32 flavours and then some

so it's my birthday. so we're gonna party like it's my birthday [on saturday], sip bacardi [bubbly] like it's my birthday.... right now i'm over-caffeinating like it's my birthday! tonight's festivities involve a mellow supper and then some live music with friends. the singer tonight is a soulful young jazz musician named natti vogel. all 22-year-old sweetness and big eyes. this birthday recalls for me the ani difranco lines 'i am a poster girl with no poster, i am 32 flavours and then some' - thus the subject of this post. because really i am 32 flavours and then some. or at least have felt that way of late.

my relationship with birthdays has varied through the years. from the sublime to the surreal to the sad. this is not surprising given my propensity for over-thinking. i recall excitedly writing about the 'epiphany' i had on my eighteenth birthday. it involved some combination of the following: beauty = love; yearning is our most propelling emotion; never give up. i believe i spent my nineteenth birthday mostly in tears and hiding in the bathroom. i was stressed out that i was growing old so quickly and still had accomplished so little. (thankfully now i am old enough to no longer hold fast to the idea that i shall accomplish anything.) birthdays for me often become a time for self-reflection. every so often i can omit that portion of the program and simply have fun. this, however, is rare. i perhaps did this best on my 30th birthday which was an amazingly special, fun, loving, outrageous, raucous affair (affairs, really, there were a series of celebrations) during which i simply had a wonderful time and glowed and didn't worry about the fact that i was unemployed, or living with stinky boys as roommates who stole my towels, or unmarried, or not able to do a headstand in yoga without being filled with stomach-clenching fear about breaking my neck. no, i just drank champagne, ate cake, enjoyed being with, embracing and being embraced by my family and friends, and danced until dawn. it was spectacular. there were even pink m&ms with my face on them involved at some point. and a bottle of madeira from 1837 opened in my honour on a beautiful farm. my twenty-fifth birthday was the first (but sadly not the last) time i decided to extricate myself from the emotional turmoil of a relationship that was my five years with my ex-fiance. it was awful. 31 was another low point. i didn't feel i deserved a celebration after all the feting of 30 and it also marked the beginning of the troubles with and eventual denouement with little trouble, who didn't come to beijing for it.

and now i am 32. to borrow from mary oliver* - and still in love with life and still full of beans. this year, and in particular the few months leading up to this birthday, has involved a lot of reflection. but not at all in a fraught sense. rather it's been a rather positive appreciation of where and who i am. where i have been and where i am going. what matters and why. thankfully, i have been pleased with both the results and the processes of these ponderings.

what i've realised through that (over)thinking is that i came to china for love. not love in any conventional sense. i did not move here for an individual person (though some implied that i did). i did not move here because i love china (though others have interpreted that way). and i did not know that i was moving to china for love when i made the choice to come back to beijing. of course, there is at present no happily ever after to my story. not in any conventional sense. yet.

when i moved back to beijing, i was madly in love with a boy who here who was madly in love with me. but i didn’t move here for little trouble. i had started the process of looking to come and continue my conversation with the northern capital before we even met, and he has since moved on physically. and i have emotionally. i hope he has too. beijing is the city i spent my most formative years in, where i have lived the longest, and whose streets on which my inner scripts are most wholly my own. and yet, i do not love china.

i sometimes almost feel guilty saying that. i marvel at those who fall in love with china and, in particular moments, have wished that i were one of them. but i’m not. i never chose this place. my father moved our family here seventeen years ago. although saying that is not entirely accurate, because i did choose to come back. so i chose it this time. which wasn’t, i now realize, about choosing china at all, but about choosing love. myself. loving myself.

(i know, i know, this all sounds so trite and cliched and the intro to some hopelessly sappy adventure travel spiritual feminist memoir. which maybe it is. wait, if it is, maybe i should roll with it. hmmmm. ok, a birthday indulgence into a self-indulgent memoir-esque self-love journey introduction. just play along with me.**)

my family moved to beijing in 1993, part of the first wave of expatriates to flood into china after the post-tiananmen exodus in 1989. i sometimes feel as though China and i have grown up together. of course the chinese civilization is ancient, but the people’s republic is not. when we arrived, i was young, an unruly and raucous teenager, and so was modern china. we were gangly in the 1990s – all flailing long limbs, clumsy in statures we had not quite grown into and reeling from experiences we were entirely unprepared for. the world was watching china, as she soared and as she stumbled. i watched her too. mostly, she was my playground and my playmate. at once holding me captive and becoming my catharsis.

in the early 1990s, china was piecing itself together after a period of seeming calm after decades of upheaval under Mao and during the Cultural Revolution was destroyed by the party’s crushing its own people during the tiananmen massacre. i could relate. not long before my family moved to beijing, the innocence of my fourteen years was undone one swift and terrible experience of sexual aggression. china’s wounds, and my own, were deep and raw, yet unspoken. china and i both resigned ourselves to silence about our assaults. as if by not speaking, we could erase them. but something shattered inside me that night, so i arrived in china somewhat broken and trying to avoid the shards. teenage china was in the same place.

china’s party line of silence has arguably been more effective in erasing the past, but there are some shards that cannot be so easily swept away. my own silence only led me to turn on myself, becoming ceaselessly self-critical. i looked outside myself for love, relying on a string of men as sustenance. china has perhaps similarly avoided reckoning with unpleasant aspects of its past, focusing instead on astounding economic growth and increasing global influence. of course, i loved myself in moments. and i loved china in moments, especially in the early morning. but neither was sustained or sustainable.

rather than heal my wounds, i achieved my own version of unprecedented economic growth. also like the people’s republic, i operated on five-year plans: a year at the training school for the chinese foreign service, four years studying international relations at a prestigious US university; a year back in china, a year in the middle east improving my Arabic, three years of law school. there was even that a five-year relationship which had me engaged just before my twenty-eighth birthday. i was always moving, and almost always attaining some sense of self from a lover. if only looking at the statistics, however, it was impressive. below the surface i was not yet whole or whole enough, more precisely, not wholly myself. i sometimes wonder if the same is true of china beneath the numbers.

i broke of the engagement. and ran out of five-year plans. so i fled across the world to be embraced by china (again). i took the first steps toward returning when i was at a breaking point – both professionally and personally. my arrival last year, ushered down a gleaming six-lane highway into a boisterous beijing bursting with post-olympian pride, couldn’t have been more different than my family’s, which involved bumping along a dirt road and being stuck behind a donkey cart. of course i arrived only to get lost in love (again). although my most authentic intimate relationship to date, perhaps encouraged by being in china, our love unraveled and I was shattered.

and so i began the process of reconstructing myself (again). in so doing i’ve accepted that i don’t love China and wondered why i am here. i have no plans, five-year or otherwise, and no love. but rather than look outside myself for love (whether in a man or in china), i’ve chosen to look within. and been awed. and while i never thought of my coming back to china as healing – the pollution literally makes me sick – i believe that’s what brought me back to beijing. there were certain conversations with myself that were begun in this city when i was that broken young girl, and i believe that they (perhaps inevitably) need to be concluded here. being immersed in those conversations over the last while, i have been endlessly surprised by beauty and joy. and feel incredibly blessed, full of lightness and love. and, who knows, as my conversing with myself and with beijing continues, maybe i’ll even come across a conventional happily ever after along the way....

for now, i am grateful, present, in love with life, and full of beans. here's to 32.


*Self Portrait by Mary Oliver

I wish I was twenty and in love with life
and still full of beans.

Onward, old legs!
There are the long, pale dunes; on the other side
the roses are blooming and finding their labor
no adversity to the spirit.

Upward, old legs! There are the roses, and there is the sea
shining like a song, like a body
I want to touch

though I’m not twenty
and won’t be again but ah! seventy. And still
in love with life. And still
full of beans.


**the best thing you've ever done for me, is to help me take my life less seriously; it's only life after all.

too glam for guiyang

i am too glam for guiyang.* although that is not saying much. and i am not exactly in guiyang. (i’m in qingzhen, outside guiyang (guizhou province), just off of hongfeng hu (lake) for a work program in which the local host is the two lakes and one reservoir environmental protection foundation.) even though the last two days – focused on environmental legal advocacy – have been substantively interesting and the participants have been very engaged and all’s well on the guizhou front, i have found myself uninspired. and i don’t say that i am too glam in a self-aggrandizing way. it’s more frustrating or funny than anything else at the moment. i don’t intend to terrorize small children when going on a morning run. or frighten the water buffalo and their keepers. but i can’t help it.

i also am officially over the charming sometimes honesty of chinese culture. i say sometimes honestly because there is a true art of lying and avoidance which is also very crucial. but straightforwardness about one’s appearance, weight, age, bodily functions, and ailments is quite acceptable. and context doesn’t seem to change or alter this honesty. i am always reminded of this during work programs where i will be called “beautiful” or basically be told by an elderly male Chinese judge or civil society activist that i have a slamming body. not in a disrespectful or harassing way, but merely as an observation. women will say the same, but usually elaborate. instead of just saying ni di shencai hen bang – your body is really great – they’ll usually add hen miaotiao – very long and willowy. this used to make me blush. by now, i’m accustomed to it and just say thank you.

these sorts of comments are totally not remarkable in a culture in which it’s permissible to be candid about the fundamentals. it is fine to call someone fat, or inform them that they have become fat since you’ve last seen them. or to say you’re late because you had diarrhea. in fact, when i was at the waijiao xueyuan (foreign affairs college: the training school for the chinese foreign service where i studied for a year after high school) i showed up for class one day only to be informed by an office assistant sitting at my professor’s desk that class was cancelled because teach pan had really bad diarrhea. not much to say in response, really. i nodded knowingly, turned and went back to my dorm.

the good thing about all the time i spend in second tier cities (or countrysides) – even in places where the weather is milder and the air is cleaner – is that it makes me very excited to return to beijing. i cannot wait to go back. and this is a successful program! which makes me wonder about my own level of engagement. rather than, ‘meiling, you have a slamming body,’ perhaps a more astute observation from a workshop participant would have been, ‘meiling, you are slamming bored.’ sigh.

in more exciting news, i think i’m finally settling into a more sustained writing project. something i have been circling around for some time, but am finally getting a sense of. it feels good. also, i had an epiphany the other day. something i have felt and known and held deep inside the me within me for some time, and which has surfaced amid my chatter about needing to continue and complete my conversation with beijing, but never really realized or articulated or accepted. i came here for love. not for love of one person or for china, but in order to wholly and complete learn to love myself. perhaps part of that is laughing at being too glam for guiyang and the qingzhen water buffaloes.


* also writing that i am too glam for guiyang reminds me of when, once upon a lifetime i was a young competitive swimmer and showed up for practice with a teammate having decided in the carpool ride over that we would serenade our coach with our own remix of the then popular “i’m too sexy” pop song. we paraded around the pool, strutting about and singing, “i’m too sexy for this pool, too sexy for this team, so sexy it’s cool” and such. he was not amused. i think we swam a 400m butterfly for time as a warm up. ahh, to be young and foolish.

football fever and hot summer nights

so beijing is officially hotter than hades. and i have football fever. which has resulted in long, sweaty nights watching the world cup at questionable sports bars until dawn. so much fun, but not especially smart. i need my beauty sleep. i can report without remorse that i have recently transitioned to using "anti-wrinkle anti-blemish" facial cleanser. it was time. that such a product even exists says something profound about the state of being a woman in the twenty-first century. what that profound something is, i am not certain. but i have faith that i'll have worked it out by the time i get to the end of my optimistic tube of facial cleanser.

in other news, it seems that the state security and PSB are possibly asking about us. i felt a familiar constricting in my chest yesterday afternoon as i faced yet another one of those personal and professional moral conundrums so peculiarly and particularly chinese. sigh. all part of the "chinese context". i alternatively love and loathe that expression. and yet. it's so useful.

the fan that is meant to keep our kitchen cool is decidedly not useful. i discovered this while cooking last night. i do so enjoy simple summer meals with friends in the courtyard. but i am consistently surprised when the temperature doesn't come down as darkness embraces beijing. so be it. life's a fire. we're meant to burn.

divine accidents

i just spent a weekend celebrating them. divine accidents, that is. with some of my nearest and dearest in napa valley. butting heads against the stars, laughing at the blind incongruous beast called youth, treasuring the intimacy that comes with years and in unexpected moments, intense laughter and endless tears, savouring delicious wines, enjoying the kiss of fresh sunshine, and folding comfortably into the embrace of friendship. it was magic. a most welcome escape from the northern capital. but also a reminder of what really matters. and in a very personal sense, where i have been and where i am going. what it is i seek. what is that, exactly? hmmmm. perhaps the means by which strength and grace combine. that, and a laugh with a friend over a wonderful glass of wine. (is there not overlap?)

returning to being has been an abrupt confrontation with poor air quality and general disappointment in state of things here. that being said, i believe that i have accepted on some level that whatever the conversation was that i began with this city seventeen years ago as a young lass must inevitably be concluded here. and the talk is not complete. and so i stay. and continue the conversation, staring beijing straight in the eye. with all that i abhor about it, the moments i adore, noting my inevitable retreat into the me-within-me and the colourful plumage. life will never come along and make me lower my gaze. perhaps i think about narrative arcs too much. i have been wondering about that of late. (though some would say that it is the thrust of one's narrative that counts, not the accuracy of one's details.)

my thinking about narrative, memories, love, faith, and a sincere, deep delight in life again has me contemplating how to best direct my enthusiasms. eventually it must combine my passions for public justice and performance. although when i look down upon it now, i can see so many possible tributaries, so many possible directions. which is, i suppose, the point of continuing the conversation.

in other news, if may was the month of momentum, i've decided that june is the month of embracing imperfections. after having a recurring dream about a cheeseburger, i found myself last weekend telling a waitress who was querying about dietary restrictions at one of the amazing meals we enjoyed, "i'm allergic to scallops, and i'm a vegetarian.... but i'll take the duck." it was delicious. as were a few bites of steak and cheeseburger the following night. somehow eating meat satiated some other desire that was stirred up a few weeks prior. remarkable, how the body works.

in truth, it's not about momentum, or imperfections, narrative arcs or desires anyway. i am hoping that by july i will be on the path of wu wei - effortless action - and just be.

unexpected perspective

i was walking home down the hutong just now when the beer lady biked past, calling out her goods in a singsong rhythm - mai pijiu, eh, mai pijiu, eh, mai pijiu - selling beer, eh, selling beer, eh, selling beer. it was somehow so soothing and simple that it made me stop walking and smile. until that moment, i had been feeling overwhelmingly exhausted. the cheerless grey skies and light drizzle hadn't been helping my mood. illuminating how in an instant all of one's internal clouds can scatter, even if we have scant control over the actual skies (workers in beijing's weather modification office of course excepted from this statement). the beer lady unwittingly re-energized me for the evening.*

yesterday evening i caught up with a dear friend briefly in beijing for work. reminded me again of the enduring value of friendship and the intimacy that can only come with time and consistent compassion. she delivered some difficult news, which contributed to my feeling tired and distraught today. but, as usual, something small and unexpected - the beer lady! - put it all in perspective.

my flatmate asked me this morning to describe myself in one word. i'm not sure why. i answered without taking time to think and my answer was "hopeful". i think that's accurate. and with that, i ought to sashay hopefully off into the some enchanted evening that is tonight.

*although i confess that the massive coffee i was carrying along may have also had something to do with it. in my state of overwhelming exhaustion, i broke my rule about no afternoon coffees. but so goes the world. rules were made to be broken and moderation is overrated and all the rest.

embraced by grey skies

so i am safely ensconced back in beijing’s grey embrace. seriously i couldn’t believe how grey the sky was when i landed. why are the skies always so startling? you’d think i’d be used to it by now. but i am likewise always astounded by the outrageous and inviting blues overhead upon arriving in north america. maybe it’s simply the suddenly shift. there used to be so much more involved in travel – more time required, more preparations made, more challenges, more formal attire, more etiquette, more smoke – and as a result more time was typically spent wherever it was you were getting to. and all the time and energy necessary to do so made it all seem less sudden and the skies less strange. or maybe not. maybe i just don’t take the skies for granted anymore.

in any case, i am back in the northern capital and taking very little for granted. my sojourn under the blue skies was brief and hectic. activities included: networking at our global staff retreat, nephew cuddling, communing with family and friends, and pondering the great imponderables. i have returned feeling very blessed and determined to become ever more generous, less afraid, and always curious.

also, i am (finally!) reading kazantzakis’s report to greco and taking seriously his imperative ‘reach what you cannot!’ his dedication in the book is as follows:

THREE KINDS OF SOULS, THREE PRAYERS:

1 – I AM A BOW IN YOUR HANDS, LORD. DRAW ME, LEST I ROT.

2 – DO NOT OVERDRAW ME, LORD. I SHALL BREAK.

3 – OVERDRAW ME, LORD. AND WHO CARES IF I BREAK!

that about sums up how it is we conduct ourselves in this world. (how we balance the terror and the wonder!) i am the third kind of soul.

the staff retreat and conversations in DC have me thinking expansively about the rule of law / development / foreign policy and how china doesn’t fit into any theories. i am hoping to create some space to write and think about that in a more structured way.

meanwhile, the grey goes on. it’s good to be home. and though i already miss lei feng, he’s happier in northern virginia. he was a really impressive little traveler, in case you were curious. he only cried for 10.5 of the 13 hours on the beijing – dulles flight. i was really proud of him for pulling it together for a whole 2.5 hours at the end. mind, the constant crying ranged from barely audible mewing that only i could hear (he was under the seat in front of me) to full on wailing with fur flying, paws flailing, and a shaking carrier. it was quite a performance. really he was just acting the way we all feel when trapped on a plane for seemingly interminable stretches of time.

i am choosing to see these grey skies as replete with possibilities rather than pollution. and i have great expectations for this spring.

what's free speech got to do with it?

i have had many interesting conversations about google's withdrawal from china. especially among my colleagues, who have varying views on the matter. i have been meaning to collect them here, and make an articulate, nuanced and compelling point about freedom of expression in tidy letters well-arranged. i even had "我♥谷歌" (i heart google") as my gchat status message for a time, which says a lot given that, as previously noted in this space gchat status messages are my current creative outlet. my genre, as it were. which may or may not implicate me in the whole google affair in some abstract artistic sense. however, i do not need share my conversations with you or make tidy points here, because i have just read an op-ed piece in the china daily which says it all. ahem:

Google's exit a deliberate plot
By Ding Yifan (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-03-25 07:48

Editor's note: Google’s moves are combined with Washington’s tongue. The US company finally exits when it’s able to achieve neither business survival nor political aims.

Search engine leader has been part of the US' foreign strategy; its departure opens the door for domestic and foreign rivals

After two months of intense spats with the Chinese government, Google said on Monday it would shut down the mainland-based Google.cn search services and redirect the mainland's web users to Hong Kong.

In January, the world's leading search engine threatened to leave after alleged cyber-attacks in the mainland. Google said it would no longer filter its Chinese-language search results, a commitment that it agreed to when the company launched its search operations in China in January 2006.

Google's withdrawal is not a purely commercial act. The incident has from the beginning been implicated in Washington's political games with China.

A few days before Google made its announcement, United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lavishly praised US Internet companies for their role in helping the Obama administration realize its foreign policies, at a lunch with chief executives of Google, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Clinton in particular sang of their positive role in instilling US political stances and values into Georgian and Iranian street politics to sway local public opinion.

Given that Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have no access to the Chinese Internet market, the White House believes that Google alone cannot play a large role in China as it did in Georgia and Iran.

As expectated, days after the enlightening lunch, Google announced its withdrawal of its search service from the world's largest Internet market on charges that it could not tolerate strict Internet censorship required by the Chinese government. Immediately after its announcement, Clinton made a speech in support of Google's "Internet freedom" campaign.

Google has enjoyed intimate links with the Obama administration. The company was one of the four major sponsors of US President Barack Obama during his presidential campaign. It also played an important role in helping Obama's team raise election funds.

After the Obama administration was sworn in, some senior Google managerial staff members were successively recruited to important government posts. Such close connections between the two make it natural for Google to be devoted to serve the Obama administration's foreign strategy.

The search engine leader's exit from the Chinese mainland is a deliberate plot. The charge that it is opposed to China's "hacker attacks" and "Internet censorship" not only sounds reasonable, but also caters to the prejudices cultivated in the Western public toward the Chinese government. Google's case is in essence part of the US' Internet intrusive strategy worldwide under the excuse that it advocates a free Internet.

Google's accusations against China are completely groundless. The company has so far failed to submit any convincing evidence of the Chinese government-aided hacker attacks on its search engine. The censorship charges also exposed the engine's ignorance of similar practices prevailing across the world.

Google's services in Germany, France, India and other countries are also under scrutiny. Even in the US, it is not rare for some government agencies to often intrude into private e-mails under the anti-terror pretext.

Many of the US Federal and State laws and acts have clauses to restrict the flow of information on the Internet. In California, Colorado, Nevada, Louisiana and other states, public libraries, schools and Internet service providers (ISP) are required to put measures in place to block juvenile access to pornographic content. As the world's largest filtering software producer, the US has made the world's majority part of information-blocking software.

Google's Monday announcement was also a grudging commercial move amid its gloomy performances in China's market. Compared with Baidu.com, China's largest search engine, Google has lagged behind. It suffered a series of setbacks in the fastest-growing market, especially last year.

Google.cn was accused by China's Internet watchdog in January and April of last year of reserving porn contents and linking to other unhealthy websites.

Consequently, the Chinese agency made a decision in June to temporarily halt Google's outbound search services and its key words search business and urged the engine to rectify the matter.

In September, Kai-Fu Lee, who spearheaded Google's push into the mainland's market, resigned as head of Google China. Lee's departure was followed by successive resignations of other Google employees and the standoff of some of its local business.

By exiting from China, Google is by no means a political victim as it claims. Its departure is completely a failed result of competitions with other rivals in the fierce Chinese Internet market.

Google's departure is not expected to cause large losses in China's Internet search business. On the contrary, the unwise move will leave more room for China's homegrown search engines, such as Baidu, to improve and to benefit from its search technologies.

For a long time, some other foreign Internet companies, including those in the US, have been covetous of the world's fastest-growing market. Google's exit as a powerful competitor will leave them more commercial opportunities. Upon its announcement, Microsoft, which has been vying with Google for the market share in search software, issued a statement saying foreign companies should only abide by local laws and rules to keep their business thriving.

The author is a researcher at the Development Research Center under the State Council.

********************************************

reading this article reminded me of a 1994 quote from yu yu lin of the taiwan-based china times about reporting on mainland china: “If we don’t publish the lies and the rumors, there will be no news.”

when were were kids in beijing, my sisters and i used to call the china daily "the happy paper" because it was always bursting with good news. without fail and without so much as a glance at the front cover, we could accurately predict what articles we would find there on any given day. this actually became a bit of a game for us. there were three main genres: (1) china improving its relations with another country; (2) a peasant in some part of china improving the country; (3) a peasant really loving chairman mao or the party or otherwise demonstrating passionate nationalism. so on a typical morning, we could learn: (1) china improves relations with malta!; (2) farmer in guangzhou achieves record harvest!; (3) mao enthusiast saves silk scarf with the chairman’s portrait for 45 years!. not much has changed. although now the news is not always happy, even if it makes me smile sometimes. i recall an article from last august entitled "australian moves sour relations". the opening sentence was as follows: China canceled plans for Vice-Foreign Minister He Yafei to visit Australia earlier this month, reportedly due to Canberra granting a visa to Rebiya Kadeer, the mastermind of the July 5 Urumqi riot. awesome. the author later uses "masterminded" as a verb, saying "kadeer mastermineded and directed the violence". i really appreciated that use of the word of the word mastermind. almost as much as i appreciate the use of the word "expectated" in the above piece. in fact, that whole paragraph is sheer poetry and intellectual power:

As expectated, days after the enlightening lunch, Google announced its withdrawal of its search service from the world's largest Internet market on charges that it could not tolerate strict Internet censorship required by the Chinese government. Immediately after its announcement, Clinton made a speech in support of Google's "Internet freedom" campaign.

perhaps i'll further pontificate on google at some point. or perhaps i simply need to focus on having more enlightening lunches and see what comes next. or maybe it's more about masterminding my expectating free speech.

meanwhile the world goes on

so i've moved. the new place is wonderful - a gorgeous renovated hutong just north of jingshan park. the space is embracing. i adore my roommate. i love being in the very heart of the city. the move went smoothly - i packed my things like meticulous thangka paintings, the movers were efficient and careful (even if was bigger than all three of them and my efforts to make friends with the driver failed), and i have designed ecological and lovely furniture for my new room. it snowed on my first night in my new home, which also happened to be yuanxiao jie - the lantern festival making the first full moon of the chinese new year - so there were fireworks exploding all around me as the snow softly collected on my discarded cardboard boxes in the courtyard. my roommate left on a work trip just before i arrived, so i was unpacking on my own. which was nice for reflection (no move is complete without it) and for emotional moments considering beginnings, endings, the falling snow. a friend brought some dinner, including the traditional tang yuan one is meant to eat on the eve of the lantern festival so the night was complete. the fact that it snowed on my first night is very auspicious and somehow seemed to be the heavens confirming this choice. i drifted off to sleep content, confident that the year of the tiger will bring roaring wonder, and watching the snowdrifts collect on the courtyard bamboo garden outside my floor-to-ceiling bedroom window.

that was sunday night. this is an accounting of last night (monday night):

number of ill-disciplined, untrained, obnoxious puppies i had to handle: 1
number of times she peed on me: 2
number of poos i had to clean up: 1
number of chinese drama queen girlfriends who came over to cry about boy troubles: 1
number of bottles of wine we had: 1
number of times my cat peed on my bed b/c he couldn't get to his litter b/c of said puppy: 1 (well, either that or he was acting out, but he seemed pretty upset about it)
number of layers of bedding it went through: 4
number of phone calls from depressed and still in love / all talk no action ex-boyfriends: 1
number of hours of sleep i got: 5 (actually an improvement from the previous night when the fireworks kept me up)
number of times i was woken up during the night by one or both creatures crying: 5 - 7

i am now bleary-eyed at the office and unable to focus even though i must. (truth is, i am exhausted. last night's escapades, while unique in the animal antics are not in terms of my sleeplessness.) i am ruminating on love and choices, commitment and feeling, freedom and priorities. connection.* and have visions of new bedding and closet storage units dancing in my head. (work will consume me for much of the rest of this month so i am attempting to get as much as possible about the new place sorted before then. and somehow focusing on the tangible seems to ease the emotional.) and the consistent arc in my inner conversations over the last week has focused on how to love and let go. and meanwhile the world goes on. a line from a mary oliver poem that is always good for perspective. ahem:

Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

meanwhile the world goes on. i had lunch with my flatmate, my new landlady and a friend of hers (both chinese women in their early 50s) on saturday. my new roommate is another expat. we took them to a rather swish western restaurant (they didn't even have chinese menus!), which was a treat for us and fun for them (they braved the cheese plate like pros). our landlady is quite a character - smart, outspoken, joyful. she and her friend asked me about my work. i explained that i work on rule of law issues and gave some examples of the issues we focus on. they then engaged me in a conversation about the legal system in china, colouring their points with case studies - anecdotes about the experiences of friends and friends of friends in the courts. one of the cases was even a domestic violence case. they plainly stated that there is no rule of law in china and that power and money control all the court decisions. by the end of the conversation, i wanted to bag my head against the trendy exposed brick wall next to me. or at least return to our exchange about why western people like to wear so little clothing at the beach. it was much more fun to hear them wonder about why americans wear bikinis even if they are fat. or to see their faces as i extolled the great joy of sunbathing and swimming topless in europe. this conversation about the courts, like all those of its ilk tend to do, left me questioning if this work is simply futile. my chinese mother is always telling me i should stop wasting my time and either go make money or become a diplomat. beats banging your head against a brick wall (even if an aesthetically pleasing one).

it didn't help that i returned home to discover this great quote from tom friedman: "One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages." i almost lost my lunch. then again, tom friedman makes my stomach turn even on a good day when he's only saying something completely obvious and not egregiously offensive. oh well.

futile or not, here i am. fist-bumping against the iron hand of the reasonably enlightened authoritarians that run this place. still a little heartbroken whenever i allow myself to be still. and getting peed on. meanwhile the world goes on.


*only connect!

in dreams begin responsibilities

i recently read that line - in dreams begin responsibilities - in a murakami book. he attributes it to yeats. nothing makes me happier than reading murakami making sense of yeats. so i immediately wrote it down in my little black book for collecting the words and ways of the world that inspire me. i loved that line not only for the authors, but also for how much thinking it provoked. (this may just once again confirm my capacity for over-thinking, mind, but nonetheless.) my final assessment, unsurprisingly, is that we must dream boldly and find ways to live up to our dreams - that we have an obligation to our most uncensored, subconscious, true and sacred selves to pay attention and to do so.

i was dreaming earlier tonight, but am now sleepless at 4:00 am. thankfully i am no longer awake with heartache, merely jetlag. but if in dreams begin responsibilities, in jetlagged early morning hours begins a return to blogging. i am just back from a glorious three weeks in the land of the free and the home of the brave. while there, i did yoga again for the first time this year. i went to a class in nyc frequented by a few friends. the class was ansura - a style of yoga that i had not done before. it was an intense experience. the teacher's approach was very much focused on alignment and she spoke of relating to one's body in ways i had never imagined. instructing us, for example, to hug our muscles up our legs from our feet to our hips, open space behind our collarbones, and all manner of other gorgeously vivid anatomical ideas i cannot even recall now. she was obsessed with the tailbone and even had us find ours at some point as we were standing on our mats. her purpose was to open us up - to create space in the vessels that we are so that our grace and confidence could have sufficient space. i struggled with some of her instructions. i did not know how to actualize her command to make our blood less alkaline. or fully grasp her discussion of the challenges of being too acidic. (my internal dialogue was full of curious questions about that - ooh, i hate being too acidic, yes. good point. but when exactly am i too acidic? am i too acidic now? what causes it? and how can i make my blood less alkaline? deeper breathing? more focus? hmmm....) overall, it was a positive experience and it felt very good to be moving back towards yoga. and even if i haven't done it since, i have sincere intentions to resume my practice now that i am back in beijing. hopefully even find a teacher.

lying awake in my bed this not-quite-yet-morning, i reasoned that if i have returned to yoga, i can return to blogging. in fact, i have been having impulses to write since that saturday morning class. so here i am. one of the most interesting aspects of the ansura class was the way the teacher gravitated towards me. she has quite a following and the class was absolutely packed (people line up 30 minutes before class even after pre-registering). how much we all crave transformation! or is that it exactly? inspiration? calm? some glimpse into our own connection with the divine? a tight bum? maybe all of the above. she spoke during class about the relationship between precision and spaciousness - with more precision, we can create more space. an idea not unlike my sometimes love affair with discipline as freedom. of course, there are times when it is necessary and glorious to be imprecise. but i appreciated the more precision, more space mantra that morning and left feeling secure in my need to be more precise in my thoughts, words, deeds and enjoying the lightness that could bring. i am not sure why this teacher was drawn to me. after class, my friends were astonished, saying that we had a real spiritual connection. one commented almost jealously that she's been coming to her for years and never received any adjustments. i laughed it off saying she was only drawn to me because she could tell how needy and hurting i was, so it wasn't exactly a compliment. whether that's the case, i don't know.

i do know that early in the class, she came over to me while i was in downward-facing dog, used her hands to open my shoulders, placed her forehead in the centre of my back, nudging me a few times, and whispered "oh love, let it go." i almost burst into tears. instead i tried to allow myself to open further, to breath deeper, to process. (i have a document on my laptop called 'processing' these days. i have been writing there to avoid writing here. but i think i did more processing in that moment of letting my shoulders melt and twirl away from each other than i did in all my pages of cliched pondering.) she came back to adjust me one or two more times during the class. as the class was drawing to a close, she became concerned about a draft from the large studio windows that she felt was blowing on my mat. so as i was settling into shavasana, she constructed a small fort around me at my head using foam blocks and meditation blankets. she was protecting me from the draft, but it somehow felt to me as though it was about so much more than the wind. my friend on the mat next to mine turned and smiled, saying "you have a fort!" i smiled back, repeating, "i have a fort!" what i didn't say was, "i am fortified." i will get through this. i knew that before i set foot in the yoga studio. somewhere in that precise, deep, sacred space within. the wall of blankets this teacher created only confirmed it. but it was a safe, glorious feeling nonetheless.

when i was little, i used to call my little sister, the cat, and myself "glorious kings". i'm not sure where i got the term or why it comes to me now. but i felt like a glorious king in that moment in the fort. it was a sweet, precise calm after a few whirlwinded storms of emotions - unfathomable deep love for a small child, joy at reuniting with old friends, sadness to see a kindred spirit in terrible pain, overwhelming confusion and hurt after a difficult conversation with a love, gratitude for a full life and an open heart - and there was so much space there i could have swum in it forever.

instead, the class ended. we stretched, shrugged on our coats, and contemplated where to go for brunch. i almost went up to the teacher to thank her for her guidance, but i wasn't sure what to say. and i was worried i would cry. so i thanked her with my heart. when i tried to pay the $2 for my borrowed yoga mat, i was told to take my $2 and give it to someone who needed it to buy a cup of coffee. so i did.

and now i am back in beijing. trying to remain more precise, more spacious. paying attention to my dreams, noting their attendant responsibilities. and dreaming boldly.

the full catastrophe

in zorba the greek * nikos kazantzakis gives us the wonderful image of life as “the full catastrophe”. although i think in that moment, he was speaking more marriage, kids, a house, i think it's more universal than that. even without those particular tornadoes, the winds of life will rock us no matter where we are. we all have our full catastrophes. zorba's way is to dance in the gale of the full catastrophe.... to celebrate life, to laugh with it and at himself, even in the face of personal failure and defeat. in doing so, he is never weighed down for long, never ultimately defeated either by the world or by his own considerable folly. of course, zorba himself must have been quite a catastrophe for his wife and kids and the others in his path. a loving and outrageous and wonderful one, but a catastrophe nonetheless. what i appreciate about that phrase is that it captures the human spirit's capacity to smile into the winds that blow us about, to come to terms with life's howling difficulties and find within them space for growth and grace. and i love the imperative to dance through the full catastrophe.(note to self: another mantra! use it.)

it has been a full catastrophe of a weekend so far and it's not even saturday night yet. people will be coming over in a few hours to eat cheese and drink wine and smile at life. i've just made hummus. and the early pattern of the tree branches against the early evening sky out my window is like dripping laughter. spent both last night and this morning in the company of wonderful women friends. well, and an italian football team and a room full of outrageous, whimsical hats (not at the same time). but those are stories for another time. in other miraculous news, my partners learned how to use emoticons. and a newly engaged friend is happily glowing in the joy and challenges of it all. so many gorgeous winds blowing!

in this quiet eye of the storm, i find myself wanting to stay very still and listen to my thoughts. almost like listening to my breath in meditation.** it has been an overwhelming week. with the winds of life's wonder and terror whirling about. as ever.

one of the more unfortunate winds that has been forcefully blowing through beijing these days is the continued suppression of public interest lawyers. i had lunch on friday with some of the leaders of china's women's rights movements and the founders of a women's legal aid organisation. i am humbled by how much they have accomplished. their uncompromising commitment to justice, their tenacity, their thoughtful approach to their work, and their playful spirits. their centre was at beijing university (beida) since it was established fourteen years ago. but earlier this week, the university told them they could only stay at beida if they stopped doing cases. they could continue to do research, but, as the centre's founder pointed out, their entire purpose was bringing cases. you can hardly champion women's legal rights much outside the courtroom. and, as i said to her, what they presented you was not an option. they had no choice but to go. this was devastating news to me. it was clearly the government directing beida to silence them. the organisation had no choice but to disassociate from beida and is now considering other options for registration. being associated with a university gives legal public interest organisations such as this one the political cover necessary to enable them to work. by being cast out, it's a clear signal from the government that it does not welcome their cases. and there are myriad obstacles to registering as an NGO in china. luckily, they have a law firm as part of their centre with independent registration so they can continue to work on their cases even as they try to resolve how to move ahead. their cases are vital to trying to push the legal charade of china's legal system towards justice, legitimacy and rule of law.

they recently tried to get involved in a horrific case here in beijing. a 20-year-old rural woman from anhui province came to beijing as a petitioner under china's system allowing individuals to petition the government for wrongs and express grievances. sadly, many of beijing's petitioners end up being detained and imprisoned in "black jails" where they are often abused, tortured, and intimidated into silence before they are trucked back home. (the chinese government official denies that they exist, but they are well-documented. a recent human rights watch report on china's abusive black jails: http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2009/11/12/alleyway-hell-0.) another tactic (and the experience of a woman represented by the centre in a separate case) is for the authorities to declare petitioners mentally ill, imprison them in psychiatric hospitals institutions and heavily medicate them. (see a friend's excellent report on this here: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/video/share.html?s=news01s3066qb75.)

this particular young woman's fate was even worse. she was raped by the guards in the black jail. others were in the room at the time (there are a large number of petitioner-prisoners per room and genders are mixed), but they were too afraid of being beaten to do anything to stop it or even scream. someone in the prison reported the story via sms and soon the black jail and soon the place was swarmed by NGO representatives and reporters. the guards tried to clean up the blood and destroy the evidence and sealed the room. the young woman was returned to her village in anhui and told not to petition again. she has decided to bring a lawsuit against her attacker(s). the women i was lunching with had tried to become involved in her case, but she was only permitted to have a government-appointed attorney. they were furious because that attorney said nothing at all during the initial court proceeding they had just attended. and they also learned that the local government was offering large sums of money to the young woman's uneducated parents to buy her silence. the case will go forward, but it already such a perversion of justice.***

but, as we considered the current situation for public interest lawyering over lunch, we concluded that there is no justice in china. it was a heavy meal, and not just because of all the delicious dofu. i was really just so distraught to hear about this group's being booted from beida. i tried to provide some lightness by joking "who needs public justice when there's such good food in china?" only my work wife laughed. sarcasm in general and my jokes in particular don't translate particularly well. i am aware of this, but resist ceasing my amusing commentary in chinese. even if it is only amusing to me. it's all part of the full catastrophe.

this feels a very heavy place to conclude. but our capacity for both for goodness and disgrace, compassion and despair are all whirling in the gales of the full catastrophe. and to dance through it is to know them all.

*this was also the name of my first cat - zorba the greek. although i apparently couldn't quite pronounce "greek" so ended up calling him "zorba the geek". in the end, he was "zorbie". he was a great companion and an old soul. i am sure we will meet again in other lifetimes.

**confession: i am not skilled at meditation. in fact, i can't really do it. so i feel a bit guilty about even writing that sentence lest it give a false impression. but i aspire to meditate. or do so in the abstract. but actually sitting myself down and doing it is really beyond my abilities at this point.

***although today's news reminds us that the chinese haven't entirely cornered the market on the perversion of justice. apparently doing cartwheels is evidence of murder in italy these days: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/05/world/europe/05italy.html?ref=global-home; http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/02/amanda-knox-revisited/?scp=2&sq=amanda%20knox&st=cse. and principles of open government and accountability are quietly being strangled the states: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/05/opinion/05sat2.html?_r=1&ref=global-home

firefighting

after spending a good portion of this morning putting out yet another potential fire sparked in relation to our most problematic funder, i stop a moment to ponder. why oh why is USAID such a disaster? it's really quite embarassing. and it needn't be this way. the international development agencies of other nations are culturally aware, coherently structured, staffed with competent and intellectually curious people, respected and held in high esteem. i have even contemplated - in moments in a dark room wondering what i will really ultimately do with my sparkly self during this lifetime - joining the canadian foreign service just so i could work for CIDA (canadian international development agency). [ahh the joys of being a dual national! i can always distance myself from the tornado ballet that is USAID by gracefully deploying the canadian card. hard to do that, though, when you work for an NGO with "american" in its name and when some of your projects are funded by USAID....]

incidentally, the major drawback to the canadian foreign service plan (aside from the obvious questionable career path issues and probably having to be initiated into the service with a class of fresh-faced 20-year-olds and the potential harm to my self esteem from being around so much supple young skin) is that i don't speak french. although you get an entire year in which to become profficient in the national language you don't speak, and i suppose there are worse ways to spend a year than studying french in ottawa. if you are asking why i would go to ottawa to learn french, that is an excellent question! i think better places for me to learn french would include: paris, the french riveria, on a french vineyard where my jobs included learning french, flirting, and sampling champagne, or beirut. confessoin: i have had a passionate secret crush on beirut for years even though i've never been there. it has long been on the list of cities i would like to have as a partial home despite my having never set foot on lebanese soil. beirut just seems to me so hopelessly romantic, gorgeous and complex, swirling at the center of so much: an elaborate, ancient past, a breathless, dazzling future, an alluring present, beauty, pain, terror, wonder, art, ecstasy, despair, freedom. i don't know why i ascribe so much to a city i've never met. it's a lot of pressure. but i have faith beirut will not disappoint. (although i suppose recent experience suggests that i should not have faith that i will not be disappointed. hmmm. too bad, i'm a believer.) in fact, a few years ago when i was (once again) in a dark room* wondering what i will really ultimately do with my sparkly self during this lifetime, i decided that my ideal situation would be one in which i could divide my time between cities i love and use all of my languages. i decided on beijing and beirut and new york. for alliteration's sake, i briefly considered boston. but i don't love boston. i also thought i could add berlin if i needed a european base. so many b's! so much that is aesthetically and aurally pleasing about that! and such a nice arc around our spinning orb. then i realized it was ridiculous to think of cities to live in based on their first letter. and even more ridiculous to spend time thinking about how to maintain homes in so many cities without a real purpose. i was at that time unemployed are really spending a lot of time in that dark room wondering. i still think it sounds like a great plan to divide your time among beijing, beirut, and new york. i simply need to sort out a way to actualize it.

but that is for some future me. (maybe the one who would come back and take the present me out for a sisterly glass of wine and tell me to calm down and keep on dancing! we would laugh, eat cumin-roasted almonds [this is a very vivid detail in this particular fantasy, so do indulge], toss our better-than-we-really have hair about, and smile at life.) for now, i am simply trying to actualize rule of law promotion for an international NGO despite all of the obstacles presented by USAID. as noted above, CIDA is so respected i spent a year in ottowa in my mind learning french for them. (in actuality it was about 7 minutes. this was unfortunate, because i like to do things in 8s, but i think i only thought about it for 7 minutes.) DFID is dignified and their staff always cordial and smart and at the top of their field - a healthy foxtrot. the other SIDA is equally impressive - a brisk nordic breeze of efficiency. and then there's the tornado ballet, dear old USAID.

an example of what it's like to work with them. we are transparent with our local partners about the fact that we receive US government funding. we are able to explain that although we receive government money, we are independent and not beholden to or representatives of the US government in any way. then the regional USAID "folks" as they would call themselves show up. (aside: i really can't stand it when people use the word "folks" in a professional setting. it's a very american thing and i know its meant to intimate of intimacy or cowpies or some combination thereof, but it makes me cringe.) while in china, in front of our local partners they continually call us their "agents". this is (1) not true, (2) insulting, and (3) deeply problematic because of the message it sends to the chinese. to wit - that depsite our protestations to the contrary, we are in fact agents of the US government. needless to say, there were a lot of fires to put out after that visit. to be fair, the USAID "folks" declined to call us their "agents" on their next trip. but still. we can do better, "folks".

we were fighting fires of a similar nature this morning. and i just had to stop and question why. why? there is no need. not all international development agencies are so inept. sigh. nothing to be done except keep on dancing.

*a clarification - the dark room is metaphorical. i don't really sit in a dark room and think about these things. more like i collect myself into a dark corner of my mind to contemplate as i am aimlessly walking around on a sunday afternoon.

live to the point of tears

that is apparently a quote from albert camus - "live to the point of tears". i imagine he knew a thing or two about tears. or life. or both. i don't think the one means much without the other. which is precisely the point. i would rather live boldly, bravely, dance wildly, love deeply, fall swiftly, cry out loudly in joy and pain than do any of those things less fully or be meek and avoid the many tears that will inevitably result from all the passionate jumping, dancing, falling, loving.

i say this to comfort myself now. all of my clever strategies failed me today. even my own mantra in moments! and i found myself completely blindsided by sadness so powerful it took my breath away. i am also comforting myself with mediocre red wine and chocolate. in the not so distant past, i decided that life was too short for bad wine. and that i would only drink really delicious wine. but this policy has been modified for two reasons: (1) i live in china, most of the wine is bad and (2) i do public interest work and cannot actually afford to live much of a fine wine lifestyle, even if i aesthetically aspire to do so. the modified policy is "drinkable wine", which is to say it is not necessarily always delicious and excellent but it is always drinkable, usually good, but never bad. it's a compromise. but so is life. especially life in china.

i just got home from a fascinating dinner with two of the most venerable legal scholars on rule of law china - one chinese, one american. they have known each other for many years and call each other "brother". they were both born in 1931, 4 months apart. and they have both been engaged in china's legal reform for as long as it has been going on. i was moved to tears just seeing their camaraderie. and it was such an honour to be at the table while they were discussing the current state of criminal law reform in china or the implementation of the amended lawyer's law.* it's most remarkable how life can find ways to remind you of what is good and true and make some part of your soul sing even when you are close to quietly drowning in your own personal pool of heartbreak.

i had a similar experience walking home from the dinner. i needed to buy some fruit, but had been crying softly in the dusk as i walked down the hutong. something about turning the corner did me in. but i pulled myself together and i went to fruit lady. she was especially friendly tonight and i was the only one in her stall. the stall cat was there, sitting up on a ledge rather than prowling about amid the cabbages as usual. this cat was really content and seemed to be smiling down at us in that way that cats can smile, purring. i asked if the cat had a name. fruit lady said "mi mi". i asked if it was the "mi" in "mifan" or "rice", but she said that all chinese cats were named "mimi". (i though about explaining that i have an imaginary pet chinese cat named "pangpang" (fatfat), but realized that even if i could say the words, it wouldn't translate.) fruit lady then made a two-syllable sound, a kind of "mewmew" and mimi responded making the same sound. they did this back and forth a few times as she weighed my bananas, apples, and winter dates. i was very impressed and rather delightedly exclaimed, "you are really having a conversation! did you teach her that?" fruit lady shrugged, and asked if i had already eaten. i assured her that i had. i said goodnight to her and to mimi the cat. and i couldn't help but smiling at life as i walked away.

of course i broke into heaving sobs after i closed the door. but i was able to remember my mantra, recall the evening's moments of perspective, and focus on small tasks like putting away the fruit and doing the neglected breakfast dishes to pull myself together. i also found myself thinking of this camus quote. because, truth is, i wouldn't live any other way. may i always live to the point of tears.



* i have been berating myself lately for not writing enough about serious things. and i think this exemplifies my problem. my entry point - for connection, meaning, pondering is always people and their stories. what is more compelling than personal narrative?!? even though it was an interesting discussion, i was most moved by the way these two men would grasp wrists or pat one another on the back or toast. and i end up recounting that they called each other "brother" and not the substance of their comments....

forget regrets, or life is yours to miss

my father once had me write a letter to my future self, address an envelope and everything. i believe i was eight when i wrote it and he sent it to me when i was ten or eleven. in the letter, i told myself of my hopes and my dreams, my great expectations for us. enough time had passed by the time he posted it that i had no memory of having written it and did not recognize my own handwriting. i remember that i was actually well into reading it before i realized that it was from me. and then i was surprised, for i had thought it was from a forgotten friend. but i suppose, in a way, that it was.

for some reason i have lately been yearning to receive such a letter from my future self. or i have been thinking about what i would say to my younger self. i'm not sure which self exactly - of five years ago, or three, or yesterday. but more than wanting to write to my past jumble of selves, i want my future self, glorious friend that she is, to write to me now as i am stuck in this moment of my life. i know she would be full of good advice and kind words (and i may even be able to channel them if i try hard enough which is perhaps why i have been contemplating writing to my younger selves). and she would be funny, and kind, and smile at all of my to-ing and fro-ing and overthinking. i realize, perhaps now in this very moment for the first time, that being back in beijing has prompted a great deal of reflection on the woman i have become, and where i am going. it is almost coming full circle to be in this city again. my most formative years were here and it is where i started to grow up - to transition from being a girl to being a woman - and where some innocence was lost - both tragically and less so - and some perspective gained - of all sorts. i wonder if this is the city where i will complete this process. (insofar as i ever intend to fully grow up, that is. if it means you can't believe in faeries or breakfast desert, forget about it.)

[ironically, this was to be the post in which i stopped trying to write about china.]

i find myself at once consumed with broad questions of being and small minutiae of practicalities almost daily. i find it easier to focus on the latter. never have i taken such pride in washing the dishes, putting clutter in its place, ordering my books, shuffling the sock drawer. and i have a strange urge to bake. today's endeavour - wholewheat pomegranate ginger bread - which somehow also involved my attempting to make my own crystallized ginger. the challenges of sugar and fresh ginger, socks and soapy forks seem so satisfyingly surmountable. and yet, even as i am up to my elbow in batter or bookshelves, the broader questions remain. will it always be this way? and, what precisely are those broader questions?

maybe the reason i want a letter from my future self is to answer those questions. i want her to tell me that one day i will get there - wherever it is i am meant to be. but she will also likely tell me that it is not so different from where i am now. and the small fragments that make up a person won't have changed much. i will still laugh with dogs in the street, and have a glass of wine more than i ought to on occasion. i will still not be as stylish as i'd like, and reflect the emotions of actors and dancers on my face or in my body as i watch movies or performances. i will still probably be too emotionally open when i first meet people and not have a sufficient attention span to ever be any good at cards. so what will be different?

what is the star's pin that i somehow think will tie all of my ends together? i know better now than to think it's marriage. i do not see that as a magic bullet. i also know better than to think it's career. for wonderful as it is to love what you do, work alone is not enough. maybe it's the appropriate balance. perhaps it is faith. but that much i know is true already. perhaps it is simply patience. appreciating that the balance will always be shifting and is a fine one and the best i can do is appreciate the unexpected beauty and joy that life offers each day if only we look for it.

what would the letter say?

- don't take everything so seriously. everything will work out. laugh more. smile at strangers. take risks. don't be afraid of anything.
- just be mattie. and don't worry about what others think or do. let go of trying to please everyone and just be the best person you can be.
- be a friend to yourself (always and in the moment, not just in letters). you will need that.
- accept that you are not perfect / that you are perfect as you are.
- but challenge yourself to think expansively, love deeply, experience richly, question widely, and live to the point of tears.
- forget regrets, or life is yours to miss (ok, that's from rent)
- do not define yourself in terms of a man / your relationship.
- but do not deny your romantic nature.
- appearances matter very little.
- notice and revel in the small moments, the subtle, quiet day to day. it matters more than the grand gestures.
- never shy a way from a chance to express love.
- be thankful.
- learn to cook.
- forgive easily - yourself and others.
- exercise regularly - it keeps you happy and healthy.
- be wary of easy answers and absolute authority.
- don't settle. and don't compromise your principles.
- believe.

so this has been a nice kathartic ramble. but illuminating for me in a small sense. in a way, i feel as though being back here is part of an ongoing conversation i have with china (or with myself in relation to china). a conversation that i can only have in beijing - the city in which i have lived the longest and yet which will never be home. i think i need to be here long enough this time to finish the conversation. and not rush that process.