Winter was cold that year. It traveled up our bones like nothing ever had. It wasn’t a soft, wet cold. No, as I recall, it was a dry, piercing, brittle cold that seemed to seal your eyes shut with harsh, icy fingers. There was snow. This was such a sight to us, as we had never seen such great quantities of it at once. My mother’s hands left home warm and worn, and returned numb and peeling. It was late at night when she finally did return from work those years. I would ignore her instructions of not waiting up. When her petite form strided through the glossy wooden door, and slowly let it click behind her, I still waited. She would take off her boots, and gracefully come over, a mixture of exhaustion and excitement on her face. She smelled like rain, like wet plastic, but with notes of the air fresheners they hang loosely from rearview mirrors in taxi cabs. Sometimes, it wasn’t even raining, and her hair was cold. I suppose that was what it truly smelled like when she sat close enough--like cold winters with warm fires. It was comforting, almost. These were the best times, and the most familiar ones.
My mother raised me alone for quite a while. However, it wasn’t as if we had a difficult time together, just the two of us. We were excited. After all, this was a new place--no one knew us and no one spoke our language. There was much to do, and not many to do it, so I grew up fast. It wasn’t too fast, but it was fast. She was determined, so determined that there was a blazing fire in her eyes whenever someone mentioned our future, or when she was doing something strenuous or difficult. She would light up, irises on fire, and would cease to rest until what needed to be done was done. At the time, my four-year-old brain could hardly recognize such a fact, for I was doing the same thing, more or less. My mother calls herself a survivor. Perhaps, that is why. There was much responsibility weighing on her shoulders alone, and it made her work harder, and try to do everything to the extent that it could be done, and farther.
Where we lived there were brick walls, and places where the sidewalk slithered in curves around buildings and cut close to corners. People looked at us, sometimes, curious and also cautious. We looked different, and we stood out like black sheep. Taxi drivers sometimes would mumble under their breaths, hushed but not too hushed, for they assumed we didn’t know what they were saying, which, for the first few months, was true enough. However, for the most part, people were accepting, considering the situation. They walked with determined faces, almost as if they knew they held a purpose in life, and needed to find out what exactly this purpose was. They glided across streets with heeled boots and careful eyes, sometimes stealing glances at us, but I hardly noticed. The streets, in particular, were spotted with black gum stains like a grey cheetah, and the smells of what my uncle calls ‘city juice’ protruded from every gap in the sidewalk, poking us in the nose. We didn’t really mind--this new place was exciting. There was a long bridge that crossed over a major highway, and we would walk across it on a weekly basis. It was scattered and occupied with great scores of people. There were crippled people, sitting and begging. There were businesspeople, walking to and from work. There were child pickpockets, on occasion, and people simply strolling above the busy highway. They were all entirely immersed in their own worlds.
It was Beijing, China. We had just commuted from Florida, and it was a transition. My mom had found a job as an English professor at a school in the city. The city, on the surface, was nice, and beautiful in an eccentric way, as if nothing would halt for such an insignificant entity such as one individual--sort of like New York City. However, in some parts, there was poverty like none would care to believe. If one traveled further, they would reach the outskirts, and the provinces my mother visited for work. Here, the people lived differently than they did in the city, and, as I later walked with my class through these areas, we took notice of this, but it didn’t fully register. People also lived amongst brilliant trees and animals here. In general, the Chinese country displays such a great abundance of natural beauty, like long winding roads with trees, and reservoirs I would later visit with my school. The difference between this and the city was startling and almost surrealistic after enough time had passed since we had crossed beyond the borders. In the city however, there were places that my mom and I visited so regularly that the Chinese-speaking clerks would recognize us. We would sit in Starbucks for hours during the first year, my mom on her laptop and me with a small toy or a thirst for watching the passerby carry on with their business. We sat here because my mother could get by with the English that they spoke, and she said it smelled like home. What was home? Home was changing somewhat rapidly.
When Yang Ayi came, I began to associate home with her, as well. Yang Ayi spoke Chinese, and not a word of English. This was alright, except that for the first few months, I understood little of what she was saying. One time, she asked me if I wanted an apple. I was lost, and, noticing, she held up the apple, and repeated the word. I understood. After this primary revelation, we could communicate more efficiently, and I could speak fluently by the age of five. It was thanks to her. My mother said that when she would get home some nights, she would hear rapid Chinese chatter coming from the kitchen. It must’ve sounded strange--she couldn't pick up the language as easily as a five-year-old. Yang Ayi was a kind woman,with lines of age outlining her oval face, and eyes that were awake and aware. When I did my homework on the wooden floor, she watched me. She was always watching, as if she could see things others didn’t. She also took care of me even when she could’ve left. She took care of me without pay, and she took care of me with every ounce of vigor she had obtained from years of hard work.
My mom worked late, so late that my eyelids were drooping by the time she walked through the door. However, when she did, I was instantly rejuvenated, and ready for the exciting night I hoped we would have. Sometimes, this wish was granted, and she would turn on Enrique Iglesias’s older music, and we would dance. I sometimes wonder what this must’ve looked like to her--small as I was, throwing my messy curly hair back in the air as my feet lifted from our brown couch. She must’ve seen a little girl, knowing but also naive, feeling the sheer and utter joy of carelessness, and the advantage of having a clear head and what my cousin calls a hazy shade of reality, where one can see and hear everything, but only process it to the point before it smudges your hope entirely. She must’ve seen happiness, and love, and a daughter still so willing to clutch to her mother and her home and her safety. She seemed happy, too, as if all the stresses of the day had vanished, and this was, for the most part, how life was for us. After all, all we had was each other, and these brief moments reminded us that it would all turn out alright.
My great aunt once said “Life is like a cigarette--you puff and it’s gone.” It is an understatement to say that she was correct, for these moments we write of disappear in a heartbeat. I’m not sure how long after these events occurred did I stop missing them terribly. I know it was a long time. At the time, I struggled to find something that felt like home, and I suppose that in these short experiences, it felt as if I had. I still sometimes do struggle to feel that, but as I walk through the lobby of my apartment building, and press the worn, metal elevator button rubbed smooth by fingertips over the years, and ride the elevator to the end of the line, or, in my case, the fifth floor, it feels natural. I see my hallway, and the white stone of the kitchen floor, raised off the ground, that my brother stubs his toe on. I see the city lights dancing on the East river when I stay after school long enough for the sun to start setting. It feels like home, although it has only been four years since I told my Floridian elementary school teacher that I was moving to New York. “So soon?”, she had said. Yes, it was soon, for, at that point, I had only been in Florida for two years. In fact, when my Spanish teacher asks, “Where are you from?”, I have to think about it--I don’t really know what to say. I guess, at this point, I’m from New York, because it feels like home. Perhaps when something becomes home, one doesn’t realize it immediately, and that is what makes it home--the familiarity is too great for second thought.