Every boy has, at some point, harbored a Zhu Yuanzhang in his heart.
His empire was built on horseback and in the pages of history, and in the end became the towering palace walls of the Forbidden City.
My empire was in the trees and the wind, just an old northern willow with long, drooping hair.
I crowned my friends with willow branches and made a seal out of a stone, appointing the bravest among us as “General.” Our battles were fought with clods of earth and shouts; our court assemblies came with cicadas and ice pops. We once believed that this kingdom built in childhood would put down roots like the willow and never fall.
Until moving day, when I marked its end with a solemn “death of the emperor” ceremony.
Years later, the actual history has grown hazy, but I remember clearly: that summer, I was both the beginning and the end of a dynasty.
This is a story about “loss,” but even more, it is about how we use the grandest of ceremonies to say goodbye to the selves we can never return to.
