Today I am flying away from the beauty of
China and toward the familiarity and excitement of my next adventure in
America- pursuing my Masters of Social Work at UC Berkeley. This will be my
last blog for Polkahontas in China. Thank you so much for taking this journey
with me. Your love and encouragement has taken me farther than I ever thought I
could go. When you have time, I encourage you to look back at the post titled "I Believe I Can Fly", which I wrote
the night before I left for China in June 2014. That night, I was filled with a paralyzing fear of the unknown.
I can’t go back in time and tell myself that everything will be more than ok, but I am
extending this important message to you. Fear is a powerful emotion that helps us
survive. Yet sometimes, setting fear aside doesn’t just allow us survive; it
allows us to live.
The past two weeks have been a wonderful
blur. Originally, Jerry, Ann, my mom and I had planned to spend three days in
Beijing, but the day after we finished The Walk, our good fortune ran out and
the pollution returned to the Beijing sky, turning the cobalt blue sky a
depressing shade of grey. My mom and I took one day to visit The Great Wall and
then we bought train tickets for the overnight high-speed train back to
Zhongshan. We were all excited to get out of our cramped Beijing hotel rooms
and back to Ann’s hometown and my ‘China hometown’ of Zhongshan. We rented a
soft sleeper, which consisted of four bunks in a small cabin. The beds were not
comfortable, but they were much more comfortable than some of the beds we’ve
slept on in the past four and a half months. The rest of the cabs were full of
mostly men who weren’t nearly as excited to be on the train as we were. We took
pictures and ordered beers from the dining car. Jerry bought Ann a packaged
hunk of ham. I complained loudly and dramatically when they opened it because
it filled our cabin with the smell of salty death.
The ride was smooth and quiet even though the
train is capable of
reaching speeds of up to 300 kilometers per hour. That’s
over two weeks of walking in one short hour. The ride was smooth and quiet
enough for us all to get some rest. We had boarded the train around 8pm,
meaning our arrival time in Guanzhou was 6AM. It was a dark night and the
windows displayed only blackness and our own reflections lit by the florescent
lights in the hallway outside of our cabin. Inside, Jerry slept on the top bunk
across from me. My mom snored on the bunk below me. I looked down at Ann’s bunk
below Jerry’s. I could tell that she was writing a blog, as her phone lit up
her face and reflected off of her glasses. I turned over toward the wall and
hit ‘play’ on my ipod. Familiar lyrics came through my headphones from a song
that Ann and I played many times on our journey. It goes like this:
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| TSIBY charity party |
“I’m coming home. I’m coming home. Tell the
world I’m coming home. Let the rain wash away all the pain of yesterday. I know
my kingdom awaits. They’ve forgiven my mistakes. I’m coming home, coming home.
Tell the world I’m coming.”
Most mornings started with this song- a form
of motivation to complete our goal in order to reap the sweet reward of home
and everything that comes with it: comfort, love, fullness, laughter,
relaxation, and stability.
That night on the train, I got the first glimpse of the
magnitude of what we have accomplished. It hit me hard. See, Ann and I have not
really felt this accomplishment much. Months ago, we had accepted that our life
consisted of walking every day. “This is my life now” I had told myself. Just
walk.
But on this night I caught a glimpse of what
this accomplishment looks like from the outside. As the enormity of our walk
washed over me, it sent a shiver down my spine. I was proud of us.
I slept for a few hours, then went to sit in
the hall once the sun came up. I watched the scenery whiz by us like a
rewinding VCR tape of the first two weeks of The Walk when we were just north
I spent the first week in Zhongshan playing
tour guide for my mom. We kept our schedule relaxed, watching House Hunters
with the Canadians and visiting the foster home. On the night before she left,
Adrian, Roberta, mom and I went to a fake hot spring resort….one where you can
stick your feet into a pool and have fish eat the dead skin off of your toes.
It was….a cultural experience.
I also celebrated my 24th birthday by getting inked. Ann and my mom looked on as a Chinese tattoo artist wrote 8 characters on the inside of my left bicep. The translation is, a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single
step.
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| Ink'd |
My final week was spent with the Canadians
after Cork went home to America. Each day was full of cartoons, family meals,
overly competitive Skip-Bo tournaments, visits to New Day, and Netflix. Ann and I attended a fundraising event for The Sunshine is Beside You. It was
a heavenly week.
Currently, I am camping at a café table at
the Hong Kong International Airport, waiting for a flight home to The Motherland,
USA. I made it a goal to be home by the 4th of July, and if all goes
well, I will be. Last night I said goodbye to the New Day babies and all of my
Zhongshan friends. I resent the fact that goodbyes are part of life. I strongly
believe that everyone I love should follow me everywhere I go.
I didn’t sleep last night in an attempt to
put myself on American time in advance. I stayed awake on the Canadians’ couch
talking to
Adrian about the wonderful mistakes of my past and the uncertainty
of my future, then I watched multiple episodes of Modern Family after he went
to bed. Early in the morning, the little Canadians started coming out to the
living room and collapsing on me, creating a kind of human/couch tetris game
that none of us wanted to break. I continued watching Netflix with them sticking
to me like little barnacles. I felt their little heartbeats in rhythm with my
own, and my heart filled with gratitude for the opportunity to meet such wonderful
humans as the Canadians, big and small.
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| Me and the 'Little Canadians' before departing on The Walk |
I said my goodbyes and left with an envelope
of notes from the sweet family. I read the letters on the ferry to the airport,
stopping every few lines to wipe away mixed tears of sadness and joy.
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| my people |
It is a strange feeling to leave this place that has grown me so much in the past 13 months. I am both sad to leave and excited about the mystery of my next adventure. I am surprisingly calm. Though, I feel the hole that grief is occupying in my heart. My medicine for this brokenness is this thought; I had no business meeting these wonderful people of Zhongshan in the first place. The probability of a small town girl from New Mexico running into these great international people in this city of China at this time in life is very low. So the hard part is over. Now all it takes to see them again is a plane ticket. So, with the support and love of my many new friends, I am moving forward. I don’t know exactly WHAT my future holds, but I do know WHO it holds- my Zhongshan family.
