(367) The Fire Alarm, the Teddy Bear, and What Really Matters...?

This time, I set off for Lithuania to bring our "Frost Flowers World Tour Exhibition" to Europe. Before heading there, we planned to spend a week in the Netherlands, meeting with local galleries and exploring possibilities for future collaboration. Flying from Toronto to Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands, we deliberately chose a late-night flight. The plan was simple: sleep through the journey and wake up refreshed in a foreign land. Perfect, right? Well… how could life possibly follow such a perfect script? As the saying goes, “Dream on!” What we imagine is often nothing more than a beautiful fantasy of our own making. Sure enough, the young men seated all around us happened to be extraordinarily energetic. The sounds of video games, laughter, shouting and cheering rose and fell around us without a moment's peace. My ears were practically soaked in noise throughout the entire flight! So much for sleeping peacefully all the way to Europe. The reality was this: I was desperately sleepy, yet every burst of noise seemed to hammer directly into my head. My eyes were dry and heavy, yet sleep stubbornly refused to come. My brain felt as though it had been torn into four pieces. And so, I spent the entire flight staring into the darkness, accompanying the endless waves of noise until we finally landed. My grand plan for a sweet dream had officially gone up in smoke. But never forget: you are the master of your own little world. The very same situation does not necessarily feel the same to everyone. My boyfriend sitting beside me was clearly one of the blessed ones. He simply ignored the commotion around him and slept soundly, as if nothing in the world could disturb him. Honestly, that kind of innate talent for sleeping through anything is a gift I have always envied from afar! Seeing my exhausted, lifeless expression while he remained surprisingly energetic, he comforted me: “Don’t worry. We’ll catch up on some sleep at the hotel and figure things out afterward.” Unfortunately, jet lag had other plans. That first night, even at three o’clock in the morning, I was still lying there wide awake. Exhausted beyond words, yet unable to sleep—the frustration was enough to drive me crazy. It was not until four or five in the morning that I finally managed to drift into dreamland. And then, in the very next moment, something happened that left me completely stunned. In the midst of that peaceful, silent atmosphere, a deafening fire alarm suddenly pierced the room. What? A massive alarm? Then came an urgent announcement over the loudspeaker: “Everyone must evacuate immediately through the emergency exits. Do not delay!” Oh, come on… Seriously? This cannot be happening! Although every fibre of my being resisted the idea, the blaring alarm kept pounding away. My boyfriend and I frantically tapped our own heads, trying to wake ourselves up. “Fire alarm! It’s real… it’s a fire alarm!” I don't even know whether I was shouting for him to hear me—or shouting simply to wake myself up. Sometimes, when you are still trapped halfway between sleep and reality, you really do have to shout at yourself to become fully conscious. Hearing the sound of people running outside our room, we finally realized that this was not a drill. We really had to get out—and quickly! There was no time to discuss what to take. We each grabbed whatever happened to be within reach and… ran. We ran down the emergency staircase, rushing all the way to the ground floor without stopping to think. When we reached the lobby, it was already packed with hotel guests. Everyone stood around with exhausted faces, whispering among themselves, trying to understand what had happened. Not long afterward, the hotel manager came to explain the situation. Apparently, a guest had been smoking in his room. Worried that the smoke would trigger the fire protection system, he had apparently disconnected the detector himself. What he didn't realize was that the detector was connected to the hotel's entire fire alarm system. The moment something unusual was detected, the system immediately triggered the alarm. It was, in fact, the hotel's built-in safety mechanism. The manager sincerely apologized for frightening everyone. After hearing the whole story, we could only laugh helplessly again. I couldn't help thinking: “When you're already down on your luck, somehow the strangest things come looking for you!” After finally managing to fall asleep, we were rewarded with a midnight fire evacuation. What a night! We walked back to our room in a daze, still wondering: Why did one unfortunate event have to follow another? And of all things, how did we manage to experience a false fire alarm in the middle of the night? Surely there must be some precious lesson hidden inside all this chaos. Suddenly, I turned to my boyfriend and asked: “When we had to escape as quickly as possible, what important thing did you take with you?” He pulled a single mobile phone from his pocket. Nothing else. Then he looked at me curiously. “What about you? Your passport? Your wallet?” Neither. I reached into my coat pocket and pulled out… a little teddy bear. He stared at me in disbelief. Then he added: “You really are one of a kind!” Well… From my perspective, there was absolutely nothing strange about it. My little bear has been by my side day and night. To me, he is family—a truly cherished member of my family. He knows all my joys and sorrows. He has accompanied me through countless moments, and somehow, I have always felt that he understands me. So, if the world were suddenly falling apart, of course I would want this little companion beside me. Money and possessions are replaceable. They are merely things of this world. But a companion filled with memories, affection and emotion? That is something I could never simply leave behind. You may laugh and call me silly. That's perfectly fine. Because when the moment came, my actions had already answered everything. After travelling around the world and staying in countless hotels and guesthouses in different countries, I finally experienced a real hotel fire evacuation for the very first time. I was already physically and mentally exhausted, only to be given an unexpected midnight adventure. Indeed, it certainly lived up to the old saying: “When you're down on your luck, trouble seems to come looking for you.” Yet strangely enough, beneath all the exhaustion and absurdity, I felt as though my soul had been washed clean. Perhaps that is the real gift hidden inside this seemingly ridiculous episode. We spend so much of our lives accumulating things—money, possessions, status, achievements, plans and dreams. Yet when a fire alarm suddenly sounds and you have only seconds to decide what to carry with you… What do you instinctively reach for? Your passport? Your wallet? Your phone? Or something that carries a piece of your heart? Perhaps that is the question life quietly placed before me that night. In the end, we cannot take everything with us. You probably already know the next line: “Of all that we possess, nothing can truly be carried away.” So then… What, exactly, is the essence of this journey we call life? Why have we come into this earthly world for this one brief journey? Perhaps the answer is not hidden in what we accumulate, but in what we love, what we cherish, what we give, and what remains within our hearts when everything else falls away. My dear friends, perhaps it is worth sitting quietly with this question for a while. When life suddenly sounds the alarm, what will you choose to carry with you? And perhaps, in that one simple choice, you may discover what truly matters.