Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Time

Being in a new place, my sense of time and distance is warped.

I can't measure yet how far something is, or how long it would take me to get somewhere.

But today I was running late - for a good reason though, Ellie called from NY! - and I refused to take the taksi in front of the hotel that wanted to charge me 3,000 soum, and I was too impatient to wait another 10 minutes for the taksi the hotel called.

So I walked to work and realized it was faster to walk here than all those days I've waited 10 minutes for a cab and then another 5 to get here.

On my way here, I saw birds.

I've never gone bird watching, but I've always loved birds. I've always loved the way they could fly, take off when they wanted, and just be free.

But what was interesting about the birds here is that they're different. In a way, it's like duh, of course they would be different.

I'm used to seeing pigeons in NY. Way too many of them.

But the ones here are beautiful, with different colors. And I realized one of the birds I saw is the same type of bird my aunt once raised. This is the aunt on my mom's side who I'm uncannily similar to in personality. She was once coming home and saw a baby bird that had been injured under a tree. Afraid it would get eaten by an animal, she brought it home and they raised it. It used to jump around the house with its broken wing and would eat out of their hands. When my uncle would go to work he'd say "bye gga-soon-ni (bird)" and she would reply, "gga, gga".

But today I saw a gga-soon-ni bird, and it made me feel comforted to see something familiar I had seen before.

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