I've traveled a lot in my life. One of the most startling things that ever happened to me was when I visited Hong Kong once in my twenties and, as a whimsical joke, went to one of those old men sitting behind a make-shift, cardboard "desk" who read fortunes all day long for less than HK$5. As I sat there, completely cynical and full of youthful mockery, he began to tell me crazy stories of my family, things I had no knowledge of (until now), things only I experienced as a child, my personality, my passions. As each story unfolded, the wider my mouth dropped and the faster my heart beat.
"Your father, he gave this to you." (the old man waved his hand around the air, nonchalantly)
"No," I protested, smirk on my face. "I paid for this myself. I work and make money and..."
"No, you don't understand. You father, his life, the way he lived it, became yours. He...traveled much? He gave you many passports, and made you opportunities?" asked the old Cantonese fortune teller. (we lived like nomads, moving almost every 2-4 years when I was a child)
"Uh, yes, I guess," was all I could manage to say. I started thinking.
"You will not lead a life in tradition. You will see many things. You have already seen many things. Many good, some very bad. You have been in bad water with friends. You have been in bad air, ready to die," (I almost drowned in San Diego while trying to prevent my friend from drowning, and I almost died in a plane crash in China)
"Wait, how did you..."
"You will go many places. Many more. Most of them will not be easy, but you will find life happiness. You will be happy, and reincarnated to the next level," he concluded.
I hang on to this sentiment each and every day.
1 comment:
This guy sounds like the next Miss Cleo. Seriously, though, from what you've told me about your dad and your childhood, and what I know of you now, your father gave you an enormous gift. Of course, you had the raw materials to do something wonderful with that gift.
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