She ran her finger down over her knee and felt nothing. What’s going on, she wondered. Why did she have this numb, yet tingly feeling just below her knee? She followed the vague sensation down her shin. It continued. How strange, she thought. Probably nothing, but she Googled it anyway, so she could forget it later. As a result, she discovered that others about her age had experienced this same phenomenon. One website told her what she wanted to know: if the numbness was not accompanied by other symptoms, it should be acknowledged and noted, but not feared. She pondered it for a moment, tracing a circle over the numb spot, turning off her phone. Could turning fifty, which she had done six months earlier, be one of those other symptoms? Should she worry?
A car blared below, pulling her back to the moment. She decided to follow her own advice, doled out so many times over the years to her kids when they suffered mysterious stomach aches, spontaneous rashes: just keep an eye on it.
Turning off her concern like a faucet, she grabbed her phone and took some photographs of the scene outside her downtown Hanoi hotel window: layered apartments painted in royal blues, marigolds, and dusty whites were punctuated with balconies that dripped with trailing plants and vines. Evenly stacked window air conditioners hummed and hovered over an alleyway. A bicycle, three scooters, and a gleaming black car darted below. It was time to go, to venture out into the alleyway, and explore this city. Life was too short to wonder about something she couldn’t feel.
Marilyn Yung 