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.

shaking the moonlight out of my hair

good morning. once again, the courtyard is mayhem. which i am observing calmly and suppressing my inner cleaner*. the skies are blue and we even saw stars last night! it was a glorious evening. i am going to first reflect upon the lessons learned last night and then put on the dance playlist i made for the party and rock out as i clean up. i love gratuitous rocking out in unexpected contexts. which brings me to a lesson - 1: when i am walking around town rocking out with my ipod, wearing sunglasses and my pink 'princess' baseball cap, i am not invisible. sometimes i labour under this illusion and sing out loud or kind of dance along. people stare. it's weird, i know. but no weirder than the 70-year-old man i saw walking down wudaoying hutong yesterday wearing black pantyhouse under plaid boxer shorts, a white tank and green trainers, holding a canary. so i think it's ok. but really i should lose the 'princess' cap. it's a bit much. ok so other lessons:

2 - i should not wear dresses that are so short i can't raise my arms if i intend to dance. i actually learned this lesson after our last party. so i wisely chose not to wear my leo-fabulous shockingly short dress that i got for this birthday. (i literally can't sit down in it. but it's really hot. as i was getting ready last night i sagely decided that dancing aside, as hostess, i may be required to bend over or reach up at various points throughout the evening. so i went with another dress. this is the kind of deep intellectual thinking that all of my impressive degrees have enabled.)

3 - in a similar vein, i am slowly accepting that i may not be able to continue to wear shockingly short ensembs all that much longer. i thought about retiring my short shorts at 31 (i have quite a collection), but couldn't quite do it. this year the thought didn't even cross my mind. i intend to keep on rocking them (and, incidentally, rocking out in public behind the relative privacy of my sunglasses) as long as i can. it'll come to an end eventually. really it's just me v. gravity at this point. but i'm pretty stubborn and intend to give gravity a good run. i'm not giving up without a fight. actually, my fondness for hot pants was incorporated into a birthday roast two dear girlfriends wrote for my 30th bday. i will share it with you here. effing funny.

A Toast to Miss Mattie J Inspired by her own Facebook Updates

How do you begin to tell the story of a dear friend,
Who amuses not just you but herself to no end?

She lives a life of glamourous insanity,
While doing her best to help out humanity

Our dear friend Mattie is smart as a whip,
While ever the icon of her own brand of hip

Neither bustier nor hot pant will be left aside,
Should MJ have the chance to wear them with pride!

And with glee we have enjoyed many nights in the city,
Busting out the glam, it still makes me giddy

For sharing the sense that moderation is overrated,
Brought on many nights when we left the boys quite frustrated

On that score of late she has had us puzzling,
Over who exactly she's recently been nuzzling

We try to decode her various Facebook updates,
And we're watchful that she not involve herself with any ingrates

She said at one point that she blames the CIA
For what, we're not sure but here's to hoping they don't keep her at bay

She is so pretty and dangerous, you see
That it's perfectly reasonable they'd want to give her the third degree

She claimed at one point that she should really know better,
But living like that would be so boring, so fettered

Mattie, it is we who promise never to forsake the colours that you bring,
For you are ever a beacon of light and joy for us, with a dash of bling

And now as you enter your 30th year,
How lucky are we that the occasion has brought us near

Life without you would be terribly dull,
It's an existence I'd, frankly, rather not mull

I look forward to all of our birthdays to come,
And all of the living yet to be done

So on the occasion of Miss Mattie's glorious birthday,
Let us raise our glasses and shout out, hooray!


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

Mattie updates lifted directly off Facebook for the purposes of this poem:

Mattie amuses herself no end.
Mattie is living a life of glamourous insanity.
Mattie blames the CIA.
Mattie is so pretty and dangerous.
Mattie will not forsake the colours that you bring.
Mattie really should know better.
Mattie thinks moderation is overrated.

ok so i was going to post that to poke fun at myself, but have ended up just missing my friends. who know and love me well. and vice versa. so maybe i'll skip all of the silly lessons i was going to list here. about booty-shaking** and then some, and get straight to the point. i feel so blessed this birthday. this life, really. for my amazing and beautiful family and friends. and that's all that matters. and for having come through fires, literal and otherwise, this year. i've survived. and thrived. which i could not have done without said amazing and beautiful family and friends. and for which i am so humbled and grateful. i also feel especially blessed this birthday because of some recent news. i sent a message to my pregnant sister on wednesday saying i wanted a niece for my birthday (i have two gorgeous wonderful nephews!), and she found out on friday she's having a girl. and now i'm literally weeping with joy just thinking about that. (ok and a little bit of sadness that i'm so far away. what am i doing here?!?) so that means it's time to close the computer, cry in a corner for a bit, than rock out as hard as i can while i clean up all the empty champagne bottles.



*who am i kidding? i am not really concerned with cleanliness, only aesthetics. i am very meticulous, for example, about the angles of my (gold) decorative throw pillows on my bed. and the placement of art and books and such. but i find no joy in scrubbing. none at all. my mother is a cleaner. one of my sisters may be as well. [query: is this an impulse that just comes with having children? will i give birth and then suddenly be that woman who jumps at the chance to chase dust kitties from the corners when there is a lull in conversation? even as i write it, i suspect not.] my mum can't sit still if there is anything unscrubbed within her line of sight. this is so much the case that all of my sisters and i have confessed that even in our adult lives we've been lazy about cleaning our flats and just waited for her to visit to tidy up. we justified this because even if we did clean in anticipation of her visit, she would walk in and immediately seize the windex anyway. in fact, it is entirely possible that the only times my bathroom was cleaned during my three years of law school were when my mum came over. (lest you think that i am jut as filthy filthy freaknasty gross as all the hiphop i've been listening to lately, i ought to clarify that i lived a 30 minute drive from my parents during law school, so visits were regular.) but there was another point to this footnote. oh yes, i do not have an inner cleaner, but once upon a lifetime i aspired to have one. thankfully, i am now old enough to simply be comfortably with who and why i am and no longer have ridiculous aspirations like that. i also have become neater as i age. when i was a teenager i was basically a slob. i distinctly remember sitting at our living room table in beijing, filling out an informational form for university designed to help with roommate placement and there was a question about cleanliness that asked you to select from a number of options to describe yourself. i read the options aloud to my family and opined that i tick "mostly neat with the occasional mess". they would have none of it. in fact my littlest sister may have spit up milk laughing at that suggestion. they insisted i tick the box that basically said "i am a completely hopeless mess and i can't recall the last time i saw the floor next to my bed because i live in a vacuum of misunderstood creative clutter that whirls about me at all times". ok so i added the creative clutter bit. clearly i'm still defensive. i think the choice actually said "very messy". it was the right choice. i'm not sure my freshman year roommate and i ever cleaned our floor. ever. and i think many small life forms perished in our fridge during the year. but we had a good time.

**once again i didn't dance with any straight men. or at least no eligible ones. oh well.

glamazon

so first i was too glam for guiyang. and now i am just plain too glam. in fact, glamazon. so i am sparkling away from these grey skies tomorrow for two full weeks of joy and sunshine, good french fries and lambrusco, snuggling with the world's most wonderful nephew and laughing with my dearest friends, running on the beach and escorting one of my heart friends down the aisle. so, so excited. watch out, meiguo.

when i was recently with one of my sisters one of us remarked that i might just be too glam to be a human rights lawyer. at least in the long run. (the absolutely atrocious and appalling air quality and residual grey of the last few weeks literally has my inner diva ablaze and wanting to dress like a bollywood j.lo every morning. it's all i can to do contain it and tone it down to a respectable level.) anyway, even though i can't recall who said it, i am recalling the remark now. within the last week, a potential new direction has whirlwinded into my life and i am most intrigued. have literally found myself waking in the middle of the night thinking about it. and, as a recovering insomniac, it has been just terribly wonderful to find myself sleepless with excitement over a professional opportunity rather than heartache or over-thinking about a boy. terribly wonderful. (though it takes the same toll on my skin. unfortunately the substance of reason for sleeplessness does not influence form of resultant poor skin.) not sure how this will all unfold, but i am enjoying being in the midst of it for now. watch this space. and watch space. there's so much room for more love and beauty and joy in each and every day. i'm about to go cram as much as i can into the next two weeks.
don't cry for me jingshan park, i'll see you soon. and suspect that i'll still be too glam when i get back.

balancing terror and wonder

i read somewhere once upon a lifetime when i was eighteen and searching for an epiphany* that the art of living involved balancing the terror of being a man with the wonder of being a man. the very idea of living is of course gendered. (but what isn't?) nonetheless, i found the concept of balancing appealing. why i recall this now i am not sure except that i have been meaning to write for some time partially because i seem to be suspended between the terror and wonder, the highs and lows.

so, terror.

gao zhisheng has been released. yet his spirit seems crushed. which makes me at once want to weep and also fight. i shudder to think what the chinese authorities did to him this time. burning cigarettes on his eyeballs and electric shocks to his genitals were not enough to break him, insufficient torture to compel him to cease his pursuit of justice and rights in china. now he says that he no longer has the capacity to persevere.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/08/world/asia/08dissident.html?scp=5&sq=gao%20zhisheng&st=cse

the saddest line to me in that piece is the description of his returning home and seeing his family's shoes. (they fled china after his last disappearance and have received political asylum in the US.) but what is perhaps most devastating is this:
“You know that past life of mine was abnormal, and I need to give up that former life,” he said. “I hope I can become part of the peaceful life of the big family.”

his saying that being a human rights lawyer or defending the legal rights of vulnerable groups is "abnormal" makes my heart sink. even more so the idea that he can now join the peaceful (harmonious!) life of the big family of the chinese state at the expense of losing his own family. although i hope that they will be able to be reunited somehow.... the brutality of this government, and the seemingly willful blindness to its darker side by so many, is literally terrifying.

there have been some other dark moments this week related to the ever-tightening space in which international organizations such of ours can operate; government scrutiny and suppression of public interest-oriented work and civil society. i can say no more, but it was certainly disconcerting.

so, wonder.

my parents came for a visit and i cooked a spring feast for them and my chinese parents and others. our families' lives have been intertwined for seventeen years and inexorably altered as a result. feeding them all in my new home was incredibly joyful. even if the dinner conversation turned bloody while my chinese mum and landlady swapped tiananmen stories.

i also had a great work trip to changsha to check in on one of our programs focused on providing training to police on intervening in domestic violence cases. i rode in a chinese police car for the first time with an incredibly thoughtful and remarkable local precinct chief who has really embraced improving the police response to domestic violence and made it a priority. he described how he was able to have the local procuratorate bring charges against a man he had known was abusing his wife for years after one beating left her with a broken nose and other injuries that rose to the level of "light injury" and therefore sufficient for an assault charge under the criminal code. domestic violence is not a separate crime in china and unfortunately it is common for police to respond to cases of violence between intimate partners by treating them as "family matters" or "domestic disputes". if the same incident had happened between strangers on the street, it would be an assault and charges would be brought, but because it is a man beating his wife, it is seen as just the way of things and not needing police involvement. that is why it was so heartening to hear this officer discuss his approach to his work. he told the woman to think of him and his police force as part of her family and there to protect her.

i realize i've just unwittingly echoed the "big family" remark. ironic how the same way of describing how an individual relates to her community or country can be suppressive or protective. context is all. or, more accurately, balance.


*being eighteen i believed that one could seek epiphanies, obstinately ignoring the truth that epiphanies are by their very nature ephemeral and gossamer things which cannot be grasped. then again, one epiphany i've had since then is that nothing that matters or endures can be grasped. anything worth holding onto seems ungraspable. and therein is life's greatest lesson. (she says in a footnote.)

surprising joy

i realize that i have spent a lot of time cultivating joy. discovering it sprouting up from the sidewalk. or stumbing into it in the fruit stall as i knock over the eggplants. or actively affirming it within. (really the inner is so much more than the outer!) and this cultivation is a good practice. but an email exchange w/ my ba this morning made me realize that there is a certain quality of sheer joy that you cannot create. it's not something you can choose, but has to sneak up and paint you gold and send you off dancing into the stars.... or some approximate equivalent. here is the exhange:

ba:
OK. All I really want for you is for you to be surprised by joy one of these days. But that's the catch. It has to sneak up unexpectedly and then surprise the beejezus out of you!
me:
oh me too, ba, me too. i rather tragically thought in some small quiet corner of my heart that that would happen now. : /
but it's ok. i'll be ok.

and i will be. i hadn't realized until he said it that, despite all my efforts to create and find and cherish joy, to be really whole, to be thankful, to see beauty everywhere, one day i would love to experiencing that kind of surprising joy.

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....

spaciousness

the more space you cultivate in your life for beauty and joy, the more they will rush in and fill that space, overwhlem it. same is true for adventure. i have been thinking lately about making space for what matters and cultivating a sense of spaciousness within myself. (ok, confession - i am almost always thinking about this.) this weekend was expansive. both experientially and lingamentally. ;). i discovered my new favourite place in beijing. and i took a ballet class.

i almost backed out of ballet at the last minute again, but decided to bravely choose the path which would push me in new directions, loosen up some space in my mind, heart, and hips. i would like to say that beauty and joy rushed in and i was a vision in the studio. but i would be lying. pain and cramping rushed in and i was all awkward jerky movements across the floor. but no matter. i wasn't concerned with what was reflected in the mirror. my purpose was more than the mirror, or rather had nothing to do with it. my sore muscles are today still reminding me to leap. and laugh about it, no matter what happens. i am going back to class again on wednesday.*

when i went to class on saturday, i was already creatively inspired after a great friday night at beijing's best live music venue (my new favourite place). dedicated to supporting all kinds of music as long as it's independent, this platform for creativity welcomes local and international bands, screens films, throws parties, and i hope one day will let be do some political theatre.** we were there to see a brooklyn-based indie rock band, au revoir simone. (i hope that's the correct way to describe them.) they were fantastic and the energy in the crowd was warm and vivacious and daring on a cold winter night. the characters collected in that spot were interesting, and i couldn't help but wonder how we had all drifted into this darkened space in the center of this sleeping dragon of a city. the second act involved a tiny, tiny italian man with very large hair jumping up and down and incomprehensibly scream-singing as his balding friend in a blazer moved around a giant, silver inflatable rocket-penis twice his size with his name (silvio) emblazoned down the shaft in blue letters. it takes all kinds. and somehow there is space for all of us.

in thinking about both inner and outer spaciousness, i have also been thinking about the times of the day in which to cultivate them. i did yoga this morning. i of course spent some moments hesitating about whether to do it or not. i have not fully actualized my discipline as freedom concept. (or is it discipline as a means to a greater sense of spaciousness, which is in and of itself freeing?) while in that statis, i noticed the calmness of the early morning. and that light. i love the early morning light. and the quiet. the possibility. i'm grateful for those early morning moments, even when i forget to appreciate them and am caught up arguing with myself about whether or not to practice yoga. i've always liked the time before dawn because there's no one around to remind me who i'm supposed to be, so it's easier to remember who i am. there is such spaciousness there.

in less uplifting news, there was a(nother) horrific mining accident in china this weekend. i've been reading lately about the government's suppression of the modern labour movement in china (ironic for the state that was meant to establish a workers' paradise). that movement was lead by coal miners. and they were crushed, just as brutally as they regularly are in the mines because both (corrupt) state-owned and (corrupt) privately-owned mining companies find it more lucrative to pay a pittance to dead miners' families than to invest in and implement safety standards and adequate equipment. it infuriates me and just makes certain spaces in my heart ache. i have been feeling that way a great deal lately. i cannot help but notice, and want to call attention to, the dark side of china's dazzling economic rise. i want to make more space for it in the common china discourse somehow.


*the most profound learning point of the first class was re-discovering that there are certain bum muscles you only use in ballet. that and the truth of the statement 'if you don't move it, you lose it'.

**in another exciting development this weekend i have finally settled on my next writing project! and (unsurprisingly) it hit me with the subtlety of a hurricane. very excited about seeing where this will lead.

creative day(s) in the northern capital

last night i went to the american ballet theatre's china premiere. it was simply exquisite. to be in the presence of such creativity, experiencing moments both tender and whimsical, was bliss. and the dancers were incredible - so precise, so moving. it was all just very finely wrought. i was filled with unbounded joy just to be living those moments and seeing such beauty. i am about to go back for a second night tonight! although the programs are different - last night was contemporary ballet, tonight is don quixote. still, i am thankful for dance. for all it has been in my life and continues to be.

watching last night's pieces and reflecting on them afterwards, i found myself struck by our endless flow of creativity and spirit. that we can ceaselessly gyre forward in our means of expression and art. and again i found myself i want to find myself closer to that widening gyre (in a positive sense). closer to creativity somehow. which of course requires discipline. something else that the dancers reminded me of. i have at times run my fingers through the idea of discipline as freedom. recently a lovely friend recalled for me a passage from 'a wrinkle in time', a favourite book of mine as a sweet young thing:

Mrs. Whatsit compares life to a sonnet:

"It is a very strict form of poetry is it not?

"There are fourteen lines, I believe, all in iambic pentameter. That's a very strict rhythm or meter, yes?

"And each line has to end with a rigid rhyme pattern. And if the poet does not do it exactly this way, it is not a sonnet, is it?"

Calvin: "You mean you're comparing our lives to a sonnet? A strict form, but freedom within it?"

"Yes. You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. What you say is completely up to you."

such a charming way of circling around and into the discipline / freedom flow! i suspect that tonight's performance will be similarly inspiring.

in other news, i thought it quite noteworthy that obama's speech in japan was basically about china. it's a good thing the united states does not intend to "contain china"; the chinese keep the american economy float insofar as i understand these things and i doubt america could contain china even if it wanted to. a very clever strategy to mask your reliance / strategic weakness as magnanimity. once again, rhetoric to the rescue!

i also couldn't help but marvel at the strategic carpet the chinese threw down this morning, equating the situation with tibet with the american civil war and noting that obama, as a black president and an admirer of lincoln, should really understand their need to maintain control over tibet.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/14/world/asia/14beijing.html?scp=1&sq=china%20tibet%20civil%20war&st=cse

really, it's just too good. it seems that creativity abounds in the northern capital these days! not just on the stage at the national centre for performing arts.

on conquering fears, connection, and happiness

there is a school of thought that suggests you should do one thing that scares you each day. i do not subscribe to said school. then again, i do not easily frighten. (or so i tell myself.) i do believe that you should continuously challenge yourself and expand your horizons. which is why i almost ended up in a leotard on a freezing wednesday night in an adult ballet class. oh, i was so prepared. this was a personal challenge i can been considering for some time. i had brought ballet shoes back from my last visit home. i had purchased the leotard last weekend. i had called the studio. i had made evening plans at 9:00 to enable me twirl away the time from 7:00 - 8:30. but there are challenges, and there is happiness. as i was leaving the office, struck by the bite of the cold air, thoughtful, i realized that the idea of changing into a leotard and attempting to dance tonight was not appealing. and that i was hungry. and that the classes would still be offered in the springtime. and that even though i hope that i will be able to find joy in dancing again, i didn't need to find it this week. so i went and ate a roasted sweet potato the size of my face instead. and was very happy with that choice. (eating a warm sweet potato while there is snow on the ground is somehow extra delicious!)

the women's lunch event i spoke at today was quite interesting insofar as it highlighted the importance of connection (and interconnectedness) and mentoring. the connection bit basically came from a fascinating chinese lawyer who had spent many years in the corporate law world, including 11 as the general counsel and then also a VP at a major US corporation in china. she left essentially to find meaning and now spends her time focusing on nature, tibet, the interconnectedness of people, and environmental issues. (if that sounds a little vague, it was.) she uses the connections from her past life to help her in these new endeavours at times and apparently still practices law occasionally. oh and she is also an artist. she just seemed much calmer than everyone else in the room. (and perhaps was subconsciously my inspiration for choosing happiness in the form of sweet potato sustenance this evening.) the mentoring discussion grew out of exchanges about making it professionally as women lawyers. (or just making it professionally at all.) i've long seen the value in mentoring, even if i don't always fully actualize it.

as evidenced by tonights decision not to dance, actualizing the visions of sugarplum faeries we have for ourselves is easier said than done.

heroes in the seaweed

on friday evening i found myself stuck in a traffic jam at rush hour, facing a logistical jungle gym of evening engagements, having recently been called regarding a minor work crisis, but serenely happy and in buoyed spirits. this was because i had just come from a meeting about public interest law in china at the offices of a remarkable collection of chinese public interest lawyers who work on children's rights, and migrant worker's rights, and other issues. their offices are in fengtai district, which may as well be another province because it seems so far away. but every time i make the journey out there, i am so inspired. the commitment, compassion, and courage of these lawyers just never fails to move me. and to make me feel as though my own small piece in china's rule of law puzzle makes sense somehow, or is worth it.

i think my spirits were in need of such a lift this friday after a women's rights program i had worked very hard on was cancelled, an environmental program in wuhan did not go so well (our trainers were terrible, in a word), and i've been increasingly finding the distance part of being in a long distance relationship difficult. friday was an incredibly windy day, so as my taxi snaked through the city, the beijing smog was being gusted about, sporadically swooshing up against the window and reminding me to pay attention. those windy alerts assisted in my appreciating and holding on to the sense of purpose and calm i carried with me as i left fengtai. there are heroes in the seaweed. and i am privileged to know some of them.

the wind also cleared out the skies for saturday, when i woke up early and went hiking near and on one of the more remote parts of the wall. it was a perfect day. amazing autumn weather - clear blue skies and sunshine, crisp air with just a slight chill as the wind blue. and the leaves were just turning and falling. and the company was lovely. i found myself hopping on one leg and dancing around just because i was feeling joyful and full of life. throwing leaves around like a child. why do we learn to suppress our spontaneity (or at least spontaneous explosions of joy) as adults? so dull, really. it was grand. am now thinking of a mary oliver poem a friend shared with me recently. ahem:

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.

not twenty and won't be again but ah! thiry-one. and still in love with life. and still full of beans. my program this week is still cancelled. and i am still not sure how to resolve the challenge of distance. but i am remembering to appreciate the way the late afternoon light filters through the trees in the fields as i walk through the chinese countryside. and remembering to notice the beauty in the yellowing leaves. and appreciating learning a new recipe for olive tapenade (add sunflower seeds for some extra nuttiness!). and feeling thankful for the chance to know some of the heroes in the seaweed.

love and beans. love and beans!