Under the Banyan Tree

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, an...

The tea shop looked more like a permanent pop up than an actual establishment. At 8 x 8, half the size of most American living rooms and 1/4 the size of American tea shops, it was easily overlooked by passersby after they had dodged cars and scooters to cross the four lane boulevard to the pedestrian (mostly) street that housed small boutiques -- predominately beauty or bon marche clothing -- and led to the entrance of Feng Chia University. The block catered to students:  four feet from the shop, directly on the corner, a thin, thirty-something man stocked a sushi cart each afternoon after classes adjourned, and ten feet down, eggs and Taiwanese pancakes were cooked for breakfast by a cheery, diminutive matriarch in a green apron. I don't remember how I found the shop -- accident, probably -- or how I chose the flavor I would end up drinking nearly every day: pomegranate. The fruit was far from my favorite at home, I actually hadn't eaten an entire one since Michelle Bordenav...

We've all heard it before. And we've rarely believed it. Your friend, lifting her shoulders and cocking her head slightly to the right, declares, This experience changed my life!  You hug your friend and say that's fantastic .And you want to believe her, and you even do for a while. And then. . .  inevitably, weeks pass, months pass, and maybe even years pass. And nothing changes. Your friend wasn't crazy or disingenuous; she simply wasn't ready. It happens. . . because a life won't be altered unless the person living it is prepared. I was more than prepared when my life-changing experience occurred (it changed me, I swear!). Like an aspiring film star who spends years smiling half-heartedly through gigs of pet food commercials and two minute soap opera spots knowing he can't accept those jobs forever but unable to break into movies. Until a practically cosmic event occurs. He sees something. Or meets someone.  Or feels a jolt of urgency and possibi...