Most two-year-olds are unfamiliar with Ani DiFranco. But the 1990s punk-folk rocker enraptured my mom’s attention and consistently filled our car and living room with angsty music. Mom stuffed my ears with earplugs and, refusing to let a child disrupt her rockstar dreams, drug me to a DiFranco show, my first concert.

The musical influence on my life did not slow with time. I spent afternoons in elementary school watching my dad mix tracks on Protools and direct local bands in his sound booth. My father, basically a musical prodigy from birth, owned a record label and music studio in my hometown.

It seems reasonable to assume that my parents’ combined rockstar and sound engineer genes would result in a musically-inclined super genius. Instead, they ended up with me.

Even my physicality demanded an interest in music, as I certainly wasn’t athletic. My fingers, unnaturally long, are perfect for gliding across a guitar fretboard or spreading across octaves of a piano. My parents’ friends in the music community would almost always ask if I played an instrument or--even more absurd--if I could sing. I’d developed an unspoken game between myself and them, the adults. 

“No,” I would respond confidently, somewhat satisfied that I’d broken their expectation. It felt like a tiny rebellion, and it was a sure-fire way to end any boring conversation with the grown-ups.

In middle school I took free vocal lessons through a family friend. Aside from severe stage fright, I didn’t have a good reason not to try. I was more afraid to admit the fear than to face it, and my first performance was a disaster. Immediately prior, I’d hyperventilated and nearly fainted. The program director reminded me that I didn’t “have to do this.” But I did. My parents were musicians; I would be too. My sixth-grade self mustered through a rendition of Katrina and the Waves’ “Walkin’ on Sunshine” with extreme difficulty, and in a brand new Limited Too outfit, I battled through the longest four minutes of my life. 

Something, probably High School Musical, prompted me to attempt singing again a few years later. Half-expectant that he would recognize my undiscovered talent, I pressured my dad for studio time. He never offered me that record deal, despite recording countless karaoke versions of Vanessa Anne Hudgens’ solo in “Breaking Free.”

Realizing that singing would not be my life’s passion, I gave my vocal cords a break in favor of piano lessons from my dad. These sessions resulted in more time debating whether or not I’d practiced, an argument that’s easier to win with a non-resident instructor. The cycle merely resulted in a pile of unused sheet music, a dusty piano, and a building resentment toward creating music of my own.

Moving to college removed the exceptional influence, and pressure, of making music from my daily life. It reappears now only when I listen to my dad play the mandolin outside on summer nights or attend a concert of my mom’s rock cover band. 

While I can’t call myself a musician, I possess an intense appreciation for music, which I attribute to my parents. I have two blown-out car speakers, my favorite bands’ set lists and autographs, a growing vinyl collection, and carefully-curated Spotify playlists to prove it. Part of me is proud of my younger, defiant self, unwilling to accept the “expected” identity of my parents’ friends, yet I cannot deny how instrumental it still is in my character.

Spend more than five minutes in any airport, and you’ll hear a woman’s voice over the intercom calmly warning you against unattended baggage. When a young man requested that Alyse and I keep his bag while he stepped outside of the JFK airport to smoke, it raised a red flag in both of our minds. 

We declined, reluctant to engage in any small talk, but he asked where we were headed.

“Pakistan.”

“Oh,” he replied, weirdly. “You know, people tell me to be safe, but I won’t tell you that. God will keep me safe.”

This man was shorter than I am, muscular, Korean-American. He wore a backpack larger than his whole body and sported a snapback and bro tank--not exactly the criminal-type, but his vibe caused us to be suspicious nonetheless. 

“I’m going to India,” he said without any prompting. “I’m going to find myself.”

“Is it a one-way-ticket situation?” I asked. I figured that would sound at least more flattering than a trite “Eat, Pray, Love situation.”

“How did you know?,” he asked with a stern glare. He looked at me like I had just caught him committing a crime. “Are you following me?”

I surveyed his appearance in greater detail (in the event that an account to the police would be necessary in the future) and noticed that he had a spray can of electronic coolant in his backpack. I didn’t know what that was, but it seemed unusual.

We made three attempts to alert airport personnel to double security check this man. The first two airline staff members said, “talk to the pilot” or “we’ll look into it,” obviously complacent.

By the time we spoke to the flight attendant, we’d built him up as a terrorist in our heads. Our panic increased over time, and the impending 15 hour flight with him intensified our worries. 

“He’s um--short--and Asian.”

“Asian like me or Asian like this?,” the sassy flight attendant asked, making an offensive gesture with her eyes.

“Asian like--East Asian!,” I replied, unable to replicate her politically incorrect gesture. We may have been physically on US soil, but American cultural norms were already obsolete.

I found it difficult to indirectly explain my concerns to the flight attendant. How do I say “I think this guy might have a bomb in his backpack” without sounding rude?

She found him almost immediately. Alyse and I watched her signal to us behind his back as she followed him into the aircraft. She came around moments later and said “I think he’s okay. He’s just weird.” I appreciated her directness.

We settled into our seats for the next 15 hours and heard nothing from or about the strange backpacking man. En route, I realized that what I thought was a spray can of electronic coolant (surely a dangerous substance, if it does exist) was actually a cooling towel, something that, Alyse explained, athletes use at the gym. It wasn’t until the last few hours of the flight that the man reappeared right beside Alyse.

“So how is your flight going?”

“Um. Good?”

“What have you been doing?”

“Sitting.” She was clearly not participating. 

The drink cart made its way down the aisle, so he lapped the airplane to return for another talk. This time he knelt beside her seat, clearly getting comfortable for a longer chat.

“How’s your flight been?,” Alyse asked flatly. She averted eye contact by busying herself with an interactive map of the flight path on the screen in front of her.

“Productive.” I found this answer to be vague and bizarre. Productive in your evil scheme?

He made another lap around the plane, as he fully blocked the aisle now. Other passengers surely sat squirming, waiting for their chances to finally access the lavatory. While he’d left to make space for the incoming garbage cart, Alyse and I decided that he must be in love with her. He was not an assassin--just bad at flirting.

The backpacker made another appearance, and this time reached over Alyse to turn off her screen. He may have intended to be smooth, but Alyse found him more annoying every moment. This audacious move could only precede an even bolder question: “What’s your purpose in life?”

He’d blindsided us. While we wanted to say “to make you go away,” we just sat in silence and exhaustion.

“Well--I’m just reading this book,” he said, revealing a book the size of a dictionary, A Man Thinketh. “Do you believe that we have free will?”

After another awkward silence, he volunteered, “I believe in Jesus. Do you have a good relationship with Jesus?”

At that moment, it all became clear. This man was not a terrorist, nor was he making horrible attempts to flirt with Alyse. Instead, he knelt beside us on this flight to Abu Dhabi in order to convert us to Christianity, a religion we’d both already accepted.

“Yes,” Alyse responded for both of us. I said nothing, too dumbfounded for words. This man was not a criminal, nor a player, just an evangelist.

“Then my work here is done,” he said chipperly, immediately standing up to leave. “See you in Heaven, I guess.”

Alyse looked at me and whispered, “hopefully not before.”

If you want an accurate representation of our time at the Dead Sea, Google “floating in the Dead Sea” and read an influencer’s travel blog. Look at the photos, but envision that everyone is freezing cold. It’s raining. Replace all the suntanned tourists with sketchy-looking teenagers, and think of every cocktail as if its a piece of trash. That’s what it felt like for Emmanuel and I, until we finally interacted with the main element: the ancient salt lake. The Dead Sea itself is an unimaginable, ecstasy-inducing experience with which beautiful people drinking margaritas in the sun cannot contend. It is a sacred place, special, and so so salty.

Whizzing along the King’s Highway, racing the sunset and the time limit on our rental car, Emmanuel and I drove four hours with fierce determination to swim in the Dead Sea.

As the surrounding desert turned abruptly to tropical rainforest at the lowest point on earth, I Google’d (with our rental car’s portable hotspot) cheap beaches open to the public. We made it to the first only to find, not tourists and locals mingling in the sun, but instead police cars lining the entrance. They informed us that this particular beach had been shut down, so we kept searching.

Then we watched the first drop of rain splatter. This should have been a sign for us to turn around and stop trying, like nature waving a giant red flag, but we looked the other way. That first droplet soon revealed a downpour, which was just enough to make us rethink the whole plan. We’d relented our dream of swimming in the Dead Sea, when a glimmer of sunshine--of hope--peaked through the clouds. If it were possible, we were doing it.

We continued the search and finally arrived at a beach that looked more like the set of a carnival-turned-horror movie: still drizzling, grim, and completely deserted. We approached the cashier, who spoke little English. Neither of us speak any Arabic, which made it difficult to convey our desperation. The man managed to communicate that we didn’t have enough money. (People always find a way to make that clear.) And they didn’t take cards. We hung our heads. We should know better by now.

With enough persistence, Emmanuel negotiated a way for us to pay in US dollars. We were finally in! It’s the moment we’d been waiting for! We’d driven four hours just for this! We hesitated to admit it, but in actuality, it felt more like a crime scene than anything. I felt safer flying down the cliff-lined highway.

The few locals that were there wouldn’t stop staring at us foreigners. They probably wondered from afar about our frantic disposition. As the sun was setting fast behind Israel, we had little time to stop and enjoy (and little aesthetics around us).

As one does at the Dead Sea, I slathered mud all over myself before getting in the water. It’s therapeutic for the skin, so they say. Inching slowly into the oddly warm water, I knew we’d made the right decision. With every step I took further into the salt bath, more doubts melted away, until the water swept clear beneath my feet, and I floated. And I kept floating. I couldn’t stop even if I tried. The novelty of it felt euphoric. How is this possible?

We only had about 10 minutes in the water, so we savored every second. The rain had cleared everyone else from the beach, and we’re certain we were the only people in the Dead Sea for just a moment. It was still, silent, salty.

I disrupted the peace by accidentally splashing a drop of water my eye. The burn felt impossible to remedy, since the rest of my body was covered in salt and mud. It felt like a good ending point--abrupt, and not ideal, but appropriate for the experience.

Before returning to the car, we took icy cold showers, exposed to the rain that had reappeared. Arriving back to Amman soaking wet and covered in a thin film of salt, we returned our rental car two hours late. We surely looked more like criminals than travelers, and we felt just as unstoppable.

Nothing could keep us from taking our moment in the Dead Sea—not rain, not a line of police cars, not even running out of cash. We reveled in the memory of the day, which already felt distant. A certain thankful sadness sets in when it’s time to go home. The whirlwind was over, but we’d made it.