Nymosterous

A decade ago, I was in middle school. It's strange to realize that all now, but that was the case.

I was living in Hawaii then. My family has been living there for over a year that the time. We left the hustle and bustle of the mainland and gone to the tropics, leaving our worries behind. Although, as we found out that day: We didn't leave everything behind.

It started as just another Thursday schoolday. I woke up in my little bedroom with the orange-yellow warmth of the Hawaiian sun behind the curtain. It was quiet. I walked out to kitchen, the sun's glow still lighting the home behind the closed window blinds, and when I went to the living room, I saw my mom and my aunt who was visiting sitting on the futon, just watching the TV.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"The Twin Towers. They were hit" my mom uttered, motioning to the TV.

I stopped to look, "What?"

And there it was. Right on our Sony TV: One of the many news reports showing footage of the planes hitting the Twin Towers.
I just didn't understand. That, and back then, I didn't really understand what the Twin Towers even were: Having never visited New York, the only major structures I could think of as a kid back then was the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty. And aside from that, I just kept on thinking: "Why? Why would anyone do this?"

What I didn't know back then was how difficult this has been for my aunt. As I mentioned earlier, she was visiting us in Oahu. Specifically, from New York. It should be pointed out that Hawaii has a 6 hour time difference from the East Coast. Six. We're always the last to many things: Midnight launches, New Years celebrations, "live" television events...
In the case of 9/11: Most of Hawaii was still asleep while it all happened. We were the last to know. Except for my aunt: 2 AM in the morning, she was getting phone calls from worried friends and family. We didn't even have cable back then, so there was nothing on the TV at two in the morning that would have showed anything about the attacks.

When I got to school, it was certainly a strange day, unlike any I've ever experienced in my academic life. Everyone was worried, scared, confused. We were just kids then; It was all just too much to comprehend. Although, I know all the teachers shared the same thoughts as well.
I was at my homeroom, which was with my science teacher. We all were talking about what happened, wondering as the TV we had in the room kept playing footage on a newscast.

I couldn't help but just ask out loud, "Are we going to die?!"

There was a strange mood in the class that moment. You can just tell that the other kids were thinking the same.

My science teacher spoke up and assured us "We are not going to die. We're all going to be OK."

The enitre school day went on just as awkardly as that. For the most part, we didn't even do much lessons at all. All the teachers just wanted to let us talk, speak out our emotions, what's on our minds. Each class we went into started like that, usually with the TV still on in each, everyone occasionally checking back on it if there's anything new.

The day went on like this. Anytime we were outside between classes or during lunch, many of us would occasionally look up in the clear blue, scattered cloud sky to see if there were anything suspicious.

The days that followed September 11, 2001 on Oahu showed to me something interesting: A profound patriotism among all the Hawaiian locals. Just as the red white and blue covered the nation after the events, so has it spread in Hawaii.
Hawaii: A far away island that was once ruled under a monarchy, was still an American state. Everybody on those islands recognized that.

American flags were found everywhere: From pins worn on shirts and bags, to the tiny flags being held in everyone's hand or placed in planters, to even the the full-page printout of the American Flag that the Honolulu Advertiser had in it's newspapers the days that followed, decorating every other window. 

Everyone in America was brought together after the 9/11 attacks, even from the Pacific. 

Even though we were 5000 miles away and have a 6 hour difference from the attacks, the Hawaiian islands were still just as much impacted as the rest of the country, and it was surely something to actually see that first-hand...

Here goes another (hopefully) regular blog feature that I always wanted to get to: "My Life In Story"
The idea essentially goes as myself narrating my own life as if it was a written story. MLIS will cover all across my life, but I think a majority of them will be in the present. In this case, this is an excerpt from today, and in fact, several minutes ago...

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Hey there. This is my (hopefully) weekly and (hopefully more than) regular blog post series where I write out my thoughts on one topic that's on my mind.

This week: It's divorce.

Marriage is a beautiful thing. It's a ceremony meant to unite two people for a lifetime. Or at least whenever they deemed fit. Fact of the matter is that divorce have become a very common thing, practically to the point that it's a socially acceptable, which is a complete shame.

For me, I equate news of a divorce to that of death. I say that due to one line: "Till death do us part." My grandparents, bless their souls, have been married all their lives. It wasn't until when my grandfather passed away that they truly parted. My grandmother was all alone, and it was a really sad time. It was a year after that she too passed on, and in a sense, they're probably together once again up there, no longer apart.

When I hear from other people I've met, more and more mention that their parents are divorced. Split. Apart. Sadly, this is just more and more common now. Even still, I always utter the same sad "Oh..." response to it. Those affected by it usually act like it's nothing. Understandable: It was probably years ago, or barely remember it. Or probably even saw firsthand that the relationship wasn't good anyways. But it's still always a shock for me.

Shock because, well, it just doesn't run in my family. My parents, and namely my relatives have never divorced. That is, up until almost a year or so ago when an aunt and uncle split up; Practically a first from family that I knew of. It was a little hard to see them go opposite ways, being that I knew them all my life. Especially their kids, my cousins, who again are somewhat unfazed by it all. But then, despite knowing them well, there's probably something I don't know about it.

Having a divorce decades into the marriage shows that there was something that came up. They wouldn't have lasted this long without some big issue. It hurts to see divorce stories like that, but it hurts almost as bad, if not more, when couples split not to far into the relationship. Like, within years of being married, or before their kid(s) even turn 10 or so. I thought this is what dating is for: To figure out if the two of you were really meant for each other for life, not whenever you felt like it. There's many early divorces now that it's practically sends a message to the youth that it's perfectly acceptable and something you do when you're a grownup. Of course, it's not the case, and those older and/or explicitly told by the parent(s) may realize it. Regardless of being told or knowing it, it's still setting an example. There's many people out there that drink and/or smoke and tell kids not to do it, despite continue drinking/smoking anyways right in front of them.

I guess my big issue with it all is the children of divorced parents, especially those at a younger age. They never were able to experience a 'regular' family lifestyle growing up, which is just a shame. However, in our society today, 'normal' families are almost far and few between now with a rise of divorce, adoptions, orphanages, and so on in our cultural landscape. Even still, it's hard for me personally to get over the notion of it...

Recent years I've been writing a bit. I've been writing most of my life, but recently it's shifted. The past several years, I've been doing more blog posts, more informative posts. It's even reflecting on what I'm reading, which is more non-fiction now a days. It's like I'm becoming my dad or something.

But making stories was something I grew up doing. Something I enjoyed. And in the past decade, I just seemed to have lost that.

Lost with it were some story ideas lying around in my head. They were never fully developed, and after all these years they're still just ideas.

So, for the hell of it, I'm deciding to just put them out there. Hopefully it will somehow help me get back to that old writing self I knew.

First up is a story idea simply called "Brown"
People always wondered why I liked the color brown and always wore brown. And it's a question worth raising: It's not a color often worn by people today. It's all either all black or dark colors, or at least where I live. Anyways, I wanted a story that kind of explained why I wore brown, or at least give a mythos to it.

The basis of Brown is about a young girl, living in an urban environment, who one day notices a young boy, who appears about her age, wearing just all brown. However, it seems as if only she can see him and nobody else. From there, they form a friendship and help each other out, him trying his best to help any of her issues, and her helping him trying to unravel his mystery, which even he's not sure about.

Between the two, there would be a quite a contrast. Not just speaking in color, but also in personality and how they both do things. And as they go deeper into the rabbit hole and get closer to (as she just decides to dub him) Brown's mystery, everything just becomes even weirder...

The other and last story idea I'm sharing for now is "Eye Of The Forest"
Speaking in terms of storms, the 'eye' is the safest area in a storm and is generally in the center of it all. The surrounding 'eyewall' is the most dangerous. I decided what if I apply that logic to a completely different setting: A forest.

The very basic story idea is that our protagonist decides to sneak out late at night with some friends during a camping trip, and after what seems just a few steps away from the campsite, he finds himself in the eye of the forest.

All that surrounds him is just a wall thick of trees and danger. And it doesn't take too long for him to find out that this is no ordinary forest...

Naturally, he needs to find a way to escape, but it's not at all going to be easy...

Also, "Eye of the Forest" may also have another meanings to it...

Think Castaway meets Lost, but in the woods...

And that's all I had with these ideas. Again, they were never fully developed. I think my problem with these was that, like many story ideas, it started with a "what if" situation, and I just never went beyond that. Not to mention that these ideas were there when I started to just drift away from fiction nearly a decade ago, so they've just been left untouched since...

This year, one of my other new years resolutions was to flex more of my creativity muscle, which really needs to be exercised. Hopefully just sharing these ideas will help me get that spark I've been looking for: A first step.

And when that happens, I'll be sure to tell you the story...