Crossing the street in China is a fluid dance, more than
a structured set of rules. The dancers
are people, cars, bikes, motorcycles, and sometimes animals, weaving patterns
of continuous motion. Lights and lines
are gentle suggestions, hints of potential boundaries.
When I first moved to Nanchang, a southeastern province
capital with five million people, I was terrified to cross the street. I will never skydive because my God-given
instincts tell me “Jumping out of the plane = death”. Similarly, my feet would freeze to the
sidewalk, my gut insisting, “Walking in front of moving cars and buses =
getting run over”. It seems wrong to
override these messages.
A couple of months later, when my street crossing anxiety
was starting to hinder my ability to explore and do life in Nanchang, a friend
gave me a valuable tip. “Find a buddy,”
she said. Not a real buddy, although
that would work too, but look for someone else who is also crossing the
street. When they move, you move. When they stop in the middle, you stop in the
middle. Relax, let the traffic flow
around you, and learn the rhythms that the local buddy knows.
Her idea was just what I needed. There was definitely still a gamble involved
in choosing a stranger buddy to lead me to safety, but I learned a lot. For instance, old ladies were the
riskiest. They crossed like they owned
the street and the cars were insignificant soap bubbles that would dissolve on
contact. It only took a few trials to
realize that students and middle aged business people crossed more my style.
Once, I ventured to a store across town that sold foreign
food items. I knew I’d have to cross a
very wide and busy street to get there from the bus stop, but I was confident
in this buddy system. Plus, they sold
chocolate chips. Enough said, right? There was only one woman around at the time,
so she was my street crossing buddy by default.
The street was faster and busier than I’d planned for and my old fears
resurfaced. Halfway across, we paused
and a bus came too close for comfort. I
closed my eyes, shrieked, and instinctively reached out and clasped her hand
tightly. With my low level Chinese, I
said, “Fear! Don’t like this!” She smiled and looped her arm through mine to
guide me the rest of the way. We made
it. The chocolate chip cookies I made later
were amazing.
I don’t live in China anymore, but this buddy system has
proved just as valuable now as it was then.
Parenting is a new system for which I have not felt adequately
prepared. I don’t understand how little
ones work most of the time. My son says,
“Cracker,” so I give him a cracker, only to have him melt into fierce tears,
rejecting the offered cracker. Minutes
later, he’s fine, eats the cracker and we move on with our lives. Or, we’re in the parking lot, so he has to
hold my hand. Except he wants nothing to
do with me. He wants to run. Hours later, when I’m making dinner, all
independence is gone and the only acceptable action is to hold him in my arms. Then, there are the bigger, more impactful
decisions involved. Like, what to do
when he’s sick, what to teach him and when, and what influences to allow or
reject. It can be scary.
So, once again, I’ve found some street crossing buddies. God has put parents of different backgrounds,
styles, and experience in my life and I’m watching them. It ranges from just watching my friends’
parenting methods to directly asking for help.
Earlier this summer, a friend was over at my house when a major tantrum
erupted. I asked her to watch me
discipline my little guy right then and coach me where I was missing the mark. She’s been through the toddler phase three
times and I trusted her input.
In China,
I eventually stopped needing a buddy and had my own way of navigating the
streets. As I grow in experience and in
being okay with mistakes, I am more confident to make parenting choices
too. You never know – maybe someday,
someone will hold my hand in the middle of their scary street and I can help
them across.
