‘Life begins the day you start a garden’

Chinese proverb

Summers are steamy and humid in Ningbo. You can’t really stay in bed too late specially if you have to walk the dogs; Morning has always been my favored time; I wake up around 6 am and the doggies hop into bed and sleep under the sheets for a little longer. It is a sweet feeling, the three of us snoozing and getting ready to go for a walk. We lived in a small compound in the city centre where there were no parks or green areas in the surroundings, it was all concrete and tall buildings. My neighbors were predominantly elders who went out at the same time as me; some of them went to the market to buy fresh vegetables and fish, others went to taiji and others simply went for a walk. Among them there was a special lady, who was a leader from the neighbors league. She is (not was because people don’t die when we leave a place) very slim, with short gray hair, always wearing a thin trench coat with pants and cute small shoes. She always greet me on the lift and was carrying pots and plants trying to find a place for them.

Next to the compound there was a small green area that she claimed as hers. She started to plant a natural fence to protect the rose bushes and the lillys and wouldn’t let anyone to get close or go through it. She became ‘the plants vigilante’ and I enjoyed to observe her devotion to transform that space into her personal garden. Later, other neighbors brought their own dying plants and it became a beautiful lively garden she nurtured and protected with pots of different sizes, shapes and colours.

I understood then how important was to have a personal space, to claim a place in the world of your own, where you could exist surrounded of the things that you love. We all need a soothing place that we can call home. We need a place to take care of the things that make our life sweeter. I learned my space was in that bed with the doggies, where the three of us are happy.

Here in the other side of the Pacific, we wake up not so early, as I struggle to wake up and make sense of life. Yesterday when we walked through the park near home, I saw a man watering some plants that were in an isolated space within the park perimeter. It seems he planted those plants by himself because you could see how he carefully arranged them in a circle, building a natural fence. The plants look green and full of life compared to the rest of the plants in the park that are dry and dusty, those no one cares for. I passed by and he didn’t even noticed me or anyone around; he was mesmerized, contemplating his personal garden, and protecting it like a gatekeeper.

“Just as the sea is an open and ever flowing reality, so should our oceanic identity transcend all forms of insularity, to become one that is openly searching, inventive, and welcoming.

Epeli Hau’ofa, We Are the Ocean: Selected Works

I lived on the two extremes of the Pacific and it was never my intention. At 33, I thought I had resolved most things in life: I had a steady job in the government and parallel, I was teaching at the university, living in a small Mexican catholic town. I was in a dead end relationship with someone I thought I loved very much. However, I wasn’t happy or remotely satisfied. I cried and curled into my bed every night feeling I didn’t belong there, I had a sour taste in my mouth watching other people happiness. I accumulated a reasonable amount of debt because I couldn’t administrate my finances and I was worried about the future. Is this it? is this enough? is this the way it’s supposed to be? . Somehow life gave me another opportunity and after many nights of struggle, I decided to move far away, and for such purpose, China was the best choice, the Pacific coast of China.

The first point I reached was Narita near Tokio, where I stayed for a layover. It was my first transpacific flight and I couldn’t sleep thinking I had left all my life behind. I brought nothing but an old suitcase with a few clothes and 20 dollars on my bagpack. I remember I took a video leaving my hotel in Narita and walking towards the bus stop . I was with other students, looking for a place to eat, without any clue of where to go, laughing and exploring. That was an exciting evening and I embraced my curiosity and adventurous spirit. The next morning I took a flight to Shanghai, where we were welcomed by the university staff and taken to Wanli collegue in Ningbo.

What was supposed to be a year of studying abroad became a lifetime. The trip to Ningbo was exhausting, I couldn’t cope with the humidity of the coast and I remember my first dinner with the dishes served at the centre, a bowl of rice and a coconut milk. I didn’t know that I was going to pass that colleague everyday for the next 15 years on my way to work. I miss the sound of the dragonflies in the early morning, the recording of the public bus, the nard scent of my neighborhood, and the cleaners who were sweeping the streets and would greet with a smile, gently asking me if I had breakfast.

This morning all those memories come with nostalgia now in the other side of the Pacific, in the Mexican coast. Again, I have left all my life behind and like then, I am ready for a new beginning.

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”

Maya Angelou

It’s almost 7pm, and I am lying down watching the ventilator spin, sometimes too fast, others slow. I am in a lethargic sleep, unable to move, wondering which should be my route tonight; should I walk through the main street or maybe walk around town and go to the plaza so the dogs don’t get too tired and I can avoid the people traffic. But then, I miss a sunset and that is something I cannot give up so effortlessly, after all, it has been many sunsets I have accumulated in my sunsets bill in a few months, and it is pleasant to sit in the sand, watch the people gathering at the beachfront, and the big dogs walking around. So, after a few minutes of deliberating I decide to hit the main street and go to the beach. It still sunny, a transparent sky and I pass by all sorts of people lingering: surfers, newly wed couples, girlfriends, kids trying to fish and of course the single and desolate. We all wait for the big sun to go down and melt with the blue waves in a marriage that last only seconds and we clapped as we have never seen the sky before like children gathered to see a wonder.

Walking on sand can be liberating, it tickles all those stiff points where your feet were hurting, too much stress, too much pain, too much weight, Women all around the world pay ridiculous amounts of money to feel that texture in a spa treatment, but if you are lucky, you find yourself at the beach where all these little crystals are free. Everyone and everything is free, your entrance ticket gives you unlimited access to the sand, sun, margaritas, sunbeds, waiters with the exotic accent, all the things you wouldn’t see at home. When I walk by, I often hear some tourist saying, “I could stay here forever”, “All I need is tequila and this paradise” and before I could relate. I used to say the same, what an irony now, being unable to enjoy it, or even grasp the taste of a good sip of wine or a good meal. How far I am from being that girl who used to be happy at the beach. I can barely drag myself out of bed to walk the beach for another sunset.

After so many years of traveling and drinking cheap Prossecco, I thought I had figured it all out and I was willing to live “a simple life”; the dream we envision when we are fed up with work, the lifestyle that will give us enough time to do everything that we couldn’t do earlier. Whereas life has always other plans and will take us to other roads.