After twenty-three hours of travel, I peeled off my heavy hiking boots the second I entered my apartment. They were still dusty, with traces of cow dung. Mongolian memories.
I opened my duffle bag and a waft of sour whiff welcomed me. The smell of dirty kids, kids who haven’t washed, nor changed their clothes for a while. I spent my last night in Mongolia’s capital Ulaanbaatar, participating in a “collection” of street children. I’ve worked closely with one of the local childcare centers and its staff for the last two years, but this was the first time I participated in a raid.
In 2008 I was hired to shoot a documentary about street children in Ulaanbaatar. One boy volunteered to tell his story. That boy is now “my” boy and calls me his “long distance mom”.
While the kids are close, I never really mind the smell. But half way around the globe, in the safety of my Manhattan apartment, I realized that the smell also entailed some traces of fear, fear of the unpredictable lives these kids are leading. I took the entire duffle bag and went to the Laundromat to dump it in the washer. When I returned home, I was relived that my apartment smelled like me again.
But after puttering around for a while I realized that I wasn’t ready to be back. I wasn’t feeling New York yet; my heart was still in Mongolia, with my kids, the five I had “collected” over the last two years and agreed to be responsible for. Just as I had before I wondered how I, a true New Yorker who can’t get enough of this pulsating city, ended up in Mongolia, in the middle of nowhere, living in a yurt, shoveling manure and cooking three meals a day. I asked myself how I ended up leading a life, at least part time, that couldn’t be more opposite from what I had envisioned for myself, or knew off! Yet, out there I feel an ease and contentment that New York has been denying me.
I wanted both worlds, so I put my dirty boots back on. I called a friend and we met for drinks in my favorite bar. He shook his head, smiling, when he saw my country footwear. When I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer, I went home. I laid down, dangling my feet over the edge of the bed. As long as I wore my boots, part of me was still in Mongolia. I could not be fully converted back into my New Yorker self in these unfashionable, practical, dirt-welcoming shoes.
The printed version in the magazine is shorter, edited by the magazine.
This is a beautiful and concise document of love and all its tangental responsibilities, work and massive amounts of thought to "do the right thing" here and now, while the problems and their solutions are seized up and implemented thousands of miles away. Shoes. Something we can all relate to every day.
ReplyDeleteThis is such a lovely story! Full of emotion and moral heft and dignity. You're such a brave woman!
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