Sunsets Are Setting Suns

Thinking about my month away from China, children, and working, I keep coming back to my inability to distinguish between leaving and arriving. I keep thinking how surprisingly unsurprising it was to be ambivalent to the changes in landscape. As soon as every plane landed, as every bus arrived, I was home. Perhaps the planes and the buses were a sort of home too.

Riding away in a little van, I looked out over town and cried. I thought about my sense of belonging in my Chinese community, and how I would miss the mountains 高黎贡山. But as we drove to my parents’ new home, a cab driver introduced me to Seattle. I was exhausted, but the newness of the city was invigorating.

A month later, I looked out of the little porthole feeling a piercingly blunt melancholy. I thought about my sense of belonging in the Pacific Northwest, and how I would miss Mount Rainier and the Olympic range. But hopelessly wandering the streets of 昆明 Kunming looking for my hostel, I realized how excited I was to hear new stories from old friends.

There is some part of me, however, that is different. Upon hearing how it felt to be back, my mother wrote, “but you’re not the same.” How can I deny the simplicity and veracity of this statement? All I know is that adaptation is my constant. My surroundings will always change. The people I know will always change. But I will always change with them, and in that there is a sameness, a reassurance, a home.

I’ll leave you with two images. I was riding the bus back from downtown Seattle over the floating bridge, looking out on the lake with tears in my eyes. The sky was oppressively broad, wispy clouds shone orangey pink, and old Rainier radiated like the sun. The second is my arrival in 永安 Yong’an. The 菜花 canola flowers have begun to bloom, making the fields so vibrantly yellow it’s almost intoxicating. A dark ragged line of mountains carved itself into the sky, and a vortex of purple red clouds hinted at the sun’s casual departure.