Be my escape.

So I’m sitting here at 2:30 am. Rain is pounding outside my window bringing the creepy crawlers right under our gapped front door. I guess it was the large cockroach that crawled into bed with me earlier that is blessing me with this late night.

So, where I’m at…on the very small, yet very exciting island of Saipan off the coast of Japan in the Marianas Islands. Smack in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The entire island is like 12 by 15 miles…and it’s already cracked me up how the locals here complain about the drive across the island being too long and inconvenient. Why and how I got here you may ask, your guess is as good as mine. For my close friends and family, you know my addiction for adventure and my ridiculous love of travel escapades was in high gear since I got back from Italy. So I’ve been here a week…I figured I needed to start documenting some of my stories…I just haven’t had the inspiration to write like I used to. With my book being published and world being thrown into “the real one” I’ve been hiding out. I’m hoping the sunny days and beautiful beaches here will convince me otherwise.

The flight here took 21 long hours…17 of those on a plane filled with bad food, no movies and coughing and infested plague. Actually it wasn’t that bad…BUT I did panic a bit at all the masked Asians that surrounded me. I discovered on the way over that my name in Japanese translated into “plate”. You can imagine my surprise at such an exotic meaning. But the journey was well ended when my new co-workers and oldest friend met me at the airport at steamy one a.m. on the other side of the world. The next day was spent hugging my toilet bowl with stomach flu…which the tap water here is salty and the smell is slowly growing on me…but hey, I got that over with.

So, my escape has led me to teaching 20 Korean students English at the Saipan SDA Elementary School. Probably one of the most challenging, frustrating, yet most fun thing I’ve ever gotten myself into. I have no one else to thank but God. Who I’m learning to trust more every day due to coincidences that ironically smack me in the face every day.  Enjoying life has become quite the regular occurrence here J

On the way home from an amazing hike to “Forbidden Island”  (which by the way has mind-blowing cliffs and caves leading to the ocean) the song “Be my escape” by RK came on…and it made me poke my head out the window and just wonder…is this trip my escape?

My favorite verse of the entire song is “I’m begging you to be my escape…” God, you did give me this escape, that’s for sure.