Coming home from the embassy that Sunday morning after my accident ushered in not only new levels of physical pain, but a lingering stretch of complicated, disorienting emotional terrain.
Tag: Love and Life
Butterfly Effect
The night I was hit by a truck earlier this month while crossing the street is blurry in places, with some parts missing entirely. I think of the first 48 hours afterward in two distinct phases: the initial hours of confusion, memory loss, and non-linearity; and the remainder marked by pain, overwhelm, regret, and the slow, devastating realization of what had happened.
The day and night of the accident had been completely ordinary. Ordinary, until a second before impact, when I turned my head expecting only traffic coming from the right and instead saw the truck barreling toward me from the left, traveling on the wrong side of the road. Everything after that is blank for maybe half an hour, followed by other gaps and hazy fragments during the three or four hours I spent in the hospital.
Wrong Lane
After more than six weeks of the longest government shutdown in history, things were finally starting to brighten up towards mid-November. After a sudden medevac to Bangkok, my husband V had successful gallbladder removal surgery and returned home to Rangoon. The U.S. government reopened and federal employees received our three missing paychecks in quick succession. The bid season relaunched, sparking renewed excitement about our potential next tour. V and I spent a day off together in observance of a Burmese holiday—swimming in our favorite local pool, then enjoying a quiet evening at home relaxing with our cat. All seemed to be getting back to normal.
Then, the following Saturday night, we had one of the worst nights of our lives—sudden, unexpected, and completely out of the blue. It was the kind of night that shifts your reality, stripping away any illusion that you are in control and leaving you in a world so different from the one you knew just moments before that the surreality comes in continual waves of disbelief.
The World’s Your Oyster, Part II
In the fall of 2016 while I was serving in Tashkent, I took a quick trip by myself to Bangkok for dental care. Nine years later, we found ourselves serving just an hour’s flight away, so we decided to visit — me for the second time and V for the first time. There’s nothing like a weekend in a new location to change the scene — and your perspective.
Celebrating Thadingyut (သီတင်းကျွတ်ပွဲတော်)
Last weekend marked Burma’s sacred holiday of the Full Moon of Thadingyut (pronounced like tha-TIN-jut). The date of Thadingyut varies each year because it follows the traditional Burmese lunar calendar, which is based on moon cycles. Usually Thadingyut falls in October, but it can also occur in late September.
We had a three-day weekend in honor of the occasion. While most local people celebrated by visiting family around Burma and observing Buddhist traditions of thanksgiving, I took the opportunity to relax. I had a nail appointment, spent several hours swimming, and caught up with friends throughout the weekend — a Friday evening out at a new American-style 1950s diner; fabric shopping on Saturday afternoon with colleagues to commission a Burmese dress set, followed by an embassy Oktoberfest gathering that evening; and a Monday afternoon luncheon hosted by our neighbors next door. But the most special part of the weekend for me and V was finally visiting Shwedagon Pagoda, Rangoon’s golden temple, on Sunday evening.
A World Away
At my most recent pedicure, I chose a deep cranberry shade—even though my toes still spend most weekends poolside or in strappy sandals. The signs of autumn flooding my social media feeds and podcast ads from home feel distant here in Burma, where my tan is still going strong. There are no cardigans, pumpkin spice lattes, or even jeans for me. I’ve worn a long-sleeved shirt only once since arriving in Rangoon. But if I close my eyes, I can almost smell the fall leaves of Virginia and the crisp evening air tinged with woodsmoke a world away.
Sixth Tour Bidding: Ready or Not
It seems too soon to bid for my next assignment. I’ve been in Rangoon less than two months. Neither our HHE nor our consumables have arrived. We haven’t even bought a plant for our new house, which we just moved into a few weeks ago. And yet, unbelievably, I’m already almost one-sixth done with this tour. Ready or not, the next bid season started yesterday!
Diamonds in the Rough
In this assignment —my fifth— I find myself surrounded by so many diamonds that it can be hard to spot the rough beneath them. Yet the rough is always there, sometimes hitting harder than expected—especially when you’ve been focused on the sparkle.
Intangibles
When we move overseas and I begin a new posting, it’s hard to convey just how completely my life changes—let alone to describe what those changes look like. My social media may offer glimpses of where I’ve landed: snapshots of a far-flung place, unfamiliar foods, and me appearing happy and at ease among a group of strangers.
Yet curating outward appearances can give the impression of being in a kind of faux-vacation mode, masking the reality of what it means to settle into daily life in a new country. A picture can be a worth a thousand words and still not fully capture how radically everything has shifted—from your commute to your surroundings to your diet. From the outside, it might look entirely positive, or, depending on one’s perspective, overwhelmingly negative. Lately, I’ve been trying to find a way to write that describes the intangibles of this period—so that I can more accurately depict life here from afar.
There’s a Gecko in My Curtains… and Assorted Thoughts on Settling In
Shortly before we arrived in Rangoon, we were a little disappointed to learn we would be in temporary housing for approximately four to six weeks. Although we had known for a long time that the housing board had assigned us a house near the embassy, our short-term home would be an apartment.
Our disappointment stemmed mainly from wanting to settle into this tour as quickly as possible — a feeling tied to the idea of setting up our own home. We had not expected such a lengthy make-ready of our house; the previous occupant departed over three weeks before we arrived. Yet, this isn’t totally uncommon during the busy PCS season when the embassy has many officers moving in and out simultaneously.
Since this is the first time we’ve done a one-year tour, each week represents a surprising 1.92% of our total time in Burma. Spending up to one-tenth of such a short assignment in temporary housing felt less than ideal. But as it turns out, the experience has had its benefits as well.
Cooking Outdoors: Nangyithoke
Our second weekend in Rangoon, we attended a cooking class sponsored by the embassy’s Community Liaison Office (CLO) at a local organic farm. We were excited for a chance to learn how to cook Nangyithoke, a Burmese chicken thick noodle salad which originated in Mandalay.
The CLO warned us to bring insect repellant — and for good reason, as it turned out; the farm hosts its cooking classes in a beautiful outdoor kitchen.
Breaking the Ice
In early August, our first weekend in Rangoon struck the perfect balance of downtime at the pool, making new friends, and exploring a few sights outside the embassy grounds. Thanks to the embassy’s hard-working Community Liaison Office (CLO), V and I were able to enjoy a guided shopping trip before we’d even figured out how to order a taxi on our own.
Two Weeks of Monsoon Season
We moved to Burma (also known as Myanmar) two weeks ago, at the start of my fifth diplomatic assignment. It quickly became clear that we had traded summer in the United States for the height of Burma’s rainy season.
15,259 Miles Later, Part II
When V and I deplaned in Seoul after the longest flight we’d ever taken, we had one goal: to find a pet relief station for our poor cat. He had already been holding it for exactly 24 hours since V had packed him into the carrier for the taxi ride to Dulles. Since then, they’d flown to Atlanta, where they met me, and we’d flown together on to Seoul.
We weren’t sure how much longer the cat could hold it. We’d tried to get him to pee in Atlanta, but he’s a cat. It’s not like we could explain to him, “Hey, we know there’s no litter in this makeshift box. But this is your last chance for a very long time, so at least give it a try.”
And still, before we could search for a pet relief area, we had to proceed through Incheon Airport’s international transfer security check — a surprisingly chaotic process.
15,259 Miles Later, Part I
Our PCS trip to Rangoon last week broke records for each of us, including longest consecutive air travel time and longest individual flight.
When you add up the 2,731 miles it took me to cross the United States by car, the additional 879 miles I motored around the west coast before dropping off my car at my dad’s, and the 11,649 miles traveled by plane, you get 15,259. Fifteen thousand, two hundred and fifty nine miles of total wear and tear on the body for what will be both our farthest-away and our shortest tour yet.
Collecting Postcards 