apologies in advance. i am still not able to collect my thoughts sufficiently to pontificate on the subjects i noted in my last post as urgently needing to discuss. so much for placeholders. seems silly to reach back two weeks in time to talk about any of those significant occurrences and the implications thereof. also there has been so much delightful forward movement in my life of late that i don't want to disrupt it by reaching back*. i am in northern california at the moment. and, as usual, am struck by the land. hence the reference to steinbeck in the subject. my understanding of the hebrew word timshel comes from steinbeck's east of eden. the pertinent passage, in part, is as follows:
"[T]his was the gold from our mining: 'Thou mayest.' The American Standard translation orders men to triumph over sin (and you can call sin ignorance). The King James translation makes a promise in 'Thou shalt,' meaning that men will surely triumph over sin. But the Hebrew word timshel—'Thou mayest'—that gives a choice. For if 'Thou mayest'—it is also true that 'Thou mayest not.'"
there is so much in that one little world - individual responsibility and the invention of conscience. and then some. free will and the capacity to forge our own moral destinies. hope. redemption. opportunity. yearning.
the novel is also a lovesong for this land. the descriptions of the salinas valley are so rich and vibrant you cannot help but appreciate the rugged beauty in this part of the world. steinbeck apparently wrote the novel for his two sons, so that they could know the land as he knew it, when he knew it - early 20th century. he also apparently considered it his greatest work. he said of east of eden, "It has everything in it I have been able to learn about my craft or profession in all these years." he further claimed: "I think everything else I have written has been, in a sense, practice for this." anyway, it's a great work. so i often recall it when i come to northern california, and then recall timshel. here endth my sixth grade book report for this blog.
i have been embracing the beauty of timshel of late. perhaps even more than usual. i have also been surprised by joy. more on all of that later, or not. i am feeling less inclined to share things in this space at the moment and simply appreciate them in private. once the whirlwinds of these weeks calm down and something remarkable occurs (or does not), perhaps i'll be inspired to resume. i mayest, after all. or i mayest not. xx
*and yet as i write that, i think of the closing lines of the great gatsby - "and so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past". not that it is related. although i think somewhere deep down we all believe in the green light.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Thursday, October 21, 2010
life rocks
so i am woefully behind in writing in this space and saying anything of consequence* or saying anything at all.... and so much has transpired! in china. in the world. in me. and there has been much to say. and yet i have found not a moment amid the whirlwinds to process and share. i felt especially sheepish when a sweet friend said she was looking forward to reading my blog and seeing my thoughts about liu xiaobo's nobel peace prize (i leapt with joy!). i had to say that i was so busy appreciating the unbearable lightness of being that i had remained silent on what was perhaps one of the most important and poignant occurrences of late related this rambling given my ostensible purpose of reflecting on human rights in china, among other things. this friend, being a wise and generous soul, said that i she thought liu would understand and appreciate my soaking up whimsy rather than writing. perhaps all the more so because i don't imagine there's much whimsy in prison. i say that not to be funny or silly, just true. of course, i am now running late and ought to be out the door, so am considering this post a placeholder to remind myself of what i actually ought to write about in the not so distant future.
- liu xiaobo wins the nobel peace prize and everything (nothing) changes
- xi jinping will likely be the next president; 18th party congress is going to be sweet
- is there really a hu / wen divide or is it all hooola?
- i'm transitioning to a new job which is terribly exciting!
- i'm also moving flats. i ought to have done so long ago, but now it's happening and ushering in all sorts of exciting other unexpected momentum. such is the way of things.
- last night i caught up with the president of the national committee on us-china relations and then went with him to the first part of a program on us-china relations. i did the mingling bit and then realised i just couldn't handle the rest (which was a v last minute invite anyway and involved watching an hour long video of him interviewing the us ambassador last week which is also available on their website), so thanked him and said i was leaving before the program started. he said, 'it's a walk out?' i said, 'yes, it's a walk out'. i went for blind massage and then a lovely late dinner with friends instead. which felt like following the path with heart for that wednesday night.
- the title of this post describes how i've felt all day. i became a godmother this morning!!! (which naturally involved weeping with joy and wonder and delight.) and found a new flat! when i was walking to meet the real estate agent to finalise things, janis joplin came on my ipod. and i thought it was about right. life rocks. completely rocks.
and now, i am running out the door feeling blessed and joyful. and a little bit 'don't cry for me gongjian hutong [current flat]' in light of the move, so am wearing fishnets and red suede pumps. life rocks.
*query as to whether i ever do.
- liu xiaobo wins the nobel peace prize and everything (nothing) changes
- xi jinping will likely be the next president; 18th party congress is going to be sweet
- is there really a hu / wen divide or is it all hooola?
- i'm transitioning to a new job which is terribly exciting!
- i'm also moving flats. i ought to have done so long ago, but now it's happening and ushering in all sorts of exciting other unexpected momentum. such is the way of things.
- last night i caught up with the president of the national committee on us-china relations and then went with him to the first part of a program on us-china relations. i did the mingling bit and then realised i just couldn't handle the rest (which was a v last minute invite anyway and involved watching an hour long video of him interviewing the us ambassador last week which is also available on their website), so thanked him and said i was leaving before the program started. he said, 'it's a walk out?' i said, 'yes, it's a walk out'. i went for blind massage and then a lovely late dinner with friends instead. which felt like following the path with heart for that wednesday night.
- the title of this post describes how i've felt all day. i became a godmother this morning!!! (which naturally involved weeping with joy and wonder and delight.) and found a new flat! when i was walking to meet the real estate agent to finalise things, janis joplin came on my ipod. and i thought it was about right. life rocks. completely rocks.
and now, i am running out the door feeling blessed and joyful. and a little bit 'don't cry for me gongjian hutong [current flat]' in light of the move, so am wearing fishnets and red suede pumps. life rocks.
*query as to whether i ever do.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
give in to love or live in fear
so naturally the subject of this post is a line from 'rent', although it is actually a poem that is inspiring me to write at the moment. i subscribe to the writer's almanac and so receive an email with a poem each day*. for some reason today's poem struck me such that i felt i needed to stop what i was doing and consider it**. i think i was struck by it because i found myself sharing one of my inspirational 'rent' mantras with a friend yesterday - forget regrets or life is yours to miss. it's a good mantra because is propelling and good for perspective. i'd like to think that it points to living boldly, taking risks, making the most of each moment and opportunity, focusing on joy, and not taking things too seriously. it is an especially useful mantra for those of us prone to over-thinking. (to borrow from emerson: finish each day and be done with it. you have done what you could. some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. tomorrow is a new day. you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.) pleasantly, i realise as i write this that i am reasonably good at actualising this mantra. (see my saturday afternoon-to-evening activities, which i will briefly describe below, as evidence.) actualisation aside, today's poem struck me because it articulates a a real and legitimate actual regret. ahem -
The Man in the Yard
by Howard Nelson
My father told me once
that when he was about twenty
he had a new girlfriend, and once
they stopped by the house on the way
to somewhere, just a quick stop
to pick something up,
and my grandfather, who wasn't well—
it turned out he had TB and would die
at fifty-two—was sitting in a chair
in the small back yard, my father
knew he was out there, and it crossed
his mind that he should take his girlfriend
out back to meet him, but he
didn't, whether for embarrassment
at the sick, fading man
or just because he was in a hurry
to be off on his date, he didn't
say, but he told the little,
uneventful story anyway, and said
that he had always regretted
not doing that simple, courteous
thing, the sick man sitting in
the sun in the back yard would
have enjoyed meeting her, but
instead he sat out there alone
as they came and left, young
lovers going on a date. He
always regretted it, he said.
i almost burst into tears when i finished reading this. not, however, because i found it sad. i don't think it's actually about regret so much as it is a subtle expression of the rent lyrics mantra above. forget regrets or life is yours to miss is really telling us to live in a way that we don't have regrets. to always make the bold, frightening, loving choices even when they are daunting or more painful or inconvenient. more succinctly: give in to love or live in fear. yes, that's another line from the same song but it is also perhaps the best mantra of all. if the poet's father were to have chosen to give into love - that tug he felt to bring this (seemingly insignificant) girlfriend to meet his sick father - rather than his fear of the awkwardness of that moment, he wouldn't be sharing this small regret with his son all these years later. it is sometimes shocking to me how we can still shy away from living as boldly as we possibly can and making the most of every moment even when the universe again and again reminds us how ephemeral our lives are, how fleeting our chances to love and be kind. and yet we squander them. we look away and leave things unsaid and suppress our laughter all too often. (oooh, i am totally talking myself into stopping work for the afternoon and going for a long, rambling walk in the neighbourhood and bringing a delicious and special bottle of wine to dinner with friends tonight!) my brother-in-law used to say that love is the absence of fear. for the longest time i didn't understand that. but now it is too clear. not unlike the imperative of this poem. in addition to almost bursting into tears, i had a tremendous impulse to simply run in the sunshine or kiss someone handsome and strong or dance for simply hours****.
thankfully, there is still time to do all of those things yet today! i actually did all of those things, minus the kissing, on saturday. saturday was an absolutely beautiful day here in beijing - sunny, blue skies, perfect early autumn weather - and a friend was having a housewarming lunch in his new hutong home. it was a superb day for bbqing in the courtyard with a small collection of souls*****. we enjoyed a delicious lunch and then lingered on. some of us half-napped, mostly chatted lying on my friend's new bed (a 'heavenlyTM' bed from the westin hotel - kind of like cloud but better). some dealt with household improvements. some chatted outside. my ipod, our musical inspiration for the day, behaved amazingly and shuffled together a perfect soundtrack*******. as afternoon began to turn to evening, we all contemplated whether we ought to part ways and head off into our various evening plans. we did seriously contemplate that. maybe for four minutes. and then we opened a bottle of red wine. and cancelled our other plans. the afternoon turned into evening turned into night. we drank wine. we ordered dinner. we wore funny hats. (i spent a few hours in a very classy top hat. another friend had a rather fetching gold turban. and there was a safari hat involved too.) we climbed the tree in the courtyard. others came. and left. (once again, we scared all the straight men away.) we sang. (at least two of the straight men might have been scared away by my singing toto's 'africa' to a teaspoon at the table along with another girlfriend. when i was sober. (on fellow asked how much we'd been drinking and i said that i'd only had two glasses of wine over the course of many hours (which was true at that point), but was somewhat inherently silly and just having fun. i offered him my teaspoon microphone to join in for a bit, but he wasn't into it. i shrugged. his loss.)) we danced. we began dancing around the courtyard and then moved into the living room. i may or may not have been inspired to do the splits multiple times. a friend may or may not have pulled a groin muscle attempting to do the splits. we also may or may not have done the running man. and the roger rabbit. the neighbours called the police. (they were concerned my friend was starting a club in his new home. we assured them he was not.) others did shots of baijiu. (shots of baijiu for me are always regrets that i cannot forget.) in the end, four of us ended up climbing into my friend's (heavenlyTM) bed and giggling like schoolgirls for hours. and staying the night. i was perhaps not the most popular person at the slumber party because once i got tired i kept encouraging slumber, saying 'too much chatting, not enough sleeping!' it was a very impromptu, amusing, hilarious saturday. we certainly warmed the house. and, i suppose, we gave into love, not fear. though i suspect that some of my comrades regretted the shots of baijiu on sunday morning.
*confession - much as i enjoy seeing this mail surface in my inbox each day, i do not always read the poems. i sometimes only skim. or don't read them at all. shhhh.
**a second confession - i am working from home on transition memos and other materials related to my impending career move and its a national (hotly love the motherland!) holiday this entire week and the weather is gorgeous and i am finding it exceedingly difficult to focus***. even if today's poem were about a rodent or farm implements or slugs i probably would have found it necessary to stop and consider it. and so.
***let's be honest, productivity is overrated.
****as per my confessions above, these impulses may or may not also be related to having been sitting and writing memos for too long. actually, they also may or may not be regular impulses unrelated to this poem or prose of any kind.
*****amusing true story: i arrived at said collection of souls saying that (inspired by my recent experience in clean living in koh samui) i wasn't drinking any alcohol or eating any sugar. but then a sommelier friend opened a bottle of wine from one of my favourite vineyards in napa and a sweet girlfriend arrived with homemade toffee cake generously topped with chocolate and nuts. one and half hours after my statement, i was enjoying a delicious glass of wine and eating too much toffee cake in the sunshine. my friends said they were very impressed with my will power for lasting over an hour. i didn't regret my choices. some mantras are more meaningful than others.
******my ipod on shuffle can be very unpredictable. unsurprisingly, we are almost always teetering on the edge of musical theatre or hiphop. but it performed admirably on saturday. especially during the dance party, but also in the quieter moments.
The Man in the Yard
by Howard Nelson
My father told me once
that when he was about twenty
he had a new girlfriend, and once
they stopped by the house on the way
to somewhere, just a quick stop
to pick something up,
and my grandfather, who wasn't well—
it turned out he had TB and would die
at fifty-two—was sitting in a chair
in the small back yard, my father
knew he was out there, and it crossed
his mind that he should take his girlfriend
out back to meet him, but he
didn't, whether for embarrassment
at the sick, fading man
or just because he was in a hurry
to be off on his date, he didn't
say, but he told the little,
uneventful story anyway, and said
that he had always regretted
not doing that simple, courteous
thing, the sick man sitting in
the sun in the back yard would
have enjoyed meeting her, but
instead he sat out there alone
as they came and left, young
lovers going on a date. He
always regretted it, he said.
i almost burst into tears when i finished reading this. not, however, because i found it sad. i don't think it's actually about regret so much as it is a subtle expression of the rent lyrics mantra above. forget regrets or life is yours to miss is really telling us to live in a way that we don't have regrets. to always make the bold, frightening, loving choices even when they are daunting or more painful or inconvenient. more succinctly: give in to love or live in fear. yes, that's another line from the same song but it is also perhaps the best mantra of all. if the poet's father were to have chosen to give into love - that tug he felt to bring this (seemingly insignificant) girlfriend to meet his sick father - rather than his fear of the awkwardness of that moment, he wouldn't be sharing this small regret with his son all these years later. it is sometimes shocking to me how we can still shy away from living as boldly as we possibly can and making the most of every moment even when the universe again and again reminds us how ephemeral our lives are, how fleeting our chances to love and be kind. and yet we squander them. we look away and leave things unsaid and suppress our laughter all too often. (oooh, i am totally talking myself into stopping work for the afternoon and going for a long, rambling walk in the neighbourhood and bringing a delicious and special bottle of wine to dinner with friends tonight!) my brother-in-law used to say that love is the absence of fear. for the longest time i didn't understand that. but now it is too clear. not unlike the imperative of this poem. in addition to almost bursting into tears, i had a tremendous impulse to simply run in the sunshine or kiss someone handsome and strong or dance for simply hours****.
thankfully, there is still time to do all of those things yet today! i actually did all of those things, minus the kissing, on saturday. saturday was an absolutely beautiful day here in beijing - sunny, blue skies, perfect early autumn weather - and a friend was having a housewarming lunch in his new hutong home. it was a superb day for bbqing in the courtyard with a small collection of souls*****. we enjoyed a delicious lunch and then lingered on. some of us half-napped, mostly chatted lying on my friend's new bed (a 'heavenlyTM' bed from the westin hotel - kind of like cloud but better). some dealt with household improvements. some chatted outside. my ipod, our musical inspiration for the day, behaved amazingly and shuffled together a perfect soundtrack*******. as afternoon began to turn to evening, we all contemplated whether we ought to part ways and head off into our various evening plans. we did seriously contemplate that. maybe for four minutes. and then we opened a bottle of red wine. and cancelled our other plans. the afternoon turned into evening turned into night. we drank wine. we ordered dinner. we wore funny hats. (i spent a few hours in a very classy top hat. another friend had a rather fetching gold turban. and there was a safari hat involved too.) we climbed the tree in the courtyard. others came. and left. (once again, we scared all the straight men away.) we sang. (at least two of the straight men might have been scared away by my singing toto's 'africa' to a teaspoon at the table along with another girlfriend. when i was sober. (on fellow asked how much we'd been drinking and i said that i'd only had two glasses of wine over the course of many hours (which was true at that point), but was somewhat inherently silly and just having fun. i offered him my teaspoon microphone to join in for a bit, but he wasn't into it. i shrugged. his loss.)) we danced. we began dancing around the courtyard and then moved into the living room. i may or may not have been inspired to do the splits multiple times. a friend may or may not have pulled a groin muscle attempting to do the splits. we also may or may not have done the running man. and the roger rabbit. the neighbours called the police. (they were concerned my friend was starting a club in his new home. we assured them he was not.) others did shots of baijiu. (shots of baijiu for me are always regrets that i cannot forget.) in the end, four of us ended up climbing into my friend's (heavenlyTM) bed and giggling like schoolgirls for hours. and staying the night. i was perhaps not the most popular person at the slumber party because once i got tired i kept encouraging slumber, saying 'too much chatting, not enough sleeping!' it was a very impromptu, amusing, hilarious saturday. we certainly warmed the house. and, i suppose, we gave into love, not fear. though i suspect that some of my comrades regretted the shots of baijiu on sunday morning.
*confession - much as i enjoy seeing this mail surface in my inbox each day, i do not always read the poems. i sometimes only skim. or don't read them at all. shhhh.
**a second confession - i am working from home on transition memos and other materials related to my impending career move and its a national (hotly love the motherland!) holiday this entire week and the weather is gorgeous and i am finding it exceedingly difficult to focus***. even if today's poem were about a rodent or farm implements or slugs i probably would have found it necessary to stop and consider it. and so.
***let's be honest, productivity is overrated.
****as per my confessions above, these impulses may or may not also be related to having been sitting and writing memos for too long. actually, they also may or may not be regular impulses unrelated to this poem or prose of any kind.
*****amusing true story: i arrived at said collection of souls saying that (inspired by my recent experience in clean living in koh samui) i wasn't drinking any alcohol or eating any sugar. but then a sommelier friend opened a bottle of wine from one of my favourite vineyards in napa and a sweet girlfriend arrived with homemade toffee cake generously topped with chocolate and nuts. one and half hours after my statement, i was enjoying a delicious glass of wine and eating too much toffee cake in the sunshine. my friends said they were very impressed with my will power for lasting over an hour. i didn't regret my choices. some mantras are more meaningful than others.
******my ipod on shuffle can be very unpredictable. unsurprisingly, we are almost always teetering on the edge of musical theatre or hiphop. but it performed admirably on saturday. especially during the dance party, but also in the quieter moments.
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