Sometimes, A Place Gets Into Your Heart
It wasn’t love at first sight.
It wasn’t even love the first year.
My relationship with Hong Kong began like one of my earliest rides on the Mid-Level Escalator. At first, and at the very beginning, it was slow moving and empty. I got on for the ride, not knowing where it would take me and what I might see. Along the way, there were opportunities for me to exit, redirect myself, walk up the steep steps or go back in the direction I came from. But each time, I put one foot in front of the other, mostly without thought, and continued the ride upwards.
The longer I stayed on, the more crowded the escalator got. Strangers, friends, acquaintances, all moving on this same ride in this strange and spectacular vertical city. Some hopped off at various stages along the way. Others stayed with me for the all 2,600 feet. Standing on the right, people on the left buzzed passed me, choosing a faster way to get to where they needed to be. Most of the time, I let the escalator carry me, able to look around and growing more interested in what I saw the longer I stayed on.
At the top, with eight years and 443 feet below me, I looked back at the distance climbed, and I fell in love with what had been.
