Rediscovery of the Unfamiliar

I’ve been out of town lately. In Okinawa, actually.

Over this past weekend, I had the incredible pleasure of meeting one of the planet’s newer human beings — my 3-week-old grandson, Noah.  He’s absolutely wonderful of course, and it’s nearly as wonderful seeing the little girl I used to hold in my arms so long ago (I don’t remember her being this tiny!) now doing the same with her own child. 

My brother warned me about this before the birth of our first grandson over two years ago. Grandpa-ing is addictive. Sadly, our first grandson was born at the height of COVID, and I never got to hold him and see him in the arms of his parents when he was so small. 

But there was something else about my trip to Okinawa that fascinated me — the newness of the experience.  Korea is [still quite] wonderful and adventurous to me, but it’s also incredibly familiar. The edge that used to reach out and grab me with its oddities has dulled over the years. But Okinawa kind of changed my perspective. I’ve been to tropical islands before, and I’ve been to Japan before; but I’ve never been to a tropical island that’s also Japan. 

Like I said – fascinating.  

The combination of the things I was seeing there was so new to me. They reminded me of a time before, when I was actually impressed with a lot of the world around me.  I suppose that’s what happens when you stay in a place for so long. The world seems to lose a little bit of its magic. But here I was, looking over the landscape of this strange little island and seeing something different…but familiar.  It was refreshing in a way, because it woke me up to something I’d been missing for a while.  

And isn’t that what a “vacation” is supposed to be? Thinking back, I don’t know that I’ve had one in a while now — a chance to dip my toes in the surf and not think about keeping anyone else entertained along with me.  This wasn’t exactly that, but it was close. I got to see this really cool little baby – but all I had to do was hold him and love him. That was the limit of my responsibility (I didn’t even change his diaper the whole time I was there). Then I got to go out and see other things. Things I’d never seen before. It was quite fun (don’t worry — the highlight of my time there was definitely the little guy; but you’ll be hearing enough about him in the future, I’m sure).  

I’m also happy to have learned the logistics of the trip. Really not bad, and something that Micha and I can do as often as we can tolerate at our ages.  I learned that maybe long-term parking is the way to go if we’re staying anything less than a week (like for the Thanksgiving holiday). Working with the bus schedule – as convenient as it can be – is a bit of a drag, and avoiding it seems worth the fifty bucks.  

I remember, before we even knew that our daughter would be living in Okinawa, a trip we took to Guam. I liked it. Micha? Not so much. I had my reasons, particularly once we got there and I discovered that going to Guam was quite a bit like going to America…but only 5 hours away. Pizza Hut. K-Mart. The dollar as standard currency.  And it was nice. The people were among the friendliest I’d ever met in my travels. I was evening considering a long Thanksgiving weekend getaway. Then came COVID. And now a grandson in Okinawa. So I’ve got no reason to go to Guam for the foreseeable future, and I’m good with that.  

But the desire to go somewhere is still there. Somewhere new and different. Somewhere to be explored and discovered. I’m excited then that the whole Okinawa thing seems to have worked out. Maybe continuing to rediscover the unfamiliar is just what I need to wake up.