I’m used to New York.  I’ve been here, I’ve lived here, I know the town and it’s native inhabitants.  I am not one of them.  I just couldn’t let go of that last small shred of manners and politeness.  

For instance: To me a locked bathroom door usually means that someone is inside the bathroom.  Probably peeing.  More than likely half way in their lower clothing.  The locked door probably, in my opinion, means that they do not want you in there while they are peeing/taking off their pants/etc.  Wait patiently and you too will have a chance to pee/take of your pants/etc.

Unless you’re in New York in which case a locked door means that you start yelling “Why the f*** is this door locked!  Who would lock the f*****g bathroom door?  Open this s*** up now.”  And when the door locker says “Um, just a minute.” in response (probably because she is peeing AND has her pants around her knees) a good New Yorker will demand that the waitress unlock the door.

See, it’s that kind of stuff that made me move to Maryland.

…but it’s not advisable.

So I’m headed out of my hometown. I was excited to start an adult life on the island I grew up on. I thought that this nurturing place would give me the same kind of support I got as an adolescent finding her way. Being an adult I was sure I’d finally be given a look into the worlds that are closed to children, and an entree into those communities that would help me become a healthy, happy, grown-up sexual being.

But once you’ve done high school in a place, you will forever do high school in a place. Sex is always high school sex, community is always high school cliques, and relationships are eerily similar to lunch-time gossip brawls.

Except now everyone has potbellies and gray hair.

It’s a sad thing to know that that nurturing I remember from my fair island is so tainted. Children I knew grew up to be spiteful and angry. With the added benefit of legal alcohol. I’m back were I started. And it’s not where I want to be. So I’m headed away. From Maui to Korea with a new found appreciation of how good it is to leave home.

We were taking an after-dinner walk when we stumbled across a huge street fair happening just a few blocks from our place.  Sweet.  I love stuff like this. There is something kinda magical when the place you live in suddenly pops up hundreds of tents and new foods.  I adore walking through the crowds to see what everyone is getting excited over.  I get excited over it too.  

Because we live in Korea the stuff they get excited with over here is a little different than the stuff we get excited about back home.  So we taped it.  

I played hostess/narrator and ran from booth the booth.  We both wanted to get film of the different foods you can get over here.  Shark, chicken feet, stuffed squid, and then there are the beetles.  

I found a booth that was firing some up.  Hundreds of brown, slimly looking beetle-like things getting cooked in a big skillet.  They were being fried in hot, brown oil and they danced and oozed and wiggled like they were still alive.  Which they could have been.  They didn’t smell very good either.  Imagine frying your used gym socks in dirty peanut oil.  Yeah…that’s what this was like.

A few weeks ago D. and I, in an surge of adventure and curiosity, tried some of these treats.  They tasted about as great as they smelled.  Only a little nuttier.  We both gave them a shot, shrugged and declared that we probably wouldn’t eat them ever again.

Until we were standing in front of a vat of them with a video camera and a nice Korean man was holding a freshly skewered one on a toothpick at me.  From behind the camera D. chuckled:  ”Go on.  Try one.”  The Korean bug-man giggled too.  

So I took it, blew on it, and popped it into my mouth.

And it popped in my mouth, squishing and spilling all over my tongue as I chewed it’s squirmy little exoskeleton.  

“So how was your first bug?” D. asked over the camera in his interviewer voice.  

I shrugged and because I’m classy and have no willpower, I was filmed making a face as I tried to get the gritty bug taste off my teeth.  

“It popped in my mouth.” I critiqued.

Out of the side of my vision the Korean bug-man laughed again and then pointed at me while he motioned his cupped hand at his crotch and said something I couldn’t translate.

“And I think he just said I have big balls.”

I find that as a woman, handshakes become more and more complicated.  I often envy men who can simply give a good firm shake and be done with it.  More do I envy the ease that they can keep their hands locked while they chat, seemingly unconcerned that a second hold too short or too long casts you from friendly female to dirty slut.

And then there is trying to judge if he’s going to hold your fingers, or kiss them.  Hug you, or simply squeeze your hand.  If I smile, am I flirting?  If I go thumb to thumb will I come off as too aggressive.  If I offer first do I look like a confident woman of the world…or a bumbling child imitating the rest of the grown-ups?  

Sometimes I think I should just kiss everyone I meet on the forehead and be done with it.  

However, as much as my anxiety goes up when the handshake comes, I often forget how weird it must be for the men.  

Late last night I found myself eating bacon in barbecue sauce in a small shop down from my apartment.  The shop was pretty empty and most people were asleep in their beds.  Except for Tony and his student, Mr. Kim.  Tony is from California.  Mr. Kim works for a dog food company.  Tony was drunk, friendly, and obnoxious.  Mr. Kim was handsome, quiet and shy.  

Upon meeting there were handshakes all around.  My name, his name, his name, my name.  Tony pulled Mr. Kim up to us and said “Here, shake her hand, shake her hand” in the same tone one tells a reluctant child to give Aunty Lipstick a big smooch.  I was disturbed both by the tone Tony used and the idea that in this scenario I’m Aunty Lipstick.  

Mr. Kim shook my hand.  They left.  They came back.

Mr. Kim shook my hand.  Again.  This time without prompting.  While Tony and the boyfriend chatted in English Mr. Kim and I exhausted our mutual language skills.  I said “Annyeong Haseyo”.  He said “Nice to meet you.”  Then we sorta stood there.  

Tony said “Shake her hand, shake her hand!”  Mr. Kim and I looked at each other like we were gearing up to hug gorillas.  We shook.  

Tony said “You can shake girls hands when their American!  Shake her hand, shake her hand.”  

We shook…again.

Tony said “He likes to shake hands of pretty girls.  Shake her hand, shake her hand.”

We shook.  I was only mildly happy at my promotion from Aunty Gorilla to Pretty Girl.   

Tony said something in Korean that made the women laugh and Mr. Kim turn from a handsome asian olive to a bright shade of pink.

“Shake her hand, shake her hand”

We shook.  I don’t know about Mr. Kim…but I felt a little dirty.

It’s here.  It’s here!  It is finally here!

Finally, after far too many decades of in-identity, of un-wordliness, of crossing my fingers at the border between Canada and the US with a drivers license and a flirty smile, after all that I now have a passport.

I am a citizen of the world!

Well, no.  According to the first page of my passport I am a citizen of the United States.

But I can go play with citizens of the world.

Oh it is so pretty.  What a pretty, pretty shade of blue.  What gorgeous, if empty, pages it has.  I love its compact size.  I love its papery binding.  I love it so much I want to…

Get it really, really, really dirty.  

Let this book, this pretty, spotless book, be marked.  Let it be scribbled in and stamped.  Let it be bent and broken.  Let this book be torn and mended.  Let this book be smudged with a hundred thumbs of a hundred customs agents.  Let it be dirtied by the splash of a wet street in Paris and the mud of the Amazon.  Let this book, above all others, be my constant companion.  Let it follow me, close to my chest as I hike dirt roads in India and let it be smushed and smeared next to my make-up in my purse as I traipse through Milan.  Cover this book in exotic foods.  Dye it in saffron, color it with wine.  Oh let this book see worse days, let it long for better.  Let it find them.  Let this book lead me away from home, let it follow me back again.  Let this constant companion on my road reflect the joy and sorrow my life promises.

How I long for the day my passport, so shiny and stiff and new, looks rough and disheveled.  As the physical representation of the freedom it allows me I want this small folder of paper to show that I am not ungrateful.  Let this book tell them, in all languages, that I long to know the value of the world.  Let it say that I will not waste my freedom or my life.  Let everyone who looks at it, filled with its marks and visas, its rends and tears, let them know the girl who owns it is not afraid.  The girl who stayed at home, who stayed quiet, who was docile and domesticated:  She is no more.

This girl has a passport.  And she’s not afraid to use it.