so wednesday afternoon i composed a perfectly witty and pithy post with this title, cleverly lyrical gangsta about how i am all whimsy, no worry only to have the post be irretrievably swept away by cyberspace. i blame the great firewall and some sharky vpn activity. this loss proves that god has a sense of humour.* because of course once it was disappeared, i worried about having lost my wondrous musings on whimsy. i consider all of it a lesson in impermanence. my version of a sand mandala. the title survived the ritualistic destruction, so i too have retained it. but i shall not attempt to recreate that perfect post in its entirety. instead, i'll briefly summarise and move on, since that is what life has done in the meanwhile. moved on, that is. it always does.
the title that the small hands of cyberspace saved refers to my decision of late to choose whimsy over worry. and to encourage others to do the same. not that it is my purpose to impose my will on others.** but really i think we could all do with more whimsy in our lives. and less worry.
i was having dinner with a friend earlier this week and while i was relating a recent whimsical experience, he asked me if i could turn off the novel. he said that listening to me tell stories was like being inside a novel. he suggested that i was so busy creating, characterising, or painting my life that i wasn't simply living it. i was very briefly taken aback. i paused and considered whether he had a point, whether i somehow follow more entertaining or colourful paths purely for the sake of personal narrative or, as he may have been implying, to create wondrous stories but remain hidden behind them and not actually let anyone get close to me. i decided he was mistaken. i believe that i in fact live very authentically. i told him as much and explained that it's just the honest truth that my life that my seemingly stranger-than-fiction tornado ballet life stories are what transpire when i simply live my life. it's just part of being sparkleicious.**** i also opined that creating stories and ordering our experiences is simply how we relate. only connect!***** we then connected by imagining what would happen next in our lives if they were novels. being september, i confessed that my next chapter would have to involve falling in love because september is the perfect season to fall in love.****** of course now that i've said that and written it here, it will certainly not happen. but that's also fine because my life is not a novel, i don't live it as such and i'm not worried about falling in love at the moment. which is a relief.
after our dinner deliberations, i discovered that a thoughtful mime had said as much in a conversation with my fabulous friend that she shared on her fabulous blog: http://citizenkerry.tumblr.com/post/1080790472/my-new-friend-pearl-the-mime. pearl the mime opined: “We’re all editors, and we’re all choosing the styles and the stories that represent us." the styles and stories i'm choosing now are pure whimsy.
what does that mean in practice? it means lots of laughter and forgetting. it means noticing texture. touch. challenging myself. it means soaking up the end of summer, appreciating each precious drop of sunlight and blue sky (which is seriously precious in these parts), and dancing when no one's watching. or even when they are. it means never giving up. it means glorious late summer dinner parties with delightful friends. and last thursday i hosted perhaps my most ambitious dinner party ever. (confession: pure whimsy aside, there is always some worry involved when i take on my elaborate dinner menu agendas. thankfully it usually all comes together in the end. and this night in particular it did.*******) as evening gave way to night, the dinner devolved into drunken parlour games in the courtyard that lasted into the wee hours. a great deal of whimsy! so much, in fact, that i was still feeling it the next morning. or maybe that was the whisky.
actually, rather than the perfect season to fall in love, this particular september seems to be the perfect season for thursday to be the new friday. a pink is the new black kind of thing. (or is black the new black this year?) i seem to be up or out late every thursday of late. last night was no exception. but - wait for it - i'm not worrying about it. and i know that i'll swing back into balance by the end of the month since it will find me at a yoga / spa escape in koh samui! this story is a lesson in the whimsy-worry balance (and will also conclude with some lessons on actual balance as part of a five day personal yoga synergy program - so excited). i need to be in bangkok for work next week and the mid-autumn festival immediately follows my work trip, so i decided to extend my time in thailand and go somewhere over the holiday. i have been craving some stillness (the tornado ballet gets tiring sometimes, even with my excessive sparkle) and so explored yoga escapes. i wrestled with whether i could or should afford to go with this dream program at a highly recommended but not cheap gorgeous resort built on buddhist caves. (confession: i also had some moments of worrying about going on holiday alone and considering finding a friend or lover (?) to come along. but i decided to embrace myself.) i also decided to embrace the dream program at the gorgeous resort. and then. and then last night i got an email from the director of my NGO saying he wanted to speak with me via phone. he called this morning to tell me i was being awarded a one time (modest) merit bonus in appreciation for all my work over the last year. i was very surprised and humbled and grateful. all the more so when i learned the details. it is the exact amount to cover my holiday. literally the exact amount. and it will be deposited into my bank account on the day i fly to thailand. which is truly and simply amazing grace. maybe i'm wrong to have whimsy as my mantra of the moment. (i'm pretty sure i'm right to try not to worry.) maybe i should be moved and amazed by grace. then again, maybe i already was and always am. and maybe, just maybe, that is also part of whimsy. whheeeeeeeee!
*does she ever! she is also everywhere. like the heroes in the seaweed.
**i doubt many of you have dashed off to listen to j.c. and bill moyers chat myths and meaning. i make these suggestions not to impose myself upon you, but merely as a means of sharing. only connect!***
***challenge: how many times have i used that expression in this blog? too many, to be sure. and i'm not even much of a howard's end fan, really. and yet. here is the relevant passage:
Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer.
and now it is too clear why i quote it so often, why that expression has become a touchstone for me.... imagine if we could collect all of the expressions and the images that serve as our touchstones. and not just when writing in public spaces, or writing at all. but those that we reach for inside ourselves in quiet moments. or that we look for next to the moon through the trees when we're lying in bed mulling over our days and our tomorrows. oh, to gather that ephemera in one place. it would surely arrange into an astounding bouquet! i would love to sculpt it somehow. and place it in a public space where many hands could smooth it over and over until it was gone.... on a less abstact note, i have decided to cease worrying about footnoting footnotes.
****a nickname. also, a true story: in a recent meeting about a potential new job in discussing what i would bring to the position, i included "spakle" (which i defined as an ability to stand out in a crowd and network to make people connect and bring out their best on behalf of a worthy cause). the woman i was speaking with almost leapt out of her seat. she cried, "you have so much sparkle!" i smiled demurely (in pearls) and agreed. i thought to myself, "you have no idea, lady. i sparkle when i'm not even trying. and sometimes, it's too bright even for me."
*****i had to throw that in for people who don't actually read the footnotes. zigazig ha. (yes, i just quoted the spice girls.)
******an idea absorbed from the fantasticks. a very pure musical. please refer to the lyrics of "try to remember" for more details.
*******menu included a watermelon gazpacho, a spinach-garbanzo bean-cucumber-cherry tomato-feta quinoa salad w/ smoked paprika dressing, an avacado-cherry tomato-red onion-cilantro greens salad w/ a secret balsamic dressing, marinated baked salmon topped with roasted red and yellow peppers and thyme. a friend contributed roasted figs wrapped in proscuitto to the appetizer course. and i made my magic amaretto-spiked chocolate mousse for dessert. it was strong work for dinner for twelve on a thursday. oh and, of course, there was lots of delicious cheese accessible at all times.
Showing posts with label personal narrative. Show all posts
Showing posts with label personal narrative. Show all posts
Monday, September 6, 2010
Friday, August 13, 2010
on naming and spending
as a friend commented to me yesterday, 'it is hard to compete with fishjuice vodka'. and she doesn't know the half of it. but indeed it is, so it is not with out some sense of trepidation that attempt to scrape together some thoughts today. i feel compelled to do so, however, in case saturday's party is as insane as the last one* and i end up writing about splitting my trousers on the dancefloor** and you all think that all i am good for is drinking champagne and being silly***. i will therefore today attempt to talk about serious things. to wit: naming (and the narratives entangled therein (oh narrative arc! my favourite subject)) and consumption (which, actually, also related to the narratives we create and seek for ourselves and how we ascribe meaning to them through language (a.k.a. naming)).
first, consumption.
i have actually been thinking about this a bit lately. partially because i (finally) paid off my private student loans from law school. and, although i still have some public loans blowing in the wind somewhere, i am able to to ponder financial potentials that were heretofore impossible for me. it has also been interesting to just examine how i managed to finally pay them off (and how people respond when i tell them) - not buying any new clothes for a year and moving into a considerably cheaper flat that i share - and where i am choosing to spend money now that i have more disposable income - on other people and experiences. (well, and i immediately purchased a small heap of shoes. but i really needed some new shoes after that year! and i am imperfect. (i maintain that blue patent leather stilettos were also required.)) so i am thinking about this now becuase i my own rather subtle musings more became more pronounced after i read the following article: http://bitchmagazine.org/article/eat-pray-spend. the authors critique the self-help / priv-lit genre and the consumer culture it promotes among women as anti-feminist****. really worth a read. although this about sums it up:
Priv-lit perpetuates several negative assumptions about women and their relationship to money and responsibility. The first is that women can or should be willing to spend extravagantly, leave our families, or abandon our jobs in order to fit ill-defined notions of what it is to be “whole.” Another is the infantilizing notion that we need guides—often strangers who don’t know the specifics of our financial, spiritual, or emotional histories—to tell us the best way forward. The most problematic assumption, and the one that ties it most closely to current, mainstream forms of misogyny, is that women are inherently and deeply flawed, in need of consistent improvement throughout their lives, and those who don’t invest in addressing those flaws are ultimately doomed to making themselves, if not others, miserable.
very astute point(s). and yet. and yet so many of the intelligent, together women i know really loved eat pray love. although many felt guilty about it. [side query: how much of that speaks to elizabeth gilbert's strength as a writer and how much of it speaks to how compelling we find her narrative?] i remember when, once upon a lifetime when i worked in a big bad law firm in the big bad apple that was affectionately nicknamed 'the sweatshop' or 'the death star', the subject of eat pray love came up in a conversation i was having with one of my partner mentors. this particular partner mentor is truly amazing - smart and compassionate and accomplished, she ended up at the firm because it was the only job she could get in nyc in 1971 that would permit her to work a four-day week so that she could spend fridays caring for her two young daughters and supporting her rabbi-husband has he prepared for services and observe shabbat in the calm way she desired. she adhered to that schedule (not without challenges along the way) the entire time her children were growing up and made partner after many years with the firm. she and her husband also started a wonderful NGO working to empower farmers and communities in afghanistan, a country they travelled in and fell in love with in the late 60s / early 70s. [http://www.gpfa.org/] this woman seemed to have it all, respected in the world of international arbitration and in her community, she had a happy marriage, great kids, a thriving career, a successful NGO. she was an inspiration.
although i worked quite closely with this partner***** on a number of cases and other projects, the occasion of our conversation that day was my inviting her to be a guest speaker at my book club when we were going to be discussing a book about afghanistan. rory stewart's the places in between, his account of walking across afghanistan in january, 2002. (incidentally, gender figured prominently in our conversation because of course a woman could never have written this book and of course rory is not at all conscious of this. then again, how many of us are truly conscious of our own privileges until something overwhelming and blinding forces us to see? and even then, our consciousness is typically fleeting.) the partner agreed, but she asked what other books we'd read. eat pray love was a last minute substitute because none of us could bear to get through the 600 pages of run-on sentences that comprised the book we had selected for that month. but i mentioned it when running through what we'd covered thus far that year. she wrinkled her nose when i mentioned eat pray love, commenting, "i read the first three pages but i couldn't bear to go any further. it was all so self-indulgent and ridiculous." she had and has a point. you don't achieve what this woman had achieved, both professionally, personally, and dare i say spiritually, by abandoning responsibilities and running off to eat gelato or pet cows every time god speaks to you while you're crying on the bathroom floor in the middle of the night. [confession: god has never spoken to me while i'm crying on the bathroom floor in the middle of the night. her loss, really. i am really funny when i'm crying on the bathroom floor in the middle of the night.] of course after the partner said that, i felt a pang of guilt for having finished the book. in one day even (shhhh!). and tumbled over myself trying to explain that it had been a last minute substitute and really the book club ladies were way more evolved than elizabeth gilbert, really. of course, when she came to book club the discussion about the places in between, we all really just wanted to know how she had done it, how she had managed to have it all. she answered simply, explaining that you can't have it all at once and must do things one at a time.
and now i am suitably tangled up in side stories and must unravel these threads in a tidy manner and draw a conclusion - we ought to be critical of how we're encouraged to consume (conscious of the cultural and gendered assumptions informing that encouragement) and consider the implications of our choices. the article is quick to point out that elizabeth gilbert's journey is not realistic to replicate or aspire to (people, after all that crying on the bathroom floor and walking out on her husband, she got to eat a lot of pasta, achieve some-sort-of-blue-light-enlightenment, marry a hot brazilian, live happily every after, and make millions). but maybe the reason the self-help priv-lit genre is so appealling even as we are conscious of how belittling and destructive it is (cf. the footnote somewhere down there about needing to orchestrate our own rescues) and also aware of the unhealthy wanton consumerism it promotes is its compelling cinderella suspension of disbelief aspect. i mean, who doesn't want to run away to eat gelato and pet cows, only to end up with an amazing latin lover and julia roberts playing you in a movie? that's some sweet glass slipper. although thankfully i am personally entirely over latin lovers in a serious way, so i that precise glass slipper wouldn't suit. in any case, enough on this. enjoy the article.
second, nomenclature.
this is the actual english name of a new restaurant the just opened near my office: "mr. pigger restaurant". awesome. i laughed out loud with joy and wonder when i saw it. the chinese name is yi kou zhu - a mouthful of pig. hmmm, i wonder if they serve pork.... i stumbled upon this delightful new addition to the neighbourhood two days after a rather interesting discussion about the importance of names. this is a subject i have personally considered at great length given that i have a boy's name and spent a good portion of my young life complaining about this to my parents. well, until my mother calmly informed me when i was about ten that they almost gave me the middle name of “baldface.” seriously. baldface was the name of the mountain that i was conceived on and they thought it would be a nice remembrance. i think it would have been nicer for them than for me – a blissful bit of hippie nostalgia since my mother’s pregnancy meant they had to move out of the tent in the woods and it was time for my ba to enter the corporate world. in any case, that made my boy's name feel like a blessing. i also had new appreciate for "jane" (my middle name). it's a hard-knock life.
the conversation i was having the other day was more focused on amusing english names in china, or chinese names for english products. i recalled how, living in shanghai in 2001-2002, i experienced a sudden burst of joy when i discovered the slim, serious man behind the counter serving my latte at the starbucks near my flat in the french concession was named “cocaine.” i really loved cocaine the starbucks barrista. he was my unabashed favourite. i also loved getting coffee from cocaine. it gave me a greater kick than the caffeine. and it was about as close to the real stuff as i’d ever get, so it felt risqué somehow – like i was drinking cocacola back when the “coca” meant something. (speaking of cocacola, the chinese name for coke is possibly the best branding ever. a transliteration - kekoukele – that roughly translates to “makes mouths happy.” brilliant.) before i left shanghai, i asked cocaine why he had chosen that name. he shrugged and said, "everybody likes it." i nodded and thanked him for my coffee. i started to tell him i would miss him, but then i realised that was a bit much and better contained. i could save my pain at this parting for when i was crying on the bathroom floor in the middle of the night waiting for god to speak to me. other than cocaine, my favourite friend from afar in shanghai was a sweet young man named "clocean". when pressed about his choice, he explained he couldn't decide between "cloud" and "ocean". i loved this so much, and so did my crazywonderful family, that we now have a sculpture in the backyard named clocean. seriously. the spare house key is in his ear.
so, t.s. elliott tells us that the naming of cats is a difficult matter. as is the naming of daughters, starbucks barristas, and pork restaurants. but a recent email prompted me to consider the significance of naming charities. i received an invitation to a fundraising dinner for an organisation called "compassion for migrant children". i was simply struck by what a brilliant name that is. who doesn't want to have compassion for migrant children? or at least support those who do? i mean, not even 'empathy for migrant children' comes close. it's really the compassion that strikes you right in the chest and makes you want to cough up all of your renminbi to eat chilli bean noodles with bbq pork & apple salad. [curious, there is a lot of pork in this post.] yes, they included the menu in the invite. an unfortunate choice really. detracts slightly from the power of being smacked in the chest with compassion for migrant children because you immediately start considering entrees. but oh well. after receiving this email, i started contemplating how compassion could be worked into the names of all sorts of charities. and, naturally, considering inappropriate alternatives. 'mild frustration with migrant children' or 'contempt for disadvantaged communities' or 'apathy over minority rights' or 'mild concern for the poor'. really without compassion, why bother at all? also, the fact that i am sharing these thoughts with you may be the reason that god doesn't speak to me when i am crying on the bathroom floor in the middle of the night******.
so i hope this all suitably thoughtful and amusing such that i can return to writing about dancing come sunday morning. of course, if i find a glass slipper between now and then you'll hear about that too.
*please see the post dated may 9, 2010 'smells like teen spirit'. (i still have not worked out how to link, sorry.) it is my fervent hope that no one humps the couches this time. at least not before midnight.
**something i have done on more than one occasion. SJ.
***incidentally, this might be all that i am good for. ok now we're at three footnotes in one sentence. once again perhaps i need to reconsider structure.
****i appreciate that in the 'about us' section, the creators of bitch magazine quote rebeca west: "People call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat."
*****i know, too many stars! but one of my nicknames is sparkleicious. but i am getting ahead of myself, we are still on the subject of consumption, not names. and we're in a footnote. the point of which was to note that it was actually thanks to this partner's intervention that i was able to find a place in the firm's international arbitration / litigation group at our firm. i reached out to her after being fairly horribly sexually harassed by the project finance partner whose group i was originally meant to join. i was still young enough and inexperienced in the sometimes subtle misogyny that pervades corporate life and how it is managed, so this was a bit daunting. perhaps particularly because i didn't want to make real accusations, i simply wanted to escape. [sigh. i could write a book about all the inappropriate things men in the legal profession have said to me or suggested.] in any case, she painly and quietly orchestrated my rescue. well, really i orchestrated my own rescue. (you always do. it's the only way.) she implemented it. without a fuss. for which i was forever thankful.
******another confession: i don't cry on the bathroom floor in the middle of the night. i prefer crying in corners. please see the post dated november 10, 2009 'a world changed'. (again, i still haven't worked out how to link.) although yikes, if you can actually be bothered to go read that post you may be struck, as i just was, about the gyring nature of my thoughts in this space. (and yes, the gyre reference was a shout out to yeats. what can i say? i'm into shout-outs these days.) i was beginning to think about having come to china to fall wholly and completely into myself even then (and even amid great and sudden heartbreak (thus the discussion of crying in corners)). and was quoting goethe then too. am i consistent or merely all too predictable? unclear.
first, consumption.
i have actually been thinking about this a bit lately. partially because i (finally) paid off my private student loans from law school. and, although i still have some public loans blowing in the wind somewhere, i am able to to ponder financial potentials that were heretofore impossible for me. it has also been interesting to just examine how i managed to finally pay them off (and how people respond when i tell them) - not buying any new clothes for a year and moving into a considerably cheaper flat that i share - and where i am choosing to spend money now that i have more disposable income - on other people and experiences. (well, and i immediately purchased a small heap of shoes. but i really needed some new shoes after that year! and i am imperfect. (i maintain that blue patent leather stilettos were also required.)) so i am thinking about this now becuase i my own rather subtle musings more became more pronounced after i read the following article: http://bitchmagazine.org/article/eat-pray-spend. the authors critique the self-help / priv-lit genre and the consumer culture it promotes among women as anti-feminist****. really worth a read. although this about sums it up:
Priv-lit perpetuates several negative assumptions about women and their relationship to money and responsibility. The first is that women can or should be willing to spend extravagantly, leave our families, or abandon our jobs in order to fit ill-defined notions of what it is to be “whole.” Another is the infantilizing notion that we need guides—often strangers who don’t know the specifics of our financial, spiritual, or emotional histories—to tell us the best way forward. The most problematic assumption, and the one that ties it most closely to current, mainstream forms of misogyny, is that women are inherently and deeply flawed, in need of consistent improvement throughout their lives, and those who don’t invest in addressing those flaws are ultimately doomed to making themselves, if not others, miserable.
very astute point(s). and yet. and yet so many of the intelligent, together women i know really loved eat pray love. although many felt guilty about it. [side query: how much of that speaks to elizabeth gilbert's strength as a writer and how much of it speaks to how compelling we find her narrative?] i remember when, once upon a lifetime when i worked in a big bad law firm in the big bad apple that was affectionately nicknamed 'the sweatshop' or 'the death star', the subject of eat pray love came up in a conversation i was having with one of my partner mentors. this particular partner mentor is truly amazing - smart and compassionate and accomplished, she ended up at the firm because it was the only job she could get in nyc in 1971 that would permit her to work a four-day week so that she could spend fridays caring for her two young daughters and supporting her rabbi-husband has he prepared for services and observe shabbat in the calm way she desired. she adhered to that schedule (not without challenges along the way) the entire time her children were growing up and made partner after many years with the firm. she and her husband also started a wonderful NGO working to empower farmers and communities in afghanistan, a country they travelled in and fell in love with in the late 60s / early 70s. [http://www.gpfa.org/] this woman seemed to have it all, respected in the world of international arbitration and in her community, she had a happy marriage, great kids, a thriving career, a successful NGO. she was an inspiration.
although i worked quite closely with this partner***** on a number of cases and other projects, the occasion of our conversation that day was my inviting her to be a guest speaker at my book club when we were going to be discussing a book about afghanistan. rory stewart's the places in between, his account of walking across afghanistan in january, 2002. (incidentally, gender figured prominently in our conversation because of course a woman could never have written this book and of course rory is not at all conscious of this. then again, how many of us are truly conscious of our own privileges until something overwhelming and blinding forces us to see? and even then, our consciousness is typically fleeting.) the partner agreed, but she asked what other books we'd read. eat pray love was a last minute substitute because none of us could bear to get through the 600 pages of run-on sentences that comprised the book we had selected for that month. but i mentioned it when running through what we'd covered thus far that year. she wrinkled her nose when i mentioned eat pray love, commenting, "i read the first three pages but i couldn't bear to go any further. it was all so self-indulgent and ridiculous." she had and has a point. you don't achieve what this woman had achieved, both professionally, personally, and dare i say spiritually, by abandoning responsibilities and running off to eat gelato or pet cows every time god speaks to you while you're crying on the bathroom floor in the middle of the night. [confession: god has never spoken to me while i'm crying on the bathroom floor in the middle of the night. her loss, really. i am really funny when i'm crying on the bathroom floor in the middle of the night.] of course after the partner said that, i felt a pang of guilt for having finished the book. in one day even (shhhh!). and tumbled over myself trying to explain that it had been a last minute substitute and really the book club ladies were way more evolved than elizabeth gilbert, really. of course, when she came to book club the discussion about the places in between, we all really just wanted to know how she had done it, how she had managed to have it all. she answered simply, explaining that you can't have it all at once and must do things one at a time.
and now i am suitably tangled up in side stories and must unravel these threads in a tidy manner and draw a conclusion - we ought to be critical of how we're encouraged to consume (conscious of the cultural and gendered assumptions informing that encouragement) and consider the implications of our choices. the article is quick to point out that elizabeth gilbert's journey is not realistic to replicate or aspire to (people, after all that crying on the bathroom floor and walking out on her husband, she got to eat a lot of pasta, achieve some-sort-of-blue-light-enlightenment, marry a hot brazilian, live happily every after, and make millions). but maybe the reason the self-help priv-lit genre is so appealling even as we are conscious of how belittling and destructive it is (cf. the footnote somewhere down there about needing to orchestrate our own rescues) and also aware of the unhealthy wanton consumerism it promotes is its compelling cinderella suspension of disbelief aspect. i mean, who doesn't want to run away to eat gelato and pet cows, only to end up with an amazing latin lover and julia roberts playing you in a movie? that's some sweet glass slipper. although thankfully i am personally entirely over latin lovers in a serious way, so i that precise glass slipper wouldn't suit. in any case, enough on this. enjoy the article.
second, nomenclature.
this is the actual english name of a new restaurant the just opened near my office: "mr. pigger restaurant". awesome. i laughed out loud with joy and wonder when i saw it. the chinese name is yi kou zhu - a mouthful of pig. hmmm, i wonder if they serve pork.... i stumbled upon this delightful new addition to the neighbourhood two days after a rather interesting discussion about the importance of names. this is a subject i have personally considered at great length given that i have a boy's name and spent a good portion of my young life complaining about this to my parents. well, until my mother calmly informed me when i was about ten that they almost gave me the middle name of “baldface.” seriously. baldface was the name of the mountain that i was conceived on and they thought it would be a nice remembrance. i think it would have been nicer for them than for me – a blissful bit of hippie nostalgia since my mother’s pregnancy meant they had to move out of the tent in the woods and it was time for my ba to enter the corporate world. in any case, that made my boy's name feel like a blessing. i also had new appreciate for "jane" (my middle name). it's a hard-knock life.
the conversation i was having the other day was more focused on amusing english names in china, or chinese names for english products. i recalled how, living in shanghai in 2001-2002, i experienced a sudden burst of joy when i discovered the slim, serious man behind the counter serving my latte at the starbucks near my flat in the french concession was named “cocaine.” i really loved cocaine the starbucks barrista. he was my unabashed favourite. i also loved getting coffee from cocaine. it gave me a greater kick than the caffeine. and it was about as close to the real stuff as i’d ever get, so it felt risqué somehow – like i was drinking cocacola back when the “coca” meant something. (speaking of cocacola, the chinese name for coke is possibly the best branding ever. a transliteration - kekoukele – that roughly translates to “makes mouths happy.” brilliant.) before i left shanghai, i asked cocaine why he had chosen that name. he shrugged and said, "everybody likes it." i nodded and thanked him for my coffee. i started to tell him i would miss him, but then i realised that was a bit much and better contained. i could save my pain at this parting for when i was crying on the bathroom floor in the middle of the night waiting for god to speak to me. other than cocaine, my favourite friend from afar in shanghai was a sweet young man named "clocean". when pressed about his choice, he explained he couldn't decide between "cloud" and "ocean". i loved this so much, and so did my crazywonderful family, that we now have a sculpture in the backyard named clocean. seriously. the spare house key is in his ear.
so, t.s. elliott tells us that the naming of cats is a difficult matter. as is the naming of daughters, starbucks barristas, and pork restaurants. but a recent email prompted me to consider the significance of naming charities. i received an invitation to a fundraising dinner for an organisation called "compassion for migrant children". i was simply struck by what a brilliant name that is. who doesn't want to have compassion for migrant children? or at least support those who do? i mean, not even 'empathy for migrant children' comes close. it's really the compassion that strikes you right in the chest and makes you want to cough up all of your renminbi to eat chilli bean noodles with bbq pork & apple salad. [curious, there is a lot of pork in this post.] yes, they included the menu in the invite. an unfortunate choice really. detracts slightly from the power of being smacked in the chest with compassion for migrant children because you immediately start considering entrees. but oh well. after receiving this email, i started contemplating how compassion could be worked into the names of all sorts of charities. and, naturally, considering inappropriate alternatives. 'mild frustration with migrant children' or 'contempt for disadvantaged communities' or 'apathy over minority rights' or 'mild concern for the poor'. really without compassion, why bother at all? also, the fact that i am sharing these thoughts with you may be the reason that god doesn't speak to me when i am crying on the bathroom floor in the middle of the night******.
so i hope this all suitably thoughtful and amusing such that i can return to writing about dancing come sunday morning. of course, if i find a glass slipper between now and then you'll hear about that too.
*please see the post dated may 9, 2010 'smells like teen spirit'. (i still have not worked out how to link, sorry.) it is my fervent hope that no one humps the couches this time. at least not before midnight.
**something i have done on more than one occasion. SJ.
***incidentally, this might be all that i am good for. ok now we're at three footnotes in one sentence. once again perhaps i need to reconsider structure.
****i appreciate that in the 'about us' section, the creators of bitch magazine quote rebeca west: "People call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat."
*****i know, too many stars! but one of my nicknames is sparkleicious. but i am getting ahead of myself, we are still on the subject of consumption, not names. and we're in a footnote. the point of which was to note that it was actually thanks to this partner's intervention that i was able to find a place in the firm's international arbitration / litigation group at our firm. i reached out to her after being fairly horribly sexually harassed by the project finance partner whose group i was originally meant to join. i was still young enough and inexperienced in the sometimes subtle misogyny that pervades corporate life and how it is managed, so this was a bit daunting. perhaps particularly because i didn't want to make real accusations, i simply wanted to escape. [sigh. i could write a book about all the inappropriate things men in the legal profession have said to me or suggested.] in any case, she painly and quietly orchestrated my rescue. well, really i orchestrated my own rescue. (you always do. it's the only way.) she implemented it. without a fuss. for which i was forever thankful.
******another confession: i don't cry on the bathroom floor in the middle of the night. i prefer crying in corners. please see the post dated november 10, 2009 'a world changed'. (again, i still haven't worked out how to link.) although yikes, if you can actually be bothered to go read that post you may be struck, as i just was, about the gyring nature of my thoughts in this space. (and yes, the gyre reference was a shout out to yeats. what can i say? i'm into shout-outs these days.) i was beginning to think about having come to china to fall wholly and completely into myself even then (and even amid great and sudden heartbreak (thus the discussion of crying in corners)). and was quoting goethe then too. am i consistent or merely all too predictable? unclear.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
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.
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.
Friday, July 2, 2010
letting him say his lines
a dear sister-friend just departed. she was only in beijing for a few days, but they were full of adventure, authentic conversation, laughter, and love. so good for the soul. and for perspective. on everything. it was magic.* there were a few recurring themes among our many musings. among them was the importance of letting those around us say their lines and play their own parts in our dramatic lives. in particular, letting the men around us say their lines. rather than construct scripts so compelling we can't help but suck them in. easily done, but unwise. for those of us fascinated by narrative arc, and with the capacity to create scripts or scenes compelling enough to subterfuge those close by, it's an important consideration.** another recurring them was the significance of authentic communication. and its incomprehensible seeming lack among certain of our peers. how is it possible that people can really coast along without truly being open emotionally to others around them? or too fearful of the vulnerability that comes with intimacy to let their hearts loose? or caught in a confused vision of commitment as suppressed captivity and unable to see the absolute freedom therein? and yet, inauthentic communication happens all the time. and much energy is expended on cultivating false intimacies.
we contemplated starting a revolution against this state of affairs in which we would cultivate and share slower, deeper, more meaningful exchanges. this would be a strike against the pop intimacy of twitter. (yes, i realize the irony of writing about this on a blog. but at least it's not a microblog.) we tried to think of what the opposite of "tweeting" would be, or what we would call this movement. my friend suggested "om", but i noted that was taken. then she suggested "slom", but it sounds a bit too much like something you'd find in a dirty shoe. also, when we thought about what would actually be involved, it didn't make much sense. a blank website page where we say nothing.... slowly? we discussed writing letters to one another. i recalled how inspired i was reading the letters exchanged between jane austen and her sister at the 'a woman's wit' exhibit i'd seen at the morgan when i was last in nyc. but we realized that although something is lost - the processing and filtering and presentation of information (narrative!) - in our world of instantaneous communications, we doubted we'd be able to resist emailing while letters were en route, which kind of defeats the purpose. so we're still looking for another project. and we'll leave the om / slom revolution to someone else.
it's always nice to see your life through another's eyes. although this particular sister-friend thinks that my life ought to be a tv show.*** not sure i agree, but i do feel lucky to be pinned down by this star's pin here and now. yet another recurring theme of the last few days was how true happiness transcends outer experience or, more precisely, how happiness truly is a choice. and one we choose, consistently, without great efforts. there is so much beauty and joy in the world sometimes i can't stand it. actually, that's not true. i can always stand it.
we went hiking on the great wall with my chinese parents a few days ago. it was a wonderful trip. we were there on a wednesday, so we had the wall to ourselves and were literally the only people we saw for a few hours. that may also be because it ended up being more of an adventure than any of us anticipated. my chinese parents are sixty and after consulting with them about the day's plans, i was thinking we'd putter about on the wall for about an hour or so, take some pictures, eat an early lunch, and call it a day. instead, after about an hour and a half of good hiking on an absolutely beautiful unrestored section of the wall (not actually open to the public, mind) we mad a critical decision. rather than go back the way we came to get off the wall, we decided to climb down from the wall to the reservoir visible far below. my chinese parents "knew a path" that we could follow down the mountain. only after we were hopelessly lost an hour and a half later and literally bush-whacking our way through a ravine did it come out that they had last used this path four or five years ago in the autumn or the spring (when the vegetation was less lush).
my chinese parents have a bickering banter that largely sustains their relationship, so there was much back and forth about whether it was in fact four or five years ago and in the autumn or the spring when they had last followed this path. there was also a lot of discussion about who had led us astray or lost the path in the first place. (i personally am not sure that there ever was a path.) at one point when my auntie zheng was insisting that we couldn't climb down the slippery rocks before us and we needed to retrace our steps and climb back up and find the path, i finally intervened. auntie zheng, i said, we simply cannot head back now, we have no choice but to push ahead. (a profound mantra for life, really.) i reasoned that we were heading generally in the right direction (down) so eventually we would reach the reservoir, or at least civilization or some sort. my visiting friend recalled that she had just remarked the previous day that we can no longer have any real adventures now that we have gps and if need be we could rely on that. not so fast, i replied, the chinese government blocks gps. so we could only get off the mountain with wit and intuition. which we did. but it was arduous going and there were a few moments of serious concern about our capacity to survive. at one point, i overheard my chinese parents worrying about what to do if anything happened since, with the two foreigners in tow, it would be an international incident. i told them not to worry, we were both making peace signs in many of our photographs which makes us asian enough not to cause a fuss. in any case, we made it safely down somehow and all felt very close for having shared the experience. then we were immediately faced with the more pressing crisis of it being 12:30 and our not having had lunch yet. we eventually managed to eat as well. and make it back to beijing.
that evening my friend and i went to a foreign policy talk on china's rise on the world stage given by a professor from beijing university. i found just about everything he said offensive or trite. it somehow really irks me when academics base their assessment of china's inevitable rise to world dominance on sheer numbers. i think political and economic might, moral authority, and justice involve much more than that. or at least i'd like to think so. i also find it frustrating when academics hid behind coy, alliterative devices and jargon rather than articulating a coherent theory. but maybe that's simply part of how they dance.
speaking of dancing, i realized this morning while enjoying a blue sky day and going for an early morning run that whenever i listen to music, i am still constantly choreographing in my head. i think i need to limit my theatrics to that. and keep letting others say their lines.
*we also both believe in it. how can one not, really?
**in the interest of full disclosure, the "let him say his lines" line comes from another sister-friend whose wisdom and love we were channelling from nyc.
***she would not be the first to have suggested as much, as those of you familiar with 'the mattie show' theme song are well aware.
we contemplated starting a revolution against this state of affairs in which we would cultivate and share slower, deeper, more meaningful exchanges. this would be a strike against the pop intimacy of twitter. (yes, i realize the irony of writing about this on a blog. but at least it's not a microblog.) we tried to think of what the opposite of "tweeting" would be, or what we would call this movement. my friend suggested "om", but i noted that was taken. then she suggested "slom", but it sounds a bit too much like something you'd find in a dirty shoe. also, when we thought about what would actually be involved, it didn't make much sense. a blank website page where we say nothing.... slowly? we discussed writing letters to one another. i recalled how inspired i was reading the letters exchanged between jane austen and her sister at the 'a woman's wit' exhibit i'd seen at the morgan when i was last in nyc. but we realized that although something is lost - the processing and filtering and presentation of information (narrative!) - in our world of instantaneous communications, we doubted we'd be able to resist emailing while letters were en route, which kind of defeats the purpose. so we're still looking for another project. and we'll leave the om / slom revolution to someone else.
it's always nice to see your life through another's eyes. although this particular sister-friend thinks that my life ought to be a tv show.*** not sure i agree, but i do feel lucky to be pinned down by this star's pin here and now. yet another recurring theme of the last few days was how true happiness transcends outer experience or, more precisely, how happiness truly is a choice. and one we choose, consistently, without great efforts. there is so much beauty and joy in the world sometimes i can't stand it. actually, that's not true. i can always stand it.
we went hiking on the great wall with my chinese parents a few days ago. it was a wonderful trip. we were there on a wednesday, so we had the wall to ourselves and were literally the only people we saw for a few hours. that may also be because it ended up being more of an adventure than any of us anticipated. my chinese parents are sixty and after consulting with them about the day's plans, i was thinking we'd putter about on the wall for about an hour or so, take some pictures, eat an early lunch, and call it a day. instead, after about an hour and a half of good hiking on an absolutely beautiful unrestored section of the wall (not actually open to the public, mind) we mad a critical decision. rather than go back the way we came to get off the wall, we decided to climb down from the wall to the reservoir visible far below. my chinese parents "knew a path" that we could follow down the mountain. only after we were hopelessly lost an hour and a half later and literally bush-whacking our way through a ravine did it come out that they had last used this path four or five years ago in the autumn or the spring (when the vegetation was less lush).
my chinese parents have a bickering banter that largely sustains their relationship, so there was much back and forth about whether it was in fact four or five years ago and in the autumn or the spring when they had last followed this path. there was also a lot of discussion about who had led us astray or lost the path in the first place. (i personally am not sure that there ever was a path.) at one point when my auntie zheng was insisting that we couldn't climb down the slippery rocks before us and we needed to retrace our steps and climb back up and find the path, i finally intervened. auntie zheng, i said, we simply cannot head back now, we have no choice but to push ahead. (a profound mantra for life, really.) i reasoned that we were heading generally in the right direction (down) so eventually we would reach the reservoir, or at least civilization or some sort. my visiting friend recalled that she had just remarked the previous day that we can no longer have any real adventures now that we have gps and if need be we could rely on that. not so fast, i replied, the chinese government blocks gps. so we could only get off the mountain with wit and intuition. which we did. but it was arduous going and there were a few moments of serious concern about our capacity to survive. at one point, i overheard my chinese parents worrying about what to do if anything happened since, with the two foreigners in tow, it would be an international incident. i told them not to worry, we were both making peace signs in many of our photographs which makes us asian enough not to cause a fuss. in any case, we made it safely down somehow and all felt very close for having shared the experience. then we were immediately faced with the more pressing crisis of it being 12:30 and our not having had lunch yet. we eventually managed to eat as well. and make it back to beijing.
that evening my friend and i went to a foreign policy talk on china's rise on the world stage given by a professor from beijing university. i found just about everything he said offensive or trite. it somehow really irks me when academics base their assessment of china's inevitable rise to world dominance on sheer numbers. i think political and economic might, moral authority, and justice involve much more than that. or at least i'd like to think so. i also find it frustrating when academics hid behind coy, alliterative devices and jargon rather than articulating a coherent theory. but maybe that's simply part of how they dance.
speaking of dancing, i realized this morning while enjoying a blue sky day and going for an early morning run that whenever i listen to music, i am still constantly choreographing in my head. i think i need to limit my theatrics to that. and keep letting others say their lines.
*we also both believe in it. how can one not, really?
**in the interest of full disclosure, the "let him say his lines" line comes from another sister-friend whose wisdom and love we were channelling from nyc.
***she would not be the first to have suggested as much, as those of you familiar with 'the mattie show' theme song are well aware.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
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.
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.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
memories and magical thinking
i have been thinking lately about the nourishment of memories. how they can sustain and inspire us in moments both unexpected and carefully arranged. whether they push us over in unguarded moments or whether we seek them out, collect and order them in tidy mental rows, they can provide a quiet sustenance. they can of course also haunt us, but i am not speaking of those kind of memories here. i am speaking of the friendly ghosts. the memories that float up and embrace you or stroke your hair from your face, look you in the eyes, and tell you you are loved.
some say that life is nothing but a series of moments, of those memories that nourish us, i suppose. perhaps this is true because moments (memories) are wholly our own. and we can edit and rearrange them to suit our constantly evolving personal narrative. that process gives us a sense of control* over our experiences and how they influence and help us to interpret who and why we are. this was something i struggled with a great deal in trying to come to terms with an experience i had as a young girl that i simply wish had never happened but couldn't deny had forever altered me. how can you love yourself and who you are without accepting said experience? how can you take ownership of something impossibly heavy and incorporate it into your sparkleicious lightness? . . . for what other purpose do we have an inner life?
another reason memories can nourish is they are among the most personal parts of our inner lives. which, incidentally, are generally underrated. of course, having a vibrant inner life is not something that can be measured and thus valued by society, your peers, anyone. which is precisely the point. but 'tis still a shame. i sometimes have moments of wanting to be deeply ambitious. (and i suppose in a sense i am.** but not in a terribly conventional sense. i have moments of wanting to rise to the top of some commercial, male-dominated industry. or make buckets of money. as a woman. just to prove that i can. as a woman. (it actually has very little to do with me personally.) but i can never ultimately see the joy or purpose in that. and i don't think spite is a very compelling motivation.) but, those moments aside, i feel the way our accomplishments are judged are all so outward and ignore the riches that can and do lie within. you can't exactly put "vibrant inner life" on your resume.
and i fear i may be starting to sound dangerously new-agey. although, to be fair, i'm not really sure what that means. little trouble used to tell me sometimes that i had hippie in my dna and he thought it was cute when that showed through, when certain cultural assumptions of mine would startle him.
something i have noted about my own inner life is my capacity for wonder and fantasy. perhaps we all share this. but i have always had a vibrant and not-easily-contained imagination.*** possibly more universal is our capacity in times of grieving to veer towards what joan didion calls "magical thinking".**** my current confusion and grief pales in comparison to the loss of a husband and a daughter's coma that she wrote about in establishing the idea of magical thinking - that grief makes us crazy. i have watched my already too-creative-for-where-i-am mind think (improbably! beautifully!) magically of late. i have observed the lines between what is actually happening and what could, what has already happened and what never will, sleep and awake, possible and other worldly, accurate and mystical, become blurred. and not been all that surprised or disturbed by it.
yet i also wonder if i think magically even when not grieving. among the many reasons that i thought little trouble was the one was his capacity to accept my imaginary pets. or roll right along with me when i veered from this reality off into another dimension and described it excitedly. he always came along, and in fact encouraged my capacity for magical thinking. i have never known another man to do so.
it is only fitting, therefore, that i am thinking magically now. and i am still wishing to share it. both the thinking and the magic. instead, i am being sustained by memories.
* can't resist a brian andreas quote: If you hold on to the handle, she said, it's easier to maintain the illusion of control. But it's more fun if you just let the wind carry you.
** i resolved, btw, the cities dilemma of a few posts back. as long as i call new york the big apple, i can maintain the alliteration / aural appeal and still build a life dividing my time between beijing, beirut, and nyc.
*** why i chose a career path that very often involves its active suppression is another story. and to illustrate that point, a story. my legal writing tutor during my first year of law school opened our first writing feedback meeting by telling me that i wrote beautifully. the problem, she noted, was "you write like flower" (complete with a large, two-handed gesture recalling petals), and "lawyers don't write like flower; we are linear thinkers." (confession: i still write like flower when i can. they couldn't stomp it out of me.)
**** last starry footnote i promise. the review of her book, the year of magical thinking is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/09/books/review/09pinsky.html. incidentally, speaking of memories, i remember seeing the version of this book made into a play and performed by vanessa redgrave with some very dear friends in nyc. how far we have all come since that night! how many storms we have weathered! and still we beat on, boats against a current..... and the rest.
some say that life is nothing but a series of moments, of those memories that nourish us, i suppose. perhaps this is true because moments (memories) are wholly our own. and we can edit and rearrange them to suit our constantly evolving personal narrative. that process gives us a sense of control* over our experiences and how they influence and help us to interpret who and why we are. this was something i struggled with a great deal in trying to come to terms with an experience i had as a young girl that i simply wish had never happened but couldn't deny had forever altered me. how can you love yourself and who you are without accepting said experience? how can you take ownership of something impossibly heavy and incorporate it into your sparkleicious lightness? . . . for what other purpose do we have an inner life?
another reason memories can nourish is they are among the most personal parts of our inner lives. which, incidentally, are generally underrated. of course, having a vibrant inner life is not something that can be measured and thus valued by society, your peers, anyone. which is precisely the point. but 'tis still a shame. i sometimes have moments of wanting to be deeply ambitious. (and i suppose in a sense i am.** but not in a terribly conventional sense. i have moments of wanting to rise to the top of some commercial, male-dominated industry. or make buckets of money. as a woman. just to prove that i can. as a woman. (it actually has very little to do with me personally.) but i can never ultimately see the joy or purpose in that. and i don't think spite is a very compelling motivation.) but, those moments aside, i feel the way our accomplishments are judged are all so outward and ignore the riches that can and do lie within. you can't exactly put "vibrant inner life" on your resume.
and i fear i may be starting to sound dangerously new-agey. although, to be fair, i'm not really sure what that means. little trouble used to tell me sometimes that i had hippie in my dna and he thought it was cute when that showed through, when certain cultural assumptions of mine would startle him.
something i have noted about my own inner life is my capacity for wonder and fantasy. perhaps we all share this. but i have always had a vibrant and not-easily-contained imagination.*** possibly more universal is our capacity in times of grieving to veer towards what joan didion calls "magical thinking".**** my current confusion and grief pales in comparison to the loss of a husband and a daughter's coma that she wrote about in establishing the idea of magical thinking - that grief makes us crazy. i have watched my already too-creative-for-where-i-am mind think (improbably! beautifully!) magically of late. i have observed the lines between what is actually happening and what could, what has already happened and what never will, sleep and awake, possible and other worldly, accurate and mystical, become blurred. and not been all that surprised or disturbed by it.
yet i also wonder if i think magically even when not grieving. among the many reasons that i thought little trouble was the one was his capacity to accept my imaginary pets. or roll right along with me when i veered from this reality off into another dimension and described it excitedly. he always came along, and in fact encouraged my capacity for magical thinking. i have never known another man to do so.
it is only fitting, therefore, that i am thinking magically now. and i am still wishing to share it. both the thinking and the magic. instead, i am being sustained by memories.
* can't resist a brian andreas quote: If you hold on to the handle, she said, it's easier to maintain the illusion of control. But it's more fun if you just let the wind carry you.
** i resolved, btw, the cities dilemma of a few posts back. as long as i call new york the big apple, i can maintain the alliteration / aural appeal and still build a life dividing my time between beijing, beirut, and nyc.
*** why i chose a career path that very often involves its active suppression is another story. and to illustrate that point, a story. my legal writing tutor during my first year of law school opened our first writing feedback meeting by telling me that i wrote beautifully. the problem, she noted, was "you write like flower" (complete with a large, two-handed gesture recalling petals), and "lawyers don't write like flower; we are linear thinkers." (confession: i still write like flower when i can. they couldn't stomp it out of me.)
**** last starry footnote i promise. the review of her book, the year of magical thinking is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/09/books/review/09pinsky.html. incidentally, speaking of memories, i remember seeing the version of this book made into a play and performed by vanessa redgrave with some very dear friends in nyc. how far we have all come since that night! how many storms we have weathered! and still we beat on, boats against a current..... and the rest.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
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....
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....
Saturday, November 7, 2009
everything in excess
so, once upon a lifetime when i was turning 30 some sweet friends wrote a birthday poem that they read as a toast. it was also a rather amusing roast as they had incorporated a number of my nonsensical facebook status updates. among them was "moderation is overrated". i used to say i did everything in excess, that i was happy to live to the point of tears. and while i think i'm calmer now, i realize in unguarded moments that i think i still live with that passion.
my previous post was clearly an example of thinking too much. i was contemplating my overthinking (i know, sigh) while running on the treadmill (another sigh, but the air is too bad to run outside) the other day. i became distracted when the sports news came on and found myself getting all teary over the world series and matsui being the first japanese-born player to be named MVP. seriously. i often get teary over sports. not because i care about the games, but because of the vulnerability of it all - the raw emotion and camaraderie and human connection. professional sports for me are just nicely contained narrative arcs of challenges being overcome, hearts swelling (and often beautiful people). but all athletic events have me over-emoting. i have never watched the nyc marathon without sobbing. and not so much for my amazing friends who have finished the race, but for the sheer humanity of it. watching strangers streaming pass, lost in the their own personal crucibles in this very collective way, i am just overwhelmed with feeling. i used to cry at my sister's high school volleyball games over the way the teammates supported each other. the high-fives always did me in. (she eventually politely requested that i get a grip or stop coming.) as i was trying not to loose my balance on the treadmill, teary-eyed during the bbc world sport segment, distracted from my analyzing my overthinking, i realized that i am probably also guilty of overfeeling. and if that is not a word, it should be.
i sometimes wonder if being sensitive is a good quality. ("being sensitive" might be one appropriate way to describe me. others might include soppy, crazy, or simply open-hearted. actually, i like open-hearted. that about sums it up.) i spent the last two days at a really interested conference of chinese social scientists on health, environment and development. i learned a tremendous amount and it will really help us with a social policy advocacy project we have focusing on environmental health. one of the sessions was devoted to issues of livestock practices, animal diseases, the impact on human health and development. obviously, we were focused on china. the presentations were, in a word, alarming. they may have fully convinced me to become vegetarian again.(something i have been toying with already for ethical / environmental reasons. i have already basically given up seafood because i just can't in good conscience eat fish when aware of the havoc wreaked by the fishing industry.) at lunch, i expected at least a few others to feel the same way. and i asked, but no one else was responding as deeply as i was. they transitioned straight from the little pigsty of horrors presentation to happily lunching on pork. my sensitive self couldn't take it.
i am still continuing to cook and contemplate justice. (aside from abstaining from meat, i really worry about how environmental health issues will play out here and am trying to educate myself enough so that our project may be a meaningful drop of water thrown at that savage sea.) this morning: oatmeal raisin cranberry dark chocolate chunk cookies (dark chocolate is a health food). tomorrow: my mum's vegetarian chilli and wholewheat honey bread. i think am hoping to direct all my excess thought and emotion into something tangible, nourishing. rather than let my thoughts eat away at me. turn them into oven-baked open-hearted goodness i can share. i suppose it's a healthy approach....
my previous post was clearly an example of thinking too much. i was contemplating my overthinking (i know, sigh) while running on the treadmill (another sigh, but the air is too bad to run outside) the other day. i became distracted when the sports news came on and found myself getting all teary over the world series and matsui being the first japanese-born player to be named MVP. seriously. i often get teary over sports. not because i care about the games, but because of the vulnerability of it all - the raw emotion and camaraderie and human connection. professional sports for me are just nicely contained narrative arcs of challenges being overcome, hearts swelling (and often beautiful people). but all athletic events have me over-emoting. i have never watched the nyc marathon without sobbing. and not so much for my amazing friends who have finished the race, but for the sheer humanity of it. watching strangers streaming pass, lost in the their own personal crucibles in this very collective way, i am just overwhelmed with feeling. i used to cry at my sister's high school volleyball games over the way the teammates supported each other. the high-fives always did me in. (she eventually politely requested that i get a grip or stop coming.) as i was trying not to loose my balance on the treadmill, teary-eyed during the bbc world sport segment, distracted from my analyzing my overthinking, i realized that i am probably also guilty of overfeeling. and if that is not a word, it should be.
i sometimes wonder if being sensitive is a good quality. ("being sensitive" might be one appropriate way to describe me. others might include soppy, crazy, or simply open-hearted. actually, i like open-hearted. that about sums it up.) i spent the last two days at a really interested conference of chinese social scientists on health, environment and development. i learned a tremendous amount and it will really help us with a social policy advocacy project we have focusing on environmental health. one of the sessions was devoted to issues of livestock practices, animal diseases, the impact on human health and development. obviously, we were focused on china. the presentations were, in a word, alarming. they may have fully convinced me to become vegetarian again.(something i have been toying with already for ethical / environmental reasons. i have already basically given up seafood because i just can't in good conscience eat fish when aware of the havoc wreaked by the fishing industry.) at lunch, i expected at least a few others to feel the same way. and i asked, but no one else was responding as deeply as i was. they transitioned straight from the little pigsty of horrors presentation to happily lunching on pork. my sensitive self couldn't take it.
i am still continuing to cook and contemplate justice. (aside from abstaining from meat, i really worry about how environmental health issues will play out here and am trying to educate myself enough so that our project may be a meaningful drop of water thrown at that savage sea.) this morning: oatmeal raisin cranberry dark chocolate chunk cookies (dark chocolate is a health food). tomorrow: my mum's vegetarian chilli and wholewheat honey bread. i think am hoping to direct all my excess thought and emotion into something tangible, nourishing. rather than let my thoughts eat away at me. turn them into oven-baked open-hearted goodness i can share. i suppose it's a healthy approach....
Monday, September 14, 2009
red china blues
so a sweet message from a sweet old beijing tongxue now in south africa inspired me to tooter once more to the brink and consider collecting my thoughts. naturally, i questioned again (and then again) about who or what this is for. but i've decided that’s no matter. there is something lost in me when i am not writing, or creating, in some small way. i’ve recognized that. and i can’t always find that place through work, or even through witty emails, or poems about imaginary pets. not even yoga brings me there (that’s a journey of a different, albeit related, sort). so, i’ve decided to just write. and not worry about whether anyone’s reading. or whether i make insightful or instructive comments about justice or whether i spend too much time getting lost in the stirrings of my hummingbird heart. (though isn’t personal narrative what makes justice worthwhile or interesting in the first place?)
personal narrative. it's what makes the world go ‘round. or at least allows us to relate. ‘red china blues’ was the title of a memoir about china i read several years ago. it was the typically cultural revolution tale, told through the eyes of one woman. (when we lent the book to my auntie jung, she covered it with newspaper so that if she was seen reading it on the bus, no one would know.) it feels belittling to say that in a way – “the typical cultural revolution tale” – because how could the intensely traumatic and brutal experiences of that one young women ever be “typical”? but they are. like that one woman, millions of teenagers saw their families torn apart or destroyed, witnessed the humiliation, brutalization or murder of their parents, were sent to remote areas of the country to work punishing hours in fields and factories without compensation or food. these individuals, each of whom suffered unique and terrible traumas, are now in their 50s. some fled and wrote best-selling memoirs detailing the horrors they experienced. i hope that they found some release in that. but for those who have stayed behind, there has never really been any public katharsis. and to speak of your own pain seems strange in a nation where nearly everyone your age has a similar story. how to you privately heal in such circumstances? one close family friend of ours provides economic support to educate the children of the village that he was “sent down” to during the cultural revolution. he says he is alive only thanks to the generosity of this impoverished tiny community that spared two potatoes a day for him for three years. as smart as he is big-hearted, this friend secured a coveted spot in the first class at beijing university when it reopened after the cultural revolution crumbled. i wonder if finding a way to give back is somewhat more than an expression of gratitude. perhaps it is part of a healing process, acknowledging those years of hardship and the six years he was unable to contact or locate his parents or three siblings. perhaps it is just kindness.
i recalled the enticing title of that book recently because i’ve had a case of the red china blues. although i think i may be recovering. i was quietly happy to be returning to beijing last night (although i am writing this en route to hong kong and then chiang mai, where i’ll be visiting little trouble and spending a week considering environmental legal advocacy in the mekong region, respectively). this case of the blues, if you can call them that, is a broader consciousness and growing concern about china. i am perhaps more
critical now of this government than i ever have been. i think this is healthy because i spent many years to enamoured with or protective of china to see clearly or think critically about the implications of this regime or its polices. (it is hard to clearly see things that we are too close to.) with time, distance, education, adulthood, travel (take your pick), my perspective has shifted. whereas once i was the one always singing china’s song, i know find myself cast as the shadow of doom in china conversations. the world seems so ready and willing to embrace china without question these days, and it frightens me. this is not a benign government. and they are quietly amassing power in subtle and complicated ways. i worry about china becoming the dominant superpower in the world. (and for those who say she lacks the creativity to do so, who needs creativity when you have seemingly limitless (opaque) markets?)
i had a rewarding two weeks back in the states. personally, i was able to connect with friends and family. professionally, a study tour i had helped to pull together for chinese judges on domestic violence and civil protection orders was just fantastically successful. so much better than i had even imagined. but my partner-in-crime (an anti-violence advocate and a researcher at the institute for applied jurisprudence, a think tank attached to the supreme people’s court) and i had to be all cloak-and-dagger about my involvement and obscure our relationship. she and her colleague even had to sneak out of their hotel to attend a meeting i arranged with one of the experts who will be part of our upcoming judicial training on domestic violence. the night before the group left, the foreign affairs bureau informed them that the tour they were going on, organized via the state department’s international visitors program, was political and was an effort by the united states government to brainwash them. they were given strict marching orders about how they were to conduct themselves while on the tour. when this was recounted to me, i couldn’t help but wonder when the cold war became chic again. oh, and just to be safe, the foreign affairs bureau planted one of the participants who was surely a spy (and none too subtle about it!)
my blues – professional frustrations and personal reflections – will dissolve, however, in moments that some how go beyond them. the study tour coincided with labour day weekend, so the state department planned on arranging a “home hospitality” program with an american family as part of the program. naturally, i volunteered my parents. so we had the group of nine judges and scholars over for a pool party and bbq. perhaps the best part was when one of the judges was admiring our yard, and my father responded by saying, “yes, but in china you don’t have to worry about cutting the grass.” the judge replied by saying, “but we want to cut grass; i have always wanted to cut grass.” ba immediately jumped up, saying, “you do? come on. follow me.” a few moments later we heard the sound of the lawnmower starting and soon judge luo was pushing it, or more accurately being pulled by it, around the back yard. two more judges then ran down for turns cutting the grass. it was a classic cultural exchange. one man’s chore is another man’s great new tourist experience.
the most fascinating cultural exchange of the trip happened in boston. among the many excellent program activities in boston was a meeting with the founder of common purpose, a local batterers intervention program. the founder, mitch, arranged to have a few facilitators from the program accompany him and also put together a panel of men who were in the process of going through the program because they had been sentenced to do so by a judge. when they walked into the room, there was a great pause in my thoughts for a moment. in all my anti-violence work, we toss around terms like “abusers” or “batterers” without thought to those labels. and suddenly, here they were. real, live “batterers” walking into a sunlight side room in the dorchester district court. they were a curious combination of swagger and shame, testosterone and nerves. i measured my own reaction and noted the moment of fear. but that fear quickly gave way to empathy, “batterers” or not, these were people and worthy of compassion. i made a point of introducing myself to and shaking the hands of each man, thanking them in advance for their willingness to participate. for participating in that panel, sharing about the deeply personal, painful, and shameful process of being ordered to participate in this program and how it is influencing them, cannot have been easy. the chinese side was at first a bit shell-shocked and i worried for a moment that they would not engage. but once they did, the exchange was fascinating and, i hope, meaningful for both sides. the judge who boldly asked the first question was a complete surprise to me. a conservative sort with a terrible combover, he usually seemed more interested in videotaping than asking questions. but he asked the men about the methodology the program employed, explaining that in china, they value balance – yin yang – and that anger is a natural human emotion, so if the methodology of the program was to teach them to suppress their anger, he thought that might eventually lead to problems or illness, but if the methodology was to help them to develop other means of releasing their anger, he wanted to know what those were and whether they were effective. my heart smiled to judge yi in that moment because that question was the perfect opening for a thoughtful discussion on anger and so much more, but it also was respectful of the assembled men. the group gave each of the program participants chinese stamps depicting the longest bridge in china, and the men seemed genuinely please with the gifts. i hope that in some small way their experience with us in that sunny room helps them constructing their own bridges to better places. bridges which, like those in stamps, i imagine must be very long.
so now i am full of hope, watching lazy clouds out my window. maybe i don’t have the red china blues after all. or maybe, just maybe, a moment of reflection is all i need as a remedy.
personal narrative. it's what makes the world go ‘round. or at least allows us to relate. ‘red china blues’ was the title of a memoir about china i read several years ago. it was the typically cultural revolution tale, told through the eyes of one woman. (when we lent the book to my auntie jung, she covered it with newspaper so that if she was seen reading it on the bus, no one would know.) it feels belittling to say that in a way – “the typical cultural revolution tale” – because how could the intensely traumatic and brutal experiences of that one young women ever be “typical”? but they are. like that one woman, millions of teenagers saw their families torn apart or destroyed, witnessed the humiliation, brutalization or murder of their parents, were sent to remote areas of the country to work punishing hours in fields and factories without compensation or food. these individuals, each of whom suffered unique and terrible traumas, are now in their 50s. some fled and wrote best-selling memoirs detailing the horrors they experienced. i hope that they found some release in that. but for those who have stayed behind, there has never really been any public katharsis. and to speak of your own pain seems strange in a nation where nearly everyone your age has a similar story. how to you privately heal in such circumstances? one close family friend of ours provides economic support to educate the children of the village that he was “sent down” to during the cultural revolution. he says he is alive only thanks to the generosity of this impoverished tiny community that spared two potatoes a day for him for three years. as smart as he is big-hearted, this friend secured a coveted spot in the first class at beijing university when it reopened after the cultural revolution crumbled. i wonder if finding a way to give back is somewhat more than an expression of gratitude. perhaps it is part of a healing process, acknowledging those years of hardship and the six years he was unable to contact or locate his parents or three siblings. perhaps it is just kindness.
i recalled the enticing title of that book recently because i’ve had a case of the red china blues. although i think i may be recovering. i was quietly happy to be returning to beijing last night (although i am writing this en route to hong kong and then chiang mai, where i’ll be visiting little trouble and spending a week considering environmental legal advocacy in the mekong region, respectively). this case of the blues, if you can call them that, is a broader consciousness and growing concern about china. i am perhaps more
critical now of this government than i ever have been. i think this is healthy because i spent many years to enamoured with or protective of china to see clearly or think critically about the implications of this regime or its polices. (it is hard to clearly see things that we are too close to.) with time, distance, education, adulthood, travel (take your pick), my perspective has shifted. whereas once i was the one always singing china’s song, i know find myself cast as the shadow of doom in china conversations. the world seems so ready and willing to embrace china without question these days, and it frightens me. this is not a benign government. and they are quietly amassing power in subtle and complicated ways. i worry about china becoming the dominant superpower in the world. (and for those who say she lacks the creativity to do so, who needs creativity when you have seemingly limitless (opaque) markets?)
i had a rewarding two weeks back in the states. personally, i was able to connect with friends and family. professionally, a study tour i had helped to pull together for chinese judges on domestic violence and civil protection orders was just fantastically successful. so much better than i had even imagined. but my partner-in-crime (an anti-violence advocate and a researcher at the institute for applied jurisprudence, a think tank attached to the supreme people’s court) and i had to be all cloak-and-dagger about my involvement and obscure our relationship. she and her colleague even had to sneak out of their hotel to attend a meeting i arranged with one of the experts who will be part of our upcoming judicial training on domestic violence. the night before the group left, the foreign affairs bureau informed them that the tour they were going on, organized via the state department’s international visitors program, was political and was an effort by the united states government to brainwash them. they were given strict marching orders about how they were to conduct themselves while on the tour. when this was recounted to me, i couldn’t help but wonder when the cold war became chic again. oh, and just to be safe, the foreign affairs bureau planted one of the participants who was surely a spy (and none too subtle about it!)
my blues – professional frustrations and personal reflections – will dissolve, however, in moments that some how go beyond them. the study tour coincided with labour day weekend, so the state department planned on arranging a “home hospitality” program with an american family as part of the program. naturally, i volunteered my parents. so we had the group of nine judges and scholars over for a pool party and bbq. perhaps the best part was when one of the judges was admiring our yard, and my father responded by saying, “yes, but in china you don’t have to worry about cutting the grass.” the judge replied by saying, “but we want to cut grass; i have always wanted to cut grass.” ba immediately jumped up, saying, “you do? come on. follow me.” a few moments later we heard the sound of the lawnmower starting and soon judge luo was pushing it, or more accurately being pulled by it, around the back yard. two more judges then ran down for turns cutting the grass. it was a classic cultural exchange. one man’s chore is another man’s great new tourist experience.
the most fascinating cultural exchange of the trip happened in boston. among the many excellent program activities in boston was a meeting with the founder of common purpose, a local batterers intervention program. the founder, mitch, arranged to have a few facilitators from the program accompany him and also put together a panel of men who were in the process of going through the program because they had been sentenced to do so by a judge. when they walked into the room, there was a great pause in my thoughts for a moment. in all my anti-violence work, we toss around terms like “abusers” or “batterers” without thought to those labels. and suddenly, here they were. real, live “batterers” walking into a sunlight side room in the dorchester district court. they were a curious combination of swagger and shame, testosterone and nerves. i measured my own reaction and noted the moment of fear. but that fear quickly gave way to empathy, “batterers” or not, these were people and worthy of compassion. i made a point of introducing myself to and shaking the hands of each man, thanking them in advance for their willingness to participate. for participating in that panel, sharing about the deeply personal, painful, and shameful process of being ordered to participate in this program and how it is influencing them, cannot have been easy. the chinese side was at first a bit shell-shocked and i worried for a moment that they would not engage. but once they did, the exchange was fascinating and, i hope, meaningful for both sides. the judge who boldly asked the first question was a complete surprise to me. a conservative sort with a terrible combover, he usually seemed more interested in videotaping than asking questions. but he asked the men about the methodology the program employed, explaining that in china, they value balance – yin yang – and that anger is a natural human emotion, so if the methodology of the program was to teach them to suppress their anger, he thought that might eventually lead to problems or illness, but if the methodology was to help them to develop other means of releasing their anger, he wanted to know what those were and whether they were effective. my heart smiled to judge yi in that moment because that question was the perfect opening for a thoughtful discussion on anger and so much more, but it also was respectful of the assembled men. the group gave each of the program participants chinese stamps depicting the longest bridge in china, and the men seemed genuinely please with the gifts. i hope that in some small way their experience with us in that sunny room helps them constructing their own bridges to better places. bridges which, like those in stamps, i imagine must be very long.
so now i am full of hope, watching lazy clouds out my window. maybe i don’t have the red china blues after all. or maybe, just maybe, a moment of reflection is all i need as a remedy.
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