30th Birthday Think Back: Part 6 "25 to 30"

25 to 30

These are the recent years. I am still living in them until tomorrow Canada time.

First of all, we moved to China when I was 25.

I remember getting here and most of the people that we knew were out of town. Thus, without any language capabilities, we stayed in most of the time. It was kind of like everything was leading towards moving to China and then when we finally showed up we didn’t know what to do next. I am still like that a lot of the time. I ask myself, “What do I do next?”.

I remember going to the English corner helping people learn English. One particular time I was sitting with a large group of Chinese students. Two of the students told me that I looked like Brad Pitt. It’s kind of true, I guess. We both have white skin and our names start with B and we are both sexy.

Moving right along, 2006 turned into 2007. 2007 was Barbara’s pregnant year. At the end of that kind of year comes a baby. Our Miles was born on December 29^th, 2007 at, I believe, 5:15pm. I remember that being a pretty hectic experience. When you have a wife who wants to have the baby without drugs, it’s hard to remind her of that when she is in pain laying on the floor of the hospital bathroom. I took a big risk in saying, “You can do whatever you want, but remember that you said that I should remind you that you don’t want drugs for this.” That could have been it for me:

“Um, I know that there is a human being coming out of your %*#)&@ right now, but listen to me, I know nothing of pain but I must remind you that you wanted to go through this in the first place.”

Why is it that guys have the easy job in this whole situation? I’m not complaining, It’s just a question.

Nevertheless, Miles was born. I remember imagining the moment before it actually happened. I was always trying to imagine what it would be like to see a little baby that looked like me, that would later call me Dad and demand that I give him hugs and kisses before I leave the house.

Miles shot out of there screaming murder. His cry hasn’t changed much to this day. I remember holding him in a bundle of blankets and thinking that he was so light that it felt like I was just holding a bundle of blankets. And there’s a heart and a brain and a soul somewhere in there.

During the first few months, when Miles would cry I would cry too. My heart could not handle it. Then I prayed that I would be able to handle it. The next day, when Miles cried I started to laugh. Then I felt bad about laughing. I’m not sure why I was laughing. But for the next 2 years or so I would laugh every time he would cry. He would look at me laughing at him in anger. I would have to hide my face when he cried so that I wouldn’t hurt his feelings. I think that I’m over it with Miles, but I still smile a bit every time Jonas cries.

I remember that Miles looked like an alien when he was born. My brother and I compared him to Quatto, from Total Recall, but upon further review that was neither nice nor a very accurate comparison.

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2008, I went on a trip to Si Chuan province, right through the area where there was a massive Earthquake a few months later that killed 70 000 human beings. Let's stop here for a moment.

Massive mountains and winding roads for hours on a bus with air condtioning. The air conditioning meant that you could not open the windows. I remember people puking all over the place. Puke sloshing against my shoes. All the while my travel companion (Namchen) slept like a baby.

Namchen is a local Tibetan friend. Earlier that year he got smashed on the back of the head with a brick and was left for dead. I remember when Jamin called me on the phone to tell me that he was in the hospital with Namchen. We had just eaten noodles with our friend Sky. I rushed to the hospital and waited with Namchen while Jamin got some money so that they could admit him into the hospital.

Later that night, the doctors told us that his neck was broken at the top of his spine, and that he probably was not going to make it. I remember hearing this and going down the hallway to cry. I got home really late. A few days later the doctors said that he was going to be okay, that the break was not as bad anymore. I remember telling Namchen that it was a miracle that he was still alive. It really was.

2009 showed up in the middle of another pregnancy. We flew home again for this one. Jonas was born and I worked the summer at camp. Compared to Miles, Jonas was born in about 15 seconds. Our doctor missed it, just like my doctor might have missed me when I was born. Jonas was also very purple when he came out, just like I must have been when I was born with the cord wrapped around my neck.

I remember when I saw Jonas how happy I was, but I also remember how quiet the room was when he came out. I realized that he was not moving and he was purple/gray. For a moment I had thought that he had died. But just as I thought that I saw that purple color get brighter until it turned pink and Jonas breathed his first breath with a giant wail. It’s crazy that Jonas breathes all the time now and I was there to witness the first.

I worked the summer at camp, Miles helped me water the little garden I had made beside my parent’s house. It was a good summer.

We came back to China for a few months and then we went to Hawaii for the film school. It is now 2010.

I remember telling everyone in the film school that my favorite movie was Tombstone. In reality, I don’t really like that movie at all. I corrected myself and said Unforgiven, which I like but it’s not my favorite. The director thought that I said Armageddon. It just kept getting worse. In the end, I think that I was able to clear things up.

I remember sitting in the front row for our speaker, Grant Curtis, who was the producer of Spiderman 3. I remember that I had written a paper on how much I disliked that movie and noticed that it was sticking out of my binder at the time. I tried to subtly push it back into the binder before he noticed it. I was able to conceal it and I am very thankful that I did.

I learned a lot in those few months. Looking back on it, I learned that you need to make crappy movies before you can make good ones. I am in between the crap right now. I think that the next one I make will be a lot better than the other ones.

Back in Canada, we took the kids out trick-or-treating. Um, I mean "harvest festivaling". I will always remember Miles choosing to be a piece of pizza for Halloween. What a cool guy! The last house we went to, just the two of us, he fell off of the step. I had to carry him home. I carried this little, crying piece of pizza home! I had never thought that I would ever carry a crying piece of pizza home.

Back to China. There have been a lot of good memories thus far. Most of them have to do with my kids and their discoveries and interaction with this country. Though, I might wait to talk about them because they all seem to be too recent to talk about now.

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I was born on Monday, May 18^th, 1981, and since then I have gone through so much of it without having any idea as to where I was going. I never would have thought that everything would take me to this desk that I am sitting at right now. I don’t really know where we’ll be a year from now, let alone 30 years. I hope that I can revisit this at that time. It will be interesting to see if I remember anything else to add to these first 30 years.

Thanks for your patience. I started out not knowing if this would be worth writing down or not. It might not be the most interesting read, but I have learned a few things, and I’m glad that I did it.

Wednesday, May 18^th, 2011