Where to place my feet?

The weather is slowly starting to provide glimpses of spring time. The wind still whistles in through my poorly sealed windows in the night, and I'm still doing everything possible to warm up my hands in our frosty office at the school. But good omens are upon the winds. As I walked down JinmaLu in Kaifaqu today, I heard a rustling in some trees and the cheerful chirping of some birds who were obviously longing to break out of their winter funk. The ice on the BoHai Sea has melted and departed from the beaches and bays around Daheishi. As I walked around Kaifaqu today, I noticed that I had forgotten to wear my long-johns under my jeans (a first, since probably early December), but I wasn't cold or even slightly uncomfortable. Just the other day I was telling people that I felt like Spring was upon us... they told me to get a grip and stick my head out the window to see if this was true. But now, my friends... I'm happy to say I told them so.

I realize that by saying this, I'm likely going to be responsible for causing the biggest spring cold-snap China's ever seen. But, I'm willing to assume that this is all just the power of positive thinking. Perpetually self-critical but outwardly optimistic. I think my running shoes are going to get some quality time on the asphalt in coming weeks.

Living out here has been a strange experience, where I have a foot in two different communities but don't real feel like a part of either. Every Monday to Friday, I assume my position at the front of my classroom and attempt to instill a bit of learning into the minds of my middle school kids. I live on campus, I eat lunch at the cafeteria, and play badminton with some of the students periodically. I go for dinner with some of the teachers, and go running up the highway near the school when the weather permits. But I still don't have a thing on my walls... and I feel like I'm perpetually living in wait. I've kept trying to get positions over at the high school throughout the year, and I had a lot of hope that our school would actually change locations before the end of the school year. Why get settled when you're just going to move soon anyways, right? So even though I live here, it has never quite felt like home.

Then every weekend, I run off to Kaifaqu to spend the weekends with the Seaths. They're the most gracious people on the planet to let me crash on their couch every weekend for 8 or 9 months. That's real friendship. I'm sure they're ready to tell me to get my own place, but they haven't said so yet. I've befriended a tonne of people from the high school, but it often remains in the context of being Darren and Mandy's friend. Not always, but definitely sometimes. And since I have to head back out here every Sunday afternoon and I don't have my own place in Kaifaqu, my flexibility is pretty limited to do and go where I want if I was to have my own plans. I desperately want to be a member of that community, but I am limited in that ability. And even though I am a part of things I feel as though I want to be a more independent part of it. But I can't. It's kinda frustrating. Even though I've hung out with and made plans with people from the high school here and there, they all have their lives and their activities and their events planned out. Fitting me in seems like a big challenge. And maybe since they only ever see me a handful of times a month, it's more work than anything. I keep a foot in that world regardless (I think I'd go bananas out here otherwise), but I still can't really be a full-fledged member. It's like being a constant acquaintance but little more. It's like that way with travelling... you meet someone, you get on really well with them, and then you leave. You may keep in touch for a while, but most times it just fades away. All that effort for a likely reality that you'll never see each other again. Feels that way out here.

And now that I think of it, I'm living in China. So I guess I inhabit three estranged communities.

Now that the Ides of March are upon us and everyone's starting to talk about home. The Seaths are flying out at the start of July as D has his Masters program. A few of the other awesome people I've met here are leaving to move back to Canada after being here for a few years. The returning teachers are swooping down on the soon-to-be-vacated apartments like vultures on a tepid corpse. People are talking about summer plans and where they're going and how they can't wait to be done with the year. And I can't make any plans. I don't know when my last official day of work is, I don't know if I have a job for the fall yet, I don't know if I'll need to look for an apartment in Kaifaqu for September, and I don't know what I'm going to do if I don't get on with the high school. I have some ideas, but the job application anxiety is hitting me hard right now. It's distracting me... making my sleep restless and is making my gut do backflips. But as spring time thaws and I start to stretch my legs and get that little hint of ambition, I try hard to have something to focus on. It's just a world of flux, as per usual.

T