Vampire Weekend

This mask is suffocating me. My chest rises, then falls in desperation. Dyspnea invades my body - leaving me to question my fate. I am trapped. There is no visible escape.

Who am I?

Like a prism, I reflect my uncertainty in an infinite number of directions. 

I don’t know.

A tattoo. 

Becomes a part of the flesh, one’s identity. Permanently. No amount of soap or water can remove the marks which have integrated themselves deep within the skin – becoming a part of the body like every other organ needed to live. A jagged edge cannot be removed – only covered up with something which seems more appealing, but only at that moment. Quickly, dissatisfaction washes over – nothing will ever be perfect.

A sexual encounter.

Leaves one feeling full, only briefly. Bright eyes and rosy cheeks exchanged for an empty gaze reflecting the hollowed soul when darkness overthrows. Limp limbs bury themselves in linen, hoping they blend in. The scent of lavender shampoo brands the pillow that will be washed by the time the morning paper is thrown on the doorstep. Quickly and easily disposable.

A shot of liquor.

Burns the throat, then warms each cell like a furnace. A fire is lit within.  Temporary satisfaction is found in the dysmorphia of self-identity. Reassured by tabula rasa upon awakening, the night is filled with the possibility of rebirth - but only before the sun rises and the mask comes off.

This mask is suffocating me.

Slowly, society erases the vibrant color of life – turning everything black and white. Blood no longer navigates the map of veins, but has been drained as if sucked dry by a vampire. 

Time stops.

As Claudia from Rice’s “Interview with a Vampire” is a woman trapped in a child’s body, I have been enslaved within a society where conformity and obedience trump expressiveness and creativity. The latter being associated with rebellion and the prior equated with success. Throughout the novel, Claudia exhibits her perpetual state of childhood with her association to dolls. A reader can witness Claudia’s eternal frustration as she initially plays with the dolls as any child normally would; then she progressively begins to recognize how the dolls never age, just like her because of her conversion into a vampire as a child. Understanding her position of being locked in a child’s body, Claudia becomes resentful of the vampire who is responsible for her permanent appearance and only desires one thing – a woman’s body. I am a doll of societal standards – expected to embrace the appearances and mannerisms which are perceived as “acceptable” for a young woman, ultimately trapping me in a position which inhibits my growth or transformation as an individual. 

“You dress me like a doll. You make my hair like a doll. Why? You want me to be a doll forever?”

— Interview With The Vampire, Anne Rice

Having the opportunity to experience this novel in the setting which it is based has provided me with the ability to develop a new perspective and establish associations which would not have been made had I been found reading buried under my bed covers - hiding from the world. After visiting the Whitney Plantation, I was able to recognize the stark similarities between the enslaved people of Louisiana imported from Africa and Claudia’s life as a woman helplessly stuck in a child’s body. Seeing the Wall of Honor at the plantation which is dedicated to all the people who were enslaved on the Whitney Plantation, I was able to truly grasp how severe and disgusting the slave trade once was in the very place which I was standing. Some of the walls in the second memorial had excerpts from slaves which described their experience – further exploiting the brutality of slave life and the futility of attempting escape as any run-away slave would have his ears cut off and be branded with the fleur de lys. Any proceeding attempt to run away would result in the cutting of hamstrings, followed by decapitation. The willingness of the enslaved people to face these consequences in desperation for freedom can be mirrored with Claudia’s persistence in killing Lestat (the one responsible for her imprisonment) despite her knowing of his immortality. 

My time in New Orleans thus far has not only aided in my establishment of connections between the novels being read and the history of Louisiana, but has also resonated within my personal life by bringing to light my own enslavement in today’s modern society founded on wealth and success. Unfortunately, like Claudia as well as the enslaved people of Louisiana, I am stuck playing the game of life, building my social and economic capital in a fruitless race to reach the top where we are allowed to say “I made it,” without ever truly understanding who that person is who got to such point. 

A Present place

The moment we rolled into the marshy lands of Louisiana, I was reacting with gasps and gazing. There was something so visceral to my attachment to the landscape as we approached Grand Isle. I felt like it had been a part of a previous life, or that I could finally catch a glimpse of what another saw hundreds of years ago without distracting establishments and environmental changes. I felt the overwhelming urge to embrace, with my mind, what I was seeing - the long, stretching green with swooping trees, soaking green grass, lands meeting the sky as a reflection, tiny ice cream shops on a stretch of nothing, hitting a gas station or two and a truck and soon the soft hush of the ocean. At our first step into the hot air of Grand Isle, before beginning or knowing anything about Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, I turned to a friend and said “This is the perfect place to fall in love.” It felt like it lounges and waits for romance, threatening ennui but twinkling a bell in your ear to remind you of passion, holding its breath and letting out warm steam only to stimulate your senses enough to stir something inside. Once I plunged into Edna and Robert’s story, I couldn’t help but doubt their romance would have ever ripened had they not felt the gentle nudges of the Isle.

In an early part of the novella, Chopin comments upon the sensuousness of Grand Isle’s water. “The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell to abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation. The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.” The “voice” foreshadows the romanticized end of the book with death into ultimate solitude, and the provocative doomed-yet-stimulating affairs. This seductive nature of the sea reminds me, in retrospect, to the other side of the road in Grand Isle. It offered a pulsing, low orange moon giving way to dusk, sinking into sultry marshiness, and lures you to the end of a desolate dock that lends you a pathway until it doesn't above still waters. The “touch” of the sea, which she describes as soft and embracing, brings to mind the sweetness of love and its tenderness. This sensation of the ocean was what resonated most with me, the first time I touched the water. It was warm. It wasn’t biting, or exhilarating like the California’s Pacific, that inspires you with a lust for success and progress. It makes you want to sit, to float on your back and muse on the meaning of your life and absorb the loveliness as the Creoles did.

I wrote in my journal:

“The sand is white and the waves are as affectionate as the ease of your consciousness. Everything is so still that you must create movement, and much of that movement comes with your social interactions, peddling in the water, racing across the sand because if you don’t the bottom of your feet will be toasted. It’s a present place. Everything forces you to be present; the heat is strong the sounds are few so you latch onto what you can, there are no distractions to bury your thoughts. So you create meaning in the people and things around you - there’s nothing else to do.”

So, what one would do is think, reflect, and search for passion (one of the easiest ways for which is through love). This is what Edna experienced that summer, grazing through lazy days with Robert by her side for hours on end. I came across a line in Victor Hugo’s poem “Nuits de Juin” about summer, which I find appropriate not only for its season but also for its French roots. It translates to “A vague half day dyes the eternal dome.” Summer days can feel endless, vague - days melt into one another, and so we melt into each other like Edna and Robert do. They melt under the sun, and melt into one another’s crevices, exploring each tiny bit of each other’s presences.

The air and the ocean of Grand isle affect the soul by dusting off the layers of age and revealing memories. The moment I touched the water, I felt immediately reminded of my childhood summers in my friend’s suburban back yards for a birthday party. Swimming in the pool, sunlight streaming through a colorful floatie, the chlorine-blue water bouncing under the piercing dry heat of Northern California’s valley. It moved me when Edna had a similar reverie while experiencing Grand Isle’s air, about which she opens up to Adele Ratignolle. “The hot wing beating my face made me think - without any connection that I can trace- of a summer day in Kentucky, of a meadow that seemed as big as the ocean to the very little girl walking through the grass, which was higher than her waist… ‘sometimes I feel this summer as if I were walking through the green meadow again; idly, aimlessly, unthinking and unguided.” When I think of those memories as I child, I was just as aimless, unthinking, and unguided as Edna’s childhood memory. I was present, not expecting what would come at the end of the day, what I would be when I grew up. I was aimlessly doggy paddling in the water, letting my small body be smeared with sunscreen, reaching for a bag of chips or a friend’s water-tangled hair.

Grand Isle still holds the luxury - in the non-material sense of the word - that it held all those years ago when women like Kate Chopin sat under parasols and lounged on chairs as their nursemaids tended to the pudgy-legged children. Luxury as in wet mud, potent air, soothing waves and pleasant stillness. As I wandered away from the group, I found myself in perfect awe of whatever was in front of me - a young man wading through waist-high water at dusk as he cast a fishing rod and dragged a crawfish catcher. I thought of the Cheniere Caminada fisherman, and bet my view was the same as any other young woman standing on a beach or a dock watching. I walked towards a proud wise tree hanging over a perfect reading spot, but slunk back to another tree when I noticed an old rope hanging from the big tree. The “little black girl” waiting at the feet, literally, of Madame Lebrun - was this the last sort of sight her ancestors could have seen?

After finishing the Chopin’s story, and minutes before ending my time in Grand Isle, I tiptoed to a mound of sand to reflect upon The Awakening and my time in Grand Isle. I have had trouble putting a word to what moved me so deeply about that sea town - a place where memories bubble, pressing at the thinnest layer of soil like the water that threatens to drown the isle. That thin layer is all that separates us from sinking into Chopin and Edna’s world and the ones of those that preceded them. I wrapped my journaling entry musing “How many stories, mournings, awakenings, heartbreaks, were spread on this isle? I know I could say that of anywhere, but here it feels tangible. Like you can reach into the past and come back holding something in your hand.”

An Awakening on the Edge of Nowhere

Last night, I found myself in a car riding down Poydras St. getting a homegrown taste of southern hospitality in the form of John the Lyft Driver. John, born and raised in New Orleans, asked me what brought me to the city in which I explained the concept of Bookpacking and how our group had just arrived from Grand Isle. He was instantly taken aback as he asked, “Grand Isle? That’s the real edge of nowhere, ain’t it?”

Looking back on my brief time spent tucked away in my temporary corner of the Earth, reading Kate Chopin’s The Awakening on a veranda with no agenda really placed things into a new perspective for me. There was a never a moment in Grand Isle where I didn’t feel relaxed and at ease not only with the world, but with my place in it– free of anxieties, insecurities, and all previous responsibilities. With all of the residences propped up on wooden beams running parallel to the coastline, homes feel more like Cypress treehouses planted in the middle of the ocean– a feeling of isolated elation in a place where slow times and simple joys are plentiful.

This is a place where nothing happens– the real edge of nowhere. However the fact that nothing’s expected to happen is exactly what makes it beautiful. Grand Isle is waking up in the morning to the sound of the ocean, buying lunch at JoeBob’s Gas and Grill, and dodging lizards and spiders as you trek through the sand in your bare feet at night. It’s dipping your toes in the warm, murky gulf while staring at distant oil rigs on the horizon. It’s hearing the flies buzz around your ears as the heat sticks to your skin. As Sadie (a fellow Bookpacker) says, “it’s an easy place to fall in love” exactly because of how simple it is.

Edna Pontellier fell in love in Grand Isle, and although her circumstances are quite different from mine (being that she is a 19th century housewife to a husband of which she doesn't love, as well as a mother to children she never wanted), I can  still understand how it happened. Grand Isle is a place that asks you for your utmost attention and presence. It asks you to be nowhere else but in the moment and cuts you off from the reality of a busier life. Edna would spend summers here with her family, but in The Awakening she mostly spends time with herself figuring out who she is and what she would like to be going forward. She’s defiant for her time through the freedom that she adopts from the way of the Creole, so much so that come the end of the book, she truly lets herself go in a destructive, yet transcendent manner by releasing herself to the embrace of the sea and drowning herself in the process.

Grand Isle was only the first stop on our Bookpacking tour through Southern Louisiana, however it will remain one of the most impactful. The surreal nature of  placing myself in Edna’s shoes in the exact places she supposedly once stood helped close a gap of time and space within a moment in history. Growing comfortable in a place such as that, as I’ve experienced in such a brief amount of time, can really alter a person’s mindset and help one re-evaluate their true wants, needs, and values. For me, I found myself erasing all negativities from my mind; all pressures that have been imposed onto me via the pace of the college environment were excused. I was free, and in a sense, I too released myself to the embrace of the ocean– the embrace of Grand Isle.

With all of this being said, I would never choose to live in place such as that. I had no desire to stay for longer than a brief vacation or else my mind, as restless as it is, would probably consume itself and decay into grains of sand to be lost to the wind. To Edna and her summer lover, Robert, it was the same thing. I can only imagine that anyone that ventures down to “the edge of nowhere” is bound to find the same solace and energy (or lack thereof) in the moments of beautiful silence shared between Edna Pontillier and myself. Driving in Grand Isle, I was still very tightly wound– worried that I wouldn't find my place in this program or my people within it. However, leaving Grand Isle, I recovered bits of myself that were lost within the stress I allowed myself to carry, and through that recovery, have already made memories with people I will never forget. From accidentally breaking my bunk bed, hoarding sweet honey biscuits and egg rolls, spotting dolphins across the horizon, to even getting locked out of our van in the middle of cemetery, this was only the mere beginning– the Awakening if you would– to an adventure I'll recount to my kids one day.

Only in New Orleans

“On into the night and into the blue mornings, growing louder the notes burning through and off everyone and forgotten in the body because they were swallowed by the next one after...sending them forward and forth and forth”

— Michael Ondaatje

The city of New Orleans has a festive personality that does not compare to any other city that I have been to. The buildings could not exist in any other part of the world. The people, tourists included, become part of a vibrant culture that has been defining itself for hundreds of years. The food has a mixture of spices that could only have come together here. It is a city that asks you to pay attention to it-especially through music.

I am grateful that my first time hearing jazz was live. Prior to this trip, I would notice it playing in the background at coffee shops or in elevators but I would rarely pay attention to it. It was a hum that settled in the back of my brain while I thought about which Starbucks drink I wanted to order. It wasn’t till the musicians were on their feet, sweating and performing jazz that I understood why people love this genre so much. Jazz has a story, a vibrancy and a charm that I think can only be understood by watching a live performance. I imagine that so much would be lost if I didn’t get to see how these musicians allowed the music to have an impact on them.

Additionally, to truly experience jazz, I believe it is best to be completely engaged with the performance which means disengaging from your phone. For that reason, I appreciated that Preservation Hall did not let us take photos. I have spent a majority of this trip attempting to capture every moment, therefore, I often forgot to experience the moment myself. For that night, I was released from the burden of capturing the perfect image- instead, I could experience the feeling of jazz. I watched them communicate in between songs to ensure that everyone was on the same page. I would see them glance over their shoulders and tap their feet on the old wood floors to make sure that they were playing at the same time. They would give each member of the band the opportunity to play solo, to let them express to the audience how beautiful each of the instruments sounded. I could pay attention to how the trombone player’s eyes were closed while he played, making it seem as though he could feel the music in his bones. I could feel the music in my bones. I couldn’t help myself from bouncing along to the sound and clapping when I was asked to. We sat cross legged up front, looking up at the band, which allowed us to have an up close experience of the music but I almost wanted to stand in the back so that I could dance along.

I want to talk about the Divine Ladies’ second line parade because it is a distinct Louisiana experience that I don’t think could exist anywhere else but like seeing jazz, it is easier to experience it than to photograph and describe it. Throughout the week, our professor, Andrew, had attempted to explain to us what the second line parade was like last year. He told us about how everyone would be dancing and how lush their costumes were. He described how open the people were to being photographed and how much he looked forward to going. It was an experience that he knew we needed to be a part of, however, the actual experience of the second line parade was more rich and vibrant than Andrew could have ever explained to us. When we arrive, the streets were closed off and a group of around twenty or thirty people were waiting with water coolers at a small intersection. They kept peeking down the street, glancing at their watches and chatting with old friends to kill time.  Slowly, I started to hear the music play. I stepped off the sidewalk, into the street and watched as a line of four cars with huge trailers attached to the back began to come toward us. Each trailer was more decorated than the last. While the first car wore t-shirts, the last car wore these beautiful royal costumes. The marching band arrived shortly after and the streets were flooded with a few thousand people. They move up the street for a couple hundred feet before everyone climbs off the trailer and the marching band begins to play. The whole street erupts and soon everyone is dancing with or alongside the Divine Ladies. Despite the heat, everyone was smiling. There was a contagious joy in the air that kept everyone moving, dancing and happy as they made their way along the crowded streets.

“I’d recognize you but in my mind you’re just an outline and music”

— Michael Ondaatje

I look forward to thinking back on these experiences after the trip both with and without the photographs. I think there is something about New Orleans that deserves to be remembered in a way that is similar to the outline that Michael Ondaatje discusses in his book on famous jazz musician, Buddy Bolden. In the novel, while his friend, Crawley, is searching for him, Ondaatje often talks about Buddy as an indescribable idea. For example, when his friend, Crawley, is searching for him, he is barely able to find even a single image of Buddy and once he does find a print, the film that captured the image is destroyed. This allows Buddy Bolden and his music to be remembered from memories and experiences instead of photographs. It forces the characters to be dependent on their experiences with him. I feel that New Orleans should be the same way because for me, this city offers so much more. This city has an indescribable feeling that makes listening to jazz or exploring the French Quarter the perfect way to end the night. I think it is hard to engage in this kind of experience when I am always searching for a perfect picture. I do hope that my memory will be enough to help me write about this feeling in my book. For my book, I am choosing to write about a place that does not actually exist so that I can bring together my favorite parts of Louisiana. I want this town to have the simple life of Grand Isle but have big band music and second line parades. I don’t necessarily want to carry the burden of capturing New Orleans-instead I want to be able to capture the feeling of Louisiana.

Learning Beyond the Confines of a Classroom

A remote oasis nearly hidden within Louisiana’s expansive shoreline, Grand Isle’s unblemished views of the Gulf of Mexico and seemingly endless miles of beaches makes it the perfect getaway to turn your phone off for a few days to relax, unwind, and of course, read. I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I made the decision to venture off to the South for a month, but the instant I laid my eyes on the curiously stilted houses, inhaled the salty air, and cracked the spine of Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, I knew I had made the right decision. While one of the many joys of reading is to be able to digest the words on the page, perhaps close your eyes and imagine the places that the author is describing— there is something especially wonderful about being able to raise your gaze for a moment and to experience firsthand what the author is describing. The Awakening explores the sensual and emotional awakening of the main character, Edna Pontellier, who is enchanted by the island, ocean, ambiance, and the people which allow her to see life, and more importantly, herself, in a different perspective.

“The water of the Gulf stretched out before her, gleaming with the million lights of the sun. The voice of the sea is seductive, never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander in abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation. The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.”

— Kate Chopin, The Awakening

Although the novel was written over a century before I was born, I am able to sink my toes into the same sand, listen to the same waves clapping against the shore, and get burned by the same southern sun as Edna fictitiously did in the late nineteenth century. It’s exhilarating to be able to study literature outside the confines of a classroom and to step into a different world and experience a place through the novel. It offers an opportunity to be fully immersed in the physical environment and understand literature to a point that is far deeper than just words on a page. Of course, fiction can tell us a lot about the people and the culture of a specific point in time, but Edna’s experiences in the novel also unveil deeply human struggles that are still prevalent today. Edna describes that:  

“There were days when she was unhappy, she did not know why — when it did not seem worth while to be glad or sorry, to be alive or dead; when life appeared to her like a grotesque pandemonium and humanity like worms struggling blindly toward inevitable annihilation. She could not work on such a day, nor weave fancies to store her pulses and warm her blood.”

— Kate Chopin, The Awakening

Edna experiences the same state of melancholy and lack of inspiration and creativity that myself, and certainly many others can relate to. The days where you can’t bring yourself to do anything, so you lay in bed all day watching Netflix and procrastinating hoping tomorrow will feel different. Living in Los Angeles, this feeling seems practically inevitable at times. The overflowing population lends itself to unbearable traffic, pollution, and misplaced ambition to “make it” in the city of stars, or should be titled city of cars. Edna, like the rest of us, is searching for experiences that are: 

“…warming and brightening [to] the dark places of her soul.”

— Kate Chopin, The Awakening

I myself didn’t realize how healing an escape from the almost four million people living in Los Angeles would be. Who would have known that the fifteen hundred smiling southerners living in Grand Isle would be just what the doctor ordered?

“The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.”

— Kate Chopin, The Awakening

This Post is About Nothing... And Something

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“The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation.”

— Kate Chopin, The Awakening

           Yet it’s not just the voice of the sea which seduces. The roar of the air conditioning, a promising respite from the humidity of Grand Isle, Louisiana, is nearly as enticing. Late into the night, the beachy breeze remains warmer and stickier than the air inside of our roomy cabin. No wonder Kate Chopin’s quintessentially maternal Adele Ratignolle, and exceptionally individualistic Edna Pontellier, are frequently fanning themselves and fainting on their Grand Isle vacation in The Awakening.

            Fortunately, Grand Isle has come a long way since the work was written, during the late 19th century. Once Joseph Hale Harvey shaped the place into an up-and-coming beach resort, the natives of New Orleans couldn’t resist. Wealthy citizens flocked here to exchange the stinking heat, humidity, and yellow fever epidemics of the city, for the salt spray and sandy shores of the coastline. To this day, Grand Isle remains the easygoing vacation spot of Kate Chopin’s era. This tiny island, dotted with quirkily named rental cottages, cordially invites locals and visitors alike to relax.

            Each restaurant we visited featured a sign imparting the message: “Laissez les bon temps rouler”, which translates from French to, “let the good times roll”. Thanks to its history as a valuable territory for European conquerors, Grand Isle maintains a cultural identity impacted by the French, Portuguese, and Spanish. This melting pot of influences is only one of the island’s curious juxtapositions. The best biscuits in town come from a restaurant attached to a gift shop and gas station. A well-worn cemetery rests steps away from a rusty playground. Rickety homes quiver on tall wooden poles, some crumbling with age even before the hurricane-prone area gets hit with seasonal storms.

            There is something uniquely rare about this place. It isn't the abundance of fried food, or the absence of LA traffic. The timing of our visit to Grand Isle was deliberate; we were meant to slow down from the pace of our everyday lives, before we leap ahead into the hustle of New Orleans. What makes Grand Isle distinct from other beautiful beaches, and from my hometown of Newport Beach, is that the quiet locale forced us to slow down, and do nothing. There was so little to do, and so much time to do it-- the opposite of a typical day.

            Before this trip, I thought I was pretty good at doing nothing. Like most college students, I spend too much time on my phone and not enough time on the things that count: bonding with family or friends, or studying. Yet the "nothing" of my phone still sucks up my energy, emotionally and mentally, and after a day of doing "nothing" I'm left drained and confused as to where the time went. On this tiny island in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, sharing a house with 12 strangers-turned-friends, I learned what really doing nothing feels like.

            It's boring! After a lazy morning lounging in the sun, flopped on the shore like a whale, I am astounded to discover that it is barely afternoon once I return to our cabin. I take a leisurely shower, and waltz into the shared living room to see what everyone's up to now. Seven college kids are just sitting there--reading. How perfectly, wonderfully boring.

            I follow suit, launching into the book, ready at any moment to join in on an adventure, should one of my neighbors choose to start having one. Nope: they all sit there, stoic, lost in another world, a world that looks alarmingly similar to the one steps away from my squishy recliner. Suddenly, it is my turn to get sucked into this alternate universe, where Edna swims for the first time amidst the waves eagerly crashing onto the shore, then curling back into themselves. I think of Edna and Adele, as they sat on their shady pension (boarding-house) porch. Chopin’s novel, The Awakening, is one I have been captivated by for a long time, and depicts the world of Kentucky-born Edna Pontellier. Mrs. Pontellier is locked into her role and responsibilities as a wife and mother, yet she discovers she wants something else entirely for her life.

“She grew fond of her husband, realizing with some unaccountable satisfaction that no trace of passion or excessive and fictitious warmth colored her affection, thereby threatening its dissolution. She was fond of her children in an uneven, impulsive way. She would sometimes gather them passionately to her heart; she would sometimes forget them.”

— Kate Chopin, The Awakening

            What a depressing existence this is for the protagonist! She has no guiding force in her life aside from her own capricious whims. Edna lacks joie de vivre, although she is fleetingly happy while painting portraits, or listening to a certain Mademoiselle Reisz play the piano. Yet most pitiful is how desperately she falls in love with a faraway man to whom she is not married. Edna feels most alive in the presence of her lover, yet she is keenly aware of the futility of pursuing a relationship with him.

“‘I love you,’ she whispered, ‘only you; no one but you. It was you who awoke me last summer out of a life-long, stupid dream. Oh! You have made me so unhappy with your indifference. Oh! I have suffered, suffered! Now you are here we shall love each other…’”

— Kate Chopin, The Awakening

            One of my fears is being totally, utterly, irreparably wrong. It's not because of the element of wounded pride in being mistaken. Instead, my fear is choosing the wrong major, picking the wrong job, making the wrong friends: resulting in a disappointing, inauthentic life. Edna, in her superficial love for her husband and children, and her genuine love for the wrong person, is frustrating to watch. Chopin avoids an inevitable tough decision by killing off Edna, rather than having her protagonist choose between living authentically and abandoning her old circumstances, or suppressing her truth and fulfilling her family commitments.

            In reality, even on vacation in Grand Isle, we cannot evade catch-22s like this. Life is chock-full of choices, and the wrong ones especially can be educational. Fully experiencing failure, loss, or disappointment points us in the direction of the "somethings" we most care about. Without being in a situation that puts our favorite "somethings" at risk, we may never realize what those are. When "something" matters, it demands a response, a defense. A song by The Script puts this well, declaring, "You've gotta stand for something or you'll fall for anything".

           Evidently, both something and nothing are important. The "nothing" reminds me to live in the moment, and relish the mundane in order to better appreciate adventure. The "somethings" bring me joy, and guide me in living a life aligned with what, to me, matters most. Too late does Edna discover what meant the world to her, as her world was already set in stone around her. What began as a fortress-like life structure devolved into a prison of her own design, from which she couldn't escape without paying a steep cost.

           At this point in my life, I encounter a number of crossroads important to my education, career, and relationships. Deciding on my "somethings" that count helps me to build my life foundation, while the "nothing" reminds me that the "somethings" aren't everything, either. Grand Isle is the perfect place to hone the art of nothing, and I am reluctant to leave. But the future in New Orleans is calling, beckoning, louder now than the sultry voice of the sea.

Contemplations on Grand Isle

In the loose sense that I could always find some novels or movies that set in the same places that I visited, pretty much all the trips I went on had some “bookpacking” characteristics to it. For example, the vast prairie in Inner Mongolia reminded me of Wolf Totem (狼图腾) written by Jiang Rong; the forests of Khingan Mountains reminded me of Tracks in the Snowy Forest (林海雪原) by Qu Bo; going to New Zealand and realizing “wow they filmed Lord of the Rings here”. However, none of my previous experiences was driven by those works of literature and art. They were just sweet additions to the trip, some little “oh I remember that!” moment. So strictly speaking, this is my first ever genuine bookpacking trip. Instead of going to a place and try to think of novels that set there, we reverse that thought process and follow the footsteps of characters in great novels, actively seeking and unpacking the culture and history of that place through literature. The attitude changes from that of a passive observer to an active seeker. That is what makes this trip invaluable.
 

Not only did I came to Louisiana for the unique bookpacking experience, I also came to get out of my comfort zone, to discover the other side of me. Quite frankly, I am the opposite to someone who enjoys literature. I’m pretty insensitive. There is no trace of romance in my head. I think in terms of costs and benefits, not in terms of feelings and emotions. Unlike all my fellow bookpackers whose blogs are filled with lines as poetic as “ finding something absolutely mesmerizing about watching the waves crash into the ocean” (I quoted from Ciannah : ), I simply adjust the settings on my camera, took the pictures and leave, wasting no time staring at the sea. As romantic as it sounds to read on the beach, I hate to get sand on me. And actually, I feel more at ease when I have a tight schedule at school because I have everything planned out and I know exactly what to do at what time. Memorize math equations and nail multiple choice questions are my specialties; creative thinking and writings are my absolute nightmares. I enjoy reading academic journals and argumentative books; I suck at reading novels or poems or prose. As a result, my language is as dry as you see right here. Sounds horrible huh? So at some point of the last semester, I decided that it was high time to make a change. Then I applied for this program--without any high expectation of getting in, of course. After all, I’m a math major freshman from China. My whole application probably looks like a prank to the professor. Then sometime later, quite surprisingly, I got accepted. What was funnier was my first meeting with Andrew. He gave me a sort of embarrassed smile and told me that I can get the whole king-size bed all to myself. At first, I was like “damn bro this is awesome!”. But later on I starter shivering and got scared: “on man I’m going to live alone! There’s no vampires or anything in Lafayette Hotel right?”

Prior to the trip, I was nervous not only because I’m the only boy, but also because I’m quite illiterate, I would say, comparing to all my travel companions. This fact was manifested later on when we had a group discussion about The Awakening. From the beginning till the end, I was shocked by their deep understanding of the novel and the richness of their interpretations. When they were discussing the different symbolisms used in the novel, my understanding was still as shallow as whether the protagonist was mad. Plus the fact that I had a serious cold right at the beginning of the trip, my mind was all over the place (I guess in this sense I did successfully get way out of my comfort zone. I almost coughed my brain out to the oil rigs in Mexico Gulf). Nonetheless, I enjoyed the entirety of the trip right from the beginning.
 

The first thing I want to talk about is, of course, food--one of the most essential part of human life beyond any doubt. Right when we stepped outside of the airplane, there was advertisement of food everywhere--much more than any other airports I went to. Even with the definite confirmation bias coming from my hunger, I still found the food advertisements to be extremely excessive. In fact, I appreciate this a lot. One of my favorite documentary was A Bite of China by CCTV. Each episode of it gradually unfolds a part of the Chinese cultural through food. “Food”, in this sense, is not simply what’s in the plates and bowls. It represents the larger life philosophy of people in that culture, their relationship with nature, their interpretation of the environment, and their legacy through history. It a entire human-nature dynamic that represents arguably the most important facet of our life. From the selection and preparation of ingredients, to spices, to culinary methods, to how it was finally served, every single aspect of the food is like a condensed mirror that reflects the culture it sets in.

One fantastic example to demonstrate this is crawfish. Both Southern China and Louisiana are huge consumers of crawfish (based on my personal experience. I don’t have statistical data of any kind, but damn do people love to have spicy crawfish during the summer in China), however, how crawfish is cooked is vastly different. In Louisiana, I’ve had crawfish stewed with shrimps in “seafood gumbo” soup; crawfish smothered in cajun sauce and served over rice as “crawfish Étouffée”; served as the main ingredients of “crawfish omelet”; served as embellishments in “shrimps and grits”, etc. All of those are vastly different from how crawfish is cooked in China: stir-fried (with shells attached) with all kinds of spices including red pepper, Sichuan peppercorn, garlic, green onion, Chinese chili bean sauce, etc. Therefore, the same exact ingredient from preparation (peeled vs. whole), to spice selection, to the culinary method (stew vs stir-fry), to how it is served (eaten with containers and utensils vs. eaten with hands and chopsticks) was completely different. It’s always fascinating to see how food is prepared differently in different cultures. When I was in Rhode Island, their signature dish was the extremely creamy clam chowder with oyster crackers and the breadcrumb stuffed “clam casino”. Coming over to the pacific coast, I had seafood ceviche for the first time which has a whole new taste I’ve never imagined to go with seafood. The sourness of the ceviche almost remotely reminded me of Ethiopian cuisine, with their sour-tasting fermented injera almost threw me off the chair the first time I had it. Down here in Louisiana though, I found a more subtleness in the use of spices. It’s more balanced and less extreme. In the shrimp and grits I had, I could taste many different spices all in harmony with each other, and none of them surpassing the original taste of shrimps themselves. Although sometimes the poorly cooked seafood gumbo tastes too excessive on salt and pepper, they never let the taste of spices take over the taste of the main ingredients. Even the pan-seared fish I had on Friday (I forgot what fish specifically) had just enough flavor to not be tasteless and accurately recreate the tenderness and freshness of the fish meat. It almost seems that there is this ideology in New Orleans cuisine to never let any one flavor predominate (Or, if there has to be one, let it be the taste of the original food).  I’m certainly far from having had nearly enough food to make any conclusions, but I think there is a vague pattern already emerging here.

food!

these snapshots are all taken by phones and I do feel sorry for the lack of preparation and formality (except for the first one, which is taken by Claire and is absolutely wonderful!)

However, one thing that I hate to mention abruptly breaks this pattern. This is the deep-fried cuisine predominant in Grand Isle (or presumably, all over America’s south). To some extend, I do see some values in deep frying. It does make some otherwise boring ingredients tasty. However much I hate to admit it, french fries is just that good so that whenever it is served, people completely forget about the health concerns and calorie intakes or whatever and devour on it. But, I see no value whatsoever in deep-frying every single eatable thing they can dig up on this planet. It’s such a betrayal to those shrimps and oysters and crabs who tried so hard to become so tender and fresh and tasty and prepared to sacrifice themselves to the taste buds of human beings yet only to find out that they are mindlessly thrown into hot oils and eat alone with the damned ketchup. There are a million ways to cook a chicken in China, and seems like there is only one way to cook a chicken here. If I’m a chicken, I’ll probably choose the more honorable death of being carefully seasoned and stir fried then stewed than chopped into large pieces and deep-fried. There is not even diversity in the chicken heaven here. What a shame. I’m glad that at least there are some sensible cooks in New Orleans, otherwise I would seriously consider the lifestyle of a koala for the rest of my visit.

It was also very interesting for me to find out that one of the waitress in the starfish restaurant, and the owner of yum’s both prefer Chicken over seafood. The waitress actually said that she hates seafood. I was surprised at first that they as people who have easy access to the sea and have no difficulty obtaining the freshest seafood everyday despise it instead. But when I thought about it more, it made perfect sense to me. I’m from northwestern China, in the middle of desert-like mountains thousands of miles from sea, it’s crazy expensive to have any seafood in my hometown. Intriguing, as a consequence, my favorite food has always been seafood. If I have any option for fish or shrimp I wouldn’t even glance at the meat. Perhaps people just value things that are rarer?
 

Back to the topic at hand. I actually started writing this blog piece after I have read everyone else’s. Apart from the the endless admiration for their poetic writings, it seems to me most people had some sense of “escape from the city” and "awakening" in the sense that they could clear their minds off of stressful things back in the university and focus on enjoying their life on Grand Isle. I think this is a fascinating mindset, as lovely as the life philosophy of "the French people" described by Andrew--the sense of living the life to its full extent by spending every possible moment in enjoyment. I find no better way of describing it than this quote from Melissa: “Life was slow. So slow that each moment seemed to pause briefly, allowing me to stimulate each of my senses and consume that time with gratefulness, knowing it would not return.” Indeed, life was extremely slow on Grand Isle. So slow that Melissa was able to stimulate all of her senses and enjoy it with gratefulness; and so slow that my patience was running seriously thin all the time and freaking me out. Whether it was at the JoBob’s or Subway, the owners are really taking their time for each order, seriously reminding me of the sloth working in DMV in the movie Zootopia. And here is a funny story: the lady working at Subway literally stared at me for three seconds with a totally confused face as if I just took off my shirt and started dancing Michael Jackson and asked with the most doubtful tone I’ve ever heard: “are you sure you want avocado AND tuna AND chicken?” while deliberately emphasizing and elongating the pronunciation of each conjunction word for the ultimate dramatic effect. After I nodded, she replied “okay, okay, it’s your sandwich, you can eat whatever you want” with a disapproving tone while putting her hands up in the air and and shaking her head as if I just ordered a dead rat sashimi. Her expressions were so funny that I could not stop picturing her going back to home at night and telling her kids in that exact same tone: “can you believe that? I just met the weirdest guy on entire Grand Isle. He ordered avocado AND tuna AND chicken! Good grace!” Anyways, I witnessed an entirely different business attitude on Grand Isle. An attitude that is relaxed and laid back; that is more stochastic than structured; that is more emotional and attached to personal emotions and feelings than rational and attached to rigid work rules and schedules. And not just on Grand Isle. The private museums we visit in New Orleans hardly follows their business schedule. The lady at the 1850 House simply rejected us even though it’s during open hours; Andrew had to call several times the owners of each museum to make sure that it is operating when we come. It’s just fascinating how local people run business down here. Just imagine a Subway employee making fun of your orders in downtown Manhattan while there is a long line all the way outside the store and you'll know what I'm talking about. Interestingly, it’s not the first time I’ve seen this kinds of attitudes. Some villages in China that I’ve been to also have this sense of "slowness" in their attitude. It seems like the quick tempo becomes a unique characteristic of the city life. For most of my fellow bloggers, such slowing down of the tempo and relaxation was great. However, I personally find it hard to deal with this sluggishness down here. Down in Grand Isle, it is supposed to be the relaxation and journey to explore ourselves without any forced schedule, but I had to force myself into having a schedule in order to stay active. I need to know from what time I should be swimming in order to get back for lunch in time; in what pace should I be reading the novel in order to finish it before group discussion; when I need to get up and take the shower before seminars, etc. So quite opposite to, for example, Ryan who totally refreshed her mind in the freedom that Grand Isle offers, I had to force myself into that school pattern in order to feel alive and not rot in my bed doing nothing. I guess in some sense, my stress comes from not knowing what to do exactly and the way to ease my stress is to have everything figured out. Therefore, when Andrew compares the “British mentality” and the “French mentality”, I slapped my forehead and realized that I have the exact mind setting as the prior example: whenever I’m not working, I’m wasting my life away.

black and white

I took this photo at the Grand Isle State Park. I was purposelessly looking at the sky but then suddenly saw these two lines of birds flying by. Their colors were in perfect contrast. I was fascinated so I took this picture.

sunset

Still on Grand Isle. An old man walking with his dogs to find a fishing spot on the deck. Everything seems so slow, quiet and tranquil.

takeoff

We were doing a swamp tour just outside of New Orleans to see alligators and living conditions of native Americans and early colonists. Then I saw this wonderful crane (goose? swan? ah I wish I know birds) standing in the waters. Just as I was about to press the shutter, it took off. Hence this beautiful photo.

So I began to let loose of my minds. Go to the beaches just for the purpose of going to the beaches; quietly watching the sunset without constantly seeking for a camera spot and worrying about exposure bracketing. Almost every single of my action was calculated with cost and benefit: “if I go to the beach, would I have enough time left to read?”, “If I go take pictures at the pond, do I have time to go back and capture the sunset at the beach?”. Then I started to let go of the careful calculations and follow my feelings. If I feel like swimming at the moment, I go for it, not caring what do to after. Would I call this my own “awakening” like Edna? Maybe not (Well, to be fair, Edna always has her awakening moment after sleep. This never happens to me. I need to think hard to realize something.) I believe that human life is fluid and dynamic, maybe there is a “better” choice at the moment, but there is definitely no purely black or white in life, and there is no walking from one extreme to the other either. We make changes as we go. Some incidences may seem dramatic at the moment, but as trivial as a sand on the beach when we look back later on. As long as we are not stubborn and embrace any changes that could benefits us, we can live a happy life. To me, there is one thing that is the same for “the British person” and “the French person”: the pursuit for happiness. They just defined it differently. Maybe the British person values happiness in the future more than the French person, whom in turn values happiness at the moment more than his/her opponent. We don’t have to completely ditch our own ways of life and fantasize the others’. Maybe the constantly working British person is the one who gets more bread and laughs till the end, and the romantic French girl cannot enjoy her life in the coffee shop anymore because she is unemployed and cannot feed herself. Maybe we'll end up like Edna if we become too extreme. Maybe Edna died with utmost happiness. Who knows. Life is in our own hands and it's up to ourselves to seize it. 

I look forward to the journey ahead.

sunset on Grand Isle

all of these photos are taken at the same place during the same time period. The color on this photo is more or less an accurate recreation of the scene. I adjusted the colors for the other photos to create a more artistic feeling.

Treasures of Grand Isle

“Maybe your Gulf spirit will whisper to you in which of these islands the treasures are hidden –direct you to the very spot, perhaps”

— Kate Chopin, The Awakening

In Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, the very first book our Maymester class read for the course, Chopin writes about the pirate treasure that was said to have been buried on one of the islands off of Louisiana’s Gulf Coast. While the purpose of these next few weeks the rest of the class and I will spend in Southern Louisiana isn’t necessarily about finding some famed pirate treasure, we’re bound to find other treasures traveling and bookpacking around Louisiana.

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The day our class arrived in Louisiana, New Orleans specifically, we immediately packed up the cars and set off for Grand Isle where we settled into our cute and comfortable beach house. We spent the next few days here as we got a taste of life in the South. The academic year at USC had just ended and the stress and chaos of living in a cosmopolitan city like Los Angeles began to melt away with the Southern heat as I began to reacclimate myself to the heat and the humidity of the South that I hadn’t experienced since I transferred from Vanderbilt University a little over a year ago.

Our days spent in Grand Isle were a fun mix of getting to know our new classmates and fellow bookpackers, as well as our professor, and totally immersing ourselves in the books we were reading. The Awakening was a lovely book to start our trip off with as the first half of the novella takes place on Grand Isle. As I lay down on my towel in the burning hot sand and began to read the book, I couldn’t help but marvel in the fact that I was sitting on the beach of the Gulf of Mexico, the exact same beach that the main character, Edna Pontellier, fictitiously sat on in the later decades of the 19th Century when Chopin wrote the book.

There is something absolutely mesmerizing about watching the waves crash into the ocean, especially here in the Gulf Coast where the water is warm. It was incredible to watch the water as it hit the beach and read on in The Awakening as Kate Chopin herself described the way the water looked in her work.

“The sea was quiet now, and swelled lazily in broad billows that melted into one another and did not break except upon the beach in little foamy crests that coiled back like slow, white serpents”

— Kate Chopin, The Awakening

I couldn’t help but smile as I imagined the white crests of the waves as serpents, just as Chopin described them. As someone who grew up swimming for a majority of her life, I love being around the water, and, although I personally was not alone on the beach as my fellow bookpackers were also with me, I felt a calming sense of isolation as I continued to read the story, just as Edna and her friend might have when they too were on the beach. As Kate Chopin wrote,

“The two women had no intention of bathing; they had just strolled down to the beach for a walk and to be alone and near the water”

— Kate Chopin, The Awakening

Eventually, the sun began to set and it grew too dark to read but had more chances to explore the local treasures of Grand Isle including some great places to eat like the Starfish Restaurant, Jo-Bob’s Gas and Grill or Yum’s Restaurant where I tried a po-boy for the very first time. We also went to the Grand Isle State Park where we walked on the pier to look at the glistening water of the Gulf and to head off to the marina to catch a gorgeous sunset.

We even visited the Grand Isle Cemetery and walked around the raised graves where generations and centuries of families have been buried. We also accidentally got locked out of our van, but with the help of a local man named Freddie and his Southern hospitality we were able to retrieve our keys from inside the car and resume our exploration of Grand Isle and Louisiana.

There’s something about the South that is makes you feel at home. Maybe it’s the friendliness of the locals and their willingness to help out, maybe it’s the food or maybe it’s the humidity, but I forgot how much more relaxed life in the South was since leaving Nashville, which I immediately appreciated after having left the busy life of a large city. Two things are very prized and prevalent in Louisiana: LSU signs and flags and the motto laissez les bon temps rouler -- I know we’ll undoubtedly put that motto to good use throughout the remainder of our time finding our own treasures during our time spent in Louisiana.

Leaving The City

“The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clearing, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in the abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation. The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.”

— Kate Chopin

Los Angeles, specifically downtown, is a disorganized cacophony of sounds. It is the roar of ambulances, the chatter of students, and the ring of car horns. These are the sounds of a city that is alive with moving, accomplished people but for me, these sounds remind me that I should be rushing off to my next activity. They fuel the to-do list that sits in the back of my mind. The to-do list that tells me that instead of watching Netflix, I should be working on my assignments or contacting bands for work. When we arrive in Grand Isle, I hear the roar of the ocean crashing against the sand and small bugs clicking and buzzing in the distance. There are practically no helicopters. The cars drive lazily down the streets. No one is rushing. No one is checking their watch. It is finally quiet and soon I feel more calm than I have felt in years. I awake on our first morning, enjoy coffee on the veranda and write in a small journal I brought for the trip. I realize that during this trip I will be able to experience luxuries like taking time to deeply read The Awakening. In other courses at USC, I can never find the time to enjoy the book because I am too busy thinking about my assignments for classes like neuroscience or anthropology. At USC, I often find myself reading for the sake of completing a book, not for the sake of enjoying it. This experience makes me reconsider the purpose of college courses. I am not there for the sake of getting an A, I am there to learn.

Even better, I was able to live through similar experiences as the main character, Edna, in Kate Chopin's The Awakening. I was able to walk down the beach the way she did and step into the Gulf the way that she did. I could look at the view and see exactly what Kate Chopin hoped I’d be able to imagine in her vivid descriptions. Through her descriptions, Chopin is able to give the reader a clear idea of where the setting of The Awakening takes place, however, I imagine a lot would be lost if I was only able to read her descriptions. It is a phenomenal experience to be able to compare the words on the page to the view from our window. It makes Edna an even more real and relatable character. I understand and can connect with the relaxed, luxurious lifestyle that she engages in during her time in the Grand Isle. Even more than that, I understand why Grand Isle is a place of freedom that she continues to ruminate on and think about.

“‘I feel like painting,’ answered Edna. ‘Perhaps I shan’t always feel like it.’
’Then in God’s name paint!’”

— Kate Chopin

Finally, Grand Isle became a source of inspiration that freed my writer’s block. I have recently been having trouble connecting to characters and crafting stories that were interesting enough for me to dedicate my attention to them. In Los Angeles, I would find moments on a free Sunday morning to brainstorm but often, these ideas would be pushed to the side so that I could work on another task. By being in Grand Isle, my mind was free. I had the time and the space to really work through the ideas that had been lingering in the back of my head. Additionally, I was inspired by the environment. Grand Isle is different from any other city I have been to. The air is hot and thick with soft breezes that serve as relief. The Gulf stretches on for miles with oil rigs dotting the horizon. The cypress trees that are rooted on the swamp land look endless from the perspective of our swamp boat tour. By staying here, I begin to imagine what it could be like for my character to explore this area. I wonder what life could be like for her in the Grand Isle. Once we arrive in New Orleans, I purchase a small blue notebook and begin to write in a quaint coffee shop not too far from our hotel. It’s inspiring to be able to start my novel the same way that hundreds of other writers have begun theirs-in the heart of the crescent city.

What are you doing this summer?

“What are you doing this summer?”

“Oh I’m going on this Maymester where we’re doing this thing called Bookpacking. So I’ll be in Louisiana. It’s like my dream vacation and something I’ve always wanted to experience—so I’m pretty excited for it.”

Instead of giving myself a chance to truly envision what this fantastic experience would look like, I merely blurted out the response given above to anyone who asked what I would be up to during summer. From when we registered for Spring classes in October 2017 until a couple days before the trip, I couldn’t find a moment to truly prepare or reflect upon the excitement, worries, or hopes for the trip because of the busyness of my sophomore year. Even as finals were ending just a couple weeks ago, I would talk to people about it as if it were a distant dream.

The experience only became reality when I woke up at 3 a.m. on May 12 to meet up with everyone at the airport at 5:30 a.m. It seemed like a disillusioning dream since I had just experienced the merciless, sleep-depriving nights of finals, and I was just beginning to settle back into the comfort of my own home. All of a sudden, I’m in this new home on Grand Isle.

5.12.18 // The backside of the house we stayed at on Grande Isle. 

While Grand Isle was definitely nothing short of grand, relaxing, and peaceful, it was also nothing like I was used to. This entire trip in itself is something I am not used to. Traveling outside of California is new. This is only my third plane ride in my life. I have never been away from home for more than a couple weeks. Where is the South? What is a bayou? How do you eat crawfish? I’m all of a sudden around a group of strangers 24/7. On top of all that, I have never had so much fried food consecutively. And I mean, I feel like there was only fried food on this island. 

The island was beautiful, 

but I began to miss the people I love the most.  

I remember, as I was packing a couple days before the trip, I really didn’t want to experience anything other than the comfort of my own home and time spent with people I already know and love. I loved being able to sleep-in and talk with my mom for hours over some freshly brewed hazelnut coffee along with baking, crocheting, and catching up with friends—doing the little things that make life enjoyable. It was truly a breather from the fast-paced city-life of USC. The thought of a new adventure might have sounded exciting, but I was worried that the trip might make me even more tired than the semester made me feel. The thought of socializing with new people constantly, unbearable humidity slowly melting me away, and pesky mosquitos sucking the life out of me sounded anything but relaxing. In theory, traveling, reading, eating, and exploring with an intimate group sounded like a wonderful and enriching experience, but I couldn't help but to worry that perhaps this was not the right experience for me right now. It’s been a long, hard semester and I just wanted to go home.

Something that surprised and comforted me, however, was the 13 people traveling 1,935 miles with me. Going into this Maymester, I knew no one. A couple days before heading off to Louisiana, the thought of not knowing anyone was quite frightening to me. However, the dreadful experience of meeting at LAX at 5:30 a.m., piling into a van for several hours, and being in a new place brought us together. I quickly realized that everyone surrounding me was so unique and friendly, and our team dynamic has been awesome and surprisingly smooth. Despite my fears of feeling exhausted by traveling, it’s been a great balance of work, play, and rest.

“She was becoming herself and daily casting aside that fictitious self which we assume like a garment with which to appear before the world.”

— The Awakening by Kate Chopin

Part of the work during this Maymester has been to read books. The Awakening is what first caught my attention to this trip. I had read it before in high school and still consider it to be one of my favorite novels. It was one of the first pieces of literature that I marveled at as one that boldly defied the culture it was written in. Reading about the warm Grande Isle waters and experiencing it in real life just made the book so much more lively. Aside from experiencing the descriptions and setting in real life, I resonated with a deeper part of the novel. Like the title of the novel suggests, the main character, Edna Pontellier has a personal awakening where she ultimately dares to defy her role as a high-class woman married to a Creole man. While there are many more layers to her character, her journey of slowly discovers who she actually wants to be is one that I feel like I can identify with especially this past year.

“Edna heard her father’s voice and her sister Margaret’s. She heard the barking of an old dog that was chained to the sycamore tree. The spurs of the cavalry officer clanged as he walked across the porch. There was the hum of bees, and the musky odor of pinks filled the air.”

— The Awakening by Kate Chopin

There are a lot of images, faces, or reputations that we tend to give people, especially at USC. Like any other social or educational institution, it exists and is even encouraged. In the context of grades, extracurriculars, and all other resume items, ultimately, it doesn't matter. In a seminar Professor Chater led, he mentioned how the culture of French living is to live in a manner in which they strive to enjoy the little things in life. "Laissez les bons temps rouler" or "Let the good times roll" is what they like to say. Spoiler alert: Edna dies at the end of the novel. And as a reflection of anyone’s deathbed, the last moments remembered aren’t the 4.0 GPA, the hours I've worked, my social media credibility, the things listed on my graduation sash, or the possessions I purchased. Obviously we should all work hard and try our best, given that our role is to be university students, but I’ve learned again and again, and especially my sophomore year, that I should never neglect those “little things” that bring life joy.  

This semester my academics were a lot harder than they had been before. I was also participating in a couple of extracurriculars that I was passionate about at first, but ended up turning into a chore, yet could not let go of because it would hurt my pride. The overall load of the year was weighty and taxing and probably more than a person can handle in a healthy manner. Catching up with people and being invested in the lives of others is really important to me, but I would pack my schedule with so many activities that it was difficult to meet with them. I would sleep even later than I had to, even though I was exhausted, just so I could scroll through the depths of Instagram. Instead of reading my Bible and journaling, I’d end up feeling even more tired from the previous night, skip class, and end up frantically trying to finish an assignment right before my next class. It was a total mess. I’m sure a lot of other tired and burnt-out students can relate.

“The bird that would soar above the level plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings.”

— The Awakening by Kate Chopin

Toward the end of the novel, Edna quoted Mademoiselle Reisz, an older character in the novel and a somewhat friend to Edna, a phrase that stuck with me: “The bird that would soar above the level plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings.” Realistically, it’s hard to have it “all," especially as a college student. The world says having it "all" looks like an awesomely perfect resume better than the next guy, while still being a healthy and well-rounded person. Of course I would love to succeed and be involved in all the amazing clubs on campus while excelling in classes, being the best friend, and getting an ample amount of sleep. Who wouldn’t want that? But I think the profound wisdom from this quote that helps define a fulfilling college life is to challenge the idea of what it means to “have it all.” To have an unconventional and counter-cultural version of "having it all" represents that bird with strong wings. People will tell me and have told me that my career aspirations aren't "big enough", I'm "wasting time with friends", or just "get good grades and you're set." But to me, that's not having it all. Personally to "have it all" looks like this:  loving and serving others, spending quality time with my friends and family, and passionately live life.  

To live in this manner can be hard, especially in the university setting. Even summers can be tiring because we’re expected to build that resume, pursue research, or at least have proof that you’ve been productive, or else you’re doomed. These aren’t inherently bad, but when they become the object of existence and purpose in life, it truly isn’t worth living for. To defy these imposed expectations, moreover the easily adoptable attitude that comes with it, can be difficult. Going against the norm as the bird Reisz describes requires determination and constant reminders of what is truly important in life. This was something I was relearning at the end of the semester in the midst of my tiredness, my change in career goals, and my failure to be there for the ones that I love. 

So what am I doing this summer? I’ll be at home with my family, trying to make up for lost time due to school. I’ll be hanging out with friends, and supporting them through all the amazing things they’re doing this summer. I’ll be taking a class in Sign Language so I can learn to be more immersed in Deaf culture. I’ll be working at Kumon in my hometown and be reunited with the adorable kiddos I taught back in high school. Last but not least, I'll be reading books and learning new things about myself and the world around me as I experience a new city and its rich culture. This summer, these are my “little things” that will bring me joy. Laissez les bons temps rouler.

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The Magic of Bookpacking

After getting settled and unpacking the first day, my SoCal native self wasted no time rushing to the beach and diving headfirst into Kate Chopin’s The Awakening on my second day on Grand Isle.

Growing up just 25 minutes from the beach, I was not unfamiliar with the activity of lounging on the shore, book in hand.  However, I had never read a novel that was explicitly chosen because of its connection with the surrounding locale.

I noticed the difference immediately.

I began to compare every description of scenery in The Awakening not only to my own past experiences but to what I was experiencing in the exact moment that I was reading the text. Sitting there on the sand, sun overhead and salt in the air, I began to lose myself in Kate Chopin’s world.  I imagined that I was feeling the exact same breeze that the children in the novel felt as they played on the beach.

“The sun was low in the west, and the breeze soft and languorous that came up from the south, charged with the seductive odor of the sea.”

— The Awakening

Edna, the protagonist, went for a stroll on the beach, and so did I.  Robert attempted to teach Edna how to swim and I showed Eric, a fellow bookpacker, how to do heads-up freestyle.  Mr. Pontellier complained about his work as a cotton factor, and I complained about my grades on Blackboard. I was completely captured by the similarities between the scenes described in the novel and the one I was viewing through my very own eyes, right in front of me.

As Edna retired for the day in the Lebruns’ house, she described the heavy heat that seemed to cling to the walls.  With that passage I suddenly became aware of the low hum of the AC in the background, blasting cool air into Gulf Retreat (our aptly named cottage by the sea). I noticed the worn out recliner I was sitting in, the iPhone I was listening to music on, and as I looked up I saw my reflection in the screen of the powered-off tv - a black mirror.

I couldn’t stop seeing all the differences between Edna’s life and mine. Her wealthy, privileged place in society, her leisurely lifestyle, her duties as a mother and a wife. And more broadly I began to see how, while resistant to change, even Grand Isle itself was changing with the times.  Once a vacation destination for the very well off, it has now become a getaway spot for middle class Americans. Boasting of $39/night motels and small food joints like JoBob’s (which offers both gas and grill), it felt like a different Grand Isle than the one Kate Chopin wrote about.  

Dinner at Jo-Bob's

The fluorescent t-shirts sporting slogans like “nutin but good” and the looping JoBob’s promotional video now seemed kitschy rather than cute. I felt utterly disconnected with Kate Chopin’s world.  

As we were driving back from JoBob’s, our small dinner party pulled off to the side of the road to take a look at the sunset.  The view I saw before me was breathtaking. The sun was a bright red ball hanging low in the sky. The sea played with the colors of the sunset, twisting and reflecting them into something that was somehow warmer and gentler.  I could see the silhouette of crooked pillars of wood, remainders of a structure long gone, protruding out of the water in the distance. In that moment I realized that I was experiencing the same view, the same Grand Isle, that Edna had in the novel.

Sunset

I began to come to terms with the fact that the Grand Isle I was experiencing now was different than that of Edna’s, but those differences didn’t take away from me experiencing her world. I suddenly remembered something Andrew had told us in seminar.  He told us that when Kate Chopin wrote The Awakening in 1899, Grand Isle had just been ravaged by a hurricane that destroyed much of its infrastructure.  Andrew explained that she wrote the novel as a way to remember and connect to the Grand Isle of the past, rather than a direct reflection of its broken reality.

I have to remember that while the world is always changing, stories like Chopin's can allow me to travel back in time.  Through backpacking I can connect these worlds, past and present, through moments like these: a group of people on the side of the road staring off into the sunset.

The simplicity of this fact, the fact that the act of standing in silence while looking up at the sky can conjure up a whole different world for me, a world that existed decades ago, is the true magic of bookpacking.  

I can’t wait to see what other worlds I will be able to experience by bookpacking the Big Easy.

Estuary

It was my full intention to bring a camera to take photos for these blog posts. Unfortunately, I’m quite forgetful and my iPhone is nearly out of space, so I’ve decided to invest in a mediocre in-house illustrator to supplement my reflections. I’m the mediocre in-house illustrator.

Luckily, my daily tasks on this 26-day trip include nothing more than to read, write, and observe. And sketching, luckily, is observation. Unlike photography, it takes a bit longer to develop and is much more reliant on my own memory. Because Louisiana is so noticeably different from what I’m used to, it leaves very distinct impressions in my mind and my sketchbook. I hope you enjoy its quirks, fortunes, and moods as much as I do.

The first book we read was The Awakening by Kate Chopin. It’s about Edna Pontellier, a woman who is unlike her Creole husband and companions because she is capricious, unmotherly, and fiercely self-aware. She is awakened by a doomed extramarital love. In this new estuary between her futile efforts for an independent future and her obligations to her rigid socialite past, she kills herself.

While reading on the beach, I noticed this morning glory flower popping up in the sand. There were a few sporadically along the shore, but they were always alone. I like reading into things, so I looked it up later: morning glories can signify love in vain, or unrequited love… Funny, right?

I read The Awakening for the first time in high school. It was during my interview weekend for USC in Los Angeles, actually. I began to brim with awareness of past lucks and future possibilities as I sat by the fountain for a few hours, in this brand new place. I was both confused and staunchly conscious of who and where I was in the world. Three years later, I’m in LA again. This time, LA is short for Louisiana, and this time, my preferred body of water is the Gulf of Mexico.

Our class stayed in a house in Grand Isle, Louisiana for three days.

The stilted house we’re staying in is a tall and empty place, but perhaps that’s just because I’m rather short and full right now. Not only did I just have a delicious po’ boy sandwich, which I ate too fast to draw, but my life recently has also been brimming with assorted expectations, plans, and visions for the future. As I prepare to enter my senior year of college, I’m trying my best to will whole dreams together, ground up, inch by inch, by design. My head is forming a thesis back in California.

Grand Isle, where my body is, doesn’t seem as intentional. The land is quite bare, and you can tell the houses here were made whimsically. Not that I don’t appreciate a good whim, but the whims here feel fragile. It’s not a confident whim of deciding to run into the ocean barefoot at once. Instead, the town seems undecided in whether or not it really wants to go near the water at all, tiptoeing insecure and hollow steps on the beach, planting colorful whims on toothpick stilts and calling them vacation homes. Grand Isle is an apprehensive estuary. Grand Isle has no plan.

Arriving here was a weird reality check. I started to equate my future plans to the pre-fab homes on the Isle. The story of Edna’s futility, in combination with the real, physical estuary where Louisiana meets the Gulf, unearthed some nerves. Again, I’m staunchly conscious of both my wills and my whims. I’m in a muddy middle place between them.

“In short, Mrs. Pontellier was beginning to realize her position in the universe as a human being, and to recognize her relations as an individual to the world within and about her… But the beginning of things, of a world especially, is necessarily vague, chaotic, and exceedingly disturbing. How few of us ever emerge from such beginning! How many souls perish in its tumult!”

Last time I read this book, I had similar visions about the apparently random decisions in my life that led me to my pending future. I just so happened to apply to this new-wave major I discovered last second; I just so happened to be liked enough by admissions to be interviewed. Ideas about love and career and personal purpose filled my eager sunglassed perspective, too, which seemed also to be crafted by “necessarily vague” verdicts of whim, not design. I comically marched around this college campus clutching this book with the word “awakening” in the title and a new self-awareness. I didn’t really know where I was going. Yet, it felt fitting then.

We were driving along the island and I was admiring all the colorful, pre-fab homes with quirky placards like “Franny’s Funhouse” and “Crawfish Corner.” This one stuck out to me. In complementary teal and orange, this house was called “Paradox." I had to draw it from memory, but I don't think I will ever forget it.

It feels fitting now, too. Though tenuous, the homes of Grand Isle are enthusiastic, if only by their exterior color and for the minute we drive by them. They remind me of the whims of my own adventure considering my post-high school future three years ago, when dreams met applications, which met new faces, then places, then beginnings. They also remind me of all my dabbling since then: the clubs I joined and dropped, month-long interests I tried on for size, projects I failed, and relationships I propelled into and evacuated just as quickly. Here I am again, painstakingly aware of each adventure that led me here. I want to curate a thesis from my chaos. Edna Pontellier knows what it’s like to try to fill what feels empty: I’m trying to design a future out of vacation homes and romantic happenstance, but sometimes it feels in vain. I’m so conscious of who and where I am now. The estuary confuses me. It makes me eager to be on concrete again, or to be submerged in the ocean completely.

We visited the cemetery on the Isle. This was the first cemetery I've ever visited. It was another weird middle place, this time between life and death. It was so obvious—there was a children's playground right next to it. The place felt suspended in a past century. 

I’m not saying I’m Edna. I know how this book ends. But my awakening understands hers: I want to will myself into a meaningful future, and time’s almost up for waiting and wading. There are a few places I’d like to head after USC. I’m thinking about the legacies with which I leave college and embrace my next worldwide adventure. I still don’t really know what’s after this estuary—the stilts barely help my vantage point—but I clutch this book with the word “awakening” in the title because its self-awareness meant something to me once before, and it just so happens that it’s in my life again.

We leave the shores of Grand Isle for New Orleans tomorrow, a city I still build in my head exclusively with scenes from The Princess and the Frog. I’m not sure what to expect. I am sure, though, that Edna will come with me along with every estuary I’ve ever waded, like sand that follows you from the beach for a month, for three years, or perhaps a lifetime.

Grand Isle is not ready to commit, and I’ve realized I can plan but not predict. Like the Isle, I have to be okay with choosing wavering over waves sometimes. So tonight, I’ll sleep on stilts in sinking sand.

Tomorrow, though, we’re off to the city. My future brims and I’m hungry for a coffee shop beignet, which are apparently the holy grail. Si tu savais!

The Power of Place

“They could feel the hot breath of the Southern night; they could hear the long sweep of the pirogue through the glistening moonlit water, the beating of birds’ wings, rising startled from among the reeds in the salt-water pools … ”

— Kate Chopin, The Awakening

In literature and in film, setting is integral not only to plot but also to character development. Setting can even act as a character—No Country for Old Men (2007) and The Shining (1980) immediately come to mind. The setting, or the way the setting is presented, can evolve and morph as the protagonist develops; in other words, a change in setting can reflect a shift in the way the protagonist views the world or how the character has developed as a person. The reverse is also true: the protagonist can be influenced by changes in the setting, such as changes in seasons, etc. A place can have symbolic meaning; a place can be euphoric, or traumatic. In Annie Proulx’s short story “Brokeback Mountain” and its film adaptation, Brokeback Mountain represents sexual liberation and freedom; returning home brings repression and means having to keep up a façade. Regardless of how setting might function in a work, places are powerful. Places hold special value, and the author or filmmaker chooses the place for specific reasons. The protagonist could not be transported somewhere else and experience the same emotions and feelings.

Places have the power to shape who we are. I grew up in a small, agricultural town in the Central Valley of California and commuted to Sacramento for high school. Growing up where I did has, to an extent, molded me into the person I am today. I attended the same high school as Greta Gerwig, the high school Christine attends in Lady Bird (2017), although the name is changed from St. Francis to Sacred Heart in the film. Christine, “Lady Bird,” has a sense of belonging to Sacramento—even though she hated living in “the Midwest of California,” she can’t help but feel nostalgic for Sacramento once she’s at college in New York City. Gerwig’s film Lady Bird attests to the complex relationships we have with places and how places influence who we are as people.

Our professor, Andrew, traced the history of Grand Isle from its beginnings as a town made up of cotton and sugar slave plantations to its metamorphosis into a vacation town for people like the Chopins, who had enough money to set aside to enjoy a holiday away from the bustling city. In The Awakening, the ocean is not only symbolic of Edna’s sexual awakening but aids in her sexual awakening. When Edna swims for the first time, the narrator describes how “[a] feeling of exultation overtook her, as if some power of significant import had been given her to control the working of her body and her soul.” Being at Grand Isle, hearing the constant murmur of the sea that the narrator refers to, makes Edna’s experience come that much more alive and seem that much more real and relatable. There is something incredibly special and indescribable about being able to experience what Edna experienced where she experienced it.

“She felt as if a mist had been lifted from her eyes, enabling her to look upon and comprehend the significance of life, that monster made up of beauty and brutality.
”

— Kate Chopin, The Awakening

Like Edna, I hope to be able to look with my own eyes and experience the “Big Easy” and Creole and Cajun culture and Southern hospitality through bookpacking. Most likely I won’t have the opportunity to visit the South again anytime soon, so I must experience everything to the fullest while I’m here. To me the concept of bookpacking is using novels as a means to learn not just about a place but about how the place has shaped the people living there. In this process of bookpacking, hopefully I will learn more about myself and the places that brought me up and begin to “apprehend the deeper undercurrents of life” like Edna and the common threads of humanity in vastly different peoples raised by vastly different places.

Sink or Swim

I did not arrive here bearing any expectations. My agenda, intentionally abandoned, had stripped the phenomenon of time from my sense of being – leaving me restless at certain moments and slightly anxious for what lay ahead. Tick Tock. Didn’t I have somewhere to be? Certainly the copious amount of time I’ve spent bathing under the sun could have been spent doing something else which may be considered more productive. Tick Tock. What was I supposed to be doing at that moment? What was I expected to have accomplished after the alarm – which was set by no other than myself – went off?

Nothing.

As I stared across the Gulf, the words of Chopin’s “The Awakening” reflecting back at me, I realized at that moment my life was not defined by achievements or milestones. There was no checklist to cross out as the hours aged. There were no thoughts to rehearse monotonously within the confines of my head and there was no reason for me to feel guilty that I was not doing such things that I have now considered to be “normal.” Just as protagonist Edna Pontellier was seen as a bird trapped in the cage of Creole societal standards, I had become a time based machine, operating on an input-output system. Driven by efficiency, swiftness and precision, my character had forgotten what it meant to live, to understand and embrace the joy of life.

“The sight of the water stretching so far away, those motionless sails against the blue sky made a delicious picture that I just wanted to sit and look at.”

— The Awakening, Kate Chopin

Time passes, but I don’t seem to notice anymore. The silence and isolation of Grand Isle has become quite comforting. Undoubtedly, Mrs. Pontellier would see a nap as fitting.

My days no longer revolved around the clock. It was not a matter of how fast I could respond to emails or text messages. I did not have a place to be at the hour or another place the following. Life was slow. So slow that each moment seemed to pause briefly, allowing me to stimulate each of my senses and consume that time with gratefulness, knowing it would not return.  

The views of the Grand Isle State Park filled my soul. Unknowingly, my phone was bombarded with notifications, lighting up my pocket. But what a waste it would be to turn my head from such a view to fix my attention on the pixelated screen – spoiling the present and ignoring those around me who were there to share that moment. 

The juxtaposition of the bright playground adjacent to the Grand Isle Cemetery spoke loudly. So quickly we grow from naïve, happy children swinging, believing life is eternal,  to adults trudging through a rut from point A to B, then back again. Reality is, however, life is short and can be stolen from your hands at any instant. Don’t be caught empty handed.

 These first few days spent at Grand Isle have not only provided me with an opportunity to escape the fast paced race of L.A. and USC life, but have gifted me with a new perspective. In my desk drawer at school, I have a list. On the list I have written out the things I define my success and assumedly, my happiness. But I understand now, that list is equivalent to the restrictions of individualization Edna Pontellier faced in her pursuit of feminist triumph. 

I am beyond excited to spend these next three and a half weeks exploring Louisiana with 11 other students who are each at a different stage in their journey at USC and who each focus their studies in array of subjects. In just these few days spent together, we have shared so many memorable times together. From roommate disaster stories to relationship disaster stories as well as plenty of food and laughs. I am looking forward to implementing my newfound paradigm obtained at Grand Isle in order to truly appreciate the Louisiana culture and make the most of this bookpacking opportunity which I have been so lucky to be a part of.