Next Time I'll Need a Bigger Umbrella

With clothes and books and papers strewn around my bedroom and across the open suitcases on my family room couch, I prepared to return to Taiwan last month. As I made piles of 'yes, take,' and 'absolutely not,' I braced myself for the thing I remembered about the country even more clearly than the ecstasy produced only by a claw machine win, the beautifully joyful taste of pomegranate green tea, and the gregarious people whose complex language with its complex tones I still didn't understand. I'm talking about the heat. The oppressive, humidity fueled heat. I know nature's joke on my pores is in part what allows for the island's lush landscape that I fell in love with last summer, but still I despised it. 

So I packed -- masterfully, I thought -- only light cotton skirts, short-sleeved shirts and three pairs of the prettiest flip flops I owned. I added one pair of new running shoes in case I ever got up early enough to beat the heat to the track, and boarded my China Air flight knowing my fashion choices were more functional than those of last year when I'd erroneously believed I would sometimes be wearing pants. You know, real pants, the ones that covered your knees and fell all the way to your ankles. And drew the heat like you wouldn't believe.

I arrived in Taichung after a cool 13 hour flight and an air-conditioned train ride (preceded by a dreadfully hot day in Taipei where my exhausted body sat on a hop-on-hop-off bus to distract myself from my own sweat and lack of sleep), and it rained. And the next day it rained. And the next. And at the end of the week, when I traveled south to the charming and vibrant city of Kaohsiung, it rained. And for the first time ever in Taiwan, I was truly chilly. Like really cold. On Sunday morning, I stood in shock under an awning at the corner of Wufu 4th Road and Gongyuan 2nd, shivering in my shorts as I watched coin-sized raindrops pound cars and asphalt and tourists.

Upon my return to Taichung, the rain eventually abated but my wonder (stupor, really) did not. How could I have assumed I would never need a sweater or a light jacket or a wind breaker or something? What was I thinking?

I wasn't. Or not long-term. Or not clearly. But I learned from this. I realized that no two experiences are the same and that things change and that we can't ever be completely confident in having the answers or even thoroughly understanding the question. We must be flexible. We must have multiple pairs of shoes -- not white, I discovered after four hours of exploring Kaohsiung with a broken umbrella -- and be willing to procure the things we need and discard the ones we don't. 

I also learned that my mother was right -- I should always carry a sweater.  


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