Normality has never really been one to answer my texts. I always viewed the future with the constant worry of a mother who didn’t know how to control her child; only the future was never put into my hands for the disciplining. So from the outset, my life was never one specifically marked for doing brave things, and finding myself in Hong Kong, alone, after three months of moving was not something I would have bet on.
“Here?” A little boy pointed, leaving a smudge on my laptop screen. I gestured towards it. “You like the photos?” I asked in surprise. I had just hit the red Skype button after talking to my sister about her antenatal class and was gathering my things when he sat beside me.
His mother, following behind him in the hotel lobby, said a few words to him. She apologized, “I am sorry”.
“He’s just curious.” I accepted with a smile.
“He thinks it’s his father’s….” She drew her cell phone out of a pocket of her dress and lifted it towards me.
“He plays on it.” She smoothed his hair. “The strangers, the friends, he doesn’t know which.”
I crossed my arms and leaned my body forward. “He’s very brave.” And we laughed.
I asked his name, one that I’ve since forgotten. He picked at a Mickey Mouse sticker given to me on check-in and I offered it in his direction. His stubby little fingers reached towards it with no thanks, but his innocent glee was grateful enough.
The high ceilings were jeweled with gold chandeliers hanging directly above where we sat. They were modeled after Cinderella’s ball scene, and I wondered if adulthood is simply playing dress-up, if it’s in human nature to cling to stories that hide the truth in pretty magic. None of us want it to strike midnight, and the12th gong that taunts us as ‘imposter’ could be anything--the obvious fluster as you exchange currency, the voice of a friend; the questions of a stranger and her little boy. He wasn’t finished playing with my laptop case so his mom and I smiled politely to each other. We eventually let the awkwardness fade into silence and the mother stared bold-faced at me while I attempted to look purposeful.
“You, why are you here?” The woman steadily resumed conversation as she helped her son apply the sticker to his striped shirt. How could I be both honest and seem intrepid? Being here was more of a response than an active choice. It was a decision between fear and opportunity--I had always yearned to drop myself into unfamiliarity and learn to find my way through it alone. Yet I was the girl with the panic attacks, the nightlight, the fear of entering so much as an elevator alone.
“I’ve always wanted to travel,” I answered insipidly.
But what had happened, really? The night had asked, and I didn’t know how to answer such a being as Darkness so I kept quiet and avoided looking around in case I met its eyes. After months of internal struggle, I knew somehow that moving across continents was necessary to find a place to put my fear down.
“And you, you have carried yourself here alone?”
Considering the foreign way she posed the question, I nodded slowly. The damp streets of summer welcomed me here. I had accepted unnamed food from unnamed vendors while watching fireworks, drank weak Chinese tea in crowded markets, and stood in the center of Shanghai with the chatter of foreign languages and steep buildings surrounding me like a modern Babel.
“Yes,” I said. “In a way.”
We paused as the little boy tried to open his sippy cup. “Watching you and your son,” I said, “makes me miss my mother. I haven’t seen her for three months.”
“I am sorry.” She looked so concerned for me that I was compelled to quickly add. “I’m okay.”
“No, not okay.” She blew out air like she wished it was nicotine and I guess this is what it’s supposed to sound like. Connection. “My mother died when I was fifteen. Missing mothers are hard always.
This is why my family travels. We want him to have…” She struggled to pronounce the word and myself, yet again, felt guilty for intruding on a country whose language I had not bothered to learn.
“Memories.” She continued. “Many happy memories.”
“It seems he is very happy.”
“Ah” She smiled, “he likes the new people, you see?”
“Then he is an adventurer.” She looked at me in confusion and then abruptly turned her head towards a man I had not noticed, gesturing to them in the corner.
“We must go.” She lifted the little guy off the couch and prompted him to wave to me. Her sandals clapped against the floor as she walked away and the cushions rose like bread dough where she had sat. Pausing graciously, she leaned towards me. “Safe trip. You must hug your mother and you must keep seeing the places. It is good to know you.”
I waved to her and felt a strange nostalgia about the interaction later as I slid my key card into the slat of my hotel door.
Here I was, trying to figure out my next step when complete strangers were listening wholeheartedly to my journey and willing to point me on my way.
I had carried myself here alone, yes, but the bravest thing, really? Is asking strangers for directions home, and then trusting them to tell the truth.
