It’s a sunny Sunday and I am in my window-filled balcony off the bedroom, which has recently become my online classroom and place of refuge. I am listening to the wind squall, letting the blue sky imbue me with hope, and imagining those fleecy clouds as flotation rafts for my flagging body to rest on.
There are drooping sunflowers on my desk, mimicking my faltering spirit. Long-tailed birds flurry past, dipping their wings, echoing each other’s trills. I see several stalled yellow cranes as I look to my left, silent and swaying, on a break from rebuilding the Worker’s Stadium (工人体育场), a Beijing landmark of some import.
In front of me, I see The Holiday Inn Express, not something one would expect to see in a Beijing vista. Nevertheless, it gives me an infusion of joy each time I look at it because it is the hotel chain that my parents frequented and my mother loved. They would stay at the Holiday Inn Express by the Vancouver International Airport on a regular basis and then take the Skytrain in to the city: going to the public library, watching movies, walking alongside Canada Place and frequenting their favorite hole-in-the-wall restaurants along Main Street or Kingsway or going to the Spaghetti Factory in Gastown, and then stumbling back to their home-away-from home after a long day on the town. Whenever my mother called to make a reservation, she would ask for the ”Erika Rempel Special,” which involved both a discounted price and an upgraded room due to their loyalty and how my mama regularly brought the staff homemade cookies and sometimes bottles of wine.
I’m convinced that my now-deceased mama had something to do with the eye-level view I have of this hotel from our 6th floor apartment in a city of 21 million people. I wake up every morning and say, “Hi, Mommy.”
Just seeing this hotel logo allows gives me a shot of optimism that my mama was always so capable of giving. It enables me to buy the peonies in the store down the street that yesterday I thought were too expensive. It gives me the momentum to go into the kitchen and boil the potatoes and cut the dill and parsley for the potato salad I imagined making today, remembering how well-loved hers was. Though Mother’s Day was last weekend, each day I am given the gift of my mother’s generous spirit just by looking out the window.
