The Wind Beneath My Wings

Leslie C. Lin
February 2009

I became an aunt for the first time last year. My niece, Julia Megan Wang was born a healthy and beautiful baby in Washington DC in July 2008. As I listened to my sister Elaine telling me everything there is to know about this new life and how much she is enjoying being a mother, I couldn’t help but wonder, where did my ambitious, career-driven super woman sister go?

I wasn’t the only person who was surprised by this change of personality and new found motherly love, my sister also took some time to understand what it takes to be a parent. Before the birth of baby Julia, Elaine has been a small business owner who would travel several weeks at a time for work. Today, she leaves work at noon so she could take Julia to the park or mommy’s group in the afternoons. I would never have imagined that my workaholic sister had eventually become one of those mothers who couldn’t end a conversation without mentioning the name of her child.

But it wasn’t always like this. Elaine didn’t particularly care for children or even want children of her own. Having involuntarily become the surrogate mother for her three younger siblings 13 years ago, Elaine had always thought very little about marriage or changing diapers. She was very much focused on her career and would spend longer hours at work than most people. Her friends had no doubt that Elaine would be the last to marry, if she married at all.

Unfortunately, I was one of the reasons that Elaine wouldn’t have children in the first place. After our mother passed away 13 years ago, I, along with my other sister and brother and a house in Boston, were handed down to Elaine like a pair of socks. She was 19 years old at the time. I wouldn’t call it fun when a college freshman had to rush home after classes to cook dinner for her younger siblings or take them to the mall to exchange the broken calculator.

On the weekends, Elaine would take us out to dinner and movies. We would have Korean food one weekend, Indian the next, but Japanese was always our favorite. She subscribed to teenager magazines like the Seventeen and dressed us like American teenagers, buying tank tops and flip flops for us. Elaine encouraged us to watch sitcoms like Friends or Everybody Loves Raymond and songs with easy lyrics like the Wind Beneath My Wings so we could learn American culture. When she took us out to restaurants, she would wait patiently for me to muster courage and construct a sentence in English to ask the waitress for a fork.

In her spare time, Elaine learned to fix the broken toilet and managed the household finance. As the new mother of three children at age 19, Elaine didn’t have very much personal time or the luxury to live the life of a normal college student like most of her friends. It probably wasn’t fair for her, but I had always pictured of us from the movie the Little Women- the four of us made a happy family. I never told Elaine, but it was one of the happiest years of my life in the US.

Years later, my sister would confess that she didn’t particularly enjoy that year of child rearing. Like every other 19-year-old American college students, she wanted to go to parties or go on dates with boys her age. There were times when she dreaded going home to three kids or having to drive us around to our tennis lessons or attending parent’s day at my middle school. But she stayed home. She stayed home and coached me on my college applications and analyzed the pros and cons of each university that I was applying to.

My freshman year in college, my father’s business faced serious financial setbacks and could no longer afford our education expenses. Against my father’s request for us to drop out of school, Elaine insisted that we stayed in school and continued our education. She sought help and looked for resources to finance my college education. She believed that a good education for her brother and sisters was more important than anything else. She was 22 years old at the time.

Throughout my college years, Elaine taught me how to write impressive resume, the importance of doing internships, or how to prepare for job interviews. But she also made sure that I understood why it is important to take courses that are unrelated to my psychology major, courses like economics and accounting- think personal finance. She urged me to take courses in art history or anthropology so I could be exposed to different areas of knowledge. She was happy for me when I spent my junior year in Tokyo as an exchange student. Elaine wanted me to have the kind of college experience that she never had.

A few years ago, Elaine moved to Shanghai and wanted to “make it” in China. As luck would have it, she fell in love with a man who knew how much she had gone through and vowed to take care of her for the rest of her life. Taking all of her friends by surprise, Elaine got married at age 25 and moved back to the US. When occasionally I whine about not having her luck or meeting Mr. Right in Shanghai, my sister would say, “I know its cliché, but seriously, love comes when you are least expecting it”.

With the encouragement of her husband, my sister continued on to get her masters’ degree and became an entrepreneur with an education consultancy. We have always joked that we were Elaine’s first clients and guinea pig. After all, she was the one who saw us through high school and college.

Ever since my sister became pregnant with Julia in the end of 2007, we would talk on the phone more frequently than usual. And it was then, for the first time, that my sister didn’t sound like a fifty-year-old female CEO of a fortune 500 company. She actually sounded her age and seemed vulnerable for the first time. My sister told me how much she missed our mother when she now carried a child inside her. She wanted to know what kind of baby rearing tips our mother would give her. She doubted her ability to be a good mother to Julia while she continues working full-time.

A few weeks ago my sister called me and told me about this high school student she recently met through work. The girl told my sister that she was adopted into an American family from Columbia when she was an infant. However, her adoptive parents told her about the adoption when she was little. They also made sure that she grew up understanding her roots and being able to speak Spanish well; The family would spend every summer in Columbia. My sister was extremely moved by the story of this 16-year-old and said to me: As much as I am now grateful for being a mother and enjoys taking care of another human being, I wonder if I could ever love and go this far for someone else’s child.

But I wanted to tell my sister that she has already been loving someone else’s children more than they could ever have hoped for. She has opened more doors for me in my life than anyone else and made a much better person out of me. I have no doubts that Julia would grow up to become an intelligent, compassionate, and happy young lady. And guess what, I am already a little jealous of Julia and all the attention she gets from my sister!

Elaine, this is for you. Thank you for being the wind beneath my wings all these years.

Snow trucks and all

I'd wake up in the middle of the nights mistaking with full conviction that I were in Boston, a city I believe for a fact would never crumble under any circumstances. I'd hear the sound of the snow trucks and find comfort in knowing it had snowed after all. Strangely enough, Shanghai isn't the sort of city you'd confuse for any other city, with its unique lot of people, how the streets tasted like, the way the air felt on the hair of your skin. A little while ago, T wanted to believe it had been San Francisco. I'd want it to be Boston any night.

我心中想的只有你

How is it that things don't always go the way we want them to?
How is it that the night went on the way neither of us understood what to do with it?
How is it that people love you without ever telling you?
How is it that the wonder of life frightens me at unimaginable times?

How is it that I could love you without having to know you by heart?
How is it that we walked across the city without a word exchanged between us?
How is it that the cats and dogs sleep in silence?
How is it that the cat waits by the veranda, overlooking the park and my lonely silhouette?
How is it that I had no choice but to imagine life in the absence of my very beloved?

How is it that you shall remain a mystery to me, for the rest of the times that we will meet and fall for each other?

How is it that the night continued to be special, without you by my side?

Incomplete

When life gets difficult, I forget what it means to be special. I forget the light and the gift people see in me. I forget how powerful language can be. I forget what I have in me that draw the extraordinaire to me.

The very truth is that I am terrified. I am scared out of my mind about what is to become of this life, about living a life with regrets, about going straight ahead without having the direction mesmerized.

I forget easily. Too easily. I forget to stride ahead, with my head tilted upward, with a fearless look, with undefeatable confidence. I forget life goes on, I forget people love, I forget to love.

But when life gets difficult, what do I know? What do I really know that will possibly make a difference in my life? Change me, move me, become the better part of me? What do I know about being distinguished? About being the one in control? About being powerful? About being strong?

But the truth no longer matters, the cold harsh truth. It no longer matters.

給g

親愛的g,

寫封情書給你
但我的筆怎麼寫不出鍾文音的動人詞句
寫不出攝人的情感
寫不出過去 寫不出思念 寫不出每日的追憶

親愛的g, 我想像你漫步在大阪街頭
想像迎面而來的關西女子
想像你猜測你無緣的我的故事
想像你低問我的近況

親愛的g, 你懷念的是涉世未深 終日鬱鬱的我
在冬日積雪的草地駐著拐杖赤裸地奔跑
在波光粼粼的查理斯河畔旁與你相守
在離開舞會的接駁車上哭泣 承受白人男子輕挑的我

我親愛的g,
你是不需要時間經過，也可以讓我有答案的人，但我依然覺得生命有你很好很好。(鍾文音)

我最最親愛的g,
於是時間證明你是對的
你的預言 你的信誓旦旦 都是對的
我沒有一日快樂
謝謝你鼓起勇氣萬般殘忍的對待 在離別時吐訴所有你知道的真相
在另一個城市呼吸著我的空氣 變態地回憶我的殘缺
在陌生的日本女子身體 霸道地撫摸我 佔有我

親愛的g啊
你依然是我最親愛的 我萬般地思念你 萬般地渴望擁有你

我的親愛的
我該怎麼在浩瀚的時間洪流裡 這樣自私地擁有你呢

Our friendship remains

Wind blows.
Leave fall.
Seasons change.


Our friendship remains.

A dear friend sent me the card a couple days ago. The comfort and familiarity came just in time.

I realize I could no longer contain it within, all to myself, the need to say a few words for the departure of a friend whom I hold very close to my heart.


Not until the day of your departure and the weeks that followed did I start to feel a very strong sense of loss. You probably can't imagine this because I didn't see it coming either...that life here felt very differently without you...that this city all of a sudden doesn't feel like home anymore. I tried to recall the days that I didnt have you in the picture...and I remember how unhappy I had been back then.

小情歌

珍妮花離開的前一晚 我們聚在一起 終於吃到了傳說中的尤氏羊肉爐
回程的一路上 嘉嘉和我很患難的分著一副耳機 重複的聽著這首小情歌
我們很有默契的決定 這一程路 從木柵到中山國中 我們都要一直聽這首歌
捷運上的座位 散亂著當天training的大畫本 斜放著的雨傘

有時回想哪一晚的歌聲 總會想起捷運車窗外飛逝而過的雨景
你知道　就算大雨讓這個城市顛倒 我會給你懷抱

到達萬芳醫院 駛過科技大樓站 來到了曾經狼狽萬分的大安站
就算整個世界被寂寞綁票 我也不會奔跑
還記得在某人的部落格讀到 筆者覺得那是個無比沉重及嚴肅的承諾
但是 這世界又怎會被寂寞綁票呢
是怎麼樣排山倒海的寂寞 竟可以冷酷的沒收所有情感
是哪些人 給了寂寞不屬於它的權力

我問嘉 離騷是什麼意思
是怎樣的心情 能將屈原的浪漫寫進二十一世紀的流行樂曲
而是怎樣的雨夜 能讓嘉和我為這一首歌心動不已

一個答案

今天終於確認了這種感覺，這種長久以來我都沒辦法以言語 以思敘確認的想法
午休時 與T坐在狹小的會議室 翻讀著席慕蓉的日記，讀到席說的
「人與自然，彼此善待，在浩瀚的天地之間永存感恩之心，這就是游牧文化裡最令人疼惜與珍惜之處啊！」
我不了解游牧民族與其文化 但人需要流浪與自由的心情 不管是心靈的流浪 抑或身體的自由 這我是了解的
而那浩瀚的天地 一望無際的草原 狂放的風
又豈是我們能輕易的割捨的呢

我終於確認了這長久以來在心裡蠢蠢欲動的渴望
我不能 也沒有辦法 被這樣的人生 這樣的局面 限制 不能也沒辦法放縱自己的靈魂這樣的生活
外面的世界 其實我並不羨慕也不渴望
流浪也並不能給我一個像樣的答案
但 這樣的生活模式 這樣的生活內容 其實我是不愛也不能引以為傲的
我知道 習慣自由的靈魂 渴望創意的靈魂 值得給予自由

我不會這樣下去的
凝望著窗外密麻的矮房 聳立的大樓 無垠的天空
我默默的給了自己那長久以來在心裡蠢蠢欲動的渴望
一個答案