radio nowhere

this is a not very good pic of lei feng loving the floor. it is also not recent. i share it because (a) i am trying to become more blog-savvy and include pictures (next stop, wonderland (well, that or learning how to post links or at least link to previous posts)) and (b) because he has been on my mind of late. lucky little kitty is immigrating to america next week. (although he doesn't know it yet.) soon this sweet beast will feel the winds of freedom blow in his fur as he roams with the deer and the antelope in northern virginia. more plainly, i am taking him with me when i go on my next work trip and leaving him with my parents until such time as i am in a living situation which will allow me to take him in again. i had a day of feeling unusually accomplished this week when i picked up both his registration papers from the animal hospital and my canadian passport from the embassy. i just felt that we were both much so more accounted for (and accountable? authentic?). documentation does that. perhaps that's why we bother to document, although i am now not thinking of documentation of the official, state-sanctioned sort, but the kind that actually imbues our lives with meaning. this kind varies tremendously, but i think we all have some impulse to document, or shore up, what matters. and what matters seems always to be the details. moments, idiosyncrasies, characteristics, quirks. so we squirrel the details away somewhere - in writing, in photographs, in song, in stories we dance over and over in our minds or share with each other - to sustain us.

i suddenly find myself less occupied at work for a few days which has been at once a relief and also unsettling. i realized that i was allowing industry to sustain me more than is appropriate or prudent. mine was a busy march, yes. and i find meaning in what i do. but still. it is a cheap trick to rely on work for sustenance and i know it. at least i have realized my folly and am correcting it. moving on.

i have also realized that there is absolutely nothing useful or interesting on chinese radio. well, at least not the radio stations that beijing cabbies listen to. i confess that i have not sought out inspiration from chinese radio on my own so the sampling underlying this offensive conclusion is flawed. and yet, i find it fascinating. well, maybe that's too much. i find it mildly amusing and slighting intriguing. the intrigue (and the amusement) come from how much air can be occupied with nothing at all. it takes real talent to expend a lot of time and energy and verbiage to say nothing consequential and radio broadcasters in china excel. i am always impressed by the sheer amount of time people can speak and the number of the words they can utter without actually saying anything substantive. sometimes i even wish i had that skill, especially when giving speeches in chinese. it would be nice to be able to draw them out. maybe its more adverbs. maybe it just takes practice. (i am, in fact, practicing at the moment with this post. my apologies. please consider this merely a cultural expedition that you get to come along with minimal effort!) then again, perhaps i am too harsh a critic. maybe radio all around the world is filled with empty static. we so often must face how imprecise language is, how inadequate to its occasions.

speaking of occasions, there are a number on the horizon. lei feng and i will go bopping through the wild blue and end up in DC, where we'll connect with family and friends and colleagues. give toasts and talks (me) and try a new litter box (him). by the time i return may will be nearly upon us and i am hoping that life will feel more rooted. that i will feel more rhythm.