Alchera #22: Back in the US



If you were able to travel back in time to any year, era or century, what would you bring back with you? You can only pick one frame of time, and the things you bring back may be living things as well nonliving things (in other words, creatures and people can be smuggled back with you). There is no limit, but aim for 50 things.


I don't know if this list will make it to the due date of the project... I'm hoping for a response from the webmaster, I really want to be a member of the Alchera Project! Anyway, if I were able to travel back in time, I'd go back to the year I spent in Iowa (2002-2003... not too long ago, really). It was SO interesting, I wish I had had more time to see more places, more space in my suitcase to bring all the stuff I had to leave. And this is what I'd bring:


  • The earring I forgot in Des Moines

  • A Japanese bag from Nihonmachi in San Francisco

  • A picture taken the first day I saw Minori

  • My old, ragged sneakers

  • Ice cream from the Student Union (University of Wisconsin, Madison)

  • A sailor hat from that strange store in Madison

  • The shoes I wore when I played Old Granny Possum in Nick Tickle, Fairy Tale Detective (they were extremely bizarre, gray and old)

  • The MLA Handbook

  • Cool clothes from Haight Ashbury

  • Minori's guitar

  • Lorryloads of Xylish Bubble Gum

  • A picture of that terrifying harvest moon

  • That delicious banana cereal I used to eat for breakfast

  • Subhekchya, Yunya, Saroj, and Amol, my Nepalese friends

  • Pictures from our rides in Six Flags

  • Chinese food from Mandarin Garden and the restaurant in SF Chinatown

  • Sushi and mochi ice cream from Sushi Station

  • Yukimi Daifuku

  • Raymond Roseliep books

  • Souvenirs from St. Louis (there must be more than what we saw)

  • Minori's old black sweatpants

  • My black catering shoes

  • Kotaro's glasses

  • Chocolate-covered frozen cheesecake from Napa

  • Sarah Boreen, one of the nicest girls I met

  • The IBM laptop I had to rent!

  • Victor Hugo's Les Misérables

  • Pumpkin coffee from the gas station

  • Minori's brush-pen

  • Tulips

  • Minori's Honda CRX

  • Kotaro's Grand Am

  • A temporary tattoo in the shape of a Chinese mask

  • Minori's croquettes

  • My fried eggplants

  • Broccoli cheese soup

  • Broccoli-filled chicken

  • That fiery orange tree in autumn

  • All the Math homework I graded

  • Caesar salad from catering

  • A pen I lost in San Francisco

  • Japanese candy, lots and lots of it!

  • James Pollock, my Poetry Writing professor

  • Grape juice

  • Minori's stew

  • All the food Minori, Kotaro, and I had for Christmas and New Year

  • Minori's ring

  • The strange thermal thing Minori stuck on my back to keep me warm in Chicago

  • Kotaro

  • Minori... *sigh*



It sounds like things you could go pick up anytime, but each of them is a memory, and thus I'd go back to them just to relive the magic of every second that whizzed by.

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