I guess if I’m going to write about random experiences in China, I should start at the beginning. Our flight there left really late Friday night, at 1:30a.m., which was really Saturday morning. I worked a full day on Friday, and all day I had a resigned-to-die feeling. I couldn’t picture myself in China, which made me think that maybe I wouldn’t make it. “If your plane’s gonna crash, see if you can get it crash on the way back so you’d still get to experience China,” a coworker joked. I told myself that I couldn’t see myself in China because I did so little research about modern China that I had no mental picture of it to place myself in, that this was always really Mr. W’s dream trip, and not mine, and I wasn’t looking forward to it the way he was.

As plane reading material, I brought along a book Grace had sent me a long time ago. Another book I’d been meaning to read but hadn’t gotten around to. Her Post-It note on the book said, “Hi Cindy — This is a recent book I’ve read. Quite a quick read. Interesting…enjoy. –G” It is Elizabeth Berg’s What We Keep. I cracked the book open soon into the flight. In the first few pages, a ticket stub emerged. “New Orleans Saints vs San Francisco 49ers. Louisiana Superdome. Sunday, October 20, 2002, 12:00 pm.” I know she’d visited New Orleans, she must’ve cheered for her 49ers there. Her 4 years attending UC Berkeley made her a fan. I imagined her using the ticket stub as a bookmark. I was using a wallet-sized photo of myself, which I had plenty of and a stack was within grabbing distance as I left for the airport. I’d always place the photo face-down near me when I read the book; I couldn’t explain away the appearance of vanity if anyone were to question me about it.

A few more blank and dedication pages down, and in shock, I read:

China
Decorates our table
Funny how the cracks don’t
Seem to show

You’re right next to me
But I need an airplane
I can feel the distance
Getting close
— from “China,” by Tori Amos

Yes, I realize the song, which I’d never heard before, is referring to chinaware, and not China, the country. But here indeed I was on an airplane, with Mr. W next to me, flying to China, so on a literal level, it applied to me precisely. I showed it to Mr. W. “She’s telling you she knows where you are and that everything will be all right,” he said. I liked that.

Here is how the book opened, the first chapter:
“Outside the airplane window the clouds are thick and rippled, unbroken as acres of land. They are suffused with peach-c0lored, early morning sun, gilded at the edges…”
2nd paragraph:
“Whenever I see a sight like these clouds, I think maybe everyone is wrong; maybe you can walk on air. Maybe we should just try. Everything could have changed without our noticing. Laws of Physics, I mean. Why not? I want it to be true that such miracles occur…” I went on to read in amazement a narrator who is so much like me, I wondered if Grace had thought so, too. I’d told Mr. W that the book was getting really interesting, and the character, when reminiscing about her childhood, keeps having thoughts that I’d had as a child, and that it was like reading about myself if I had lived some of Jordan‘s life. (The main character is almost exactly 10 yrs older than me, so that’d put her around Jordan’s childhood era. Especially the narrator’s insistance that she would not do to her kids what she felt was wrongfully done to her and her sister by their mother.)

I was kept too busy in China to read much more of the book, but I read it on the flight back, and dove into it voraciously in Las Vegas Thursday and Friday nights, until I finished devouring it at 3:30a.m. early Saturday morning. “Wow,” I thought, closing the book. I wanted to hug my mom. I wanted to re-read the book with the new perspective I’d gained at the end. And then, the inevitable — I wanted to talk to Grace and discuss the book with her.

The Tori Amos song was right about something else that I didn’t see coming. In the last night of the trip, the petty bickerings between me and Mr. W got so bad that it made me reel a little. I didn’t sleep well that night, and woke up the next morning feeling sick and stressed, which I’d told him about. Do we just not get along? Do we just naturally rub each other the wrong way? If something small became so big the night before, do we want to deal with that forever once the young love/lust is gone? Cuz that’s what we’re left with, right? He didn’t have anything to say about it, just got up and started packing without looking at me again. I sat sadly on my bed (we had separate beds the whole trip), watching him. Silence but for the sounds of zippers, boxes closing, clotheshangers clacking against each other. You’re right next to me, but I need an airplane, I can feel the distance, getting close… Finally, he asked, “Do you need this bag for anything?”, holding out a plastic bag. “No,” I said in a small voice, “But I could use a hug.” He crossed over the room and we held each other, my face smushed into his chest. He held my head to him with one hand, and said, “Whatever it is you’re feeling right now, I love you. You know that. And I think we can get through it.” I couldn’t talk as tears drained out of my eyes in surges. He took my silence as a negative thing and said, “You don’t think we can, huh?” I sniffled a little bit, trying to get myself under control, and then I pulled away, said, “I feel better now,” wiped my face, and got packed. Just like that, the clouds were gone. I didn’t feel alone anymore. He didn’t need an airplane to bridge our distance, only to get back home.