Homecomings and goings
Our flight home was largely uneventful, save a 40-minute period over the arctic when we ran into such violent turbulence. The kids mostly handled the trip, Myles particularly as the seasoned (and now premier level) traveller. I was the most grumbly, no surprise really. I was already homesick and starting to feel sick.
In front of us sat a young married couple. I don't know if they were newlyweds on their honeymoon, or just still in that honeymoon phase. I noticed they exchanged frequent kisses. Not get-a-room-why-doncha kisses, but loving pecks. At times while the wife slept, the husband had his nose in a China guide book. When we were approaching Beijing, the skies weirdly (for Beijing) very clear, they both leaned to the window, grinning. They would look at one another with wild excitement; their eyes clearly said, "I can't believe we're really going to China."
I thought about them all the way back to our apartment. I tried to remember when I at least found the possibility of going to China an exciting adventure. The first few years, especially the Shenzhen years, I didn't feel resentful of our return. But this time---this time was especially hard for so many reasons. I don't enjoy feeling this way. I wanted to feel like those young tourists. I can't believe we're really in China!
If I were a Good Person, and capable of following through on that thought, this blog post would conclude with that resolution, to try to live with the enthusiasm of a new arrival. However, I am a Deeply Flawed person, and just stepping into my apartment all thoughts of resolution flew out the gaps in our windows that let in the coating of coal dust on everything. Yes, coal dust on the floors, the shelves, the clean dishes, the clean laundry that I didn't get put away before we left--everything.
The rest of the week has followed in a similar fashion: a trip to WoErMa (WalMart) with the resulting bruises from being elbowed by young and old alike in the produce department; some pipe or pipes in a floor above us bursting, sending water down the elevator shaft and into the hallways of several floors, shutting down the elevator for more than a day; my HP refusing to start-up at all. I know the computer problem has nothing to do with being in China, but it isn't helping my want to be cheery, or at the very least, cheerier.
I have a lot to work on this coming Lent, that's for sure.
In front of us sat a young married couple. I don't know if they were newlyweds on their honeymoon, or just still in that honeymoon phase. I noticed they exchanged frequent kisses. Not get-a-room-why-doncha kisses, but loving pecks. At times while the wife slept, the husband had his nose in a China guide book. When we were approaching Beijing, the skies weirdly (for Beijing) very clear, they both leaned to the window, grinning. They would look at one another with wild excitement; their eyes clearly said, "I can't believe we're really going to China."
I thought about them all the way back to our apartment. I tried to remember when I at least found the possibility of going to China an exciting adventure. The first few years, especially the Shenzhen years, I didn't feel resentful of our return. But this time---this time was especially hard for so many reasons. I don't enjoy feeling this way. I wanted to feel like those young tourists. I can't believe we're really in China!
If I were a Good Person, and capable of following through on that thought, this blog post would conclude with that resolution, to try to live with the enthusiasm of a new arrival. However, I am a Deeply Flawed person, and just stepping into my apartment all thoughts of resolution flew out the gaps in our windows that let in the coating of coal dust on everything. Yes, coal dust on the floors, the shelves, the clean dishes, the clean laundry that I didn't get put away before we left--everything.
The rest of the week has followed in a similar fashion: a trip to WoErMa (WalMart) with the resulting bruises from being elbowed by young and old alike in the produce department; some pipe or pipes in a floor above us bursting, sending water down the elevator shaft and into the hallways of several floors, shutting down the elevator for more than a day; my HP refusing to start-up at all. I know the computer problem has nothing to do with being in China, but it isn't helping my want to be cheery, or at the very least, cheerier.
I have a lot to work on this coming Lent, that's for sure.
Comments
Becky
Jen!
As a long-time reader of your blog (about a year and a half - I continue to read but don't comment quite as much), I have really enjoyed your perspective on your situation in China. You always have had a way of accentuating the new and the interesting, and have even found little ways, such as Starbucks, to keep China feeling a little like home.
When I was living in Mississippi, your blog and your journey in China were a metaphor for how to survive and, eventually, thrive in a different culture from my own Midwestern one.
Now that I am back in the Midwest, I have come to realize that the reason I have been drawn to your blog for so long is that your journey into China is really a metaphor for life. That is to say, it is a metaphor for my own experience of journeying into adulthood, which, as a twenty-something, I am just now coming to do.
So, I thank you for your constant witness to a hopeful Catholic life in China. I appreciate the fact that your patience is wearing thin. Let us remember the words of the Apostle Paul, which are at once mysterious and hopeful:
"God is faithful and will not let you be tried beyond your strength; but with the trial he will also provide a way out, so that you may be able to bear it." 1 Cor 10:13
Take heart!
-N.B.