Friday, July 27, 2018

Loose Ends

I looked at her grinning, "What am I thinking?" I asked.
Her reply, "dumplings."
I couldn't believe she knew. how did she know?

"How did you know? We haven't talked about food at all today or dumplings for that matter."
"Because I get you," she said smiling at me in a way only lost lovers know. Will I regret leaving her behind? Who will we be in two years? Will I see her again? Sure we confess our optimism, but the sadness tinted expressions we exchange tell the truth-- neither of us knows.

So here I am now, making her a bracelet as a gift for her to remember our time. I decided to make her an anklet from hemp chord. Of course, I don't know how to braid. I'm sure any 13-year-old girl would laugh at my incompetently fumbling fingers as I attempted to braid. Yeah ok so I googled it... how else do you learn things these days?
I found a silver dumpling charm to put on the anklet. That is to say "We get each other" and obviously, also dumplings are good.

It's difficult to explain how she has come to mean so much to me over the last year. "So much that I'm willing to move to China for 27 months?" you might be asking snarkily. In my defense I couldn't know how amazing she was, I had only known her for a few weeks before I submitted my application to the Peace Corps, more or less promising to cease my way of life on this continent to start anew somewhere else. I couldn't know that we would grow to be so close and that it would hurt this much to say goodbye.

Just as I've been preparing to say goodbye to her, I've been slowly saying my goodbyes to my graduate school cohort, a group of people that have become closer than friends, but more an academic family. We bleed the same printer toner, spending our days making the time, to skim readings, grade papers, drink wine and have a few laughs. 

We'll look back and know what we did here. We'll know that it couldn't have been the same without each and every person who shared that academic experience, just as our lives would be incomplete without our brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers. 

I've been letting go of things I envisioned passing onto my children or would at least enjoy looking at in my elderly years. The motorcycle I bought a few years back. We've ridden 14,000 miles all over this golden state, through mountains across dark deserts. I guess I should just be grateful that I didn't die on the I-405, California's free-for-all motorway. 

I still must say my goodbyes-for-now to friends in San Fransisco and Illinois. There is a stack of unresolved administrative issues, changing addresses, notifying the DMV and credit card companies, arranging for diplomas and transcripts to be sent once the school library takes 5 weeks to figure out if I have any outstanding library fines. I still need to arrange my SATO travel to the Peace Corps staging event in San Francisco. I need to pack and weigh my bags. I'm going to need every pound.


It has all the markings of the end of a chapter for me. So, back to the braiding. After a few failed attempts I got the braids nice and tight and have woven in the dumpling charm, all that's left is to tie up the loose ends.

No comments:

Post a Comment