Two things happen when family comes to visit.
1. I eat too much.
My sister, Uncle Mike and Auntie Robyn came to visit this week. Cathie likes food, Mike is a chef and Robyn is a nutritionist. Everyone likes food. So that meant stops at Lil’ Frankie’s, Keste, Dirt Candy, Cafe Condessa, Apizz, Ma Peche and Anissa. I have a refrigerator full of fancy leftovers but I think I need to drink nothing but green juice for a week. But eating with them, it’s not just about the food. It’s about the company. The time to catch up and talk after being apart for so long (they all live in Honolulu). A little bit of waxing poetic. When you are a theater artist or generally busy NY’er, it means you are usually eating pizza while you walk or powering down an egg sandwich in 5 minutes on the subway. It’s eating for survival. And there’s no one to talk to while you’re stuffing your face. 3 hour meal? Never.
2. I ask myself why I have planted myself in a city that is 5-10,000 miles away from all my family.
Why? Why can’t I be in LA or Honolulu where the climate is milder, my people are around and life is a little more gentle.
Why am I here? Theater. Did you say Theater? What are you doing? Trying to chase a green unicorn down a rabbit hole? Make Theater? That’s why you’re here?
Well, that’s a lot to walk away from. Easier life, family, temperate weather.
So, as I said my goodbyes to all of them and hopped the subway towards my little apartment, I sat there listening to the hums/screeches/bumps of the train, thinking, “Better make some theater, then. Better make it damned fine.”
carla ching 
I get that feeling when I visit family…except I don’t have as awesome a reason to be so far away from “home” and “family” as you. I gave up the teaching…just playing menial accounting person at an NGO, and 18 years away from LA and being all growed up should make it all different, right? Or something.
But it makes the visits/visiting so much the better, I think.
food is sustenance is family. and work as passion is a privilege to see. here’s to the amazing work you do and making the hard choices…each and every day. the horizon between hawai’i and nyc seems more blurry now, and for this transition zone i am grateful.
ny theater needs you carla. you’re making things better already.