Words to me were magic. You could say a word and it could conjure up all kinds of images or feelings or a chilly sensation or whatever. It was amazing to me that words had this power.

Yet part of me also thinks the whole idea makes perfect sense. The three of us, leaving our differences behind, stepping on the plane together, sitting side by side, lifting off, moving West to reach the East.

I saw what I had been fighting for: it was for me, a scared child.

But now that I am old, moving every year closer to the end of my life, I also feel closer to the beginning. And I remember everything that happened that day becasue it has happened many times in my life. The same innocence, trust, and restlessness; the wonder, fear, and lonliness. How I lost myself. I remember all these things. And tonight, on the fifteenth day of the eighth moon, I also remember what I asked the Moon Lady so long ago. I wished to be found.

I learned to forgive myself, and that enabled me to forgive my mother as a person.

My mother said I was a clingy kid until I was about four. I also remember that from the age of eight she and I fought almost every day.

I was intelligent enough to make up my own mind. I not only had freedom of choice, I had freedom of expression.