Slide

A collection of stills from a short film an artist made about moving out of her adoptive mother’s home. The mother describes what it was like taking her daughter to kindergarten.Said her daughter would cry when she left, so instead of doing so, she would wait outside the school until it was over for the day. Every day for three years. She ends the anecdote saying “I love you very much!”

It’s beautiful, and its affected me. I think. My first thoughts after seeing it went something like “why do people do things for other people?” Why do I do things for people?

I saw another video earlier, this kid had this sort of, rock climbing/gymnastics obstacle course set up in his home. He’d jump and grab these attachments to the ledges, swing from that, grab on to a suspended ring, swing from ring to ring, etc. I noticed at one point that in front of a sliding glass door, his family had propped up a mattress, I wondered why until I saw the kid swing into it. It absorbed his momentum, cushioned his impact and helped him land safely. His family never appeared in the video, but I got the same sense, same feeling of undying love and support for their kid that I felt from the other video I would later see. About the lady who waited outside the kindergarten all day.

They set up the course and took his safety into consideration, allowing him to follow his passions while still taking care of him. One day I might hear of the kid being a genius climber and gymnast. I imagine seeing all sorts of comments under a video of him winning the Olympics with a new record or something. “How talented! How does he do this!?! It’s amazing the way god gives people these gifts~” I’ve never seen these types of comments say “how his parents must have loved him!” After effects of his parents care and love, immortalized and shared decades later, just the same way the artist captured her mother’s love on that video camera. So much so that I, a total stranger on a remote island far away from either of them is now ruminating and talking about them.

Often times when I see things like this, I can’t help but wonder what I would be like had my interests, talents, or sensibilities been taken care of and cultivated from childhood. There were so many things I was interested in and good at even, but my mother would have beat me for crying, my father would have screamed at me for swinging on something, or even coming close to colliding with a sliding glass door. Mine were poor parents, and they worked hard, both of them needed to go to work, so I never would have expected my mom to wait all day outside of school so I wouldn’t feel abandoned. I never would have asked for a whole climbing and gymnastics set up in our home, I didn’t expect that of them, and didn’t blame them for not being able to give me those sorts of things. I do wish though, that however small or infrequent the act may have been, I would have felt that sort of love from them. I don’t though, sincerely. I wonder if Im being ungrateful or ignorant of them, but I also know that when I am me, when I am lucid, I remember everything. The smallest and most obscure details even from when I was only a year old. It’s how I got through school after all, I could just vividly see an image of anything I wanted to recall or imagine, as if it was right there in front of me. Answers in a textbook, the number, lengths, and positions of the cascading hairs near your ear, or the feeling of being wholly and unconditionally accepted and loved by my parents. Such a memory doesn’t exist.

It’s important to me now that I find such an experience. I can recognize that now. I’ve been trying to leave where I am yet again, the path ahead seemed clear, until I received a job offer beyond my wildest expectations. A 5 star hotel, a massive pay raise. The island is beautiful, the weather is perfect, and I’d be making more money than ever. It should be a no brainer, but I’m torn. A lot of me wants to leave it all behind, forego such a massive opportunity, because well, I miss my friends. I didn’t think I would care, I never have before, but here I am, tearing up as I write this. I’m so far away from everyone, and I miss my friends. Backwards a few hours, were on FaceTime and I’m telling her all this. She responds: “well you’re part of a community now!”

And suddenly I’m feeling it again.

That same sort of love and acceptance I felt in those videos.

It’s a shame I can’t go back because

I miss my friends, I miss Chicago, and I miss you.

Post script.

A poet says home isn’t where you’re from, it’s whenever you stop feeling the need to escape.

I get distracted and open up TikTok. The first video I see is of a man named André. He says he feels lost, not just professionally but also emotionally. He says he doesn’t know where to go because he’s always searching for home, and he kind of feels heartbroken because, he doesn’t know for how many years he’ll still be searching. He describes his family from back in Brazil, how it was very clear this his brother was the favorite child. He talks about not knowing if he became independent because he didn’t have the support he needed, or if he didn’t get any support because he was a sort of independent child, his parents just always assumed he could deal with things himself, so they focus on his sibling and just sort of let André go. When he was 16 he did an exchange year in Germany, and stayed with a host family, where for the first time, he felt he truly experienced family. This experience was the catalyst for his constant travels through out the world.

I’m watching André tell my story, I suppose I’ve been telling his story all this time too.