At times I forget how much clarity comes with standing outside of the thick of the aspirations that whirl through ever curve of my mind.  There is a desire I see in so many faces to reach the middle or height of professional endeavors and romantic dreams as quickly as possible, so that we may know the end, the outcome.

But…

Sometimes the fastest way to get there is to go slow
And sometimes if you wanna hold on you got to let go      -Tina Dico, “Count to Ten”

Count To Ten

There are faces, there are smiles, so many teeth, too many arms and legs
And eyes and flashing buttons all around me
I’m a-watching, I’m a-breathing, I’m a-pushing, I’m a wishing
That these walls would not be talking quite so loudly
I have lost it once before I’ve pulled myself up from the floor
And I am looking for a reason to stay standing
But sometimes it’s just too much or not enough or something else
It’s so much bigger than my head, it’s too demanding

Sometimes the fastest way to get there is to go slow
And sometimes if you wanna hold on you got to let go

I’m gonna close my eyes
And count to ten
I’m gonna close my eyes
And when I open them again
Everything will make sense to me then

I have met so many people, we’ve exchanged so many words
We’ve said it all and we’ve said nothing but it’s changed us
I have know a lot of men, some were lovers, some were friends
But all together were they merely passing strangers?
They’ll control you with their silence, they’ll control you with their words
And you’ll control them with your body’s coded signals
In the wild, entangled gardens of our insecurities
We lose our heads into eachother’s hidden pitfalls

Sometimes the fastest way to get there is to go slow
And sometimes if you wanna hold on you got to let go

I’m gonna close my eyes
And count to ten
I’m gonna close my eyes
And when I open them again
Everything will make sense to me then

1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-ten…

to the lake in the East lit with Silver that I’ll bathe in until my hair no longer weaves through the rugged hands of your hard time.  

LA,

 I surfed your unicorn-rippled waves, and I sank in your velvet smog. 

It’s true, I tried to leave you.  

But we both knew I’d be back, my joie de vivre, because no one in this world wants to love and fight me like you do.

 You – offroading my dangerous curves with the arms and wheels of a soldier and the eyes of an innocent young man. 

You knew I ran with wild horses when I was the Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands. 

A Los Feliz dance of second chances…

Pulp Fiction eyes painted on the wall….

As a child I knew I’d come to you, and you’d be waiting for me to make mountains fall.

LA,

I know at times you grow weary because they’ll never stop running to you for gold and a glimmer of candy-appled fruition.

LA,

in spite of a demoralized market, you’re still the place for dreamers and magicians.

LA,

you may just be a cowboy with poetry and a majesty for all the lost boys, and when I hike through the canyon, I summon the Duende with your sweat,

your wings,

your noise.

LA,

you may do your best to drink me under the table, where I vibrate naked, asleep and dreaming, but if you recall, you painted love on my arms - red-lettered, rhapsodized and seething.

(Rendering a warrior for all the wild at heart)  

We’ve come a long way LA,

from facing the mugger of Miracle Mile, who yanked me to the ground by my hair, to throwing fire at the paparazzi, to singing with sex-waxed jazz and savoirfaire.  

We’ve come a long way LA, 

from the healing hands of Venice that opened my third eye to serendipity and November sand, to another soldier, cowboy, and lost angel, who may risk breaking open again.

-Melissa Jun Rowley

At the end of the day L.A…
You’re still the basin of all my aspirations, 
the stream of consciousness that keeps the wine
in my blood flowing, 
the waterfall that cascades
“This May be Love” so says Jimi “like one of those daydreaming fools.” 

Deep in the Valley where all your hopes surfaced
born of beauty, 
born of pain, 
living in a
transitory semblance of real life
you revealed yourself to me. 

L.A…
elusive, magical and bruised, you’re the line that runs down my center, 
keeping me close to the edge of surrender, 
pulling me to the other half of me that soon the world will see.
Any bars I have stood behind I built on my own.
All highways I traveled alone
until I landed inside your melodic heart.
And when I leave you at times
I know I have not lost you
at the end of the day, 
after twilight
when some stars begin to gleam over the Pacific
as I drive up the 1, 
feeling the Malibu sky. 

At the end of the day when the music plays, 
your blues notes don’t lie any more
than the child who in your eye
goes searching for me when I look for another escape, 
another moon in the desert, 
a home in the hills, 
a vessal on the Ocean that would keep us sailing in circles
together until all our triangles washed ashore. 

L.A….
I’m yours until we break off into the sea, 
and even then you’ll surround me in the water…
where nothing we love is ever lost at the end of the day.

-Melissa Jun Rowley

You made a woman out of me, Manhattan.  You – with your iron will, mammoth hands, and enchantingly unforgiving height.  It’s no wonder you were a soldier in another life, possessing the best and worst of times, purple triumphs, and the most lurid crimes.

Unwittingly, I fell into your fold twice when I most needed lessons in humility.  Fearless and unstoppable, I stomped through the hot heart-beating streets of SoHo with all my dreams in front of me.  Two months later, I lost my innocence on the corner of Broadway and Houston, where the offices were just dorm rooms dressed in corporate blue.

I have never been so tired and tireless.  I have never cried as much or ever been as humbled, surviving the dot com blood bath, and seeing the Towers crumble.

How I resented you and clung to you, Manhattan, for seducing me but not keeping me safe and warm.  Being with you was like being romanced by a rock star, exhilarating and exhausting, enticing and extreme, decadent and deadly, and oh so much fun.

You are one giant magical organism, Manhattan, a microcosm of the Universe itself.  The rats and cockroaches kept me company when I trudged along the subway tracks during the Blackout of ’03.  And Times Square was so still and magnificent, as we sped through traffic lights on the back of David’s motorcycle at 4AM.

I will always love watching the boys shoot hoops on W. 4^th Street, listening to the Sounds of Brazil, feeling the ghosts groove at Terra Blues, playing telephone through the secret passage ways of Grand Central, and smiling at my favorite fortune teller in Chelsea.  I still think about that rock I perched myself upon in Central Park, the day I sank into the ultimate pit of despair when Missing Person signs covered the City and fumes from Ground Zero filled the air.

I cannot speak ill of you, Manhattan.  You – the greatest survivor to teach me to survive.  One day, we’ll come full circle because you brought me back to life.

LOS ANGELES

At the end of the day LA, you’re still the basin of all my aspirations, the stream of consciousness that keeps the wine in my blood flowing, the waterfall that cascades “This May be Love, “ so says Jimi like “one of those daydreaming fools.”   I’ll come back to you someday, because anything worth doing once, I do at least twice.

You’re still the line that runs down my center, keeping me close to the edge of surrender.  I’m yours until we break off into the sea with all of our Hollywood secrets that even the spirits up on Mulholland Drive cannot forget.   The coyotes and the black widows will someday spill my stories.

Guess what…they haven’t yet.

SAN FRANCISCO

We played hide and seek some years ago the first time I left the east coast, and even though our time was brief,  your expressions, your buildings and bridges, your sounds pierced me most. The first time we moved as one I thought I had to turn you into something you’re not, while I became someone I didn’t want to be, but had to be for a while in order to become who I am now.

So many places and spaces have sheltered me, but you – you feel like home.  You’re the castle in Europe I daydreamed of as soon as I was old enough to read about romance and magic and elegant simplicity. You’re the sun-rayed dock in the lagoon in my backyard, where my father keeps the family sailboats.  You’re long top-down drives along the Embarcadero on a summer night when half the city is starting to slumber and the other half is about to awaken.  You’re the fog weaving from the Marin Headlands through the Golden Gate Bridge when the rest of the sky is clear.  You’re a chance encounter that made me want to change for the better as soon as you opened the door.

It may be too soon to tell if this time around is merely a short-term visit or an era to keep record of in the books.  Any way, no matter where I go, you’re my home.  How groundbreaking it is to know I’m no longer a rolling stone.

Experience, explore, embrace.  I will try, even if it’s too dark to see, and I will always be the lighthouse in your Bay.

We should be lying on our backs in new-born grass like we did on that lazy afternoon in May between classes when Frisbees hovered over our heads and Spring sang just enough for us to see never-before-worn shorts and pastel sundresses peak through the Ithaca sky.

The air smelled of waterfalls and gorges, as we watched kids playing hackey and roller blade hockey on the pavement in the heart of campus, 10,000 staircases, and remnants of Midnight Scream.

Friends dropped by for a smoke and a joke, while skateboarders and liberal artists basked by the fountains.

62 degrees and already we felt the heat and anticipation of days without ass-crack-of-dawn alarms, lectures and bubble sheets.

So we looked up at the sun and talked about the future.

Speculation and laughter over who would get married first, and who would have children first, and who would have a nervous breakdown first.

My desire for closure was dismissed, since I would be back soon.

But your good-byes were real because the next time we’d meet you’d know what it was like to live in the “working world.”

Nearing my third fastest year, you made the most of your caffeinated nicotine-filled final hurrahs, while I enjoyed feeling the comfort of being at home with faces, who were from nowhere near my hometown.

How is it that a year later you’re so much older than me?

We talk over e-mail sometimes, and you write about your latest multi-media project, your days and nights in the City, and how much you miss “The College Years.”

You say it’s good to be working and settled.

Is that the geography of life?

Why do we  talk through computers?

We should be lying on our backs… 

A malnourished orphan – that’s what was expected. 

But a round fiery five-month-old soul

landed in your arms

on that Mother’s Day in

Chicago.

Pigtails and ponies

Climbing up the swing set you put together in the backyard

Pink dance recitals and piano practice

The moments you cried when I sang and danced for you and mom on stage

“The Sun’ll come out tomorrow” Dad!

The ice-skating rink that fell into the lagoon

The first Night Sail we took under the moon

when you taught me to read a compass,

and how to follow my North Star -

I’ve covered the seven seas, but there is only one Saginaw Bay.

Calculus problems

and cigarettes

Sneak-outs

Hide-outs and

the Honor Roll -

I remember the day you said that no matter what

I’d always be your little girl with pigtails.

The gut wrenching vocals of the infamous “Good Morning” song.

Driving through the Rockies in the motor home while mom wailed

under the table for hours strong.

The frozen pipes of winter

the hot humid midwestern summer breeze

The terrible jokes only you can tell

 “Spectacle, testicles, wallet and keys…”

Patience and kindness

“If you don’t ask the answer is automatically no.”

Take your time

Be on time 

You taught me well, Dad.  You taught me well.

And over the years, I know I have been such a rolling stone,

but I take you with me wherever I go.

My Father

My North Star

I hope you never stop crying.

I’m glad I wasn’t exactly what you were expecting. 

It was my dear mom’s birthday today.  That’s us in the above picture.  Looking at this photograph on the born-day of the woman who has been my devoted supporter, unfaltering nurturer, sternest critic, and most enthusiastic fan triggers two immediate thoughts.  They are:  A. I have an enormous head. Huge. Just huge.  And  B. My life is golden, all because of my mom and our beautiful family.  

If you’ve read my “About Me” page, you know that my parents adopted me shortly after I was born.  For a large part of my life I didn’t like the fact that I was adopted.  And I whole-heartedly resented the hostile reality of being one of three minorities in my Middle American high school.  But my woe-is-me attitude about being different in this way wasn’t something I talked about…ever.  Instead, I rebelled.  I rebelled big time.  

I was angry at my birth mother for abandoning me, and I was bitter toward the world for placing me in an environment, where I stuck out like a sore thumb.  So I made sure the people closest to me paid for my sorrows.  That’s what parents are for, right?  WRONG.  When I have children of my own the universe is going to throw some catastrophic karma my way, for sure.

For most of my life I have not wanted to admit that being adopted has played a major role in shaping who I am.  I used to think if I dared make that proclamation people around me would think I was playing what is sometimes referred to as the “race card,” the look-at-me-and-how-special-and-different-I-am-card.  For this reason, I avoided talking about why my last name is Scottish, and why I’m the most Westernized Asian woman in the world. 

But now…now I offer up the information as soon as the questions start popping.  I’m proud of where I came from, and I feel honored and blessed to have been brought to the United States via international adoption.  It’s part of who I am, and it’s why I’m here today.  It’s a gift.  I realize now more than ever that I’d better do something amazing with it.  I’m still working out the details of what that profound discovery or achievement is.  (It keeps me up at night sometimes.)

In the interim, I can revel in how lucky I am to be an “import.”  (See poem.)  I wrote the poem below about two years ago.  It was originally an ode to my biological mother, whom I have never met.  Now, as I read the lines and everything in between I see the versus as a tribute to both of my mothers.  The most enlightening aspect of the following words is that I can now proudly say I have two mothers, but I have only one mom. 

To Kay G. Rowley (Mom),

Thank you for choosing me.  Thank you for loving me.  I hope one day I will be as patient and wise a parent as you.  

“The Daughter I Have Not Been”

Mother,  

My mother 

who did not get to practice

Motherese,

Please…

Are you still known?

Now that I’m grown

do you wonder about your daughter,

the baby girl you sent down the water

to follow bigger dreams

in the Western World,

where everything is plush and pretty? 

Mother of mine,

I was just seven years old

when the bullies kicked me,

called me “import”

and made fun of my un-american nose.

I was the ugly duckling,

the black sheep,

the freak in every room.

Yes, every adoloscent endures humility.

Yes, my blessing

was my doom.

Mother,

did you know

that in high school I got straight A’s? 

I was the President of the student body

and the lead in every play.

Mother,

I have a beautiful mom

who has given me the world

You gave me up.

You gave unto her.

Thank you

for giving up your baby girl. 

Mother,

My Mother,

I know you’re alive somewhere in my

Seoul.

Korea calls for me at night.

Shall we meet just once

before I let you go?

Do I like look you?

Are you stubborn like me?

In the next life over will

we live longer than before?

Mother,

If I can give you anything,

it’s that 

I’m not angry

anymore.