of angels and afterglow

my yoga practice this morning was disrupted by a swift and startling hail storm. it arrived so suddenly. it was overwhelming and fierce and gorgeous. the universe's hurling reminder to live to the point of tears, to pay attention, to be really whole and let the world come to you. or at least that's how i interpreted it. i stopped my practice and ran to the into to watch it pound us with perspective. i contemplated dancing in it, celebrating it somehow - life's secret outpouring (outpouring of life's secrets?) at 6:58 am. but reason (dancing in a hail storm in yoga clothes would likely bring my cold back) won over passion (dance!). for some reason, writing this is reminding me of one of my favourite brian andreas quotes - "most people don't know there are angels whose only job is to make sure you don't get too comfortable & fall asleep & miss your life". angels appear in all sorts of unexpected places.

speaking of unexpected places, i found myself translating an interview about china, nationalism, and identity with mao's secretary. for real. he's 90, but still very lucid, thoughtful and engaging. he was sporting the elder comrade commifabulous modern mao suit, think glasses and a shock of white hair. we met in the gui bing lou of the beijing hotel and after our meeting his black sedan with white plates (=party member) was waiting to escort him back to his flat which i realized afterwards must be in zhongnanhai (the compound for the party leadership) and explains why we couldn't meet him there. the circumstances of how i ended up translating for two millenials** is frankly insulting. and the girls themselves were less than inspiring. (aside: they want to take me to dinner to thank me for my time / doing their homework for them, but i don't think i care to spend anymore time attempting to connect with them. once upon a lifetime, a former self was willing to endure dull conversation for good, free meals (that was called "dating"). but i'm no longer willing to waste precious time (hailstorm! tempus fugit! don't sacrifice!) just for the sake of a nice meal. of course, my courtesy will likely win out in the end and i will probably go to dinner with these gals and try to be kind and see the good in them. for luckily i've found that i can see the good in just about everyone.) circumstances aside, i was intrigued by the opportunity to meet this man and here his perspective on the 60 years of the PRC. he started off in yen'an during the japanese resistance movement, found himself as mao's secretary, was disgraced, imprisoned and tortured during the cultural revolution (& wrote about about it), and was then redeemed by deng xiaopeng. (ahh, to have fallen from grace and to have been rescued by a multi-coloured cat!) he was thoughtful about china's past (and said he thought mao got arrogant after the nation was formally established, but i think he was being polite and towing the party line, while honestly had more critical things to say about the great helmsman.) the millenial and her roommate asked obvious, not particularly probing questions. and they didn't show - or weren't prepared to show - the level of respect i think the circumstances dictated (look up how to say "it's an honour to meet you" or ask me in advance). i inserted the appropriate niceties as best i could. because i did think it was an honour to meet him. i am fortunate enough to have two grandmothers in their 90s and feel that i have so much to learn from people who have seen so much.

though i still have much to learn, i feel as though i am getting closer to mastering the dinner party. i made my mum's vegetarian chilli yesterday (secret to the deliciousness: raisins, cashews, beer!) and had some friends over for dinner. i also, because i am an obsessive baker these days (what is that about?!?) made wholewheat honey bread to go with it. and oatmeal raisin cranberry dark chocolate chunk cookies. somehow it all just came together very nicely - the food, the company, the feeling. (the music was a little odd, but my ipod is strangely possessed. also, little trouble has tampered with it a lot.) it felt liberating in a curious way. i love feeding people. and i love bringing people together. but in some corner of my mind i think i still associated dinner parties with something i would do with a partner (and have done so only when little trouble is in town in the past). and i don't have completely matching tableware or such, but am clearly not getting married and likely to get it anytime soon. but i realized in the warm afterglow of saying goodnight as the guests stepped off into the crisp cold and i turned to the soapy warmth of washing up to loud music and the last sips of my wine, that it's not about a partner or plates. that i can create community and spread love on my own. and indeed, have been doing so for many years (always?) without realizing it. it was a nice quiet realization. especially because i have been feeling a bit burned by the distance lately and a little troubled about things with little trouble. but i am tired of trembling with the strain of worrying too much or trying not to worry. so am just living my life, looking for love and joy each day and finding angels in hailstorms. i finally feel as though i am building a real life here, and am enjoying that. i only wish that little trouble could be a part of it. and i hope we find a way to be in the same place before the distance becomes toxic (if it is not already).

on a more positive note, i am concluding this day marveling at how life can unfold, content after a meal with a friend, and full of poetry and possibility. i'm not sure that angels could ask for anything more.


**my preferred term for the current crop of college students, recent graduates, and even law students who just seem to not have much of a clue and have a sense of entitlement that is frankly frightening. i confess this is something i may have something of a soapbox about. it just always baffles me. who do these kids think they are? and why does it seem that there is little to no conversation about, for example, how to approach an internship proactively and consider your role as adding value to and learning from the employer? why does the emphasis always seem to be about what the intern expects to gain and not what s/he hopes to contribute or add? there is a real selfishness that i've observed in young people perhaps half a generation behind me. it's always shocking. in this case, it was particularly so. the coed who called me to do this (confession: yes, i just wanted to use the term 'coed' and yes i know it's ridiculous) is the daughter of a woman who is basically on the board of my ngo and who has deep connections in china. the board member's parents (millienial's grandparents) had a connection with mao's secretary and his family. millienial and her roommate are both in beijing studying this year (incidentally at the same university my brother taught at years ago which has a soft spot in my heart because his time in china really marked the blossoming of our relationship which is something i truly cherish). as part of their program they are taking a 'chinese culture' class (taught in english) and they had an assignment to interview a chinese person about nationalism and the 60th anniversary and all that jazz. millenial and roommate decided they wanted to interview wang zhongfang, mao's secretary. she had her mother send me and my partner-in-crime (maybe i should call her my work wife? i had a work husband once (my comrade and go-to for emotional support at the office; i still call him that), but in this case it's an even more apt description) an urgent email asking us to help her. these two basically can't speak any comprehensible chinese even though they've been studying the language for more than a year at an ivy league university plus three months in beijing. so i had to call this respected elder statesman and arrange the interview and then take them there and then basically conduct the interview - he couldn't understand their questions and they couldn't understand his responses. it was an interesting exercise in simultaneous translation for me. but, as i was reflecting on the fact that a board member thought this an appropriate request to make or that her daughter thought it an appropriate use of her mother's connection, i realized that it all smacked of what drives me crazy about certain millenials. she would have had a broader learning experience if she had had to stand on her own two feet and find someone she could actually speak to (it's not exactly hard to find a chinese person to talk to in beijing), rather than fall back on privilege and mummy's guanxi (connections). but that's just it - the millenial essence. this sense of entitlement or idea that the entire world can bend to satisfy your whims rather than being satisfied with doing what you can do on your own. then again, i contributed to that idea by disrupting my work week to help her. but did i have a choice given her mother's position in my ngo?

it tastes like leaf

so while i was in chiang mai recently, a group of us went to visit a local temple. it was almost sunset and there was a pervasive stillness about the place as the monks had just finished their evening chanting. i was walking along with a few others on a terrace just below the temple, overlooking the city. there was a striking embracing large umbrella of a tree with gorgeous bright purple flowers. i walked under it with a sweet filipino lawyer named bobbie, who had made me cry earlier that day in her presentation about their land rights work on behalf of farmers. i commented on our vibrant purple embrace. looking up at the flowers, bobbie said, "we eat these in my country." i asked her if they were good. she shook her head, laughing, and said, "it tastes like leaf."

i recalled this story for some reason as i watched the footage from china's 60th anniversary celebration extravaganza. perhaps because i felt that despite all the gorgeous red hoopla, the comrades-leader call and response, the more-lavish-than-the-olympics fireworks, and the PLA female soldiers in miniskirts and f**k-me boots, it tastes like leaf.

i, like most beijingers, wasn't able to attend the real deal. in fact, i made it out of town and hightailed it to hong kong just before the government shut the airport down during the parade. my cabbie had to drive with his hazards on because the fog was to dense. it's a good thing that thousands of troops, large cloud pushers and other assorted military "weather control" artillery were on the ready to secure a perfect blue sky. apparently more than $1 million RMB was spent shooting 432 rockets with iodine at any insolent capitalist roader clouds daring to mar the perfect day to prove china's great socialist rise to the world. i wonder if those terms (capitalist, socialist) have any real meaning anymore. and i especially wonder what the party's vision, as expressed by hu jintao of "a rich and strong, democratic, civilised, and harmonious and modern socialist country" really means. sure, china showed its strength. who isn't impressed by inter-continental nuclear missiles being lovingly paraded down changan jie (while citizens living along the street weren't allowed to go to their windows)? but does it ever strike you that all of the party's doublespeak is simply an effort to obscure the fact that the country and the economy are being run to benefit a handful of elite party leaders and their families? this is a community that lives in an inaccessible compound, a new forbidden city, just adjacent to the original that is in fact to inaccessible that it doesn't appear on city maps.* how much of china's rise has helped the lao bai xing - the common people - and how much of it has been, and continues to be, calculated to further enrich and empower the party elite?

speaking of the elite, among the many wonderful articles in the sept. 30th edition of the china daily was a piece entitled "grandson of maos eyes promoted". it was about mao's grandson (presumably the grandson of the entire man, not just his eyes, but the missing apostrophe leaves one uncertain). this grandson - mao xinyu, who among other accomplishments is the author of "the award-winning 'my grandfather mao zedong'", is being promoted to become china's youngest major general. he and all four of his chins. the photo accompanying the article showed a picture of his chubby face squeezed above the collar of a military uniform. in addition to jiaozi, youtiao and jianbing, his interests include promoting mao zedong thought (about which he is an expert) and little red miniskirts (a newly acquired interest).

aiyo, the relative freedom and naturally blue skies of hong kong have gone to my head. refreshing, although also kind of tastes like leaf.





*a public-minded lawyer once sued a beijing map-maker about the fact that this compound and its lakes, zhongnanhai, do not appear on beijing maps. unsurprisingly, he lost.

the answer is blowing in the wind

so, national day is just around the corner. i am back in beijing and impressed by how thoroughly the city has been blanketed in flags. especially the hutongs – a gorgeous crimson carefully planned display of spontaneous nationalistic sentiment has flags blowing in the wind every few feet. i leave it up to you decide whether flags are the answer or whether china is. (telling you the question would really make it easy.)

i will not be here for national day, so will be missing an even more grand fluttering of flags, the tumble of tanks, and the smart step of PLA soldiers in swank new uniforms. my absence will be in keeping with a theme of heavy travel of late which has me currently hiding out in my flat rather than seeking treatment for a terrible sore throat due to fear of quarantine. i fear that once i walk into a clinic with a fever and confess to having been abroad, i will promptly be thrown into beijing’s swine flu quarantine. this is my idea of purgatory. perhaps even more so than weekend shopping trips to ikea (which is right up there on my list of personal purgatories). not that i believe in any of that, but if i did, i imagine there would be room for both. dante had many layers to his inferno, didn’t he? ikea-shopping on the weekend and swine flu quarantine would both be in mine. not so gruesome as someone eternally gnawing on your head, but nightmarish in their own way.

this illness aside, it’s been quite nice coming back to beijing this time around. it is starting to feel more like home (again) now. it was especially nice to realize that there were people i was looking forward to seeing, treats i was looking forward to eating, neighbours’ cats i was looking forward to spying on. my flat here also really feels like my space – a room of my own. (with a room to spare for visitors!) the (oh so conventional) anxieties that consumed me a month ago have dissipated and left me humbly wandering in the calm blue acceptance of who and where i am at the moment. (at least for a few minutes each day anyway.)

in all seriousness, i am trying more than ever to simply be present. more than ever to appreciate: the blue skies when we are graced with them, my work even as i endlessly contemplate creative tributaries, friendship in all its forms and complexity, compassion, and love. that could be my thought of the day if i were a little inspirational calendar. slightly more than a week after my birthday, i remembered to open the card my parents had given me. in it, they enclosed a description of my chinese zodiac sign, the horse. ahem: a person born in this year is said to be cheerful, popular, and quick-witted. he has raw sex appeal rather than straight good looks. earthy and warmly appealing, he is very perceptive and talkative. his changeable nature may lead him to be hot-tempered, rash, and headstrong at times. the unpredictable horse will fall in love easily and fall out of love just as easily. in most cases the horse will leave home early. if not, his independent spirit will goad him to start working or to take up some career at an early age. an adventurer at heart, still he is noted for his keen mind and ability to manage money. self-reliant, vivacious, energetic, impetuous, and even brash, the horse is a showy dresser, partial to bright colours and striking designs to the point of being gaudy on occasion. the horse loves exercise both physical and mental. you can spot him by his rapid but graceful body movements, his animated reflexes and fast way of speaking. he responds quickly and can make snap decisions. his mind works at remarkable speed and whatever he may lack in stability and perseverance, he will certainly make up for by being open-minded and flexible. basically, he is a nonconformist.

naturally, this says everything and nothing all at once. (it is meant to describe everyone from anwar sadat to barbara streisand, neil armstrong to me.) but of course i see glimpses of myself here and there, and something about the last line i found comforting. while i would hardly call myself a nonconformist, i have tended not to follow conventional paths, and find myself contemplating even less conventional ones of late. somehow being labeled a nonconformist by whatever milk carton my parents clipped this from was soothing. it made my quiet urges to manage a political theatre, or write / dance / create, or run off to somewhere sacred and sit in silence and my flashes of resisting convention, never wanting to settle or stay still, or refusing limits seem downright day-to-day. the label was liberating. for a nonconformist, i'm doing really well.

part of doing well for me is falling in love easily, every single day. a dear friend of mind started a blog recently (lovethreethings.blogspot.com – it’s fantastic!) after she heard a poet talk about how, in order to write poetry, you must be open to falling in love at least three times a day. i love that idea. so did my friend, so she now blogs about what she falls in love with. i have taken to sometimes writing them in my notebook. i used to have an ideas notebook that i carried around, but found myself judging whether ideas were worthy of being recorded or worrying about writing things other than ideas in the ideas notebook. so now i just have a notebook. anything can go in. not much has come out so far. but here are two lists of three things i loved:

- raindrops on gloriously twisted old trees; my unique parents; coffee & pastries in a stolen moment alone thinking
- the lilt of the nordic english accent (a snowy sing-song!); the furious reckless beauty of a typhoon; an embrace so deep it is quiet

i forget to do it every day, but it is a nice practice. in this and previous notebooks i also like to collect shards of thoughts, images, ideas. perhaps to be used one day. perhaps not. i think i just appreciate the act of recording. these are things i have read, or thought, or seen, or felt, and didn’t want to let go of right away. a sampling:

- trust that runs as deep as joy
- longevity depends not so much on the firmness of your undertakings as on the permanent reexamination of your own certitudes
- one country can fall in love with another, get involved with it, grow tired of it and break its heart
- there is nothing picturesque in treachery or distrust
- politics like saggy breasts
- suffering is another bad habit
- sometimes don’t you just wish you could eat jazz? subsist on air & notes alone
- a man is as good as his fantasies
- about someone one understands, one doesn’t have to make lists of words
- intellectual pleasure in paradox / enjoyment of incongruity
- terror of being trapped and tamed by domesticity
- she made up stories about life & told them to herself & she didn’t know what was true & what wasn’t

so i'm not sure why i would share such a private thing here. perhaps it’s a personal test of sorts. to see whether i am really writing this for myself and whether it really matters if anyone is reading. the answer, i imagine, is blowing in the wind.