If I close my eyes, I can see the Atlantic, extending in all directions like some leviathan's eye, hungrily seeking the sky. I've read that this sea's a madwoman, a storm-gray hellcat clawing and spitting at the shore — far wilder than the docile dame the Spanish named Pacifico. But in eyes of my imagination, its waves are calm, lopping sloppy kisses against the bays and gulfs. Gulls dot the horizon, and the wind beckons with smooth and silk-gloved hands. If I look carefully, I can see flecks of sunlight, red and rose and gold, like jewels beneath the water. If I look more carefully still, I can see a rudder, knifing its way through the breakers and swells. A scarlet flag billows on the mast. It's the Pinta, I think. The Pinta, most definitely. The year is 1492.
I've seen the Atlantic before, so this scene's constructed from more than guesswork, more than guesswork and histories and a dreamer's tango with the sea. The second time, I stood ankle-deep in the white dunes of Florida, carving my pink plastic shovel into the shore. The first time, I went by plane, leaning a sleepy head against a window while glistening hectares of ocean passed below me. It was night, I think. I was three, and a three-year-old's clumsy Mandarin was the only language I spoke. They'd taught me a few phrases in English, I remember — "I'm hungry," "Where's the bathroom?", things of that sort. To help me survive the transplant from Jiamusi to Atlanta — my navigational charts in alphabet blocks.
I remember no fear, no trepidation. The air was cold. I think.
That was my Atlantic voyage, my discovery of America. Afterwards came waves of culture shock, the labor of learning a new language phrase by phrase. I must have been like Columbus, Cristóbal Colón-Cristoforo, as his mother would've crooned, when as a child he sleep placidly through the Genoese nights. My early scuffles with English must have been something like his desperate gesturing at the Tainos, as he hunted for the khan of China and his gold. But a young mind is malleable, and memory is frail.
It's funny how I remember Columbus's voyage better than my own. It must have been all the books I've read, the history lectures, paintings in old textbooks. He had red hair, I read, but the artists drew him dark and grave, or hoary-headed in the robes of a penitent saint. There were no photos of myself on that plane, to ensnare my memory in a Polaroid frame.
If I wrench my eyes shut tight enough, cast my mind out far enough, I can smell the brine-scent of the Atlantic in 1492; I can see the scarlet banner dancing on the Pinta's mast. What I've lost is the texture of the blanket I might have clutched to my chest, as I rode the air currents away from China. I can see a sailor on the crow's nest, telescope swinging like a sword. But the smell of the plane and the scratch of airline seats — they hold no place in my memory. I can sail Columbus's oceans, but I am lost within my own.
If I close my eyes, I can see the Atlantic, extending in all directions like some leviathan's eye, hungrily seeking the sky. The year should be 1993, when I crossed its waters, exchanged Orient for Occident on some halcyon night. But instead it's day. The sky beams with sunlight and triumph, a conquistador's triumph, a missionary's triumph. The Pinta feels its way into some Hispañola bay.
The year is 1492.
Lucia Tang is a student from Cedar Park, Texas.