A Book About Home

If you read Angelo's blog,  Jane's blog or like Wild Bill's on Facebook, you'll know that a group of writers on Saipan are putting a book together.  If you're interested in submitting some stories, go here. I have a hard time thinking about what I'd like to share about my home in the middle of the ocean, near the deepest trench in the world, with the most vibrant and orange blooms in the spring, with the most succulent barbecue that ever touched a grill, where the sun always shines except when it rains for about 5 minutes on one side of the road and is dry on the other.

If I were to write a story would I tell everyone how the bowling alley was the coolest place to hang out as a teenager?  Or, how Reiko's Soba House had a monkey in the back yard of the restaurant when I was little?  Or, how the blueberry slushy at Matsumoto's theater was the bomb even though it came in a tiny styrofoam cup?  Maybe I would tell the world how my sweetest memory would be sitting on my grandma's patio eating salt and iba because we were both not supposed to.  And, how I cannot visit her grave without breaking down because I miss her so much.
I don't know if I want anyone to know that in parts of our islands, life is so bad that the most exciting things kids do on the weekend is sit in the emergency room of the government run hospital watching TV and enjoying the air-conditioning.  Or, how I witnessed a woman buying school supplies for her family with a PO. And how everyday someone cuts down a tree it turns our island paradise into more of a "rock".  And how I hate when people here say they live on a rock, but as soon as I lay my mat on the beach and watch my children play in the water I am soothed by the awesome realization that this is my home.