The day before Day 1

Last January in Cape Ca Mau National Park with Dinh.

Three hundred and sixty-six days ago, I stepped off a plane in Ho Chi Minh City Vietnam. I was looking to understand the lasting impacts of Agent Orange on local forests 50 years after the war. But after the first two days, I had forgotten all about that angle. Forest restoration was a side bar, an opening act to the main event: climate change and sea level rise. So I find myself back again, stepping off the plane on the same soil, among the same bustling streets full of motorbikes, trying to make sense of something daunting. I am only a few hours away, sitting on an airplane right now, and I am afraid.

Mekong Delta fashion, with Kelsie.
January 2015

Fear can be a crippling thing; a self-sabotaging force that can run away with me if I’m not careful. I don’t know why I was born so afraid. I’m not talking about the survival-instincts kind of fear; I’m talking about irrational, gripping anxiety. I’d like to believe no one is born this way, that we learn to psych ourselves out. But if that’s the case, then the irrational world got to me before my conscious memory begins.

Regardless of how the fear entered my body, it’s had a hold on me for as long as I can recall. I have a distinct memory of my mom sitting on the side of my bed when I was 7 or 8; I had red, plaid sheets and a pink comforter. It was dark out and I’d just started crying because in my dream, my dog was eaten by a shark. We lived in the middle of the woods in Colorado. I see her face vividly—half exasperated, half motivated—she recites an acronym: FEAR, False Evidence Appearing Real. And she tells me I need to get a grip.

Today, I have better control. But I hate the part of me that still sometimes gives in—that part that keeps me awake at night, wondering about the what ifs, pondering past failures, projecting future ones.

As much as I hate it, though, somewhere along the way I began to see the irrationality personified, as my personal villain. I am the girl in the red cape, seeking an anecdote for the kryptonite hanging around my neck

So here I am, feeling alone among a hundred strangers, 37,000 feet above the Pacific Ocean, exhausted. I am sitting in climate-controlled darkness, illuminated only by my laptop and the movie screens playing “Hollywood Hits”. I am psyching myself up to find a cab when I land in Vietnam 11 hours from now. I close my eyes to visualize a smooth ride to my hotel. I see myself successfully walk to the grocery store in the morning, getting on the correct bus to Can Tho New Year’s Day.

My backpack, deconstructed.

I am mediating on making it to the heart of the Mekong Delta without incident. I will be stronger than my villain and its newest fodder, my master’s project.

My life is the book where each page allows the reader to choose the next step. I will have enough faith in myself to make those choices with clarity and peace.

 Stay tuned for the next page.