This City Lets Me Feel

I’ve been stand­ing on the bal­cony of the fourth floor apart­ment, watch­ing peo­ple walk around in the mid­dle of the night. If there’s one thing that’s always defined Hong Kong to me, it’s the con­stant traf­fic you hear when you’re sleep­ing, most­ly light bus­es run­ning on diesel, and taxis. Across the street, the rooms of the St. Theresa’s Hospital are light­ing up one by one. The sun has­n’t crest­ed yet, but the streets are becom­ing busier by the minute as the sky bright­ens in notice­able degrees.

Boundary street balcony — sunrise

Practicing Tai Chi usu­al­ly helps me sleep and cen­ter myself, but today it’s only a reminder of how painful­ly sore my hip sock­ets are from run­ning around air­ports with all my lug­gage. You nev­er tru­ly appre­ci­ate the short form until you try prac­tice in a Hong Kong apart­ment.

I’ve been up for hours now, and I’m exhaust­ed but wide awake. It’s the jet lag, the med­ica­tion, a rest­less mind, or all three.

Those who know me know that I’ve always felt that Hong Kong is my home­land, even though I was­n’t born here. But for some rea­son, it has­n’t sunk in that I’m here yet.

I guess I’ve been going through some hard times. I nev­er real­ly thought about it until some­one brought it to my atten­tion. The heart­break, the col­i­tis, the grand­moth­er, the dis­il­lu­sion­ment. Somewhat major things, I sup­pose, that weren’t in the front of my mind. Maybe I haven’t been let­ting myself think about them. Or maybe they’ve been affect­ing me with­out real­iz­ing it.

The writ­ten word appears to be the only reli­able thing I have left. My friends are all away. Everyone’s asleep, and I’ve been cry­ing. I’ve been cry­ing in the heart of this beau­ti­ful city.

This city brings my guard down. This city lets me feel.

4 comments

  1. A friend of mine is work­ing on the impor­tance of the PAUSE in life’s gen­er­al pace. Western Culture, and increas­ing­ly the globe, has few men­tal paus­es in a day, let alone a life.

    This is a great time to reassess every­thing. It will be a good time to breathe.

    • It’s almost prov­ing to be too much time actu­al­ly. My insom­nia is giv­ing me an extra few hours of wake­ful­ness, which only leads to more think­ing. I think I need to shut my brain off for a while.

      • what would cold meds do if you’re not sick? add some grog­gi­ness?

        what was the most painful­ly bor­ing course ever? I had a macre­co­nom­ics text that could take me from wound-up to total­ly out in minute. that book should have been rebrand­ed as a sleep aid…

      • I’m guess­ing over-the-counter cold meds would be safe, but I’ve always been one averse to unnec­es­sary med­ica­tions.

        I’ve tried the “bor­ing” route, but as soon as my head hits the pil­low, the mind goes into over­load again.

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