sticky. He represented everything undiscovered; which seemed to be a lot for such a little island. And before I left, I never got to meet anyone who was even remotely like I imagined him to be.

Re-introduced to the mainland, I was stiff with the unfamiliar sensation of jeans, which I previously considered to be formal wear. Upside-down, staring out of the rental car window, I observed the orange, pink and purple glow of illuminated billboards and shop signs reflected in thick polluted air. California-colored smoke floated around the big buildings. The tinged smog agitated feelings of wonder and mystery. I hadn't slept in a few days--too excited. It seemed the mainland was where everything happened and I had just been hearing stories about it, leftovers. At the cultural capital, eye to eye with the news makers, eager to see things happening in real time. One day, I foolishly thought, I would jump off the train and become some small part of one of the passing lands.