I had an odd moment standing on a street corner yesterday. I was walking over to a friend's apartment to meet Lee for dinner, waiting for the light to change so I could cross Jhonghua. I had this sudden realization that here I was, middle-aged, suburban-born and raised, boring old me, standing on a city street surrounded by 2 million people on the edge of Asia. How the hell did this happen? I felt like a Far Side cartoon where a fish crawls out of the water for the first time and finds herself on the beach.

There's this whole other world that I've suddenly found myself in. Still figuring out if it's good or bad. It's certainly interesting. I don't know if it's a sudden sense of clarity or maybe that sensation of a truly living in the moment, but every so often I have this thought: I am really here, living nearly 10,000 miles from where I used to live, in a country where I don't speak the language. I've never even lived in a city before.

I've had this sensation before. Sometimes it's accompanied with the thought, wow, I get to live here and see and do this! Times like seeing monkeys on Monkey Mountain for the first time or watching the sunset over the harbor. Other times it's just standing on a street corner where I think, boy, has my life changed.