The more time I spend on planet earth, the more I've realize that we carry some pretty specific interests with us that do not change. You might try new things here and there but it seems to me that we come preloaded with preferences that are uniquely tailored to us that grow more insistent the longer we ignore them. For me, along with dabbling in photography, writing, horses, gardening, baking and things that require wind, (flying, sailing and just sitting on a rock in a nice warm breeze), it has always included a love of people, and a desire to immerse myself in different cultures.
Fresh out of high school and legally considered an adult, I left Utah for Honolulu where I found employment at a law office call Chun, Kerr and Dodd. They didn't hire me on any ability or previous experience. The office manager simply asked me what business hours were and I innocently responded "8 to 5". Bingo! Job. All I can figure out to this day is that they were just thrilled to find someone who hadn't been on the rock long enough to want to leave work at 3 for the surf.
Now how, you ask, is Hawaii a foreign culture. Well, I was the only blond on the bus from Kailua across the island to our office in the Amfac tower. And for a short time I lived with Doty who had just enough Hawaiian ancestry to be accepted to the exclusive King Kamehameha High School. I know it's a stretch but it wasn't Utah and it all seemed very exotic to me.
Our office was a melting pot of international personalities. Waiting in line to use the firm's one and only IBM mag card computer, I came to know my co-workers and their individual stories. Islene who had moved from England with a prescription from her doctor to motivate her husband. She had become allergic to mold. Several secretaries from Australia and the Chinese and NYC partners who ran the show with someone from every continent in between thrown into the mix. It was a delightful education.
That brings us back to the focus of this blog. Like Julia in the movie Eat, Pray, Love, I am on a journey. With graduation looming, a family raised and alone, the possibilities are endless. So why not see the world, experience cultures, learn to garden in different hemispheres, look for love in some interesting and new wrong places and do a little paragliding while I'm at it?
