A fairly long flight back to NY again, but this time back from a great vacation, which I hadn’t had for a while…

4,000 miles flown, 1,700 miles driven, 10+ miles hiked, numerous wild animals spotted, thousands of pictures taken and many interesting and small conversations with friendly strangers had… It’s time for a few quick thoughts… 

• Human being is so trivial in front of mother nature. It’s of course not a new thought, but the trip into the wild (not real wild, but at least a lot “wilder” than Manhattan :-P) helped remind me to keep things in perspective again. We are all just passer-by in nature, some a few years more, and others a few years less.

• Cynicism has almost become a way of life for me. It means everything but negative for me. It’s smart, humorous and sophisticated. The most important of all, it rationalizes the lack of emotions and hides fragility. It turns life into a smart joke, and why would anyone be ashamed or saddened by a joke? I met a lot of lovely strangers on this trip, most of them from Midwest. They touched me with their friendliness and “cheesiness”, and more importantly their simple but real emotions. We saw a Mormon pianist who was playing at the Morman Conference Center in SLC. I stopped to listen because she was a brilliant pianist and I always have a special place in my heart for piano. We started talking and she let me pick out a few show tunes that I knew. She played "Bring Him Home" from Les Miserable, and mom and dad loved it too. After she played, she turned to us, her voice chocking, and told us how this song touched her every time she played it. She said she was so grateful that we were there to listen to her playing and how music could communicate emotions even though she could not speak a word of Chinese and mom and dad could not speak English. Then she cried… I was so shocked that I didn’t even know what to do. It must have been a while since the last time I shed tear for someone I know, let alone for some total stranger. Somehow I couldn’t quite joke about it. I was actually jealous, jealous that she had such a soft heart… It might be the music that helped preserve it for her, and I know that I have somehow lost it along the way… I am on my way back to being a cynical New Yorker, but I will remember the music, the tear, and the hands that she extended.

• I thought I would be driven absolutely insane having to spend 24 hours a day with my parents for 9 days. But somehow we all survived :-P. It wasn’t easy but I think we have all learned a little bit more about how to live with each other. I’m still looking forward to taking a road trip by myself or with some friends, but I think I’ll try to plan more trips for mom and dad. As terrible as it sounds, the reality is that the time is limited when we can still do trips like this (a lot of driving and a lot of walking) as a family. It feels great to be the one taking care of them for a change…

The reality that I’m flying back to is pretty brutal. There were some fire drills at work this past week and I had to spend a few hours on the phone with my teammate, so I know that next week will be very challenging and stressful. I’m already looking forward to my next vacation :-).