bird's eye view

Another Lan Samantha Chang quote I love! from her novel Inheritance.

Like all children, I was born into the middle of a story I didn't know, and I was raised to be unknowing, tranquil in its center. But glimpses of this story reached my eyes. 

A tranquil center reminds me of a soft chewy candy!  It's funny because when you're in the middle of something, it's often when your vision is the most obstructed, even though you're closest to the action (middle of traffic, eye of a hurricane).  You need some time to get a good look at what's going on.  Sometimes I look back at growing up and childhood and they seem almost deceptive.  The way time passed was so liquid and slow, like glass, and there seems to be a strange glow to what "was."  What you thought about your parents and relatives shift and change or are exposed under different lights.  I didn't hang out much with my relatives when I was little, not much with my dad's, and my mom's were so scattered around the world, so it seemed like my immediate family was a single unit, independent of others.

I can't think that anymore - of course my parents and their parents, their actions, what they did, what they loved, what they didn't, is that under layer and I inherit it without meaning to.  I've usually thought of making my own way and coming back home as mutually exclusive, but I was talking to a few teachers at lunch at school one day, and one of them brought up this idea of "recreating home" when you move out and have your own place.  Which really makes sense to me.  I do that too!  I want to make home food and buy my own pair of chopsticks.  I guess to a certain extent, we're making the same rounds, going over the same stories, but experience them differently as we get older, like rereading a book.  I keep meaning to reread Anne of Green Gables (ha!) every time I go home and see it on my bookshelf...