Going Home

Dear Judith,

I love love love the show "The Biggest Loser". I think it's so inspiring to watch the transformations of these people who so desperately want and need to drastically change their lives. This week's episode, however, was a hard one for me to watch.

One team won the opportunity to go home for a week. As I watched these strangers arrive at home and hug their children, I closed my eyes and pictured myself going home to Saipan, hugging my children, the ones with whom I connected so strongly. I would give absolutely anything to be with them again. They are the most important people in my life, despite the great physical distance between us. I think about them everyday, I relive our times together, and picture them growing up, as I know they are.

I wish I could go home.

I Miss

Dear Judith,

I just found this document on my computer. I guess I wrote it right after I got back to America. It all still applies.

I miss the oppressive heat.
I miss the blue ocean.
I miss Yellow Mango strawberry banana smoothies.
I miss being noticed by everyone around me.
I miss my class. Oh so much.
I miss cockroaches. It's true, I do.
I miss my incredibly strong support system.
I miss being genuinely liked by the people around me.
I miss my lack of drama and the lack of boys around me.
I miss seeing Asian people.
I miss free mangoes and starfruit.
I miss hearing Japanese.
I miss Rhonda cooking for me.
I miss Rhonda.
I miss being called Miss Jaimie.
I miss the beautiful beaches.
I miss snorkeling and camping at Managaha.
I miss driving down Beach Road.
I miss being able to go to work without driving on Beach Road.
I miss knowing my way around and having a nice car to drive.
I miss late nights with friends.
I miss praise songs at church.
I miss TGIS.
I miss all the kids from SDA.
I miss the Yoshidas.
I miss being someone, contributing something.
I miss the way that I talked.
I miss having something to blog about.
I miss jumping in the grotto.
I miss dancing with Sanchez and Angie.
I miss Sanchez and Angie.
I miss Clean Laundry.
I miss fried bananas.
I miss Street.
I miss apple green tea.
I miss getting dressed up and going to Garapan.
I miss Wave Jungle.
I miss PIC slides, on my stomach, feet first.
I miss Oleai tacos.
I miss tutoring.
I miss Sean's peach cobbler and fettuccine alfredo.
I miss Barbara's salad.
I miss the Maycocks.
I miss the opportunity to get tan.
I miss Bobby Cadillacs.
I miss Sabbath afternoon hikes with the Piersons.
I miss laughing with my Angela.
I miss Cristina teaching me how to act "D.C."
I miss who I was.
I miss the feeling of accomplishment.
I miss my hair.
I miss never seeing white people.
I miss aloe juice.
I miss driving to Banzai by myself, late at night.
I miss freedom.
I miss traveling.
I miss REAL.
I miss feeling like I was home.

Starbucks is nothing. American boys are awful. I just want to be back where I belong.

Wait It Out

Dear Judith,

I recently purchased Imogen Heap's new CD, entitled Ellipse. My current favorite song from the album is "Wait It Out".

Everyday, I think of what might have been, if I had stayed for a second year, if I had extended my contract. I feel like I lost myself on the trip back to America. Perhaps the real me never left the airport in Saipan. Sometimes I feel like I'll never reconcile who I was there with who I am here. I wonder if I'll ever recover from the loss of my Saipan home, family, and life. How can I speed up the process? In fact, I may want to hold on to the pain of goodbyes, because at least that part of Saipan is still real in America.

As I try to endure my feelings of desperation for Saipan, it helps to know that others can put my feelings to music in a way that is much more comforting than I anything I could ever conjure. Here are the lyrics:

Where do we go from here?
How do we carry on?
I can't get beyond these questions...

Clambering for the scraps in the shatter of us collapsed
that cuts me with every could-have-been

Pain on pain on play repeating
with the backup, makeshift life in waiting

Everybody says time heals everything
but what of the wretched hollow?
The endless in between
are we just going to wait it out?

There's nothing to see here now,
turning the sign around
We're closed to the earth 'til further notice

A stumbling cliched case,
crumpled and puffy faced
Dead in the stare of a thousand miles

All I want, only one, street level miracle
I'll be an out and out, born again, from none more
cynical

And sit here cold, we will be long gone by then
In lackluster, in dust we layer on old magazines,
fluorescent lighting sets the scene
in the one life that we've got

And sit here
Just going to wait it out
And sit here cold
Just going to sweat it out
Wait it out

It's About The People

Dear Judith,

Tomorrow marks the four month anniversary of my leaving Saipan. In some ways, life's ease has increased as the time passed. I am not as constantly cold as I was on my return. I have begun to re-insert myself into society, the one which I left behind in my journey to...what did my year in Saipan accomplish? Perhaps that's for another blog. Perhaps I've already covered that topic to death, and you have discontinued your readership to avoid my repetitious sentiments. In any case, though some things have begun to seem normal again, I still find myself longing for the place that I left.

I was looking through the pictures of a current preschool teacher in Saipan, and I found something which I suppose I've always known. Saipan is beautiful. I miss the warm sun, the sparkling beaches, and the beautiful flowers, but none of those pictures really caught my attention or caused my eyes to fill with tears. However, when I saw pictures of the students who captured my heart and still hold it, I immediately had to look away, and still I could not fight back the tears. Just the thought of them, in a world so far away that I could not reach them if I tried sends me right back to the airport on my last night in Saipan.

I recall so keenly, sitting in a chair by the cafe in the airport, talking with Tali, Rhonda, Edna. I hadn't started to cry yet, and I was wondering if I even would. Then Edna said, "I know who Miss Jaimie will miss," and she began writing a student's name on my leg with her finger. That was all it took and I completely broke down.

I have since tried to mentally picture every child who was in my class during the course of the year, and so far, I haven't made it past the first name before I have to give up my task.

Saipan is a wonderful place, but I didn't fall in love with the island. I fell in love with the people: the people I worked with, the students I taught, the people I went to church with and learned from. Life isn't about where you are or even what you're doing. It turns out that it doesn't matter if you're in Oregon, or D.C., or even Ohio. It's about the people, and that's what I truly miss about Saipan.

My class on picture day

The goodbye group at the airport

REAL--What a blessing

New Year's at Tapochau

End of the island tour--Sunset at Tapochau