today i attended my grandma’s choir’s end of year performance. picture in your mind’s eye: somewhere down a beijing hutong on a cold winter’s day, a room full of singing chinese grannies. there is not a man in the room, and i am the youngest person there by a few decades.
my grandma leans over between performances: “i’m going to go to the bathroom,” she says.
i nod. “i come?”
she shakes her head. “no, no, you stay here.”
as she leaves, an elderly lady behind her looks over at me and says “you should go with her!”
i obediently get up and follow my grandmother out the door. as i follow her out the door, another lady smiles a crinkly smile at us both. “how nice,” she says. referring to me escorting my grandma to the bathroom.
“what are you doing?” my grandma asks, upon realizing i have followed her out the door.
“uh, going to the bathroom.”
“you’re not going just to accompany me, are you?
“no, i have to go.”
“did you bring paper?”
“no.”
“oh…you’re going to need to go back and get some then, i only have enough for me.”
“oh. i mean. i brought some.”
“ok.”
she walks into a stall. i walk into a stall. i take my pants off and squat, but don’t pee. i get up, zip up, and wait for her to finish. i walk her back. more grannies smile and nod in approval.
hog maw 
so interesting the slew stories to be told when we just stop…. and pay attention to past iterations of ourselves — our ancestors (i don’t know if it’s weird, but I like to think of my family as versions of myself in another dimension, narcissistic much? but really, like my father was me if i’d been born male and in the 50s with certain genetic alteration, right? the science is not that far off — don’t break my bubble) But honestly, when I stop and look at my grandfather, notice his behavior, the way he process life, how he chooses to make every micro decision, i like to imagine myself in that body, imagining that a part of me is in there making those decisions as well. I digress, the point is that reading your anecdote, I can’t help but imagine your grandmother’s perspective// in parallel of how you are viewing the minutia. her delight and fear of having you come to her performance, her awareness on bringing such a young child into her aging crowd, what will she think? she must wonder. oh she wants to accompany me to the bathroom, what to say, I can’t let her think of me as a weak, withering, needing of assistance, oh she’s not peeing, is she afraid, lets just walk back. the moral of the story is: sometimes, for everyones sake, you hold your pee. haha
apologies for the rubbish ranting
Anyways, love your page, and love the inner monologues it generates within me.
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