I wish I had a great poem to recite about friendship that captures how it feels to meet friends from younger, easier, free-er times! And to miss it but also relish in how we are still in touch. I can't quite capture that feeling, but its fleeting and at the same time, constant when said friends are around.
After Montse and Giovanni visited, Xenia visited, then Ada and Adrian and many of my college friends, and then, last but not least, Chikie and his girlfriend visited. And more to come---the year is not over yet and we are expecting at least 4 more visitors :)
I love that people want to visit LA and I love it more that they want to stay with Chris and I. I think it's such a privilege to be able to host and also to have friends feel comfortable and close enough to want to stay. I'm not going to lie, I've been to Griffith, Getty, Santa Monica, and many other tourists and local favorite spots more times this year than ever before, but I still very much enjoy the places!
With Xenia's visit came dinner with Anna. We all, Montse included, went to LSE together about 8 years ago. When I sat to eat and chat with them, I was transported back to my days in London---not carefree, but free-er because I was a student, with lots of young people full of ambition and curiosity for the world, and full of hope that we'd do something good for the world. Also, full of compassion. We are all still doing really good, compassion-driven, work at a higher capacity and level. For that I'm so proud of us all. But we've all gone through so many changes as well--hardships, moves, discovery, and I think grown-up things like costs of living specifically housing costs, social justice issues that worry us, feeling helpless in how the world is changing, health issues, now preoccupy our minds and hearts. I felt like I was watching a movie about us growing up - it is happy but also melancholy in a way to see how the passage of time affects us all. Not necessarily a bad thing, just interesting. In any case, it was surreal because I didn't really think we'd all see each other again!
And then came our visit with Ada and Adrian, and other ND out of town guests like Erin, Eric, Jess, Juan, and Steph for Joey's wedding. College friends I expect to see post college for some reason. I think having a group chat that has been going on for years helps, going to reunion every 5/10 years helps, and living in a hometown of two of these friends helps! Nevertheless, it's always awesome to get the group back together, especially to celebrate a special wedding--of which guys...I did a reading at :) I also met up with Anthony one weekend, and then with Shefali on another. They visit LA more often, but so happy they still take time to reach out to me to get a meal together. With people I see more often, I feel like we are growing older together.
Finally Chikie and his fiance, Mei. Chikie and I know each other from my Shanghai days (2008). Post college, my friend Erin and I went to Shanghai to learn Chinese. Chikie was my classmate. There was a large group of us in my class that just got along so well and we often got together to travel China, practice Chinese, eat, play soccer, and just hang out. We all liked each other so much.
I visited Chikie and Chilun, his twin, in Germany after I went to London and I honestly wondered if I would ever see them or any of the group from China again. We are all from different parts of the world, and were all there for various reasons. I learned so much from these guys---just about life, the intangible things, as with any interaction with people different places than me. GUYS--- this is why international travel and study are so important and I'm so thankful to have had those opportunities.
With their visit, we finally met up with Jeff and Woojung. And I felt a deep and urgent nostalgia for my days in Shanghai that I have basically been dormant, buried somewhere in my mind. It was me missing with almost desperation the days of frolicking, with little responsibility but to immerse myself in Chinese culture, food, language, and history. And doing this with a group of people I enjoyed being around. A time of exploration and being impressed with everything! A time when we weren't jaded and we were excited to experience anything. Being a language student is the best. I miss it---I could almost feel and see myself walking around the streets of Shanghai, buying noodles from the cafeteria, dumplings from the shack on the little street behind Erin's apartment, and buying multicolored matching panda shirts together. Ah... to be carefree and open to the world.
It also made me think of this image ; I want to do this for myself and the cities I've lived in my life-- I think my Shanghai one is her Chile experience.
I miss and long for my younger self's curiosity, sense of time (that there was a lot of it), and openness-- does that even make sense? It's not because current life is bad, no!! Current life is also awesome, but wow, only once it was past and I revisited it again, did I realize what it meant to be in your early to mid-20s and love, hope, dream (amidst anguish and stress of what is to come of us) the way 20 something year olds do. I will never have that again and I think back about it with happy and joyful tears, also a deep sense of gratitude to my parents who had the insight to value broadening horizons through travel and interacting with people who are different from me. And now I feel a sense of urgency in how fast time passes by, and how important it is to be present (also that I should get back into meditation asap!)
Some pictures from my visits with the lovely people who have brought me so many beautiful moments and memories. And the opportunity to relive them again.
