#3rdstory

To my right was the side where my father’s family lived, old brick houses with shingled rooves from the past century. The cobbled streets were loud but lush with trees and lotus ponds that had petals so big they could almost hold my weight. Almost.

To my left I saw clouds break against the tips of skyscrapers. My mother’s family lived there and I spent many sunny days following my aunt in and out of bright boutiques and video game stores. I remember spraining my neck from looking up so often, trying to figure out if those buildings above me ever had an end.

Between the two shores, the Yangtze river spilled out beneath my feat and stretched towards the horizon below and beyond. Across the current, I saw ships glide over the surface. The top decks were rich with passengers who were travelling from the rural side of Nanjing to the skyscrapers across. I waved and squinted to see if the people were waving back. Luckily, they were.

I am standing in the same spot now, in 2015. I’m taller now; I don’t need to be lifted above the railing. I’m smarter too. But as I lean against the railing, I know I’m missing something. The sky is still the same pink, but I now know the hazy glow I once revered is thanks to pollution. The same pollution is why the river is perpetually russet. My mother’s side is still relatively the same, but my father’s side is different. The houses are gone now, their mysterious mazes and tiled streets were bulldozed to make way for apartment complexes. The ferries don’t see nearly as much business - most people have cars or scooters to cross the bridge with. I don’t bother waving to the people below, there’s not a lot of them left.

It’s not as if this place changed, it’s still as objectively “beautiful” as I once thought it was, the scene is still colorful and alive. But there is no romance in this vista. As I watch the sunset through my fingers, I ask myself where the wonder had gone. Maybe I outgrew it, maybe I forgot it.