June Of Your 25th Year

Picture this: It's June of your 25th year. You've been away from home for about six months. You haven't seen anyone from home or had any sort of regular Internet access for the whole time you've been away, but you manage to make due because you're good at meeting people and have met some new friends. Things are good, the weather's great and a change in your surroundings has really done wonders for your health. Your diet is better and your days are longer. The change hasn't ceased from offering its share of surprises, but you're starting to get used to the language barrier and the general course of action you have to take to get things done.

Then your best friend visits. With him he brings nostalgia, a sense of a life left behind and a freshness to this foreign world. He also packs a laptop computer that you have purchased by proxy from someone in Canada, albeit with a little help from your friend. You can already sense how the laptop is going to come in handy. You promise yourself you'll start storing all of the digital photos you've accumulated in some sort of online folder so that all of your friends back home who are dying to hear from you can see what the hell you've been up to over the last six months. Your new lifestyle, kept secret behind a shroud of vast irreconcilable distance until this point, is about to be part of the global broadcast. To top things off, your best bud is on this side of the world with you now and you can't imagine what the future is going to hold.

After a few days together, your friend departs for his little corner of existence via a train leaving from a different city than your own. Curious about your new surroundings and energized by the sudden availability of free time at your disposal as his train pulls away, you commence filming the world around you without quite knowing why. There is traffic and sound and pulse. There are people and lights and shops. There is laughter and there is music. You're aware of the energy though not familiar with it. You move and divide the particles all around you as you walk. You can feel them recollect behind you in your wake.

There is a girl standing on the street announcing that the karaoke box she is employed at is an all-you-can-drink deal. You can sing and drink your heart out. There are people crossing the street and coming towards you, interested in the obvious filming you are doing as an obvious foreigner. They wonder where you're from without asking. There are young people gathered near a train station watching the local talent jam out their goods; keyboards, guitars and amplifiers are generator-powered and ready to be played by the band members who are waiting their turn.

A band of young gentlemen is playing a pop-rock number and there is an old man bouncing enthusiastically to their song. He must be in his late sixties and stands at about 5'0" in height. Your camera goes instinctively to him, though all you're consciously interested in is the gathering scene of young people in this far-away land. But the old man continues. At first, you're apprehensive about filming him, for fear that you might embarrass him or scare him off, but you soon realize that this is no ordinary old man and, by golly, this is no ordinary dance.

December is update-a-day month! To read all the posts this month, click here!