zimatravels

Writing my book, Memoirs of a Middle-aged Hummingbird, was itself a very different kind of journey than any I’d taken before.  Reliving those years through the details of my many journals and letters my mother saved, made sights, faces, smells, tastes, and experiences return to me in a vibrant, overwhelming profusion.  I started out writing the book, but very quickly the Muse became my very demanding master.  The feeling was like a movie I once saw in which one of the actors making a movie couldn’t separate his real life from that of the characters in the movie.  In similar fashion, my past and present blurred until daily chores and activities became burdensome, annoying distractions from writing.  The present dimmed, my past took over, and the future went blank.  Finishing the book became more and more important to me.  My life couldn’t move forward without going backward first.

Rather like an insistent playmate, the keyboard summoned me any time of day or night.  Whether I was in a theatre watching a ballet, reading the newspaper, or even in the shower, I could hear the silent yet strident call to return to the keyboard.  When the Muse dictated to me, I obeyed by scribbling words, phrases, ideas on scraps of paper that appeared everywhere around my home.  I even pulled off the road into a parking lot to write down something that wouldn’t stop niggling at my mind.  Just the “right word,” or the best turn of a phrase became my first thought upon awakening, and the last thought that kept me from sleeping.  It was both exhilarating and exhausting.

The mind mellows memories and even eliminates some unpleasant ones.  The journals and letters tell it like it happened.  A book written with the 20/20 of hindsight would have been quite different.  As the memories swarmed and buzzed around in my mind, I resisted writing with the knowledge of how it all turned out.  Having the wisdom that hindsight gives, I understood some of what I had written in the journals better.  But I purposely kept in some of my false impressions.  I didn’t want to make myself any smarter than I was at the time.  I wanted the book to show some of the emotional and mental odyssey my long journey over so many years took me on.

Except for some notations and some attempts to clarify, the writing in the book is as it was written in the journals.   This is important because the times and places and people changed greatly over the time span of my book.  The people in the book are real, but their names have been changed and some things that happened omitted to protect their privacy.  I did not want to lose any of my friends.

I am proud of having traversed so many miles and cultures.  I was a sculptor of sorts who could carve out niches for myself wherever I went.  Learning another culture is like slowly peeling an onion, layer by layer, and cannot be hurried.  And I took with me what I call, “the lesson of Kabuki.”  While watching Kabuki Theatre in Japan, I learned not to be judgmental about other cultures because there are so many things I am not able to appreciate or adequately understand.

No matter how eloquent they may be, how paltry words are to express experiences.  They pale in comparison.  A book, no matter the size, can only convey glimpses into the depth and breadth of what was seen, felt, done, thought.  Like a camera’s eye, it can convey only a limited portion of what can be seen.  That said, writing journals as I traveled became the continuing thread through the years, connecting all the disjointed pieces of my life.  The book has become the anchor for my drifting memories.  It is my heart trying to write itself.

I wrote the book because I never would have discovered Bali without that aging book on the dusty back of a library shelf that someone bothered to write.  I wrote it for the people I know who have said, “I wish I could have traveled like you,” as well as those who said, “I love to read about your travels because you do things I’d never do.”  And, I wrote it for myself.  Not only does it remind me of why I’m unmarried and poor today, but it captures as best I can what, in many instances, can never be seen again, as well as the intangible value of the best years of my life.

In 1979, I renamed myself after giving up everything I had thought I wanted.  Something very deep inside pushed me into the unknown.  It was the most painful decision of my life.  I knew there would always be a hole in me for leaving the husband I loved.  I felt neither whole nor well.  So, I fashioned a name for myself that had embedded in it my hopes for becoming whole and well.  I used Swahili because Kenya was the last place my husband, son, and I visited as a family.

It was during the years, miles, and experiences contained within the pages of  Memoirs of a Middle-aged Hummingbird that I traveled the path toward growing into the wholeness and wellness of my name, Zima.  I have now set  Memoirs of a Middle-aged Hummingbird into flight.  And I begin the next journey into my future.

You are invited to join me at my new blog, The Senior Hummingbird, at

www.seniorhummingbird.blogspot.com

This is the Singapore I first observed in 1989.

Singapore is a mixture of China without the dirt, India of the high caste only, and American values, looks, and money.  One must admire an entire country that is squeaky clean enough to eat off subway floors, prohibits smoking in almost all places, has virtually no crime or drugs, and although home to a mix of cultures, demands integrated neighborhoods and no racism.

Singaporeans are neither friendly nor unfriendly.  Bus drivers can speak English, but don’t offer much help in getting around because they seem to know only their own routes.  It is steamy hot like Bali, but not as gentle as Bali.

One should not judge cities too quickly, for each city has its blemishes and its good sides.  Singapore has an emphasis on materialism much like the U.S., but without the crime and craziness, or democracy.  But the dictatorial ways of the government have also given Singaporeans a good life.  The government has myriad rules and regulations, which not only keep out pornography and drugs, but which even prevent traffic jams in the city by only allowing certain-numbered license plates to drive certain places on particular days.

Singapore has made me think of how out of proportion the world is economically.  I paid $3.00 for a musical greeting card to send to a friend in China where $25 is a monthly wage.  And an East Indian Singaporean woman told me that her mother had shopped every day of her adult life but ten — on each of those ten days she had had a baby.  The amahs, live-in nannies, did everything else.

I slept last night in a 2 x 4 cubicle with only a mattress on the floor surrounded by a good number of sleeping bodies in a crash pad in Singapore.  Tonight I have a bedroom larger than my entire apartment in Israel, a magnificent penthouse view of the Singapore skyline, and a luxurious bathroom that looks out over the city from the 22nd story.

I have gone from rages to riches because I called Mrs. N., whose name had been given to me by someone I met in Bali.  Mrs. N.’s husband was sent by his company to work in Singapore.  They live “high” in every way.  Their apartment is absolutely huge and on multi-levels, with more luxury than anything I’ve seen, and certainly much more than anyplace I’ve ever stayed.  It’s a peek into another foreign place to me — the world of the wealthy.

Singapore has lush vegetation, cleanliness, efficiency, and a certain upper middle-class boredom.  To me, it lacks the charm of Hong Kong.  While I’ve penned these musings about Singapore in a Burger King, the employees have continually mopped and wiped around me.

This is a continuation of the last two posts where I, in 1992, had a conversation with Mary Gaunt, who wrote a book called  A Woman in China, published in 1914.  We are comparing our observations on travel in China. Mary:  ... [Continue reading this entry]

This is a continuation of the previous post. Mary:  "The average Chinese mind is essentially orderly, and never dreams of questioning rules...their faces are impassive, smiling with a surface smile that gives no indication of the feelings behind." Me:  Events in China ... [Continue reading this entry]

When I was living in Macau in 1992, I began meeting a new friend weekly at a very special library in Macau that is a copy of an ornate library in Toledo, Spain.  Her name was Mary Gaunt.  It didn't ... [Continue reading this entry]