Kelsey Li - A Tale of Three Continents: Coming of Age in CHINA, NEW ZEALAND, and CANADA

Murray Hill Park The mocking cries of the gulls follow me as I walk along the path of the park. I have always hated those birds. I walk by a playground where a group of children are playing tag. Suddenly, Zara and Charlotte’s sneering laughter echoes in my head. Ghosts. We carry our pasts with us wherever we go. The tongue-tied little Asian girl is there, too. But now I speak English fluently and French as well. The birds continue their merciless jeering; I have yet to discover their name. For a long time, I guessed that they were mockingbirds because of the name. I only recently discovered that they’re not mockingbirds, whose song sounds nothing like the derisive cawing. Stray branches litter the field. Two squirrels scurry up and down trees, chittering angrily at each other. The first time I saw a squirrel I had just arrived in Canada. At first glance, I thought that the tail that kept swishing back and forth behind a tree belonged to a cat. I had the fright of my life when it’s mouse-like head poked out from behinning around. Many of them were wearing sports jerseys, one that I recognized was the Golden States Warriors jersey, more specifically Stephen Curry’s jersey. I am a fairly new NBA fan as I never really paid attention to basketball until watching The Last Dance. I now feverishly follow Dennis Rodman on Instagram. I come to a wide tree stump still rooted in the ground. This used to be a popular spot for kids to sit and talk. Some even carved initials on the trunk. I remember when my school used to make us run laps around this park, we would always rest on the trunk, panting and sweaty at the end. Looking at the gnarled, thick roots sunken into the ground, I am reminded of my 38