BEYOND BOUNDARIES
I always loved to travel.
To see the world. Taste new flavors. Meet new people and ways of life I’d never seen or imagined before.
I took trips alone or with friends, near or far; accessible places and really difficult-to-get-to places. Whether I had the convenience of a common language or not, if I felt my heart pointed there, with a small amount of money in my hands—I was there.
It was, perhaps, more a creative project in action than anything else. As I look back on my journeying, it is clear to me that I was always eager to discover the commonality of humanity across the globe. I was hungry to see and feel, to know and confirm what I had already begun to deeply surmise—that somewhere beneath all of our differences, ALL HUMANS share an undeniable commonality, something of an essence to being human, which is really, the most important thing to all humans.
When I was eighteen, I traveled from Tokyo to Israel to visit a friend who was in her first year at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. We spent a week taking various buses and traveling through Israel: ancient ruins, the Dead Sea; historical sites, and the ocean. Wherever we felt like going. We let the richness of culture and history, as well as the food and lifestyle, oo-and-aah us as we pleased.
Then I learned that the second week of my stay was to coincide with the Hebrew festivities of Pesach. As my friend explained how all the restaurants, stores, and transportation would stop operating for the whole week, we began to feel a little confined. This led us to the next brilliant idea—“Let’s get out of Israel!”
To us, it was as simple as:
Shall we go to Jordan to see the Petra?
Or shall we hit Egypt and check out the pyramids?
Within minutes we set our hearts on Egypt, packed our backpacks, and looked up logistics on how to acquire a visa to enter Egypt.
I called my dad up in Tokyo. “Papa, I’m going to Egypt tomorrow,” I said excitedly.
“What?! Wow! Okay, be careful then,” he said tentatively.
But we both knew that I was way beyond his capacity to stop. And off I went, the very next morning, heading south on a road that would take me to the city of Eilat, bordering Egypt.
Being born and raised in Japan, it was a dream of mine to one day cross the border over land. Japan is an archipelago, and every time I exited the country it was always on an airplane, over oceans.
As I walked across the Israel-Egypt border, however, I was struck by the un-specialness of the scene. I saw that the land border separating nations was only something man-made and illusory. Some fences and flags over terrain, and a few hired people governing that the rules be observed. There was no line, no real distinction of this side and that side, over the plainness of Mother Earth as she is. I saw only that man had set up an immigration office there.
We traveled through the capital city of Cairo and headed for the pyramids in Giza.
Then we traveled to Port Said, just dreaming of checking out boat routes that might be available from there.
We were terribly lost one day when we got off the long-haul bus. Apparently, we had stepped off in a place that wasn’t even in our copy of the guide book. We thought we knew . . . but then we quickly discovered that we had no idea where we were.
We walked down the street in a small town, still near to the bus terminal, knowing we were a minority as a couple of young foreign girls in a predominantly Arab, male society.
A small Egyptian man in a clean white cloak noticed us outside the little café that he was running.
“Are you lost?” he asked.
We took the opportunity to communicate with him in English and tried to get some directions to the marine port where we were headed.
He was kind, he was patient; and he tried his best to explain the way for us with the limited English that he could speak. Then he pulled up a couple metal folding chairs by the entrance outside his store and suggested we have a cup of coffee before we went about our way.
It was nothing more than just the little break of a smile from between his mustache and his long beard; and something of a soft energy about his countenance and demeanor that left an impression on me. I trusted him. I could feel that he was kind and that he meant well.
Why was he so giving to a couple of strangers from a foreign land, whom he would never see again?
“My son, too, is in a foreign land,” he mumbled, as we sat there, thumb and index finger pinching the tiny handle of those tiny little coffee cups, Egyptian style.
Now, many years later, I do understand—because I have children of my own.
As connected as my children and I are, the more they grow, the more they will come into their own, and the farther they will travel from my side.
As my children adventure to live their own lives and encounter moments of challenge or being lost, it is likely, I know, that I will not always be by their side.
It is my sincere wish, that in that moment, in this world—in this global society in which we are all residents—that there will be those quality of people who will not only notice, but have the generosity of time and heart to reach out and lend a gentle hand of kindness to my child.
Therefore, let me be the first to notice and to lend a helping hand, not just to my own children but to the children of others—whether grown or small.
Let me look upon them, speak to them only with the compassion that inevitably drenches my gaze, as I look upon the dearness of my very own.
How can I not . . . ?
Deep down in my heart, I know that their children are my children too, in the greater family that is humanity.
It’s as if in celebrating the departure of someone’s journey, you truly feel how close they always are at heart.
I once was just one young girl, on the journey of a lifetime. Adventuring forth into the unknown, to a destination that is always going to be bigger than what I could ever imagine.
And because I am adventuring that big, let it be forever etched in my heart—
You’re gonna be just fine. You’ll always find the help you need.
This Egyptian man, in a faraway Arab land, whose name and face I can barely recall, lives in that timeless moment in my heart, upon which the eternity of that realization dawned upon the becoming of who I am today.
“Ma Salaam,”
