The "Wu Word" Blog
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Miss Mary: Posted on Sunday, September 16, 2018 7:30 PM
“Do you want this
bottle of wine? I can’t drink two
bottles of wine.”
I looked up from the
Seattle, Washington map that I was studying.
A petite girl with
long dark hair was directing this question to the guy next to me and not to
me. Good thing she was not asking me
because my idea of alcohol to get me tipsy was a wine cooler. The guy next to me looked up at her and said,
“No, I do not drink alcohol because my father was an alcoholic.”
The girl’s eyes and
mine met. Clearly, our eye gaze read the
same thought: We were both bewildered that this guy was so open about sharing
his personal business about his father.
The girl then asked me and I played the game as the guy next to me of
revealing all to complete strangers, “No, I do not really drink alcohol. I do not like the taste of it and, plus, I
have had two kidney transplants and just want to keep healthy.”
That is when the girl
and the guy next to me both stared at me.
That is when I realized that this is how you get with strangers. You just start sharing your stories with
strangers because you will probably never see each other again so you have
nothing to lose. In a hot, stuffy, and
sweltering common room in a hostel in the heart of Seattle, Washington with the
fan blowing on high blast but not doing anything, these strangers and I ended
up chatting about our lives. The guy who
shared about his alcoholic father was from Ohio; He went on to tell us his
marital woes with his wife who left him after finishing up her chemotherapy
treatment. The girl was actually with
her boyfriend, and they were from northern California and were here for the
Pearl Jam concert. As for me, I was there in Seattle, Washington
all by myself in a bare necessities hostel and in a dormitory room with three
female strangers that would save me over $200 in the heart of Pike Place Market
to fulfill a two-for-the-price-of-one Live List item that crept up on me about
six months ago when I was making travel arrangements to go to Salt Lake City,
Utah for the Transplant Games of America:
Live on less and little to realize how much I truly have in my life.
Six months ago, I
tried to recruit people to come travel with me, but no one could commit or no
one had the financial or time off from work abilities. If there is one thing I learned long ago and
I know it sounds terribly selfish, but I do not put my life on hold or wait for
anyone. If I wait around or depend on
someone to travel with or to do something with me, I will probably end up
waiting forever. And, ‘forever’ is not
something myself or any of us have. If I want to do something, I will do it—with
or without anyone.
My friends and even
the transplant center somewhat scolded me for traveling all alone and in not
the most hygienic of places with strangers.
Hostels do not get the best of reputations—especially dormitory hostels.
I had stayed at hostels before, but they were either alone in the room or with
a good friend. This was the first time I
would stay in a dormitory setting. In
fact, it was the first time ever in my life I was going to be in a dormitory
setting because I did not experience that in college. Granted, hostels are not 4-star luxury hotels
or even a motel, but they get the job done as a place for me to sleep, go to
the bathroom, and even eat breakfast. I
was going to sacrifice comfort to save money and gain life experiences.
The three strangers
ended up inviting me out for weed and cannabis.
Marijuana is legal in Seattle. I
learned that the hard way when I arrived.
I was already having a hard time breathing and was all congested in the
mornings in the stuffy hostel from lack of air circulation/no air conditioner and
from the scent of weed. I kindly
declined. They looked disappointed. I joked, “You have extra fun whiffs for me!”
For the two nights I
was in the hostel, I was sweaty and craving the comfort of my air
conditioner. I was the only one to put
the small fan attached to my bunk bed on full blast. Not having fresh air in the room made me all
the more grateful for the somewhat fresh air when I would go out to walk in
Seattle at breaking dawn. I walked more
than I had walked than when I was at home.
The aches and pains in my feet made me all the more thankful for now
having a hip replacement so I could actually walk now more than I ever could
growing up. I happened to meet a girl
from Italy on a food tour who was also traveling alone. We bonded over people questioning us single
women: “Oh…why are you traveling all alone?
That is sad.” I am sure that if I
was a guy, I would not be asked this or receive a piteous reaction.
On the contrary,
traveling all alone brings you to place of such freedom. I highly recommend it to everyone. You see things, people, places, and
experiences in a whole different enlightening and eye-opening light that you do
not get to experience when you travel with the familiar. You talk to people you would not normally
talk to. Your senses are heightened and
on more of an alert than if you were with someone else. Your natural instincts kick in of who you can
talk to and who you cannot and where you can go to and where you cannot where
safety is put first. It is purposefully putting yourself in a vulnerable place to come out stronger and much more open to adventures and experiences. It is unfamiliar,
uncomfortable, thrilling, and exhilarating. It is life on less and you gain all the more. It is when we have little
or less that we realize how much more we really have. Have you ever purposefully put yourself in a
place of hardships and challenges to test your strength and abilities? Have you ever hit rock bottom only to realize
how much you really have and how truly fortunate and blessed you are? When have you had ‘less’ to see how much you
really have?
Keep smilin' until we meet again, Mary ;-) |
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Miss Mary: Posted on Tuesday, August 28, 2018 8:38 PM
I am fascinated with
anything and everything that is up above that I can gaze up into where I feel
so smaller than small and humbler than humble in a world so vast and open. The blue skies. The full
or crescent-shaped moon. The
fluffy clouds. The warm sun. Most of all, the sparkly stars that light up
the night sky. I think when we all die
that we somehow become shiny stars that sparkle in the dark up in heaven and
watch upon our loved ones that are still on earth.
One of my Live List items
is to see the stars so up close and personal that I feel like I can touch them. This has been on my Live List item since 2012
when I first created the list. When I
shared with the select few that seeing (not just looking or gazing) the stars
was at the top of my Live List, people said I would have to go somewhere
deserted in oneness with nature. One guy
said I would have to go climb up mountains to see the feel the top of the world
on the mountain and above me. Another
person said I would have to go into the woods or fields. All I knew was that somehow and someway, when
the time was right and when the opportunity presented itself as with all my
Live List items, I would know and I would fulfill with a special someone. The special someone of who I fulfill my Live
List item is almost as important as the Live List item itself.
The opportunity to see my
stars was presented to me in March 2018 when my sister and I went to visit
Mohonk Mountain House. In front of a
cozy, crackling fire with flames that hypnotized me into oblivion, I flipped
through a brochure and my eyes immediately widened in shock and glee that an
astronomer by the name of Bob Berman was going to be doing a lecture in August
called “Night of the Shooting Stars” and we would all go out in the vast open
fields to watch the stars, or, if luck would have it, experience meteor
showers. August! My birthday month! I nearly fell off the couch rushing to the
front desk reception clamoring: “Tell me about this ‘Night of the Shooting
Stars’!”
My sister asked me what I
wanted for my birthday. I told her about
Mohonk Mountain House and that all I wanted on the night of August 12, 2018 was
to see and night sky full of twinkling stars.
She said she would join me and make sure that my birthday wish came
true. When we arrived there at the
mountain house, we spent the day jumping into and swimming in the lake, bopping
to 1980’s music as we paddle boated in the lake with the sun streaming on us
scrunched in our bright orange life jackets, and stuffing our faces into a food
coma from the most delicious food that you had ever tasted in your life. When night finally fell, I was breathless
with excitement! In a standing room only
filled to capacity of people, I could barely listen to and process astronomer Bob
Berman sharing his personal experiences about meteorites and tours that he
guided to see the mystical and magical world up above us. I tried to patiently await him to finish and
then when he finally stood up to guide us outside, I squealed to my sister: “This
is it! I am going to fulfill my live
list! I’m so excited! I’m so excited!”
I was practically hopping
out the door, but then stopped dead in my tracks when the cool air swirled
around me into pitch black darkness.
There were no lights to guide us.
I started to feel scared. I
grabbed on to my sister’s hand. We
marched into the fields not able to see a point of light I was suddenly
extremely dependent on my other senses that heightened in functions: the pine
scent of the trees, the murmur and mumble of people all around me and the
crunch of our footsteps as we braved our way into the darkness, the taste of
trepidation that I was going to trip and fall flat on my face, and the feel of
the sweaty palm of my sister’s hand that transported me back to when I was a
little girl and she held my hand. I
wanted to look at my cell phone to turn on the flashlight but Bob Berman
shouted over our murmurs and mumbles with: “Absolutely no cell phones. You will miss the magic. Let the lights and your senses guide you.” Fear fell away when there
was a clearing. We all grabbed towels
and laid them on the tickling fresh green grass blades. My sister and I lied down side by side. Then, that is when I suddenly saw and
experienced the magic and adrenaline coursing through my pumped body as I
experienced when fulfilling my live list items.
Sparkly jeweled diamond stars blinked and twinkled before my glazed over
and child-like eyes in that midnight milky sky.
I lifted my hands up, almost feeling like I could touch the stars. I closed my eyes, inhaling the crisp, fresh,
and delicious air. I was tiny and small
in the unending and limitless skies above me that was so vast, massive, and
wide open that it almost felt like I could be swallowed whole by the universe
above me. I wanted to take my cell phone
out to take a picture to capture the moment, but I did not even bother to
because I understood that these Live List items could not be fully captured by
the lens on the outside so you can feel everything in unexplainable and inexplicable
ways on the inside. I was living out
one of my live list items: I was finally seeing the stars with my special
someone-my sister.
Less than an hour later,
the clouds came in and buckets of rain fell.
In the hazy and foggy mist, the rain created an even more ethereal feel
and almost like a dream. Like all
magical moments and like all my Live List items that are so awe-inspiring, they
take a lot of planning and hold much anticipation and then they come and go too
fast, leaving you with an aftermath of imprinted memories and nostalgia that
you live again in your mind asking yourself: “Did that really happen?” The answer: Yes, it did and you are lucky
enough if you get to relive it in your mind and live to tell and share the
glory of the story with others.
The most
inspirational, humbling, and beautiful moments leave us unable to fully capture
them so we can feel them and keep them alive in our mind when we remember them
again. What was a moment that you could
not really capture with lens but keep deep within you when remembering them
again? When could you not even explain the full capacity of the experience
because of the feelings and memories involved?
What magical moments have you lived again when you remembered them?
Keep smilin’ until we meet
again,
Mary ;-) |
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Miss Mary: Posted on Sunday, August 19, 2018 10:07 PM
I was a geek, misfit, and
outsider in school. I missed out on a
lot of ‘the fun’ or what was seen as fun by high schoolers like prom, football
games, extracurricular activities, possibly traveling abroad with the exchange
student program, and much more. I kept
my head buried in books. I studied until
my nerves were shot and my tummy hurt. No
one put pressure on the perfectionist and worst enemy in me because I put on
and carried all that weight on myself. I
had a fierce competitive streak to always get the best grades and be the
best. I wholeheartedly believed within
ever fiber in me that if I excelled at school that I would excel at life. Such lies we were and are fed about
this.
The one class I absolutely
loathed and could not excel in no matter how much I tried while skating by with
a “PASS” was physical education. Of
course I was the clumsiest, overweight, and most non-athletic person because of
my physical challenges revolved around my kidney and joint issues and massive
steroids, but I never saw this as excuses and only saw them as explanations. I remember my heart pounding and beads of
sweat forming at the base of my neck with each and every name called up to join
a team and there I was at the ONLY person left in front of all these kids. How terrifying. How petrifying. I did not have an athletic bone in my
body. I was the slowest. I was always behind everyone else. I was always chosen last on a team. When it comes to athletics, I am still
always last.
When I look back, I think
I fought so hard to excel at academics and mental strength to compensate for
what I could not have and what I believed I could never have in physical
strength. Everything changed when I
received my second kidney transplant in 1995 and hip replacement in 2013. I could not get my legs to kick and had two
drowning episodes before my hip replacement that made me fear water and
swimming. What was fear turned to love
and gratitude in the power of movement and organ donation and transplantation
and from all I could finally do from what I believed that I could never ever
do. Over time, I developed a huge love
and even hunger for the swimming pool. It
was about four years ago that I jumped into the water for the first time in my
life—and now I cannot get enough of it.
I will ask anyone and everyone to jump in the water with me because of
the adrenaline rush and the ultimate feeling that you are plunging into an
abyss or underwater world, completely free and washed off of all your
worries. It was about two years ago that
I learned backstroke for the first time in my life. It was just a week ago that I jumped off a
diving board into 45 feet depth of a lake for the first time only to see
nothing and no grounding beneath me. It
had never felt so free. The greatest
change was in me.
The clumsiest, overweight,
and most non-athletic person in the world that actually feared getting into the
pool at my first Transplant Games of America venue back in 2010 has changed to
people telling me I had to get out of the pool at this 2018 Transplant Games of
America. My competitive streak is still
in me and will never go away, but has minimized by the magnitude of gratitude
just to be alive and to be able to do all that I could not physically do
growing up. Being at the bottom and when
you had absolutely nothing or very little and slowly making your way creates
gratitude for whatever you can get.
However, it is VERY different when you have been healthy or at the top
of your game only to fall and find a way to get back up again. At this latest Transplant Games of America, I
found that the mass majority are so competitive and set out to win medals that
having fun is lost. I think it is what the medals represent—being able to do
all that you could do from what you could not do, competing against yourself
and your very own race, and being a ‘winner’ when you felt like a ‘loser.’ I think ‘fun’ is different from everyone. My
idea of fun is actually NOT winning medals.
I’m honestly happy not to win anything.
My idea of fun is just being together, jumping in the water, cheering
for each other, going off on my own to explore and experience new in life and
meet and connect with new people and reuniting with familiar faces, and, most
of all, honoring organ donors/their families, living donors, and our loved ones
who root for us and stand strong when we have been at our weakest.
For my individual swim
competitions, I did not win a single medal. It was for a swim team relay medley
that I received a bronze and, that to me, is the greatest medal because it was
a team and together effort. My times
were better. My very own race and pace
were strong and steady. I was last. I am still always last. But now I will ALWAYS be the first to have
fun, enjoy, laugh, embrace how far I’ve come and from the ongoing learning
curves and process, not take everything and everyone so seriously when life is
serious enough as it is, and just be in all the beauty around me that is
fleeting and flies as fast as life goes.
Do not make the mistake I made of making everything and everyone so
seriously and competitively that you miss out on the greater purpose and all
the magical moments in the making that end up meaning the very most and the
life that you are living in the here and now.
Are we all
competitive? Are you competitive? What do you deem as a ‘winner’ or
‘loser’? Have you gotten so wrapped up
in a competition that you forgot the fun involved? Have you ever stopped to think about the
process rather than the end result that is not always the reflection of what
you had to endure? When have you been so
serious and competitive that you missed out on the fun and magic in what was
happening and unfolding?
Keep smilin’ until we meet
again,
Mary ;-) |
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Miss Mary: Posted on Sunday, July 29, 2018 9:40 PM
One of my very good and
dearest friends just moved away to California.
She had been methodically planning this move since I met her at least
five years ago. I still remember when
she told me that her goal was to move to California. The words became a process and plodding pace
of actions and executions. I still
remember saying to her in the wicked New York winters, “I’m right behind you! I’ll see you there in sunny California!”
Over the last few months,
I’ve seen my friend had to decide what was worth keeping and what was worthless
and needed to be given up and given away.
Through her and throughout my life, I’ve seen the value of things and
that things are really just things until there is are sentimental memories and
moments attached to them. Invigorated
and inspired by my friend and her move, I started to dig through my messy closets
and cabinets as to what were just things to me and were more than things. The mass majority of things were, indeed,
things. However, hidden in the darkest
of places were ‘things’ I could not part with: my yearbooks, my over 50
journals that I started writing in when I was 8 or 9-years-old, pictures of
friends and family, my research into a hip replacement surgery, my kidney advocacy
work, and, most of all, multiple pieces of paper written in 2013 when my book
was about to get published. The papers
contained my goals, plans, and preparations in the years to come in my life. My handwriting was clean, crisp, and
confident. I had many expectations. I was and am my own worst critic and
enemy.
The years have gone
by. Here I am in the now. Many people may think that I am ambitious,
but I do not have a desire to ‘succeed’ in the sense of ‘climbing up the ladder’
or ‘going to the top of the mountain’ where it is lonely and lonesome. I am, however, determined. Determined to meet the goals I made for and
of myself. However, it is the anticipation
and aftermath that will change you and your life and never the goal itself. It is never a singular or solo moment, but a
build up to that moment and then everything thereafter.
When I re-read my goals
that I had met and faced with, I realized that there were so many obstacles
that had come my way that the goals being met were a slow-moving and a painstaking
process. I had fallen more times than I
could count. I had failed and risked
more times than I could tell you. To win,
you have to lose. To succeed, you have
to fail. Life interrupts and throws
more curveballs of the unexpected, unplanned, and unforeseen that we are NEVER
really ready for what is to come. I had
never really been ready for the results or how I felt after a goal I made was
met. You can plan and prepare and have
all the goals you want, but to actually be ready for meeting and accomplishing
them is a whole other ballgame. I think
about my friend who had met her goal to move to California. I think about if she is ready for what is to
come for her. I think about if we are
ever really ready for what is to come for all of us. And, the answer is “NO.” Life
is always, always happening, moving, and living on as we are planning and
preparing that I’ve reached a point to just try to be ready for the unplanned.
The main goal I have for myself now is to be OK and to be OK with everyone and
everything else. We are never really
ready for the reality until we are forced to get real.
Are you goal-oriented? What goals have you made for yourself? Do you prepare and plan ? When you met or supposedly accomplished what
you set out to, were you ever really ready for the aftermath of meeting those
goals?
Keep smilin’ until we meet
again, Mary
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Miss Mary: Posted on Sunday, July 08, 2018 11:23 AM
I had a dream yet again
about houses.
In this dream, I lived in
a house that was dilapidated and in a poor area by the train tracks. Inside the house was absolutely immaculate
and gorgeous with plush and exorbitant furniture and rooms that looked like
something out of Buckingham Palace. In the
rooms, there were different scenarios playing out. One room had a young girl all in white
rocking back and forth on a bed crying hysterically. I kept asking her what was wrong, but she
would never show me her face and just kept wailing hysterically like she was
suffering and dying a slow and painful death.
Another room had a dog and cat playing tug of war with a chew toy. Another room had a group of people I did not
even know laughing and chattering.
I wake up completely
confused and asking aloud: “Where am I?”
I dream so often about
houses that you would think I am meant to be in real estate. My dreams about houses are so vivid and real
that I wake up truly believing that I am in that house and no longer in my home. These house dreams always vary slightly, but
they do revolve around certain themes. I
am rearranging furniture. I am
overwhelmed by too much stuff and want to throw everything and anything out to
start anew. I am overlooking a gorgeous
balcony view of a sky full of stars and a bright blinding moon that I am
wishing upon. I have a huge and massive
kitchen that looks like something out of “Better Homes & Garden” magazines
with all the food in the world for me to chop, cook, sauté, and bake. The houses have been falling apart, manicured
mansions, a cozy bungalow, or a picturesque two floor house in the center of
suburbia. I never dream about an apartment, a farm
house, or a place in the hustle and bustle of a city. The houses have many different
rooms and in the rooms are people or pets laughing, fighting, or crying.
I asked my good friend who is the ultimate
dream lover and analyzer what this means and she says: “A house represents your
sense of self. Everything going on in the houses is everything
you are experiencing or trying to rearrange.”
I thought about my sense
of self. I thought about ‘house’ in the
literal sense that I had been living on my own and in my one bedroom apartment
for nearly a decade. It was only when I
lived alone that I was forced to learn to handle household and handy troubles
(i.e. electrical and plumbing issues), developing dynamics and relations and
dependency on the kindness and care of neighbors with an emphasis on community,
and the logistics and mechanics of devices that I never even thought about
(i.e. the air conditioner, the heating, window screens, etc.). I recently realized that it has taken me
almost a decade later and still counting about how my sense of self has and is
always changing, moving, developing, progressing, and rearranging. It
also dawned on me that as the years have gone by that I invite less and less
people into my home. When I first moved
in, I wanted to and did invite everyone and anyone to my place. Over time, I have become more protective,
selective, reclusive, and even isolated with just wanting and wishing to enjoy
and savor the simple, the peace and quiet of being in my home and place. It reaches a point that a house is no longer
a house, but a house becomes your home and is the becoming of you.
Our experiences put
us in a constantly moving, changing, developing, and rearranging ourselves. How has your sense of self changed and
developed? How have you had to rearrange yourself and others? Do you
often invite people to your house, or vice versa? At what point (if any) did it dawn on you
that your house is the becoming of your home and of you?
Keep smilin’ until we meet
again,
Mary |
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