JunE

Written on July 20, 2006

We didn’t come out of the room much for the first few weeks after our arrival at the Airport.  The kids needed time to settle down and, frankly, I was too tired to put in the effort necessary to communicate with people who, in the long run, probably still wouldn’t understand me.  In many ways, I felt extremely isolated, but considered the loneliness and cabin fever a smaller price to pay than that of Samantha’s consistent reaction of running away screaming each time she saw a Chinese person. 

Josh seemed to thrive in the new environment, but, being just over a year in age, he had not yet learned to want those three feet of personal space which aren’t considered necessary in China. 

This is neither good nor bad, but different.  Many aspects of life in China clashed wildly with what I’d internalized as “normal” in the States, but a good person with a kind heart is a good person with a kind heart regardless of which point on the globe you happen to be on at any given interval. I found this to be especially true of JunE.

The initial warmth and feelings of safety with which she first greeted me did not fade over the course of a few days as was the case with many of the other employees who, with no reason to expect us to be any different from the rest of the foreigners, returned to their camp on the Chinese side of the wall and expected us to go carve out our own nitch amongst the other flight instructors and their wives on the Western side.  Unfortunately, I didn’t fit in very well amongst the inhabitants of that camp. 

This shouldn’t have surprised me.  I’d always been considered somewhat of an oddball.  Still, a person can only take so much solitude.  If it hadn’t been for the companionship of my husband and our two children, I’m not sure how well I would have handled hotel life. Even with their help in keeping me grounded, I found it increasingly difficult to cope with that tiny box of a living quarter and, to put it in extremely nice terms, grew more irritable with each passing day.

The management at the Academy had assured us that an apartment deal was in the works and we would soon be placed in a comfortably sized home with all the amenities most people take for granted (such as running water etc.), but the deal fell through leaving us somewhat stranded in our expectations.

On many levels, the fact that we were now forced to decide as to whether we would make the best of a bad situation or sit back, surrender, and wither away into some state of moderate insanity was a relatively bitter pill to swallow, but I had been finding it rather difficult to ignore the subtle tugging in my heart which consistently led me to the doorsteps of the Chinese.  It could have tasted much worse.

It’s funny, you know, I’d always resented my artistic side because, in many ways, it had served as the vehicle which too many people had used to run me into the ground. The fact that the creation of art, in and of itself, had helped pull me through so many ordeals didn’t matter to me.  I didn’t like “Elizabeth the Artist” very much and had only begun to appreciate the doors such an ability could unlock a mere matter of months before our departure from the States.  However, when I see someone or something I deem beautiful, I feel incomplete if I don’t at least try to create a rendering of that beauty.

It follows then that, when I felt as though I couldn’t breathe for one more second if I didn’t find a minute for myself outside of the hotel room, I would still carry a few sheets of paper and a pencil with me, just in case.

More often than not, I’d find myself too tired to venture far from the hotel, too ignorant of Mandarin to talk to any of the Chinese, yet too drawn to the culture around me to waste time permitting others who could speak English to use the language as a tool to hammer my ears flat with complaints. 

On these nights, while Rod sat upstairs with our sleeping children, I could usually be found sitting under one of the few good lights in the Lobby with a sketchpad on my lap, buried deep in concentration. 

In many ways, my choice of location, though convenient to our room, was not the choice of one who really wanted to be left to her work.  I had deliberately set myself up for interruption.  No, it was an open invite, a cry of, “Someone notice me!” and, most importantly, I believe it was a plea for help, however cryptic.

In all honesty, I don’t know why JunE decided to answer these silent appeals of mine, or if she even thought much at all about what she was doing, but, one night, I looked up from my drawing to find her watching every move my hand made, observing every line I put down. 

I hadn’t seen, heard, or sensed her approach on any level, and though she startled me at first, her presence was comforting and within the span of time it takes to smile at a person, we had become friends.