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When I'm not here, you may find me wandering the pages below. (If I'm a regular visitor to your site and I've left your link off or mislinked to you, please let me know! And likewise, if you've blogrolled me, please check that my link is updated: thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com. The extra (a) makes all the difference!)

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Body: in sickness and in health

I won't lie; this body and I have had our issues with each other for many years. Body image -- sure. Physical and mental overextension -- comes with being a Type A kind of girl. I still struggle with these things, so they show up from time to time in my writing.

More recently, illness, pure but not simple, has added itself to the mix in a multi-system sort of way. And the challenges in figuring out exactly what's gone wrong are many. As problems have revealed themselves in the last few years, beginning with reactive hypoglycemia in late 2008, I've documented them here, partly to gain a little clarity on managing complex conditions but mostly to give voice to vulnerabilities I feel but don't normally share with anyone face to face. Better out than in, they say, right? (Oh yes, humor is one way I deal.)

The links below cover the different angles I've examined (and from which I've been examined) within that experience.

Travel: neither here nor there

When the person you're married to lives two time zones away, you log a fair number of frequent flier miles. And if you blog about commuter relationships, you log quite a few posts en route too.

Since we're no longer in separate places, I blog less often from airports. But we do travel -- together now! -- which is much more fun to write about. So in addition to thoughts on our years of commuting, the links below cover the places we've been as a pair and, in some cases, the adventures that have happened on the way.

Writing: the long and short of it

Why do I do it? Good question. Maybe it's not so much that I like to write but that I have to write, even when the words refuse to stick to the page. Believe me, I've tried doing other things like majoring in biochemistry (freshman fall, many semesters ago). Within a year, I'd switched to English with a concentration in creative writing and wasn't looking back.

After graduating, I taught English for a few years and then worked as an editor, which I still do freelance. In 2007, I applied and got into an MFA program at a place I like to call Little U. on the Prairie. I finished my degree in 2011 and have been balancing tutoring and writing on my own ever since.

The following links cover the writing I've done about writing: process, content, obstacles, you name it. It's not always pretty. But some part of me loves it, even when it's hard. And this is the result.

Heart: family and friends

I'd have a hard time explaining who I am without being able to talk about the family I grew up in as well as the people I've met beyond its bounds. But even with such context, it's not easy! In the simplest terms, I'm a first-generation Asian-American who has spent most of this life caught between cultures. That, of course, doesn't even begin to describe what I mean to, but there's my first stab at the heart of it all.

That's what this group of posts is reserved for -- heart. The essential parts of my life whose influences I carry with me, for better or worse. The links below cover what I've written as I've learned how these forces work within me, for me, against me, in spite of me. They anchor me even as they change me, and they keep life interesting.

Recommended reading

What do I do when there's too much on my mind and my words won't stick to the page? I escape into someone else's thoughts. Below is a collection of books and articles that have been sources of information, inspiration, and occasional insight for my own work.

Friday, June 24, 2011

Scenes from a graduation, part 3: projection

In the auditorium of a local hotel, finally done traveling for the day, I slip into a cushy ergonomic chair that rotates. This isn't theater seating; it's conference hall seating. An enormous projection screen dominates the front wall, and the School of Medicine's glossy logo has been carefully applied to the wooden podium beneath it (removable decals, I'm guessing). Individual ethernet jacks and power outlets, built into the console table stretching across each row, make me feel like I ought to fire up my laptop to take notes. But we -- Troubadour Mom and Dad, my youngest sister and I -- pull out cameras instead.

Of course, we're not here for a lecture. This gathering of parents, siblings, children, other relatives, and friends is like Class Day from our undergraduate commencement festivities, a smaller celebration before the next day's all-graduate ceremonies with the lawyers, the engineers, the MBAs, and so forth. Tonight, a class-chosen faculty speaker will bestow light words of wisdom, a classmate will offer humorous reflections on these last few years of training, there will be a few awards, and then we'll all disperse for heavy hors d'oeuvres. My sisters and I share the same alma mater; I wonder if they also feel a certain déjà vu as we wait for the proceedings to begin. But maybe the conference room setting is too different to them. Class Day, so many years ago, was an outdoor folding-chair affair that, in Almost Dr. Sis's case, took place in a downpour.

I have to laugh a little at myself, always seeking the structure of things, the bones of each new experience. Is it just my way of handling the unfamiliar? Perhaps -- the parallels underneath, analogous armatures, ground me. But it is also a way of remembering, better to secure the details. For our family, there will be no other sister who passes through this medical program or any other. One chance, then, to enjoy these moments for what they are.

The soon-to-be graduates process in, the men in suits, most of the women in dresses. Academic regalia is reserved for the next day. I have not yet seen Almost Dr. Sis since arriving -- does she see us? No time for her to look up, but we follow her with both eyes and camera lenses.

I don't snap any shots, though. The pictures I might get would be blurry, I realize -- the camera on my phone isn't the best for subjects in motion -- and I'm happier without the filter of a viewfinder limiting what I can see. I lean forward, watching my sister in a soft white frock, glossy like meringue, cross into her assigned row.

It turns out that she is in charge of presenting the class gift this evening. As she steps toward the podium, the screen behind her suddenly lights up -- the audiovisual crew working this event has zoomed in, and my sister's head, now ten feet tall, smiles back at us in startling digital glory.

And I can't focus on her, the small woman in the flesh at the microphone. Her slight movements -- a nod, a turn, a tilt of the chin -- become giant ones on the screen. I'm reminded for a moment of Dorothy's audience with the Wizard of Oz. Of course, my sister and her video image are identical, unlike the thundering puppet head and its master, but the projection is still a bit disturbing. So dramatically magnified, it draws the eye away from the real person below.

But isn't that the point of it? I think. To help us see better, to allow us an enhanced point of view?

Maybe. I feel like I'm losing something, though, if I ignore the woman standing right in front of me in favor of the bobbing on-screen head. I can't watch both. I try to anyway.

*

The hors d'oeuvres at the reception are, indeed, heavy. Fortunately, to save me from eating too much, there are scores of my sister's friends to be introduced to. Some I recognize from my last visit a little over a year ago. Others are mentors I've heard of only by name.

There is one woman whose face gives me a double-take. The wire-frame glasses, the slightly upturned nose, the sandy curls, front teeth that peek out below a thin upper lip with a bit of mustache, and that raspy voice with a New York accent -- she is the doppelganger of a professor who has sat on my thesis committee for two years. The woman at Little U. is the sort of person who invited my research methods class, which she also taught, over to her house for potluck on the last night of the semester, just before I moved back to Seattle.

The woman at this reception supervises a group of medical students who travel each summer to run a clinic in South America. I realize my sister introduced me to her on my last visit, at a coffee-shop planning pow-wow for one of those trips. The woman doesn't remember me -- and I don't expect her to -- but the memory of her warm hug from that first meeting comes back as I greet her now. She is effusive, pouring forth compliments about my sister, this class, how special they are to her. It's impossible for me not to remember my own professor's words from potluck night, the same sort of praise overflowing from her in uncannily similar tones.

I'm not looking for these parallels in this moment; they've somehow found me. But for once they aren't grounding. In fact, I realize, I wish not to see what I see this time because it's made me aware of the other comparisons I can't help making -- between the path I chose, to write, and the path I rejected, to become a doctor myself. At one point, that was what I truly believed I wanted to do.

The need to be present for this rite of passage, then, the importance of getting here. You wanted to see what could have been, a voice whispers in my ear, and I recoil.

Don't, I hiss back silently, guiltily. This isn't about you. I glance around the circle my family has made around my sister and the woman who continues to effervesce. Good -- they haven't noticed the extra head I've suddenly grown, or the conversation I'm having with it.

For more from this series, please click here.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Scenes from a graduation, part 2: compromises

To my relief, the electronic monitors at O'Hare have no abnormalities to report. There's just enough time to grab a salad from one of the vendors on the walk between Terminals H and G, call D to let him know all is well, and fall into line at my connecting gate.

I am, short of my footwear, dressed for the evening reception we'll be heading to directly from the airport -- no time to change -- so I'm careful as I poke my fork into the chicken and greens in my lap, wary of wayward dressing drips. Though I would have preferred one of my favorite dresses, a soft silk whose pattern reminds me of thin washes of gray ink with occasional streaks of butter-yellow watercolor, I've opted for darker wool slacks and a pink paisley blouse. Still pretty, but slightly less feminine -- at least, as it feels to me. But I guess that's the point: in pants, I can stride, even run if I have to, without having to worry that my skirt has rotated or hiked itself into unladylike territory.

As I eat, I make note of the things I have to do when I land: call family, find bathroom, apply makeup, change sneakers to heels, unpack purse from luggage, transfer wallet and phone. The makeup and purse are already within easy reach toward the top of the items in my backpack, the shoes at one end of my suitcase. The heels are low in case I have a lot of walking to do with the heavy bags. I am, if nothing else, extremely practical.

I know, though, that my mother and sisters will all be in dresses tonight, that this will bother me even though I resist the feeling adamantly. This -- blouse, slacks -- is what is comfortable for me on this 2,500-mile travel day, and yet, in their company, it will leave me not ill at ease but something like it. As if my lack of willingness to do as they would -- just wear the dress -- is indicative of some personal deficit in the quality all Troubadour women ought to have, a tolerance for inconvenience in the name of feeling our outward best.

I picture the gritty airport bathroom stalls at my final destination, the acrobatics of changing in that narrow space with luggage to boot, and I know I will feel anything but my best -- inside or out -- after attempting a transformation there. I'll be meeting my sister's doctor colleagues and doctor professors, whom I'm mildly intimidated by, at this evening's reception, and I'd prefer not to be fighting a case of the cranks after playing public restroom Twister. So, gaping toilet? Questionably sanitary walls on which to hang so many dry-clean-only garments? Given my choices, I'd rather feel the needling sadness of being conflicted over how I look, sadness that I can't just be confident in this fairly inconsequential decision, rather than feeling certain frustration with trying to be more than I'm able. Just for today, anyway.

For more from this series, please click here.

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Scenes from a graduation, part 1: getting there

This is the first in a series of posts chronicling my whirlwind second half of May -- there was too much to put in a single post, and the trip generated much for me to think about, so here's the compromise: a story in parts. For the entire series, please click here.

My suitcase gapes at me from the bedroom floor and I wonder if the zipper will close. Nine days of clothing for three different cities with three different climates and three different kinds of celebration -- this is what I have to pack within the confines of a single carry-on.

My first stop on this trip is Almost Dr. Sis's graduation from medical school, which promises to be cold and rainy. Very rainy. Here in Seattle, we're used to mist and drizzle, but in the Midwestern town where she's lived for half a decade now, there are thunderheads gathering and a long sweep of heavy gray downpour following behind.

On this Friday afternoon, I've just tucked a pair of wool slacks into place -- it promises to reach the mid-40s in the evening, though we're in the latter half of spring -- when the phone rings. It's my mother. "Our connecting flight was canceled and we're driving from Chicago," she says, with irritation. "Can you look up directions for us?"

I can hear my father at the wheel in the background naming interstates. "Do I want 290? 294? Ask her which one, which way -- " His agitation rises with what I'm guessing is each passing road sign. They are on the arteries that skirt O'Hare, circling blindly.

My mother tries to address my father's question before I've even had a chance to grab my laptop from the bed. He doesn't trust her answer; they bicker. I fumble at the keyboard, calling up maps, the hair on the back of my neck beginning to stand on end. The memory of previous car trips from childhood: my mother misreading directions, their ensuing fights, my sister and me shrinking small and silent in the back seat with our younger sister, still a baby, between us. My hands work faster now as their voices escalate.

"Here," I say. They're too busy arguing to notice. "Mom. Mom." No answer. In my own home, two thousand miles away, their presence is suddenly too loud, too close. "WILL YOU BOTH SHUT UP ALREADY?"

Silence.

I wince, expecting even now, as an adult, a sharp reprimand from my father for my tone of voice, but maybe only my mother has heard me clearly -- she is the one holding the phone. I plunge ahead before either of them can say anything, offering exit numbers and mileage estimates in lieu of an apology. "It's about seven hours," I note.

"We'll make it in less time," my mother assures me. "You know how Dad drives. By the way, he wants to know which flight you're on tomorrow."

I suppress a sigh, knowing my father is worried that I'll end up in the same predicament -- except with the graduation ceremonies scheduled for Sunday morning, I'll have much less of a window to get from Chicago to my final destination. It matters. My father, a doctor himself, will be the one to place the doctoral hood on my sister, a moment that, to me, feels somehow essential to witness in person, though there will be professional photographers and videographers to capture it all. And I wonder, suddenly face to face with that truth, why it should be so. Of course I am proud of her. But it is more than just being present to let my sister know, more than sitting in the same room with her for this long-anticipated, hard-won induction into the professional circle my father has been a part of for many decades. What is it? I ask myself. And -- with even more curiosity, as I suspect it is for different reasons -- what is it that makes my presence so important to him?

There isn't time in this afternoon to muse, only to finish packing. "Can she take the red-eye tonight?" I hear my father ask.

"No, but I'll look into bus options for tomorrow afternoon, just in case," I promise.

*

On the jet bridge the next morning, I check my seat assignment: 10A, on a window. When I can, I pick seats with a view; it helps with the tendency toward motion sickness both my sister and I have inherited from my father.

As I step into my row, however, I'm greeted by a solid wall. No porthole, not even half of one like some seats get when they happen to fall between windows. Just a beige expanse of siding. I peer at 10F on the opposite side of the aisle; the oval pane there throws light back at me, ordinary as can be.

I feel, not surprisingly, closed in against this blank barricade. I check the status of my next flight on my phone; still on time. But this flight, the captain suddenly tells us over the intercom, will be delayed. Chicago's still having weather.

D has my flight information and instructions to be near his phone around the time I'm supposed to land at O'Hare, in case he has to make a quick bus ticket purchase for me online. Will I be able to make my connection? Will there be a connection to make? I turn my frown to the wall to my left. I can't see what's on the other side, can't see what's to come.

*

It is the first flight I'm taking from Seattle after finishing my thesis, and for a moment, when we finally leave the runway, I'm a little giddy. When the flight attendant announces that we may now use approved electronic devices, I will not need to wrestle my laptop from my backpack and attempt to write. The goal I've been working toward for four years is all but done; only Little U.'s approval of the document -- formatting compliance, verification of my committee's signatures endorsing the final submission -- is pending. Perhaps by Monday, I tell myself, the day my sisters and I will fly to Texas to spend the middle of the week at our parents' home.

But as I speed toward the thunderheads in Chicago, without a view and without the deadlines I've been so used to, I'm forced to sit with my new lack of purpose. It's only transient, I know. Still, I envy, just a little, my sister's waiting future. A residency at a prestigious hospital in Boston is the next step for her. What the experience will hold is certainly unknown, but it's better defined than the summer I have before me. The plans for whatever I choose to do next with my life still wait to be constructed.

The plane banks as the captain adjusts our trajectory. I turn automatically to the window I don't have and feel my stomach protest. A quick glance to the right, to the view I can steal from 10F. It's limited, but it's better than nothing.

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Friday, June 24, 2011

Scenes from a graduation, part 3: projection

In the auditorium of a local hotel, finally done traveling for the day, I slip into a cushy ergonomic chair that rotates. This isn't theater seating; it's conference hall seating. An enormous projection screen dominates the front wall, and the School of Medicine's glossy logo has been carefully applied to the wooden podium beneath it (removable decals, I'm guessing). Individual ethernet jacks and power outlets, built into the console table stretching across each row, make me feel like I ought to fire up my laptop to take notes. But we -- Troubadour Mom and Dad, my youngest sister and I -- pull out cameras instead.

Of course, we're not here for a lecture. This gathering of parents, siblings, children, other relatives, and friends is like Class Day from our undergraduate commencement festivities, a smaller celebration before the next day's all-graduate ceremonies with the lawyers, the engineers, the MBAs, and so forth. Tonight, a class-chosen faculty speaker will bestow light words of wisdom, a classmate will offer humorous reflections on these last few years of training, there will be a few awards, and then we'll all disperse for heavy hors d'oeuvres. My sisters and I share the same alma mater; I wonder if they also feel a certain déjà vu as we wait for the proceedings to begin. But maybe the conference room setting is too different to them. Class Day, so many years ago, was an outdoor folding-chair affair that, in Almost Dr. Sis's case, took place in a downpour.

I have to laugh a little at myself, always seeking the structure of things, the bones of each new experience. Is it just my way of handling the unfamiliar? Perhaps -- the parallels underneath, analogous armatures, ground me. But it is also a way of remembering, better to secure the details. For our family, there will be no other sister who passes through this medical program or any other. One chance, then, to enjoy these moments for what they are.

The soon-to-be graduates process in, the men in suits, most of the women in dresses. Academic regalia is reserved for the next day. I have not yet seen Almost Dr. Sis since arriving -- does she see us? No time for her to look up, but we follow her with both eyes and camera lenses.

I don't snap any shots, though. The pictures I might get would be blurry, I realize -- the camera on my phone isn't the best for subjects in motion -- and I'm happier without the filter of a viewfinder limiting what I can see. I lean forward, watching my sister in a soft white frock, glossy like meringue, cross into her assigned row.

It turns out that she is in charge of presenting the class gift this evening. As she steps toward the podium, the screen behind her suddenly lights up -- the audiovisual crew working this event has zoomed in, and my sister's head, now ten feet tall, smiles back at us in startling digital glory.

And I can't focus on her, the small woman in the flesh at the microphone. Her slight movements -- a nod, a turn, a tilt of the chin -- become giant ones on the screen. I'm reminded for a moment of Dorothy's audience with the Wizard of Oz. Of course, my sister and her video image are identical, unlike the thundering puppet head and its master, but the projection is still a bit disturbing. So dramatically magnified, it draws the eye away from the real person below.

But isn't that the point of it? I think. To help us see better, to allow us an enhanced point of view?

Maybe. I feel like I'm losing something, though, if I ignore the woman standing right in front of me in favor of the bobbing on-screen head. I can't watch both. I try to anyway.

*

The hors d'oeuvres at the reception are, indeed, heavy. Fortunately, to save me from eating too much, there are scores of my sister's friends to be introduced to. Some I recognize from my last visit a little over a year ago. Others are mentors I've heard of only by name.

There is one woman whose face gives me a double-take. The wire-frame glasses, the slightly upturned nose, the sandy curls, front teeth that peek out below a thin upper lip with a bit of mustache, and that raspy voice with a New York accent -- she is the doppelganger of a professor who has sat on my thesis committee for two years. The woman at Little U. is the sort of person who invited my research methods class, which she also taught, over to her house for potluck on the last night of the semester, just before I moved back to Seattle.

The woman at this reception supervises a group of medical students who travel each summer to run a clinic in South America. I realize my sister introduced me to her on my last visit, at a coffee-shop planning pow-wow for one of those trips. The woman doesn't remember me -- and I don't expect her to -- but the memory of her warm hug from that first meeting comes back as I greet her now. She is effusive, pouring forth compliments about my sister, this class, how special they are to her. It's impossible for me not to remember my own professor's words from potluck night, the same sort of praise overflowing from her in uncannily similar tones.

I'm not looking for these parallels in this moment; they've somehow found me. But for once they aren't grounding. In fact, I realize, I wish not to see what I see this time because it's made me aware of the other comparisons I can't help making -- between the path I chose, to write, and the path I rejected, to become a doctor myself. At one point, that was what I truly believed I wanted to do.

The need to be present for this rite of passage, then, the importance of getting here. You wanted to see what could have been, a voice whispers in my ear, and I recoil.

Don't, I hiss back silently, guiltily. This isn't about you. I glance around the circle my family has made around my sister and the woman who continues to effervesce. Good -- they haven't noticed the extra head I've suddenly grown, or the conversation I'm having with it.

For more from this series, please click here.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Scenes from a graduation, part 2: compromises

To my relief, the electronic monitors at O'Hare have no abnormalities to report. There's just enough time to grab a salad from one of the vendors on the walk between Terminals H and G, call D to let him know all is well, and fall into line at my connecting gate.

I am, short of my footwear, dressed for the evening reception we'll be heading to directly from the airport -- no time to change -- so I'm careful as I poke my fork into the chicken and greens in my lap, wary of wayward dressing drips. Though I would have preferred one of my favorite dresses, a soft silk whose pattern reminds me of thin washes of gray ink with occasional streaks of butter-yellow watercolor, I've opted for darker wool slacks and a pink paisley blouse. Still pretty, but slightly less feminine -- at least, as it feels to me. But I guess that's the point: in pants, I can stride, even run if I have to, without having to worry that my skirt has rotated or hiked itself into unladylike territory.

As I eat, I make note of the things I have to do when I land: call family, find bathroom, apply makeup, change sneakers to heels, unpack purse from luggage, transfer wallet and phone. The makeup and purse are already within easy reach toward the top of the items in my backpack, the shoes at one end of my suitcase. The heels are low in case I have a lot of walking to do with the heavy bags. I am, if nothing else, extremely practical.

I know, though, that my mother and sisters will all be in dresses tonight, that this will bother me even though I resist the feeling adamantly. This -- blouse, slacks -- is what is comfortable for me on this 2,500-mile travel day, and yet, in their company, it will leave me not ill at ease but something like it. As if my lack of willingness to do as they would -- just wear the dress -- is indicative of some personal deficit in the quality all Troubadour women ought to have, a tolerance for inconvenience in the name of feeling our outward best.

I picture the gritty airport bathroom stalls at my final destination, the acrobatics of changing in that narrow space with luggage to boot, and I know I will feel anything but my best -- inside or out -- after attempting a transformation there. I'll be meeting my sister's doctor colleagues and doctor professors, whom I'm mildly intimidated by, at this evening's reception, and I'd prefer not to be fighting a case of the cranks after playing public restroom Twister. So, gaping toilet? Questionably sanitary walls on which to hang so many dry-clean-only garments? Given my choices, I'd rather feel the needling sadness of being conflicted over how I look, sadness that I can't just be confident in this fairly inconsequential decision, rather than feeling certain frustration with trying to be more than I'm able. Just for today, anyway.

For more from this series, please click here.

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Scenes from a graduation, part 1: getting there

This is the first in a series of posts chronicling my whirlwind second half of May -- there was too much to put in a single post, and the trip generated much for me to think about, so here's the compromise: a story in parts. For the entire series, please click here.

My suitcase gapes at me from the bedroom floor and I wonder if the zipper will close. Nine days of clothing for three different cities with three different climates and three different kinds of celebration -- this is what I have to pack within the confines of a single carry-on.

My first stop on this trip is Almost Dr. Sis's graduation from medical school, which promises to be cold and rainy. Very rainy. Here in Seattle, we're used to mist and drizzle, but in the Midwestern town where she's lived for half a decade now, there are thunderheads gathering and a long sweep of heavy gray downpour following behind.

On this Friday afternoon, I've just tucked a pair of wool slacks into place -- it promises to reach the mid-40s in the evening, though we're in the latter half of spring -- when the phone rings. It's my mother. "Our connecting flight was canceled and we're driving from Chicago," she says, with irritation. "Can you look up directions for us?"

I can hear my father at the wheel in the background naming interstates. "Do I want 290? 294? Ask her which one, which way -- " His agitation rises with what I'm guessing is each passing road sign. They are on the arteries that skirt O'Hare, circling blindly.

My mother tries to address my father's question before I've even had a chance to grab my laptop from the bed. He doesn't trust her answer; they bicker. I fumble at the keyboard, calling up maps, the hair on the back of my neck beginning to stand on end. The memory of previous car trips from childhood: my mother misreading directions, their ensuing fights, my sister and me shrinking small and silent in the back seat with our younger sister, still a baby, between us. My hands work faster now as their voices escalate.

"Here," I say. They're too busy arguing to notice. "Mom. Mom." No answer. In my own home, two thousand miles away, their presence is suddenly too loud, too close. "WILL YOU BOTH SHUT UP ALREADY?"

Silence.

I wince, expecting even now, as an adult, a sharp reprimand from my father for my tone of voice, but maybe only my mother has heard me clearly -- she is the one holding the phone. I plunge ahead before either of them can say anything, offering exit numbers and mileage estimates in lieu of an apology. "It's about seven hours," I note.

"We'll make it in less time," my mother assures me. "You know how Dad drives. By the way, he wants to know which flight you're on tomorrow."

I suppress a sigh, knowing my father is worried that I'll end up in the same predicament -- except with the graduation ceremonies scheduled for Sunday morning, I'll have much less of a window to get from Chicago to my final destination. It matters. My father, a doctor himself, will be the one to place the doctoral hood on my sister, a moment that, to me, feels somehow essential to witness in person, though there will be professional photographers and videographers to capture it all. And I wonder, suddenly face to face with that truth, why it should be so. Of course I am proud of her. But it is more than just being present to let my sister know, more than sitting in the same room with her for this long-anticipated, hard-won induction into the professional circle my father has been a part of for many decades. What is it? I ask myself. And -- with even more curiosity, as I suspect it is for different reasons -- what is it that makes my presence so important to him?

There isn't time in this afternoon to muse, only to finish packing. "Can she take the red-eye tonight?" I hear my father ask.

"No, but I'll look into bus options for tomorrow afternoon, just in case," I promise.

*

On the jet bridge the next morning, I check my seat assignment: 10A, on a window. When I can, I pick seats with a view; it helps with the tendency toward motion sickness both my sister and I have inherited from my father.

As I step into my row, however, I'm greeted by a solid wall. No porthole, not even half of one like some seats get when they happen to fall between windows. Just a beige expanse of siding. I peer at 10F on the opposite side of the aisle; the oval pane there throws light back at me, ordinary as can be.

I feel, not surprisingly, closed in against this blank barricade. I check the status of my next flight on my phone; still on time. But this flight, the captain suddenly tells us over the intercom, will be delayed. Chicago's still having weather.

D has my flight information and instructions to be near his phone around the time I'm supposed to land at O'Hare, in case he has to make a quick bus ticket purchase for me online. Will I be able to make my connection? Will there be a connection to make? I turn my frown to the wall to my left. I can't see what's on the other side, can't see what's to come.

*

It is the first flight I'm taking from Seattle after finishing my thesis, and for a moment, when we finally leave the runway, I'm a little giddy. When the flight attendant announces that we may now use approved electronic devices, I will not need to wrestle my laptop from my backpack and attempt to write. The goal I've been working toward for four years is all but done; only Little U.'s approval of the document -- formatting compliance, verification of my committee's signatures endorsing the final submission -- is pending. Perhaps by Monday, I tell myself, the day my sisters and I will fly to Texas to spend the middle of the week at our parents' home.

But as I speed toward the thunderheads in Chicago, without a view and without the deadlines I've been so used to, I'm forced to sit with my new lack of purpose. It's only transient, I know. Still, I envy, just a little, my sister's waiting future. A residency at a prestigious hospital in Boston is the next step for her. What the experience will hold is certainly unknown, but it's better defined than the summer I have before me. The plans for whatever I choose to do next with my life still wait to be constructed.

The plane banks as the captain adjusts our trajectory. I turn automatically to the window I don't have and feel my stomach protest. A quick glance to the right, to the view I can steal from 10F. It's limited, but it's better than nothing.