The persistent flights

As with every year, I come home to L.A. for the holidays (Christmas and New Year's). The only time that this 14-year old tradition was broken was 2 years ago, when mom, dad, David, Helen, and Chih-Wei's family came over to "christen" my first own home. Since then, they swear not to ever come visit me during the winter season. The first few of those 14 holiday seasons were especially exciting, because I'm coming home from Pittsburgh, PA. I was living in a very different world in Pittsburgh, going back to L.A. was like tossing a fish back to sea. I was home sick, missed the family, missed the food, oh, wonderfully authentic Asian food, missed old friends. I even often regarded L.A. as "the better place" to wherever else I was in. Although my fondness for L.A. as a livable city had diminished greatly over the years (since I discovered that I'm in the New York state of mind), I've missed family more.

Since Pittsburgh, there had been New Haven, Chapel Hill, and now New Jersey. Yet every Christmas season, coming home to L.A. was always an automatic default, even theough the address had changed more than once over the years. Home was wherever my family is, the address or a familiar house were inconsequential. I've not yet figured out what it will take for me to stay grounded for a white Christmas on the east coast. I do long for a white christmas, a tree in the house, candles in the windows, all in my cozy home. But the thought of having all that still fall short of the comfort from being with my family, and my parents' joy of having a family reunited.

So you may ask, why don't I just move back to L.A.? I'm afraid that's a bit too complicated to answer in a short blog entry. Did I mention that I'm in the New York state of mind? That's just the beginning.