Family

I am walking along the sidewalk in Phuket keeping an eye on the kids and trying to avoid the hawkers of goods only tourists could want. We turn the corner in the direction of our hotel when Elisa saddles up to me and grabs my right hand with her left. I look down and say “Hello Elisa” and she responds “Babi, I love you”. Elisa turned six in August and started first grade today. First grade is the first real day of school here since Kindergarten starts from the time they are three and is a kind of combo pre-school and education experience. I think back a couple of years, to the summer of 2011 when I worked from home for 14 months. I would take Elisa out every day after lunch to the “big playground” and sometimes she would play and sometimes she would just nap in her stroller. I’d sit in the park and watch her play or sleep while I listened to my podcasts. When my work was done for the day, I would take her downstairs to the apartment playground and watch her play some more. All this time with Elisa had some effect. Her English was better at the same age as the other kids. And she was really close to me. ...

Lydia, Elisa, and I are playing nerf basketball in my apartment. Lydia has made two long distance shots so far, the same as me. She has a grace about her when she moves and a joy when the ball goes into the hoop. Then she announces she is done playing. I negotiate for her to play until the next basket is scored and she says “ok”. This is Lydia. One moment a gift. The next moment her feet dug in, protecting. One might say she is like her father. Her father would. ...

In the kitchen sink sits the small green plastic strainer that my mom used to catch organic things as she washed the dishes. It is now used to filter cigarette ashes when my father washes his ashtray which isn’t really ashtray but a small dish. Kind of an ode to when he quit smoking 40 years ago during our Russian River family vacation (happy joy joy). Truth be told no one except him really knows for how long he quit. There was the cigar phase and then the sneaking of cigarettes phase. Men do like their secrets and this was one of his. ...

I have a time travel machine, however in only goes in one direction. My mind, however, has another kind of time travel machine and one that mostly only travels in one direction as well. To the past. The year is 1997 and I’m thinking about CJ. CJ was my Labrador retriever and taught me to run in the rain. Or I should say taught me to love to run in the rain. In 1997 I was living alone with CJ and between my work and grad school at night I wasn’t home very much. This wasn’t good for CJ as he had a lot of energy. To do my job as a dog dad I would walk up early with him every morning and run with him and when I got home at night, no matter how late, I would take him running again. On the weekend I went on especially long runs with him. Rain or shine like a mailman without mail. ...

Shunyi is a suburb of Beijing where the people with enough money can live in a very comfortable low security western style jail. If you have not been to Beijing, yes, I am being sarcastic. If you have been to Beijing and Shunyi, you will know what I mean even if you think I am wrong. I should back track. Unwind this puppy. I am a fundamentally open minded person (at least that is what I tell myself when surrounded by myself) and can understand that for some expats and rich Chinese the Shunyi suburb lifestyle is the best Beijing has to offer them; it’s just not for me. Not with its moonscape with dust landscape and the quasi chic experiences even though I do see the appeal of a house with a basement. ...

I am standing at the counter with Lydia waiting for our drinks. Cold drinks on this hot Beijing May afternoon. Lydia is getting a mango lemon drink and me, feeling super, went for a Strawberry milkshake and by the looks of things it was going to be a good one. Just as I started to wonder why it was taking the stand’s worker so long to blend the milkshake a boy, maybe 12, scooted between me and the counter and right into any sense of space I had. My good mood disappeared and over my right shoulder came the boy’s parents asking him what he wanted. They could have whispered in my ear, they were that close, but instead if felt as if they were yelling over my body to reach the boy. At first I held my ground in some kind of childish demonstration and when that had no effect I became even more childish and stepped away with a flurry and stood at the edge of the street, fuming. Lydia walked up to me and put her arm on my back and said “relax, dad, relax”. And I did. Is it possible this girl isn’t even 10 yet? ...

Spring in Beijing lasts as long as a whisper in the wind. In some ways it is the perfect spring, as short as it needs to be. In some ways it is the most in-perfect spring, never as long as you want it to be. For me, this was the spring that I will always remember as being felt and not heard after two worthless winters of darkness. This tale doesn’t start from today but the story told here will. I arrive to the kid’s home after a perfectly delightful May 1st holiday and Elisa runs up to me happily hugging me and saying “baba, baba”. Lydia comes flying around the corner of her bedroom and hugs me the same. Aidan offers a cool hipster “hey bobbie” which carries no less love. During the two winters darkness this was the very scene that ripped me like shredded glass opening my chest. Today it felt fill of joy, light, and hope. ...

It is smog apocalypse year two as I hold Elisa’s hand and cross a busy street in what could be called downtown Beijing. Lydia and Aidan are trailing just behind and I am keeping an eye on them as well. We are not quite half way across the street when a car making a left turn, turns sharply into the cross walk inches from me an Elisa. Cars killing us is inevitable, either through smog or this more expedient behavior. I don’t think this until later. At that moment I am angry and I want to punch a hole through the driver’s side window which was dangerously, yet conveniently close. Elisa is tethered to my right hand which would make the punch difficult so I settle for a glare and a curse. I don’t have the ability to curse in Chinese and the windows are tinted darker than a Hearst so my anger is in vain. Except it felt good. Emotion is good. ...

The daughter learned how to make flowers out of construction paper by watching videos on youku.com. She got frustrated at first but stayed with it since her objective was clear and her motivations were strong. Over the next week she perfected her skills and she made a purple, a green, and a red rose. The red rose was for her father. A few weeks passed and the daughter asked the father to come home for dinner after work, which he did. Sometime later the mother also came home at which time the daughter beamed with excitement. The daughter called for the mother and father and had them face each other. The parents stood two feet apart. The daughter said “ok, give the rose to mommy” and the father did so. “ok, give the flower to dad”, and the mother did so. The daughter then took the father’s arm and placed on the mother’s side and pulled the parents together. She smiled, anxious now, not seeing the result she had so hoped would come through. ...

To my delight, Lydia and Elisa are sitting at the kitchen table and playing tic tac toe. I do not know who is winning. The win for me is that they are playing and not fighting. It’s not that they fight so much as Lydia is a bit hard on her younger sister. Just the other day Lydia called me at work to complain that Elisa had broken the house rule of playing games on the computer for more than an hour straight. Don’t get me wrong, Lydia isn’t Matt on Joe level fighting and with Elisa, Lydia is mostly indifferent to unsupportive. I can only guess which parent that is from. More than guess, I guess. Anyway, on this weekend the girls were sans Aidan who was snowboarding in the US with his mom. Aidan gets the slopes of Aspen; Lydia and Elisa get tic tac toe. It was certainly warmer. Oh, the reason Aidan being away is important is because Aidan and Lydia are super close and when Aidan is around Lydia is harsher to Elisa. It may have to do with Aidan also being super close to Elisa but who am I to say. The father. ...