Lost and found in translation
Our adventure got off to a particulary bumpy start, in fact the bumps started before the adventure. We dropped through a weather system during landing and the silence in the plane as we went through what felt like a freefall was the perfect backdrop to my own freefall into the meaning I'd been seeking. I was listening to a mantra that translates to "I bow to the Spirit of the Divine" and breathing through the anxiety that seems to have become a habit. During one particularly bad bout of pre-crash rattling and rocking, I opened my eyes to check whether the metal box we were in was actually still intact and found Nurhaan quietly crying. I felt her heartbreak and held it, closing my eyes.
The feeling of falling isn't about being in love, it's about loss
A sudden, dramatic drop caused a loud, collective shout, followed by Ani's frantic "Why is this happening?!" As we continued to rattle and fall, I kept my eyes closed and contemplated the fear response to falling on the one hand, and the grief of death on the other. Maybe it was all the bowing to the Spirit, but I felt myself simply feeling the falling without panic. And in that surreal sense of peace, I realized that Ani's (and our) fear of falling in love and fully showing up for something lasting, is the fear of the exact outcome Nurhaan is experiencing. The take off is great, exciting, sometimes a little scary but generally exhilarating. It's when the thing has to land, when the ride is over and we come back down to earth. It's when the rubber needs to hit the road. That's when the real fear starts. The more present we are, the more we show up, the more we feel, the more we open ourselves to grief. In this moment, in my head, I saw and felt it separately. I could feel the feeling of falling and, in that moment of peace I could choose it. But I knew that it meant feeling the heartbreak and choosing that too.
For the first time in a long while, I found that I wasn't compelled to send loving goodbye messages to my daughter in case we crashed. Instead of anxiety and feeling that I hadn't done enough yet, I felt calm and certain that more was to come.
Lesson one: Kindness in the land of the not-free
We had 5hrs in Beijing before the real stuff started in Chengdu and we had a long, long list of things to see and do: bar streets and snack streets, Confuscius and Tao temples, historic sites and monuments. We didn't underestimate how exhausted we would be, nor how cold. We had prepared for life without Google. Off we went, walked around the corner from our "Chinese Culture" hotel and came across our first snack bar. But Ani wasn't falling for the tourist thing, abruptly telling Nurhaan and me to play it cool and not choose the first option we came across. Nurhaan and I insisted on exploring what we thought was a market and though we were wrong and fully touristy, the sight of people eating noodles at the snack bar's restaurant lingered with Ani for the rest of the night.
On the way out, about to admit our mistake, we noticed not one but three Michelin signs that changed the course of our night. But what to order? Beijing, despite being the capital, is not foreigner-friendly but the people are incredibly so. Even in a Michelin restaurant, not one person spoke English but several were quick and effective with their translation apps. We felt technologically disabled in comparison as we fumbled with our phones and our words. Even though we were holding up other customers, our entertainment value to the staff had them all crowded at the counter watching and laughing. When we finally had our order placed, we had no way to pay. We'd downloaded WeChat for chat not paying. Visa and Mastercard are not global currency in China. "Use your phone to find a bank that's open" was our translated advice. My phone? The one without Gmaps? We moved away from the counter feeling ashamed of ourselves. Minutes later the laughing translator/adviser walked over, placed our bag of unpaid treats in my hand and held his phone up for me to read: "We give you this to taste. Please enjoy" and smiled. I hope my reaction at least half-adequately reflected our delighted surprise and appreciation. (I'm often told it it doesn't).
Kindness is our primary experience of Chinese people in China, supported by our experiences for the rest of the night: help finding nightspots in a book store, taste testing like kids in a candy store, patience as our WeChat payments repeatedly declined after raiding one of the most interesting 7-11s ever, and in the end, heading back to the Michelin street food place we started at, to be the people eating noodles in the window. We didn't do any of the things we had planned but we found so much more. We found deep kindness, in overwhelming measure.