The bend on the road



 "It’s when I’m weary of considerations,

And life is too much like a pathless wood

Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs

Broken across it, and one eye is weeping

From a twig’s having lashed across it open"

Robert Frost, "Birches" (1969)

The thought of quoting Birches for the opening of this month's blog sprang into my mind one morning, while I was walking past the train tracks, where rows of ivory birches flourished. Their twisting twigs pierced the cumulus clouds in the deep azure summer sky, while the wild roses, entangled in their mazes of shrubs, silently bloomed. The ducks, the frequent visitors of the stream running under the track, were unusually quiet today, except for a few cackles coming from the shrubs. Everything exuded the aura of daydreaming on a late June morning.  Holding my backpack's straps together, I strode past the tree-lined cul-de-sac to reach the bend on the road, where stood my school's vast field. A good many of the students had already arrived, hugging and screaming at each other as they step out of their shiny cars. The trickles of laughter and cheery voices filled my ear as I approached the parking lot and the entrance. The last day of school finally arrived, but this time it brought not waves of relief but rather calm ripples of nostalgia. 

Just only petunias

It seemed like only yesterday that I was controlling the swarms of butterflies in my stomach as the first day back to school in two years approached. After almost a year trapped in one of the largest lockdowns ever in Vietnam, where I spent most of my day lolling on the hammock fumbling with ebooks, I climbed on a plane and return to the whirlwind of pre-pandemic life. Well, almost. I wasn't prepared for hopping up and down the bus on rainy days, returning to a building filled with fifteen hundred students from 8 to 4 every day, and spending evenings listening to The Organic Chemistry Tutor for Physics. Still, I managed to navigate through the torrential drizzles of Vancouver with the help of morning cups of chocolate, the warmth radiating from my friends' hugs when the heater was shut down at school, and the rhythm of Ghostly Kisses on the 25 bus on my way home. Then came the first snowflakes and ended the semester, as fast as it came by. I bade adieu to the time-entrenched hallways of my old school in Vancouver as I lingered my gaze on the red brick building where I shared two years of memories.

I arrived at my current school in the second week of February to begin the last half-share of high school. My new school, which is located at the southernmost corner of the city, brought a fresh change yet also an air of familiarity that reminded me of my old school in PEI. Flags of all nations waved proudly at the foyer under bright beams of sunlight shining from the lush courtyard, while the aroma of freshly baked goods filled the air. Admittedly, my feelings toward it weren't love at first sight, but I finally got used to the pace at the new place, such as having two language classes back to back, making a wooden set of Chinese knot puzzles without even knowing how to solve it, making slime in Chemistry class, and having a friend labeling the finished product "scrambled egg". The coming of the second semester also saw many of my firsts: first time staying at school late in the evening to watch the annual musical (Into the Woods), first time joining Math Club (which, to my quirky surprise, was composed of four members), and first time getting an executive position in a school club (after four months in!). The last four months of the school year flew by even quicker than the first month, leaving me dazed under the June sun along with a bowl of shaved ice, thinking about how much this rollercoaster of a school year has thrown me.

Mi dulce clase de español donde veía un montón de alpacas todos los días y nunca paría de reír

Lunchtime show!

It's all sunshine and rainbows until the bouncy castle got pricked

An extraordinary move with the drill for my wooden cup

And so it be, the summer days grow like the tomato plant in my front yard, even knowing that this can't last forever. Watching the succulent stems fluttering under the breeze, I started contemplating the ephemerality of life. I especially embraced the pattern of ephemerality, which I learned from my favorite subject - history. As time flows, regimes rise and fall in tandem with civilizations and societies. At first glance, one might assume that entropy dominates the universe: things never stay the same. However, it is this very fluctuation that characterizes our eternal being, as changes must be omnipresent - see the paradox? Without this concept of evanescence, we would not recognize how we can hold onto our most basic tenets. As someone who is about to face a possibly life-changing decision next year, which is my post-secondary choice, I feel this notion more than ever. As much as I am excited about the next summer, I can feel the uncertainty seeping in. College applications aside, I am just anxious that amidst the thrusts of new responsibilities and roles in life, will I be just the same? Will I still be counting rosebuds, talking my friends to death about the superiorities of fish sauce, the vibing to the soundtrack of Lawrence of Arabia, or keeping that insane Duolingo streak?

Yet, some things never change. In just a few more days, I will be back in the land of spontaneous downpours, the endless streams of traffic, and the tantalizing aroma of grilled meat on the corner of the street. I will be listening to the pulse of Saigon traffic from dawn till dusk, watering the loofa gourds on the balcony, and counting airplanes as I delighted in the saccharine taste of fresh lychees. I will also be swiping the trickles of sweat on my forehead in the engulfing August humidity to no avail of the humming of the ancient ceiling fan, mumbling under my breath when YouTube lags out of the blue, and deafening my ear with the booms of karaoke microphones during the wee hours. And yet, I will be missing all of this as I try to sleep under the seatbelt on the flight back home, knowing that on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, there is always still a roof waiting for me to sojourn under.

"Earth’s the right place for love:/I don’t know where it's likely to go better."

Robert Frost, still "Birches"

Always have been there

Thumbnail: Lulu Island, one of my favorite spots ever. Why did it take me so long in life to discover how majestic Panorama mode looks?

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