Melancholy

It’s raining on Stinky River today. The surface of the water is ever moving and changing in brown-green dapples. It starts raining every year around this time. Kristina says practically that it’s the beginning of the rainy season, but Katrina claims that Yangzhou is crying to see us go.

I stand over the sink, washing dishes and looking out the window. In some ways, though I hardly relish a seemingly endless supply of dirty dishes, it’s still my favorite spot. Beneath the window a rusty-green trash barrel is overflowing, colorful piles of garbage scattered in soggy piles on the ground all around. A woman in a red baseball cap bends over it, picking through the remains in hopes of something salvageable. A little ways off, a straw hat lies quietly in a puddle, waiting patiently. The branches of spindly trees droop sadly.

Students walk by, their voices muffled by the quietness. Umbrellas, brought out on sunny days to shield from sun and prevent tanning, are now put to what we would consider their original use. And the rain continues to fall.

It’s hard to believe I’m leaving. Change always leaves me a little melancholy. I have put away most of my decorations to shelter from summer dust. But even so, the apartment doesn’t look nearly so bare as when I first stepped in the door last August. At that time it seemed gray and cold, and I remember being disturbed by the pasty-yellow doors. Now, even empty, it looks like home. After a year there are still a lot of things in China that seem strange and foreign. But not my apartment. I have a set of dishes and two little house plants and pictures on the fridge. Somehow because of those things I know I belong. I’m glad to go home for the summer. And in August, I’ll be glad to come back home again.