As the Constellations

By Yewen Wu

In the dark and unlimited universe, earth is just one of maybe a trillion planets. We gave it an intimate name – “Our Home Place”. If earth is a big place for humans and other creatures, then what does a “place” represent to individual people in the earth?  Which place would we define as our “home place”?

When we admired the sky from earth, we saw stars. Numerous stars formed many different constellations in our minds. Our ancestors gave different names to the constellations based on their shape using their imagination, such as Scorpius, Virgo, and so on.

Every important age in my life is marked by a move to a new place. “Migrate” is always in my “dictionary” for either subjective or objective reasons. To define a place as a home became a hard description for me. I think if all these “places” that I moved represent “stars” in my constellation, then I must have my own group of stars that could form a pattern – my own constellation.

The location of the “stars” in the constellation seems to be very important to people. We are always likely to ask the same question, “Where are you from?”, after asking what a person’s name is. This type of question normally assumes a specific “place” as the answer: simply put, we could answer that we came from Europe, The Middle East or Asia…. On the other hand, we could specifically say a small town in Changsha City, Hunan Province in the South of China.  Curiosity toward a place is produced by our public media and human imagination. A question about the place usually is a question related to the person. It is also a simple background inquiry. The name of a place could give the questioner some basic knowledge in order to learn about a person.  In this type of conversation, we could talk fun and make people laugh, and have a short relaxing conversation. Conversely, sometimes people get offended by provoking “speech,” like about religion and politics. Even though the person did not mean to offend.  However, a ‘place’ seems to always be an essential topic to talk about. We all have a place that we lived, have been living, or will live. A place bears too much for a person. Yet, we should always believe that everyone is different even if they came from the same place. Even twins from the same uterus are different.

I have lived in three countries. These places imperceptibly influenced my sensation and personality. As Richard Ford wrote that a “place” as a “home” to people is “a change of idea.” I would also think humans as masters of the earth of all its creatures, we are a ‘variable body’: We grow up in the places. My mother always said, “People won’t change where their personality is already formed.” It seems right, but not true.  It is a blinkered vision of human creativity. We are humans as masters of the earth of all its creatures, and our mind is above a place. As Richard Ford’s word, a place we were “will-lessly born.”  I believe a “place” is an environment to people that affects us the most.  I would use “circumstances” to express “places” in another way. In these many years, I wonder how does the migration from place to place affected who I am, and which “place” on my own constellation could be my home?

My first ‘place’ as the ‘star’ from my constellation was my birthplace. I was born in a small town. I spent almost my whole childhood in the countryside. It was my grandparent’s house and was connected to my parent’s house. It had a patio in the front, and a pond before the patio. The house was located in the middle of a hill, along with other houses in the village. Behind the house is a mountain that went all the way to the top without any inhabitant. There were many small dirt roads going through the neighborhood. Beside the road grew some unknown flowers and plants. I used to dig one small plant’s roots from the mud. I would put it in my mouth. The root was a little sweet on the one part, but bitter another part. I did not know where I learned these things. I looked for these little creatures as enthusiastically as Columbus searched for the New World.

The view from the house was broad.  I could see the road started at our little pond in front of the house and then curved down to a small train station, which was the only station in the town. When standing in the front yard, on the left side of the house, and looking down, it was a beautiful lay out. In the distance, they were a few rice fields, cut like a cake into the landscape. In the vicinity was a well that sat next to a big lake, separated by a small cement road. I fondly remember two women walking side by side on the road, with buckets on their shoulders, and barely able to pass together on the road. They were always careful and polite. Women usually wash their clothes beside the well.  I heard their laughing voices drifting through the fresh air in the morning and afternoon. I liked standing by the camellia japonica trees beside the pond in front of the house, as I would gaze into the distance. I loved the smell of camellia japonica trees flower. Their flowers were white and pink. I had a few intimate little buddies that I would play with on the road after school. It was really fun. I remember we explored for some leftover sweet potatoes underground. After the potato harvest, there was always a few green leaves left on the ground, their rhizomes connected inside the land. It was so attractive to me to look for which rhizomes may have had sweet potatoes connected to them. Sometimes I was disappointed. But sometimes I was really excited. One rhizome connected another, getting heavy and deeper into the land. When that happened, you started to know there was something underground. Something that you needed to pull out of the ground. The excitement of finding these sweet potatoes was more exciting than finding a friend in a game of hide and seek. Because you never know what each sweet potatoes looks like. It was also as a “booty” in front of your friends. We cheered our victory. It was memorable.

Other than that, most of time I played with ‘silent creatures’ in the countryside. My father came back home only on big holidays. I remember, one time, he brought a toy helicopter with a remote control, instead of a doll toy. I was so excited when he came in the door and showed me the gift. Even though I was not really cheered up by the toy, but I still felt really happy to see my father. He grew a long beard that scratched my cheeks when he kissed me. Sometimes my mother would go with my father to the city after I turned school age, so my grandparents took care of me. My grandmother was a lovely little sweet lady. I heard, after I was older, that she came back from the big city of Shanghai and married my grandfather. My grandfather was really good looking. He was tall and thin. He always smoked a pipe when he was not working. When I was only 4 years old he fell down from a steep hill walking me to the school in winter. He got hurt badly, but I was safe. My grandfather protected me.

In this place I learned all the simplest things in my life. I drew many strange patterns on the floors with chalk. I would feed cows, pigs, chickens and ducks. I went up to the mountain behind the house looking for black mushrooms in the grass. This place gave me the start to my life. It was nature. It was simple. I literally did not have any desire for material possessions. I only wished my parents could stay with me more. A few years later, when I went back to my first school again, I couldn’t imagine how I could have stayed every minute in that poor classroom where chickens pooped on the floor.

One ‘star’ from my constellation was a small city that my parents took me to live with them after I was about 6 years old. This was one of my ‘places’: Colorful light and noise, smaller living rooms. The school was much bigger with a lot of kids. The people there spoke different languages. I had a difficult time catching up with that new environment. I missed my grandparents and the simple environment. Mostly, I wished to play with my old countryside friends. This place gave me some different feelings. I had to fit in it. I was really scared the teacher would ask me questions in the class. I worried others would laugh at my unclear language and accent. When a person has no choice to live in a place, which a person will have to try to fit in that place. Eventually I seemed to become one of them.

Candies and ice cream in the city did not really fascinate me. I am sure I liked them, but they did not make me as happy as when my grandfather came to see me. He took me to the ice cream store. I saw a frozen white Popsicle in a machine with ice on the inside wall. He handed it over to me with his rough hand. I was hesitant to take it because I was worried my parents would know. He told me that he will keep this as a secret just between us.

My grandfather came from my first place. He gave me something that I never had in the countryside. It felt like a wonderful combination.

Every summer we would take a five hours drive back to the countryside. We liked to sit around the patio ate great sweet watermelons, pears, seeds and peanuts. I played with my sisters. It was really relaxing and pleasant.

Things have never been the same in life, my grandfather left us in his young age. Grandmother had to leave the countryside to live with my father’s brothers. My first place, my first star, was gradually deserted and abandoned. It was covered with the dust of my childhood memories.

I lived in that city for many years until high school. But every time I changed schools I moved farther from my parent’s home. Life became busy and seemed to have only one purpose. I moved into a provincial college. A bigger city. I was trying to learn more about painting. I finally could be just be myself and free. In the university we were shopping for clothes to make us look prettier. I spent a lot of time watching foreign movies and playing computer games. I tasted different foods and dated boys. I did not even want to go back home when it was summer time. Four years went really fast. I felt that I did not learn anything from the textbooks. But I learned everything else. It was a quick ‘place’ I stayed.

Tokyo should be another ‘star’ as another ‘place’ from my constellation. I wanted go somewhere more interesting and different. I dreamed of becoming a famous artist in Tokyo. I wanted to know about the outside world. I made bold decisions.

After my airplane landed at Narita Airport, everything was so different and so the same to me. I had a bizarre feeling when I was watching the outside of the window sitting on the bus at dusk. It was so silent. This city was a big magnet to different people. It was not just difficult for me to learn the language, it was hard to learn the culture, customs and manners.  I myself was like one of many fishes swirling in a big ocean. Work was as hard as school. My mind felt like it was floating in the sea. Nothing was really rooted in this place. But collectively the places I have been, my mind expanded.

This was the second biggest city in the world. Everything seemed really fast in this city. Big and bigger buildings, bright and brighter lights, technology everywhere. It was really beautiful, everything here was well organized. I jumped into in a colorful beautiful world. Cute and cuter clothes, magic make up, amazing technology. It was women’s heaven! After a few years I started feeling tired of pushing myself into Tokyo subways, which were as crowded as ant hills. The same advertisements posted on the subway walls flashed by the train windows with deadly speed. My mind was getting squeezed smaller and smaller, like the living space in Tokyo. I felt I could not breathe well. Oh, Maybe I supposed to be just a country girl. But on the other hand, here was so many wonderful materials that tempted everyone. They were everywhere.

I flew many times in the last year between China and Japan. City to city. Bigger one to small one. I felt they were so different, but same in one point.

My mom always said, “We will go back to the countryside where we came from someday.”

I doubted, “Really? I do not think we will.”

I did go back to my first place after a long time. Everything had changed. The house looked dilapidated. Weeds covered the patio. Nobody had lived there for a long time. Spider webs were in the corner full of leaves. Some of neighbors built their new houses on the right side of the house. There were no flowers anymore. The train station was empty as well. I can tell the only ticket window had been closed for a long time. I did not even realize how small this station was. It was bigger in my memory.

Places telling stories about the person. The interesting part is how the place affected to a person, and what left into a person’s heart. I could not answer which one is my home for all these place I have moved to. I would rather thinking my whole constellation by “stars” connected each other would form into a shape of my home.

As another “place” from my constellation, Boise is a wonderful desert city. I truly loved the wonderful mountains here. They were so pretty.  I could not ever imagine how a desert city would looks like. A beautiful snake river lay beside the majestic canyon. You would amazing how great this planet is when you stood on the top of the cliff gazing into distance. It was completely different view in my life. I took my little 4 years old son went to hike and biking on the trials. I wanted him to be able to close to the nature as I did in my first place. I want myself in his place that he would happy to think about this first his place. My constellation of places would connect to his, I wonder, how that would looks like.

Works Cited

Ford, Richard. “At Home, For Now.” Seeing & Writing 4. Eds. Donald McQuade &    Christine McQuade. Boston: Bedford /St. Martin’s, 2010. 182-185. Print.