Taipei Dispatch

The flight from Manila to Taipei was short and sweet. Leaving the country had fewer glitches than expected, yet more than appreciated (like the bank who's hours are from 9oo-1330; how very obvious they are). My Manila days were relatively uneventful; a few last minute visits, purchases, affordable movies, and schwarma plates. The days of cheap Mediterranean food have come to a close.

My intention in delaying departure by two weeks was to spend time decompressing, reflecting, and resorting my thoughts before landing on American soil. I've had a hard time deciding if or not my intentions were fully met. Yes, I was able to relax and reflect, in a manner of speaking, but not to the extent planned. Life, it would seem, occurs too fast to adequately process any given experience before flinging the next upon us. We are effectively unable to remove ourselves from the flow of events and view them, understand them, or catalogue them with any pretense of objectivity. Every moment is colored by every moment that follows; coming to any comprehensive conclusions about experience is little more than hyperbole.

This is not to say that one cannot speak about events in their life and experience without meaning or import. Experience simply cannot be understood in a vacuum, sans the context provided by what occured before and after any given moment. My thoughts on the Peace Corps will be affected by these few days in Taiwan, by my emotions the moment I step from the plane in Seattle, and by every moment thereafter (as those moments will in turn be affected by the others that will hopefully follow).

I'm glad that the decision to delay departure from the Philippines was made. For many reasons, most of which I am unable to articulate, returning state-side directly would have been too shocking, too jarring. Being away from home forced me to consider long and hard what it is about America I love, what it is I distrust; my conclusions about those catagories are less important than the overpowering sense that America is home. And yet the place I am most called to be had to wait, for just a little while, before accepting my offer of return. If or not the wait has better prepared me for all that will come, I do not know, but it may soften the blow.

Taipei is a very metropolitan city. This morning it's off to the National Palace Museum. Tomorrow, something else.