Voices In My Head

***Hi All, so there will be more Vietnam to come, I can’t not tell you how I may have gone a little over board when having clothes made for me in Hoi An or how a woman shoved meat skewers into my mouth, vegan doesn’t translate in Vietnamese. But I thought I would get some up to date blogs posted. So stay tuned.

Voices were pounding in my head, news feed after news feed all the reporter could do was talk of death, remembrance of those we had lost and constant cut ins with presidential address updates. More images, the President speaks, and then we jump back to the morning news show and some man is jumping around with the newest dance moves, while everyone else is painfully trying to imitate him. My head was spinning; this was my introduction back into US news and television. I’d been home for a week but my assimilation process was a slow one. When I walked off the plane in Los Angeles and through customs I wanted to kiss the ground, what can I say being abroad has both negative and positive affects on your beliefs of you own country. But reading the customs sign Thank You and Welcome to the United States had me brimming with joy. When the customs agent asked, “why were you traveling in India, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam?” I smiled and said, “I was trying to figure out my life.” Ok yes the smile held a hint of sarcasm and my response earned me a confused look, but then he said, “welcome home,” and it felt so right.

So after the tearful embrace and love from my parents and Lulu I was whisked home where I enjoyed a veggie meal and after 30 hours of travel and very little sleep I fell into bed ready to crash for what I had hopped would be about two days worth of shuteye. Lying in bed wide-awake at 3 am I realized it was going to take time to adjust. So after a week of very little interaction with the outside world I decided to watch my favorite morning news show, Good Morning America with my favorite morning news anchor, Josh Elliott, he is just so dreamy, gotta love those really tall men. Dreamy-ness aside, I was overwhelmed by the images, sounds and entertainment. As I tried to process the fact that my travels had sealed me in a bubble of protection from all things US, my protective layer was now popped. First realization, I’ve missed a lot; see, I used to have a reputation of being the entertainment queen, ask me a question about Hollywood I could tell you who, where and when. Now I was at a loss, but the weird part was I wasn’t that concerned about getting caught up. Instead I became completely overwhelmed with questions of my own unsteady future, as well as images, media reports and social media updates of injustices of the present. While abroad there were many behaviors I experienced that I had to accept because this was “their” culture. Well honey not anymore this is my culture and I was blatantly aware that everything was wrong. All of this culminated into a completely irrational battle of wills in my head. As I drove along trying to process all of these emotions and thoughts I realized I was surrounded by silence, there was no honking, no chaos, and no people. I realized that I while the chaos of the streets, sounds and experiences of South East Asia were gone, I now was facing a new chaos. While the world around me was no longer new and unknown, the chaos was now in my mind and I didn’t know if there was anyway to be free of it.

At that very thought, I realized that the chaos in my mind was all self induced. A major theme in the yoga philosophy is to gain purification through the mind with the right attitude. In yoga attitude is acceptance, and a major part of acceptance is that we need to understand and accept what we can and cannot control. I cannot change the world around me; I cannot change the way that my neighbors treat their neighbors (figuratively). All I can change and control is myself. So first things first, maybe limit my television news time. While I can’t become ignorant to what is happening in this world, I can be more particular about where I get my information from. Second, I can take a breath, relax, and maybe take another breath, and then smile, because I’m home.