Walk Towards Happy
Nov. 1999
“You’ll get out of the subway and walk towards Happy and we’re at the end of the block.”
Simple instructions given over the phone. Rewind, rewind. Her mind couldn’t recall.
She was trying to remember the other parts of the instructions that she had jotted down while on the phone that was in the hallway. Rewind, rewind. Recall.
She had just moved to the city. Ready to create a new layer of memories over the ones she had from her wanderings after graduating from college. These all felt like new experiences to her, lacking in repetition that would make them feel familiar and old.
Not like before she left for college and her travels. The monotonous routines. Sunday church. Evening homework and test prep. Monday through Friday the foggy memory of all those hours and days spent at school. Kindergarten. Elementary school. Middle school. High school. The unacknowledged privilege of receiving an education that felt like a burden at the time. “Your priority is to study,” was the dictum of parental care. Repetition. The feeling of not having control. No control at all.
It is often said that familiarity breeds disgust. What about numbness? Numbed to existence.
Then college. Uniqueness. Distinction. Change.
Late bloomers. Delayed adult onset.
Walk towards Happy. The bright yellow sign over the door that leads to the picture of Tiananmen Square next to the hard-plastic window meant to keep bullets out but not the smell of fried shrimp and stir-fried lo mien inside the kitchen. Please accept Happy’s take-away menu, first $10 delivery free with a can of soda.
1899: Instructions to reach the golden lotus.
To reach this desired goal, the beautiful and unmatched desirability of the golden lotus, one must start at the age of four. Her feet are nimble and lithe at that age. Oh, how she giggles and squeals as you tickle her feet.
And then you break her second toe. She may cry a little. But that initial shock from the unexpected will numb her as you proceed to her next toe, breaking it from the main body of her foot. And so on down the line.
Fold them under and apply the first binding. Wrap it tight so that the next layer can hold it all in place.
Leave it on for two weeks.
Next the arches. Binding the toes down will help in this process. The arches created by the metatarsal bones will also break so that the fore front of the foot will almost reach the heel of the foot.
You are now on your way to achieving the enchanting and delectable golden lotus.
Refrain from undoing the binding too soon. Use sandalwood or incense to help cover the smell emitting from the rotting skin and flesh.
Success is almost there as you notice her gait gain a delicate balance, like a teetering doe finding its footing on shaky knocking knees. She will advantageously develop strong hips, thighs and muscular buttocks in order to propel her weight above such tiny feet. These muscular developments will also suitably enhance her jade gate in order to pleasure the jade staff.
Security. Her. You. The generation yet to be named. The golden lotus will provide that security.
Do not doubt the shiny brightness that it guarantees. Walk towards this desired goal with the suitable confidence of your ancestors. It has worked for a thousand years. Propel it into your present with short light steps.
Your ancestors will feel confident in eventually meeting their future generation in heaven for the next thousands of years.
Giving face, in order to face that future. Sacrifice.
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Passage of Time: 1999-2015
Walk towards happy.
When we become afraid to present reality as it is, then we have let fiction become stranger then the truth.
A revelatory goal. A desirable goal.
But not one guaranteed by the paths we find ourselves on, except in bits and pieces. A remembered moment, a forgotten one making it less painful.
Walking towards Happy
Addiction to Self (Destruction) – drugs
Addiction to Others (lacking sense of self)
Addiction to Work
Addiction to Indifference
Addiction to Love
Addiction to Intolerance
Addiction to Life
Addiction is perceived as bad. But it is our adaptive mechanism that drives us to seek what our bodies desire and want.
Walking towards Happy. How do your feet look?
Bonded feet wrapped and hobbled
Curled up feet crippled from polio
Bunions protruding from the dislocated big toe bone from having crammed them into shoes too narrow and sharp.
Heals pounding down the sidewalk until you see the ankle sprain from the stress
Long narrow feet with tendons straining
Wide flat feet, arches close to the ground
Elephant feet, callused and hardened from walking barefoot on the city streets
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What is it that we see or seek when we take those first steps? And then with a cane and walker… Teetering. That seems to be our default reality. Unsteady balance disguised as confident strides. One foot up. One foot down. Shuffle. Step. Stride. Run.
Head up. Head down. Head looking side to side.
Motion. Is it because we recognize the need for time to pass that we move along as well? Rooted in one place, life can still go on. But motion gives us a feeling of control over that time passed.
Instructions. And sometimes we need that in order to know where to go next. Left, right, straight ahead. Sometimes we are given adequate ones and we find ourselves promptly at our goal. Often, we are given inaccurate ones and find ourselves zigging and then zagging to where we wish to go.
And is walking really our default mode of movement? We evolved from the sea. We flipped and then flopped onto land. Our scales or thick fish skin prevented our bellies from being ripped open by rocks and sticks. We crawled with our flippers further into the brush. So many other evolutionary routes could have led us to staying low to the ground, slithering along for safety sake and developing vast societies below ground.
Over time it all wears down. The knees crack and ache. The feet sore and soaking in Epson salts. We evolved to favor able-bodied people and “accommodate” those who can’t or no longer can propel themselves forward. We left those to starve who couldn’t outrun or find their own food.
Was compassion a luxury then? If you burdened yourself with a person who could not maintain their own mobility, then would you die as well?
Procreation is also a physical burden on the one who has to do the bearing. Walking towards happy can feel like a joke when your belly offsets your balance and your feet swell to twice their size. Compassion might have come in handy then. Someone needed to stay around to help feed the person who was slower and no longer as able to catch and fend for themselves during the 9-month gestation period. Compassion to perpetuate the human race. Compassion to the determent of the giver?
------- * --------
Return: 2015
Another year about to come to an end. Turning 41. Walking towards happy.
Is that where I’m heading?
Not so with the lady next to me doing her nails. Fumes intoxicating my head.
Do I attract toxic people?
People who fill the room with their negative toxic attitude?
Or does it help me gain perspective for those with a different attitude and view?
Look but don’t touch.
Don’t let their minor demons in.
If “Bob” in David Lynch’s TV show is the manifestation of what is dark and evil “sorrow and pain” inflicted on others.
Then “Tom” is a minor demon that sucks on people’s frustrations, stress and yearnings.
Correctible only if the person is willing to find a means away from the course.
Walking towards happy.
--- * ---
Missteps even in one’s 40s. When do those even end? Or do they become worse as one ages as one finds one’s balance harder to maintain?
First steps, so often celebrated by those witnessing the moment. Felt with relief by those undertaking them. A baby’s first steps rewarded from the constant tumbles and wobbles to finally feel gravity denied their hard falls and burst of tears.
Focused intensity. One foot placed out into the air. A slight wobble as the weight shifts from the back leg. And suddenly in a quick rapidity of foot placement, allowing momentum to take hold. The baby charges forward until the child hits a wall, a table leg, something set in place.
And what does it mean to walk? Does it have to be on two legs?
What does mobility mean?
------------------------------------------------- * ---------------------------------------------
2017
Floods. There are floods that sweep in and wash everything away. And then there are floods that sit.
Photo by Creedi Zhong on Unsplash
The biblical kind that leads to plans for floating arks to save all life forms. How do rabbits survive during a flood otherwise?
This one stayed. At first it crept it in, teasing at the length of its visit. It came with the rains and settled into the rivers, bayous, heading up to the banks along the bayous and into the garage, cars, apartments, and homes.
It wanted to have its fair share in the destruction. Its counterpart of gusting winds and torrential rains had already ripped apart islands along its path- destroying places that would suffer almost a full year from its rampage. No water. No electricity. Just the elements.
But this flood ingratiated itself into the homes and communities in its path. It seemed to promise only to destroy the poorer neighborhoods near the port. But then the rains settled in and filled the reservoirs meant to protect the homes around it.
And with some warning, but not enough, to get out of its way, it was released out of its enclosures.
Into the multimillion-dollar headquarters of oil industry giants — BP, Exon and Shell.
Modern floods are a means of death laden cleansing. Baptismal bath for those who don’t believe in the man-made acts but God sanctioned ones.
If we are to believe modern floods are an act of God, a higher being’s direct action, then our myths are realities.
The Greek myth of the flood that destroyed the earth and left only an old man and his wife to repopulate it. We are a legacy of them following their god’s order to throw stones, the earth’s bones, over their shoulders to create the next generation of humans. We are the stones of the earth.
In one Chinese mythology, a great flood destroyed the earth and only a brother and his sister remained. The sister objected to repopulating the earth through incest, but the brother tricked her and they married. The next generation of humans are the result of the brother killing their misshapen first born and scattering his remains around the earth. We are the products of rendered incest.
If we accept modern floods as a result of divine intervention or just act of nature, then where is our divine intervention or human intervention to stop them?
Instead, after Hurricane Harvey, Irma, Katrina and Maria humans remained helpless to restore basic utilities in adequate time or allowed places to flood despite adequate prevention being possible. Typhoons on a scale never seen before in the Pacific. What mytho-reality will we create from those?
Houston and Harvey, unwanted alliterations. But Houston made headlines due to its significant economic stature worldwide.
Beaumont, Lake Conroe, Vitoria, Corpus Christi, Galveston, Rockport — an endless list of smaller towns littered along the highways and freeways that fell in the path of these rain bearing hurricanes, experiencing wind-destroyed homes or after-the-fact flooded homes.
This flood lingered. And with its extended visit it created a moist environment for the mold spores to settle into the walls and all remaining areas left exposed. And once the water receded, the spores settled into the leather chairs and seats and any organic matter they could breed in.
Bacteria thrived as well in this sewage filled water. Human defense could not withstand it. The oil headquarters’ sandbag walls were washed over.
Light-as-a-feather 10-pack paper towel rolls — soaked through, dragged out in garbage bags with the weight of an adult male.
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Aging: 2017
Mother care, after care of mother. How such a frail frame once birthed two frail creatures each weighing at least 7 lbs. Now standing in that glaring white light of the hospital room with two attendants in front and behind her changing her adult underwear. 5’5” now 5”, shoulders hunched up and stomach pouch instead of baby bump.
Happy is gone. Now there’s a deli on the corner of Washington Ave and Fulton St. Walk towards the banner covered awning announcing the new business in the area. If it’s there in a year’s time, walk towards the 32oz potato chip bag lined windows with the posters of available craft beers.
Did the kids go to college? Were the parents able to sell Happy once the eldest child earned his 1st full year salary as a marketing analyst with his MBA from one of the city colleges?
Or the high interest rate on the loans taken for both children’s higher education meant that the fried rice and chicken wings ordered 50 times a day could not pay them off even with the occasional order of the seafood delight stir-fry?
You can walk towards the daily special lunch meats but not towards Happy. The golden yellow sign is gone.
Perhaps it was torn down during the same month that the hurricanes and fires rampaged across the country.
When else could Happy have disappeared from its reassuring corner of business with it being an easy stop by after exiting the subway?
How old are they now? With at least 17 years of time spent sweeping the small interior ordering space and washing rice grains each day for the huge rice cooker in the back of the kitchen but in view of the plastic cage. If both of them were 7 and 9 in 1999, add those years up and now they are 24 and 26.
Fruit of their parents’ wage and labor. An investment for the next rice cooker only meant for small family-sized meals instead of serving 30 people. Perhaps, free dental work if the youngest found his calling to service teeth that tore through the sweet and sour chicken.
But you can’t walk towards Happy any more.
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Walk towards a circular future. One that rotates back on itself.
Would you be OK with that? When you’re hoping for forward motion and realize that you are lapping back around to where you started.
Peaceful beginnings and abrupt unknown middles and death crawled towards with little idea of how to change the beginning. The “how did I end up here” question.
Promising starts. But why can’t we say the same about endings? Promising ends.
A promising start. Your child has a promising start.
A promising end. Your child has a promising end.
Poetry in motion from the first kicking and screaming start. Great expectations. Great detonation.
Ending at the beginning.
That’s where we start.
42. The beginning can feel like it’s over. The expectation of building towards some future should be gone. That future should have been achieved.
Home ownership. Car ownership. Relationship ownership. Child’s future ownership. By 42.
The beginning has ended. The moments in life to look forward to:
1st kiss
1st time having sex
1st time falling in love
1st steps
That list grows shorter for some. Instead it’s replaced by familiarity. Aching familiarity. With the last remaining.
1st death
------ * ------
If we walk back in time. What would we find? Chicken bones to define a new epoch for the life of time on earth.
Mistakes, circles and resolutions.
My mother’s dementia. Mental layers buried and those on top never settling, blown away faster than those below.
Dementia. Dust storm. Nothing can take root. Instead we keep moving forward till there is no longer any land to settle.
Experience. Forgotten.
Experience. Forgotten.
The refreshing reality that it will always feel new.
The harsh reality that it’s only a rehashed experience.
Walk towards Happy.
A direct order. Directions clearly given.
A self-directed course of action willed by me.
---- * ----
Death: 2018
Walk towards happy.
Age 43. When she found herself raising two children, her last child born 10 years ago. She had to anticipate her happiness giving way to theirs.
Keeping busy with busy work. Church. Girl Scout leader. School activities as they came up. Carpool - always late. Kept busy by family obligations.
What part of that resonated with who she was?
Bowling? An activity populated by middle-class white women smoking away in dark bowling alleys.
33. Her last child born and when the aches began. Misdiagnosed until thoroughly and frighteningly diagnosed.
76. Living in an apartment again. Starting over after flooding away of their dream home.
Wrappings for bond feet and then bowling shoes.
The green machine (ford station wagon) first in olive oil green and then in pale lime green.
Her chariot. Her means of freedom.
Dad’s Toyota - work car.
Mom’s Ford - family car.
Walk towards happy. How much of her changed that path or the path changed her?
Savored little moments:
An associate degree.
A real estate license.
Teaching English in Burma.
Choices.
Based on what?
Opportunities she fought for or that were available.
Have to keep busy.
Can’t leave my dad alone.
Another generation. Seemingly more doors to open.
But same age, different time. Finding fewer doors. Choices that were made and choices that failed.
I should be living the future I envisioned for myself in my twenties now.
Sharing a story of “what ifs.” We tell ourselves “it’ll be ok.”
Who can take care of themselves? Don’t most of us want to be taken care of? Then who takes care of the caretakers?
Creating a reason for people to listen. We should have put our priority on that.
Multi-directional approach to make their life happen.
We stick with the tried and true approach.
Shoulder on. Foot solider on. Why do you want to power forward when the end seems near?
Multiple routes. We are told to look, find. But then with a certain footwork.
----- + -----
The year 2015. The millennial child is now celebrating his 15th birthday. Skateboard in hand walking down the streets. The beginning of a new century. So confident. So sure. So open.
Possibilities.
A birthday in the discussions. Who was going to show up. How much and little parental presence.
Fast forward.
2018. Heading off to college if given the chance. For some, they’ve just completed a year of college.
2019. Sophomore year in college. Or working their second job after high school. Or supporting their family. Or still in an institutional camp waiting for a home.
----- + ----
One of the most complicated aspects of human interactions is when things are done for you unasked for.
Unwanted sexual advances.
Unwanted praise.
Unwanted advice.
Unwanted attention.
And so on with other life moments. Birthdays. I did not ask to be born. But I am very grateful for this opportunity to exist during this moment of time.
But when we celebrate it, it comes with a burden of receiving well wishes and gifts that one may not have asked for.
Just like life. You didn’t ask for it. But it happened.
And on the whole you are grateful for the thought.
But the actual manifestation of that appreciation comes with complications and burden.
A monetary expense. An emotional expense. A time and effort expense.
So who ends the day enjoying it? Hopefully both the giver and receiver. That is the ideal scenario.
But when that’s not the case? When a mother gave birth to a life that wasn’t planned?
The resentment begins. The child - I didn’t ask for this. The mother - neither did I.
And so on with birthday gifts. And it happens every year. Whether you celebrate it or not. It is a reminder.
I didn’t really want this candle that smells of strong scents that makes me sneeze. But thank you any ways for this birthday gift.
Walk towards the next bright yellow sign in your path.
About Mo-Yain Tham
Mo-Yain Tham is a queer Asian American born and raised in Texas. Since 1999, she has lived on and off in Brooklyn, NY. She can be found actively absorbing films and books while making a living challenging workplace norms.