Sinclaire

= media type="custom" key="7589641"Tara = I love the wind. Back in Tibet it would chill my face and ruffle my hair. There is no wind here in Cleveland- all the buildings block it. I don't like it here; I haven't since I set foot on this land. I didn't want to come here: my parents made me. They said I would get a good education and a job. I hate it here, everybody is so happy and lucky I can't stand it. Although Cleveland is super hot I still try to find wind. By walking into air-conditioned shops and jogging near Lake Erie I can get a little bit of wind into my life. Some pretty strange things have happened on my walks (like the time I met a three-legged dog, or when I startled a flock of Geese out of their roost in a alley), but one above all was most important.

One day I had turned on to Gibb Street- almost at the end of my jog- when I heard the small tap-tap of a child's footsteps behind me__.__ I turned and saw a little Asian girl coming don the side walk. She was weighed down with two big thermoses, a tiny trowel, and a half-used package of fertilizer that looked about 50 years old. I watched here until suddenly she tripped and here load scattered on the ground. One of the thermoses lids' popped off and water sashayed out of the container as it rolled towards me.

I picked it up and brought it over to the girl. She was shaking and one of her friends was badly scraped and bleeding from where she had tried to catch herself. "Little girl, are you okay?" I asked. She looked up with frightened eyes as I helped her pick up her things. "Let me help you," I said. The girl mumbled something equivalent to ok, and watched cautiously as I poured half of my water from my bottle into her spilled thermos. "Give me your hand," I said. And I wet a tissue from the thermos and held it to her scrape. "Thank you" she said, so softly you could barely hear it. "Where are you going? Here, I'll help you carry your things," I said. The girl introduced herself as Kim and told me how her father had died before she was born. So she was planting beans to prove to his soul that she was a farmer like him, and his daughter. I told her how I came form Tibet and how much I missed it.

We reached the garden, and Kim went to her beans, I followed. I couldn't stop watching her, it was as if I was watching my favorite tv show, and couldn't tear my eyes away. So I would stop looking so awkward, I sat down next to Kim and started turning the soil next to hers with my fingers. Kim asked me what I was going to plant. My mind raced. Then it came to me: barley. Barley would be perfect! It is the staple food in Tibet, it grows fast and well in many climates, and I could use it for food and to sell... I must have looked rather dazed, I was thinking so fast.

I walked Kim home after we were done gardening. She ran to her mother who was waiting in the doorway of their apartment. Kim started speaking very fast. I remember once our cousin came to visit us when I lived in Tibet. He had traveled a lot so he knew how to speak many different languages. So he taught us a little. I was very rusty now, but I understood one word Kim said in Vietnamese. That word was friend. On my jog back home I thought about Kim and the garden and realized that not everyone was so lucky. Kim lost her dad before they even knew each other, and had to move to America. But Kim was a happy child, how? Then I realized: you won't be happy if you are always negative and compare yourself to other people. The next day I came back with barley seeds.