January 2016
"You don't understand my language, so you can never understand my heart."
This is what the Korean mother said to her America-born son.
I wonder if my mother would say something like this to me too?
That is, if she could speak English.
It never occurred to me how strange it must be.
I don't speak Vietnamese. My mother doesn't speak English.
"Wait, so how do you talk to each other if you don't speak the same language?"
This is what someone asked me when I was 25.
I looked at her with a completely blank face.
We don't.
"That's crazy."
Is it?
Pondering this later, I understood: It is.
All the things my mom couldn't help me with.
My homework.
(She barely finished 2nd grade in Vietnam, and honestly, I'm not sure how good her literacy is even in Vietnamese.)
My first period.
(Like a textbook example, I thought I was dying the first time I had my period and told no one about it.)
My first bra.
(She laughed at me when I brought it up. I ended up buying my first bra with my sister.)
My friends.
(I never even tried to talk about this one.)
My college apps and financial aid forms.
(Took my dad's tax forms and filled out everything myself. Doing taxes now is a cinch.)
My mid-20's crisis.
(Is it over yet?)
My first boyfriend. My first breakup. My hobbies. My insecurities. My victories. My thoughts.
Me.
Me. Me. Me.
For a while, I thought about how I had to grow up like this.
I'd go over to other friends' houses. I'd have conversations with their parents. Their moms knew about their friends. Their moms knew what they liked to do in their free time. Their moms knew their likes and dislikes, and knew about their classes and knew about their lives.
They talked to their moms about things.
My conversations with my mother began and ended with, "Con ăn cơm chưa?"
Have you eaten yet?
But today I understand a little bit more.
I understand now that as much as I felt neglected by her, she was neglected by me.
I think perhaps her pain was far deeper than mine ever was.
I wonder how much heartache a mother must feel, to look at a child she can't understand.
Those times when I'd get frustrated at her.
How absolutely wretched is that-- to know your child is angry at you, and yet to not know what the proper response is?
To have sacrificed so much over the years, through war and immigration and poverty and shame, and still it results in this?
A bratty teenaged American daughter. Angry.
She has no idea what you've endured up to now.
Today, I understand a little bit more.
But only a little bit.
Memory:
I'm 7 years old.
My mother is hopping about on both feet with her hands bent at the wrist before her.
"Kang-ah-roo! Kang-ah-roo!"
She yells this as she chases me around the house, pretending to be a kangaroo.
Somehow, somehow, in spite of it all, we have the same sense of humor.
The amount of unknowns surrounding my mother when I look at her is great.
It's like there's this dark cloud completely enshrouding her.
What was her childhood like? What were her hobbies? How did she feel when her own mother passed away while she was so young, forcing her to take up so many responsibilities in the house?
What sort of anxiety filled her heart in those years when my father left her and my sister behind in Hong Kong while he lived in America, trying to make a dollar out of fifteen cents?
From the dark cloud, all I can make out is this tiny 4-foot-11 woman with bright black eyes and a happy smile. Besides that--
Nothing.
But ultimately, the most important question is--
Why a kangaroo?
I don't even think you've seen one in real life.
Mama, that's absolutely ridiculous.
You should know-- I like giraffes and cats.
A birthday gift from someone I love very much!
She sent me a beginner bouldering set-- a brush and a toque (a beanie, for you non-Canadians).
In addition to a quickdraw, card and book.
I loved it all, but I love the thought the best.
I'm a lucky girl.
One day, I woke up and realized-- In two weeks, I'm going on a 9-day ice climbing trip!
I haven't ice climbed in 3 years.
Oh. Shit.
I trained harder in those 2 weeks than I had in the past 20 months, I can tell you that.
I'd never been to Indian Rock before, despite having gone to Berkeley as an undergrad.
That's not true. The going to Indian Rock part, not the going to Berkeley as an undergrad part.
Once, in freshman year of college, some friends and I walked by Indian Rock.
"People climb this sometimes you know."
What? What do you mean climb?
"It's called bouldering. It's when you try to get to the top of a rock."
Wow, that sounds dumb.
I literally just remembered this memory now. Nine years after the fact. Isn't life funny!
Though to be fair, for the first 3.5 years of my climbing life, I still continued to think bouldering was dumb.
It wasn't until just this past November that I finally thought it wasn't completely dumb.
And it wasn't until December that I thought it was actually pretty fun.
So here is pictures of us.
Doing something maybe dumb, maybe fun.
I'm 27 and it's 2016.
I'm a perfect cube age in a perfect square year.
The numbers are aligned for it to be a grand year and let me tell you-- I'm ready for it!
Every year of my life, for as long as I can remember back, has been so exciting.
Every year, I think I've got everything figured out.
But every year, I'm always surprised.
I experience things I'd never experienced.
I feel things that I'd never felt.
From the best successes and the worst failures.
The greatest joys to the deepest miseries.
Ever year is so exciting and I love it.
Good or bad, I'm happy that I've been able to experience it all.
Is it greedy that I want more?
Don't worry Katara, 2016 is a perfect square year, so I'm sure you'll be successful in your pizza endeavors!