LEAVING HOME

In less than a week we'll be at The Other Home, and in less than a month we will leave our digs there for the last time. For the first time since 1998 we will be Homeless At The Other Home. Shutting down the apartment, with it's uncomfortable beds, it's rickety plumbing, it's paltry storage, it's views of nothing special out the windows-- it will not be easy. We have loved the place, the boys spent a lot of time growing up there. A lot of lunches-- eight of us squashed around the dining table, a lot of nights watching a dvd movie or soccer or Journey To The West in Chinese, a lot of happy times. Being able to land at PEK and grab a cab or a bus, or sometimes hop into the car of a friend who had come to fetch us and then roll the roads for 45 minutes or an hour to a place we could call home, this was a gift, a pleasure, a treasure. We had an address, we had a landline, we knew where we lived. I think we'll be okay. We'll leave but then, as we always do, we'll come back, and when we come back that next time perhaps then we'll feel better. The old men, the old women, the familiars of the neighborhood, they'll still be there. It'll be okay. Xia yi ci.