clearly the only strategy for coping with i-abhor-china-itis is to warrior through it. this involves assuming responsibility for being here, in this marvelous world, in this marvelous time. actually, that is true for any time and place, red china blues or none. in any case, i am now cured and again happy being here. or, more precisely, happy to just be. or, even more precisely, just happy. i had such an outrageously fun weekend that there was barely time to sleep. sometimes my reserves of energy and spirit surprise even me. marveling at not being completely and utterly exhausted and still smiling on the bus to work this morning, i wondered why and how i sometimes have more energy than sunshine. i smiled a little less broadly as i realized i am off on another whirlwinded trip to america tomorrow. at least i've been upgraded to business class for the journey there. and it will be nice to see family, friends, lei feng (my immigrant cat who is leading a decadent lifestyle and getting fat in the beautiful country). i'm less excited about the work aspects of the trip (although that is the purpose for this travel).
a dear old friend was in town this weekend and i think we laughed continuously for two days. we also danced*, watched football, drank too many martinis, wandered around beijing, attended an opening party for a politically provocative modern art exhibit, over-caffeinated, shopped, threw peanuts recklessly about, reminisced, smiled at life, saw the sun rise, contemplated, made new friends, and laughed, laughed, laughed. it's wonderful to be with someone you have been close to and known for so long. we had last seen each other five years ago over a great meal in london, but connections of the enduring kind are so precious because you can simply and swiftly pick up without missing a beat whenever you cross paths. after two full but glorious long days and nights, he was off.
you would have thought that friday and saturday would have been enough, but last night i hosted a dinner party for 16 with some fantastic foodie friends. my talented friend taught us how to make pasta and pizza dough from scratch and we had an amazing feast of homemade pasta, goat cheese ravioli, pizza, onion tart, and then some. so sunday night was spent sitting outside in the evening quiet in the courtyard, drinking delicious wine, and enjoying some of the best carbs i've ever consumed.... it was dual-themed weekend: no cocktail left behind; no carb left behind. (and fear not, a lot of cheese was involved as well.) by the time everyone was leaving last night at midnight, and i was ready to collapse, i couldn't help but marvel at how fortunate i am to be in this very marvelous world at this very marvelous time. which confirms i am a warrior.
*noodle-danced even
Monday, June 21, 2010
Friday, June 18, 2010
pollution and perspective
i have a bad case of the red china blues. call it i-abhor-china-itis. sigh. i feel guilty even writing that. sometimes i envy the people i meet who simply fell in love with china and that's why they're here. although envy is not the right word. i marvel at their capacity to simply love this place. for it is not at all something i can understand. certainly not at the moment. my magical weekend in napa may have ruined me. since my return i seem unable to be excited about this place (even as i banter on about conversing with beijing and my needing to be here). the atrocious air quality this week isn't helping. i seriously want to just pack up and go somewhere gorgeous where i can breathe deeply, contemplate truths larger and more subtle than i'll ever comprehend, and attempt to write something truly beautiful. or provocative. or both. beautiful or provocative or both. maybe that can be my new mantra. perhaps all i need is a new mantra.
i will be packing up again in just a few days. for another whirlwinded trip to the land of the free and the home of the brave. perhaps that will suffice for now. i am impossibly impatient. (although i used to be worse, which i suppose would be intolerably impatient. impossibly is an improvement.)
given my current restlessness and inquietude, i am questioning everything. i found myself this afternoon recalling a conversation i had some time ago with a new acquaintance. he asked me how wrong it was to profit from china. (incidentally, he is doing so and prefaced the question by stating he had no intention of stopping.) i pointed out that his very framing of the question presumed that it was wrong. an interesting chat ensued. which, after some other experiences, lead to landslides of over-thinking on both sides although that is an entirely other story. the reason i found myself recalling this today is i found myself wondering how wrong it is not to profit from china. given the (arguable) moral compromise one has to make being here at all, and wondering why i even bother with world-improving, shouldn't i at least be getting rich from shouldering on in this steamy grey mess? so many others seem to be. and 'to get rich is glorious' and all the rest. of course, if you know me you know that even in the deepest hues of my red china blues this kind of thinking can't last for long. nonetheless, it was entertaining to consider the question. doing so may have helped restore some sense of perspective, although i am still very restless and ready to jump. or dance. or something. (then again, maybe i always am. ready to dance, that is.)
i think the grey skies always make me feel as though i'm static - suspended by the particulate matter that presses against my skin. i feel constrained. contained. and it irks me. and makes me yearn for something explosive or inspiring to transpire. i want to get hit by a shooting star. or fall in love. or engage in animated discussions till dawn. or dance in the street. or take an impulsive trip to somewhere entirely unexpected....
a friend and i sought out adventure last night. we found mango martinis. and football. it is my outlet at the moment. i do adore the world cup! a game i can understand. hot men on screen. who are passionate and incredible athletes. international affairs on the field. unlimited free peanuts. all around awesome. this interest in sport came as a surprise to some friends who had never ever heard me mention or show an interest in sport of any kind ever ever prior to a casual comment about a potential conflict with a proposed concert and the world cup final. but during this month every four years i do two things that are out of character: (1) i watch a lot tv in pubs and (2) i drink beer. sometimes you have to push your boundaries.
speaking of which, i need to be doing more of that. pushing boundaries. in manners more meaningful and larger than lager. although i realize as i write this that it entirely contradicts my previous post's commitment to wu wei and nonaction / effortless doing. maybe there is space for both. onwards, onwards. next stop, wonderland.
i will be packing up again in just a few days. for another whirlwinded trip to the land of the free and the home of the brave. perhaps that will suffice for now. i am impossibly impatient. (although i used to be worse, which i suppose would be intolerably impatient. impossibly is an improvement.)
given my current restlessness and inquietude, i am questioning everything. i found myself this afternoon recalling a conversation i had some time ago with a new acquaintance. he asked me how wrong it was to profit from china. (incidentally, he is doing so and prefaced the question by stating he had no intention of stopping.) i pointed out that his very framing of the question presumed that it was wrong. an interesting chat ensued. which, after some other experiences, lead to landslides of over-thinking on both sides although that is an entirely other story. the reason i found myself recalling this today is i found myself wondering how wrong it is not to profit from china. given the (arguable) moral compromise one has to make being here at all, and wondering why i even bother with world-improving, shouldn't i at least be getting rich from shouldering on in this steamy grey mess? so many others seem to be. and 'to get rich is glorious' and all the rest. of course, if you know me you know that even in the deepest hues of my red china blues this kind of thinking can't last for long. nonetheless, it was entertaining to consider the question. doing so may have helped restore some sense of perspective, although i am still very restless and ready to jump. or dance. or something. (then again, maybe i always am. ready to dance, that is.)
i think the grey skies always make me feel as though i'm static - suspended by the particulate matter that presses against my skin. i feel constrained. contained. and it irks me. and makes me yearn for something explosive or inspiring to transpire. i want to get hit by a shooting star. or fall in love. or engage in animated discussions till dawn. or dance in the street. or take an impulsive trip to somewhere entirely unexpected....
a friend and i sought out adventure last night. we found mango martinis. and football. it is my outlet at the moment. i do adore the world cup! a game i can understand. hot men on screen. who are passionate and incredible athletes. international affairs on the field. unlimited free peanuts. all around awesome. this interest in sport came as a surprise to some friends who had never ever heard me mention or show an interest in sport of any kind ever ever prior to a casual comment about a potential conflict with a proposed concert and the world cup final. but during this month every four years i do two things that are out of character: (1) i watch a lot tv in pubs and (2) i drink beer. sometimes you have to push your boundaries.
speaking of which, i need to be doing more of that. pushing boundaries. in manners more meaningful and larger than lager. although i realize as i write this that it entirely contradicts my previous post's commitment to wu wei and nonaction / effortless doing. maybe there is space for both. onwards, onwards. next stop, wonderland.
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.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
crack open and shine
so, the required time for rainbowing was in fact rather brief. processing was swift and sweet. and so the sky ballet continues. i am this morning considering the infinite ways life cracks open and shines. always, always when you least suspect it! such is the magic of the world.
in less abstractly substantive news, i also find myself this morning at a curious style crossroads. i am wearing a skirt that belonged to a friend's grandmother. one day she wrapped it up and sent it to me via post even though at that time she lived in brooklyn and i lived in manhattan. the accompanying note said she thought it might fit me and that her grandmother had a tremendous spirit and so it might be fitting in that sense as well. she was right on both counts! it is high-waisted and tapers to a flare below the knee. there is a curious weighted ribbon which falls from the inner-front of the bodice. the weighted end of the ribbon (which feels as though it has a coin in it) dangles between my mid-upper thighs. i wonder if i am meant to squeeze it somehow to achieve a certain posture or life in my derriere. (i wonder this every time i wear this skirt, actually.) i probably ought to look this up. but instead, i'll appreciate the mystery and the way it grazes my inner thighs. ahh, the delicious complexity of being a woman and dressing! to borrow from yeats:
'To be born woman is to know --
Although they do not talk of it at school --
That we must labour to be beautiful.'
and the reply:
'It's certain there is no fine thing
Since Adam's fall but needs much labouring.
There have been lovers who thought love should be
So much compounded of high courtesy
That they would sigh and quote with learned looks
precedents out of beautiful old books;
Yet now it seems an idle trade enough.'
anyway, rather than grow quiet at the name of love, i shall continue. i have paired this skirt with strands of chocolate pearls and thoroughly modern shoes (an interesting choice). this felt appropriate as i dressed since i feel as though i'm on the verge of a style revolution. and then some.
in less abstractly substantive news, i also find myself this morning at a curious style crossroads. i am wearing a skirt that belonged to a friend's grandmother. one day she wrapped it up and sent it to me via post even though at that time she lived in brooklyn and i lived in manhattan. the accompanying note said she thought it might fit me and that her grandmother had a tremendous spirit and so it might be fitting in that sense as well. she was right on both counts! it is high-waisted and tapers to a flare below the knee. there is a curious weighted ribbon which falls from the inner-front of the bodice. the weighted end of the ribbon (which feels as though it has a coin in it) dangles between my mid-upper thighs. i wonder if i am meant to squeeze it somehow to achieve a certain posture or life in my derriere. (i wonder this every time i wear this skirt, actually.) i probably ought to look this up. but instead, i'll appreciate the mystery and the way it grazes my inner thighs. ahh, the delicious complexity of being a woman and dressing! to borrow from yeats:
'To be born woman is to know --
Although they do not talk of it at school --
That we must labour to be beautiful.'
and the reply:
'It's certain there is no fine thing
Since Adam's fall but needs much labouring.
There have been lovers who thought love should be
So much compounded of high courtesy
That they would sigh and quote with learned looks
precedents out of beautiful old books;
Yet now it seems an idle trade enough.'
anyway, rather than grow quiet at the name of love, i shall continue. i have paired this skirt with strands of chocolate pearls and thoroughly modern shoes (an interesting choice). this felt appropriate as i dressed since i feel as though i'm on the verge of a style revolution. and then some.
Monday, June 7, 2010
true colours
this week has been overwhelming. simply overwhelming. thankfully i have come through it full of laughter and grace and light with my true colours shining through. although along the way i had some unmentionable intentions with regards to some other external, abstract colours. if that is obscure, it is meant to be. if you understand it, you are smiling at life with me. well, i hope you're doing that regardless.
i have a little more rainbowing to do in spaces more private than this one. so sionara for a spell. until i return, please let's continue to burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.
i have a little more rainbowing to do in spaces more private than this one. so sionara for a spell. until i return, please let's continue to burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
impossible things
one of my favourite lines from through the looking glass is the white queen's - "why, sometimes i've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." just prior to that pronouncement she had been chiding alice for proclaiming that one can't believe impossible things with: "'i daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the queen. 'when i was your age, i always did it for half-an-hour a day.'" it was children's day on tuesday, and i found myself in a conversation about the buoyant nature of a child's spirit. and how we ought to hold onto that as adults. i couldn't help but think as i listened that the buoyant spirit of my childhood is still fairly close to the surface. i am thankful for that undercurrent of joy and silliness. and glad i don't take myself too seriously even as an adult. and then i recalled alice and the scene with the white queen,* and realized that i still have a lot of practice believing in impossible things. in fact, i may have believed at least three impossible things before breakfast this morning. it really improved the walk to the bus.
curiously, things are not crazy at work this week. or next. in fact, these might be the quietest two weeks i've experienced. it's a little unsettling. and has me magical thinking, believing the impossible, and over-thinking. if only i could make a career of that. actually, to be fair, i am keeping myself otherwise occupied. as per usual, however, once i have a little bit of time to devote to my myriad ideas for side projects / creative endeavours, i get caught at the outset, unsure which to pursue. the trick of course, is just to pursue. kind of like faith. we can spend far too much time strutting and fretting about finding or choosing a spiritual path or a faith. really, it's not the form so much as the substance that matters. a thought i collected somewhere on this:
listen to jesus and to buddha and to mohamed, but do not get caught up in the names. listen to god's breath.
i recognise that many would not agree with me on this point. the main reason we humans seem to murder or abuse each other has to do with disagreements about faith. clearly no one involved in such conflicts is listening to god's breath. speaking of which, i was awoken the other night by an amazing thunderstorm. it was simply radiant. all sound and fury, wind and love, lightning and hope, branches thrashing, rain falling, hearts dancing. i opened my curtains and turned off the air filter just to allow it to wash over me in my bed and listen more closely. (i of course contemplated running out to dance in the downpour, but reason conquered passion and i appreciated it from under the covers.)
and with that, i shall delay no further, keep listening, believing impossible things, and pursue.
*incidentally, this is also the scene where, shortly after this exchange, the white queen turns into a sheep. i wonder how much time sheep spend believing impossible things.
curiously, things are not crazy at work this week. or next. in fact, these might be the quietest two weeks i've experienced. it's a little unsettling. and has me magical thinking, believing the impossible, and over-thinking. if only i could make a career of that. actually, to be fair, i am keeping myself otherwise occupied. as per usual, however, once i have a little bit of time to devote to my myriad ideas for side projects / creative endeavours, i get caught at the outset, unsure which to pursue. the trick of course, is just to pursue. kind of like faith. we can spend far too much time strutting and fretting about finding or choosing a spiritual path or a faith. really, it's not the form so much as the substance that matters. a thought i collected somewhere on this:
listen to jesus and to buddha and to mohamed, but do not get caught up in the names. listen to god's breath.
i recognise that many would not agree with me on this point. the main reason we humans seem to murder or abuse each other has to do with disagreements about faith. clearly no one involved in such conflicts is listening to god's breath. speaking of which, i was awoken the other night by an amazing thunderstorm. it was simply radiant. all sound and fury, wind and love, lightning and hope, branches thrashing, rain falling, hearts dancing. i opened my curtains and turned off the air filter just to allow it to wash over me in my bed and listen more closely. (i of course contemplated running out to dance in the downpour, but reason conquered passion and i appreciated it from under the covers.)
and with that, i shall delay no further, keep listening, believing impossible things, and pursue.
*incidentally, this is also the scene where, shortly after this exchange, the white queen turns into a sheep. i wonder how much time sheep spend believing impossible things.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
on momentum and its discontents
i had a moment last night walking through the hutongs at twilight (listening to 'rent') when i was struck with a realization about my month of momentum's having come to a screeching halt while i was sick. with absolute clarity i realized that i had been viewing things entirely incorrectly. i had been so distraught and discontent about finding myself suspended in silence for a week that i almost failed to notice the inner calm i discovered there. i failed to appreciate that the real momentum i needed this month was internal.* as soon as the idea crossed my mind (while i joyfully i sang out loud along with the rent soundtrack - give in to love, or live in fear!), i stopped for a moment to just let it sink in. (and to avoid being hit by a bicycle-cart transporting dangerously-stacked wood.) my focus on external measures of momentum or progress was misplaced. the real momentum i needed (and was finding!) was internal. it was about taking time to notice the twilight, among other things. so i smiled up at the sky and continued on my way to meet girlfriends for dinner.
as we sat on a rooftop, laughing, and the twilight faded into blue, this realization drifted slowly through me. it settled on an ocean floor somewhere inside me. and i felt very content with that. i have recently been thinking about the connections between our intellectual, spiritual, and physical selves. i believe these connections are stronger and more subtle that we can possibly understand. i saw my chinese doctor on sunday evening. she's an acupuncturist extraordinaire. i had sent her an sms in desperation on friday when i still wasn't feeling better, even if i had a bit of a voice. although i was feeling fine and mostly recovered by sunday afternoon when i arrived at her office, i thought i would go ahead with the appointment anyway. i explained that i had spent a week unable to speak, constantly exhausted, having curious headaches, and generally unwell. she sized up the situation and decided she need to rub my neck and back with a magic stone and then let out bad blood from behind my knees. (obviously.) between the gua sha (scraping) and the blood-letting, i look as though i've been tortured on my back and neck and the backs of my knees. but as usual after seeing her, i feel amazing. both physically - such spaciousness! - but also emotionally. somehow all of the adjustments order things more profound than my vertabrae, the cupping reaches things deeper than my skin. of course i am not such a believer that i skipped the antibiotics and the nebulizer, but nonetheless, i always marvel at the levels (and layers) of healing involved in shen daifu's treatments.
i have decided that i ought to continue to focus on inner momentum. and worry much less about the rest. i have an abiding faith which is enough for now (and always). and now is all there is anyway - no day but today! speaking of which, it has been absolutely gorgeous weather for two days straight which simply makes me want to leave the office, sit on a rooftop somewhere and be fabulous! i'm not entirely sure what that involves, but i'm pretty sure it has something to do with champagne cocktails and outrageous shoes.** preferably while listening to jazz. or wild birds that sounds like keith jarrett on the piano. but i will not leave the office, and will continue to push forward the rule of law. and perhaps go shoe-shopping online. (maybe some external momentum on my feet will assist with the internal progress!)
*perhaps it always is.
**i recognise that this may sound like a wish to become a taitai. especially because whenever i scratch the surface of this particular illusion just a little bit, confusion ensues. really, there is only so much sipping of champagne cocktails and wearing big shoes one can do in a given day. so how to occupy the remaining time? i expect that there would be a lot of effort put into preparing for the moment when the sipping of cocktails commences. (being fabulous requires looking fabulous and that takes work.) this is when i realize that being a taitai might be rather tedious. even if time at the gym, spa, beauty salon, lunch, and shops (in preparation for the rooftop champers moment) occupies several hours, i know i would crave substance.
as we sat on a rooftop, laughing, and the twilight faded into blue, this realization drifted slowly through me. it settled on an ocean floor somewhere inside me. and i felt very content with that. i have recently been thinking about the connections between our intellectual, spiritual, and physical selves. i believe these connections are stronger and more subtle that we can possibly understand. i saw my chinese doctor on sunday evening. she's an acupuncturist extraordinaire. i had sent her an sms in desperation on friday when i still wasn't feeling better, even if i had a bit of a voice. although i was feeling fine and mostly recovered by sunday afternoon when i arrived at her office, i thought i would go ahead with the appointment anyway. i explained that i had spent a week unable to speak, constantly exhausted, having curious headaches, and generally unwell. she sized up the situation and decided she need to rub my neck and back with a magic stone and then let out bad blood from behind my knees. (obviously.) between the gua sha (scraping) and the blood-letting, i look as though i've been tortured on my back and neck and the backs of my knees. but as usual after seeing her, i feel amazing. both physically - such spaciousness! - but also emotionally. somehow all of the adjustments order things more profound than my vertabrae, the cupping reaches things deeper than my skin. of course i am not such a believer that i skipped the antibiotics and the nebulizer, but nonetheless, i always marvel at the levels (and layers) of healing involved in shen daifu's treatments.
i have decided that i ought to continue to focus on inner momentum. and worry much less about the rest. i have an abiding faith which is enough for now (and always). and now is all there is anyway - no day but today! speaking of which, it has been absolutely gorgeous weather for two days straight which simply makes me want to leave the office, sit on a rooftop somewhere and be fabulous! i'm not entirely sure what that involves, but i'm pretty sure it has something to do with champagne cocktails and outrageous shoes.** preferably while listening to jazz. or wild birds that sounds like keith jarrett on the piano. but i will not leave the office, and will continue to push forward the rule of law. and perhaps go shoe-shopping online. (maybe some external momentum on my feet will assist with the internal progress!)
*perhaps it always is.
**i recognise that this may sound like a wish to become a taitai. especially because whenever i scratch the surface of this particular illusion just a little bit, confusion ensues. really, there is only so much sipping of champagne cocktails and wearing big shoes one can do in a given day. so how to occupy the remaining time? i expect that there would be a lot of effort put into preparing for the moment when the sipping of cocktails commences. (being fabulous requires looking fabulous and that takes work.) this is when i realize that being a taitai might be rather tedious. even if time at the gym, spa, beauty salon, lunch, and shops (in preparation for the rooftop champers moment) occupies several hours, i know i would crave substance.
Friday, May 21, 2010
speaking softly of soft power
so, i can speak. big sigh of relief. there may or may not have been a few moments during which my imagination danced delicately into fantastical thinking and i panicked about never recovering my voice. i am not at full capacity and don't quite yet sound fully myself, but i am getting close. and i am finally starting to feel a bit better as well. this week has been so bizarre. there was all the sound and fury (and justice imploding all over the place) related to work. and all the deep silence (and over-thinking) around me at home. and now it is friday evening, and i cancelled plans after realizing i'm not quite healed. participating in a work program last night wore me out and going to the office for part of the day utterly exhausted me. i am being responsible and resting tonight.*
the work program last night was really wonderful and inspiring. and made me feel fortunate to be here working on rule of law issues all over again. also, i think i really need to stick around at least until the eighteenth national congress (fall, 2012), just to see what happens. well, provided the pollution doesn't wreak further havoc on my vocal cords first. two interesting discussions from last night:
1 - in communist regimes such as present PRC, former USSR, you never really know what any of the political elites think or what they will do until they are actually at the very top and in power. no one predicted khrushchev (from stalin's close advisor / staunch supporter to de-stalinization?) or gorbachev (who was prepared for perestroika?) at all. no one saw it coming. but how could they? they only way to rise in these parties is to hide all your cards until you've already cashed in and are running the whole casino. the speaker was drawing parallels with the chinese leadership.
2 - china wants soft power. so eventually it will have to embrace the non-commercial aspects of rule of law, including respect for civil liberties, due process, a functioning judiciary, and tolerable criminal justice system. i thought this was interesting given my recent thinking about thin v. thick rule of law. and i also just thought it was interesting. i hadn't seen things from that perspective before. (sometimes when you are too close to things it has hard to see them with any perspective at all.) but it makes some sense to me. china wants to be taken seriously on the world stage, it wants to be respected, it wants soft power. and the chinese leadership knows that requires serious reforms related to openness and rights. (russia, ps, has totally given up on this insofar as i can tell. i just read yet another article about journalists and human rights activists been killed and abused and beaten for speaking truth to power. so tragic.)
i am going to consider this soft power angle more, because i believe there is something to it. (especially if whomever takes over in 2012 has a personal belief in or vision for political opening and human rights!) but rather than take up space with my pontificating here, i am going to consider the importance of soft power from a soft lavender bath and then bed.
*also, i have a 9 am cooking class and am determined to be bright-eyed and paying close attention. being ill always makes me fancy myself an amazing chef (it comes with being cooped up and having an overactive imagination).
the work program last night was really wonderful and inspiring. and made me feel fortunate to be here working on rule of law issues all over again. also, i think i really need to stick around at least until the eighteenth national congress (fall, 2012), just to see what happens. well, provided the pollution doesn't wreak further havoc on my vocal cords first. two interesting discussions from last night:
1 - in communist regimes such as present PRC, former USSR, you never really know what any of the political elites think or what they will do until they are actually at the very top and in power. no one predicted khrushchev (from stalin's close advisor / staunch supporter to de-stalinization?) or gorbachev (who was prepared for perestroika?) at all. no one saw it coming. but how could they? they only way to rise in these parties is to hide all your cards until you've already cashed in and are running the whole casino. the speaker was drawing parallels with the chinese leadership.
2 - china wants soft power. so eventually it will have to embrace the non-commercial aspects of rule of law, including respect for civil liberties, due process, a functioning judiciary, and tolerable criminal justice system. i thought this was interesting given my recent thinking about thin v. thick rule of law. and i also just thought it was interesting. i hadn't seen things from that perspective before. (sometimes when you are too close to things it has hard to see them with any perspective at all.) but it makes some sense to me. china wants to be taken seriously on the world stage, it wants to be respected, it wants soft power. and the chinese leadership knows that requires serious reforms related to openness and rights. (russia, ps, has totally given up on this insofar as i can tell. i just read yet another article about journalists and human rights activists been killed and abused and beaten for speaking truth to power. so tragic.)
i am going to consider this soft power angle more, because i believe there is something to it. (especially if whomever takes over in 2012 has a personal belief in or vision for political opening and human rights!) but rather than take up space with my pontificating here, i am going to consider the importance of soft power from a soft lavender bath and then bed.
*also, i have a 9 am cooking class and am determined to be bright-eyed and paying close attention. being ill always makes me fancy myself an amazing chef (it comes with being cooped up and having an overactive imagination).
Thursday, May 20, 2010
perseverance furthers
so my recovery has been slower than i had hoped or prepared for. i am still shrouded in silence. and meanwhile, the world is collapsing around my ears and my NGO has been in the SCMP for two days running and any semblance of justice in China is imploding and i can only watch from within this glass cage of quiet. (at least i have a good excuse for not speaking to the press.) and in fairness, the justice imploding line is a bit melodramatic. but one bends towards melodrama when trapped inside one’s head for days on end. or at least i do. also, in a cruel twist of fate, my ipod has actually imploded and seems entirely beyond hope of recovery. so i cannot even listen to music. although even as i write that, I have opened the door to the courtyard and can hear a neighbour playing the flute. which only proves that beauty and melody and goodness infiltrate always.
speaking of infiltration, a dear friend and her visiting mum came over last night and let me feed them. as usual when trapped home by illness, i expand my horizons by cooking. (and they brought baked goods which are always welcome!) it was lovely to have their company, but the whispering left me in pain and frustrated to tears by my lack of improvement. i found myself in tears again this morning when i realized i still couldn’t speak, but then reminded myself to keep things in perspective. a friend with asthma suggested that i imagine i am a french-indochinese lady in an opium den while i am nebulizing to make it more pleasant. i thought it a good suggestion…. so perspective – i am fortunate, this too shall pass, and i can listen to a neighbour play the flute on a sunny day. perseverance furthers. that applies to striving for justice as well. to borrow from tennyson’s ulysses – to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
it’s curious how when all other sounds are muted, the volume of one’s inner chatter can increase. although thankfully my inner life is calmer and more muted than i had imagined. and of course my imagination is more surprising and unruly than ever.
this condition has created an unexpected hiatus in the month of momentum. but perhaps it is actually a positive pause. i was perhaps propelling myself forward too far too fast rather than allowing myself to listen to my inner music and dance ahead at my own pace.
speaking of infiltration, a dear friend and her visiting mum came over last night and let me feed them. as usual when trapped home by illness, i expand my horizons by cooking. (and they brought baked goods which are always welcome!) it was lovely to have their company, but the whispering left me in pain and frustrated to tears by my lack of improvement. i found myself in tears again this morning when i realized i still couldn’t speak, but then reminded myself to keep things in perspective. a friend with asthma suggested that i imagine i am a french-indochinese lady in an opium den while i am nebulizing to make it more pleasant. i thought it a good suggestion…. so perspective – i am fortunate, this too shall pass, and i can listen to a neighbour play the flute on a sunny day. perseverance furthers. that applies to striving for justice as well. to borrow from tennyson’s ulysses – to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
it’s curious how when all other sounds are muted, the volume of one’s inner chatter can increase. although thankfully my inner life is calmer and more muted than i had imagined. and of course my imagination is more surprising and unruly than ever.
this condition has created an unexpected hiatus in the month of momentum. but perhaps it is actually a positive pause. i was perhaps propelling myself forward too far too fast rather than allowing myself to listen to my inner music and dance ahead at my own pace.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
mathematics of freedom
the last time i was silent for three days, it was self-imposed. i was on a silent yoga retreat in northern california several years ago with a beloved sister-friend. she found it hard to be together and not be speaking, saying it felt as though we were in a fight. i didn’t feel the same (i don’t think we could ever have a fight even if we tried) and found myself absorbed in all the emotions the silence dredged up from within me. i wrote an essay about that and submitted it to some yoga magazine. but they weren’t interested. i think they were more interested on inspiration and enlightenment, less concerned with processing unruly emotions amid the redwoods. (shouldn’t there be space for both?) while i’m thinking about silence and processing both, will share that essay below.* thinking of this also has me thinking that i should try to do yoga later today. except that i am not meant to breathe deeply except into the nebulizer or do any real exercise. hmmm. maybe modified asanas.
in the meanwhile, i would be remiss if i did not note that the us-china human rights dialogues resumed last week in washington. from what i’ve heard so far, and i’ll learn more this weekend, it sounds as though it was a positive opening. this was the first dialogue since 2008, and the one before that was in 2002. and apparently a broad range of topics were discussed and the exchanges were frank. both sides committed to another round in beijing in 2011. the rule of law figured prominently. sandra day o’connor hosted the chinese delegation at the supreme court and apparently spoke very movingly about the important role that lawyers play in American society, and in the criminal justice system, the importance the US attaches to the independence of the judiciary, the independence of lawyers, the importance of pro bono representation. comments from those who were there suggested that the chinese guests undoubtedly got a sense that these values are pretty deeply imbued in our society. (on a complete side note related to the supreme court, i am absolutely thrilled at the prospect of there being three female justices!) all in all, i am hopeful that the resumption of this dialogue and the commitment to regularize it will have positive outcomes for the rule of law and then some.
in a book i was reading recently about the rule of law, there was a great discussion about “thin” v. “thick” understandings of the rule of law. “thin” being an understanding such that the laws – irrespective of their content – are adhered to or enforced. this focuses on rule of law simply as what is dictated by political authority or issued by the state. Under this minimalist approach, the third reich could be considered as having respected the rule of law because in terms of system and statute, the state functioned by the letter of the law. yet that “law” included provisions for genocide, which somehow doesn’t sit well when we think about “rule of law”. indeed, it is hard to view a state which savagely represses or persecutes sections of its people as observing the rule of law, even if the transport of the persecuted minority to the concentration camp or the compulsory exposure of female children on the mountainside is the subject of detailed laws duly enacted and scrupulously observed. the rule of law ought to amount to more. the “thick” understanding of the rule of law provides as much, embracing the protection of human rights as within its scope. this is not a universally accepted understanding of the rule of law, but i believe that one day it will be. our contemporary (and continuing) acceptance of the universality of human rights requires no less.
a final thought that caught in my mind of late. from spinoza, unsurprisingly: law is the mathematics of freedom. perhaps, in a sense, so is silence.
*ahem (keep in mind that this was ages ago):
Anger Through Asana
The anger was overwhelming. It raced through my entire body in electric steaks of deep purple and throbbing orange. I was furious. And then furious about being furious. Other people went on silent yoga retreats in order to be overwhelmed by waves of bliss, to be lit from within by an enduring, poignant sense of the ineffable. Instead, I was just wrought with intense anger. I opened an eye to see if anyone else in the meditation hall had noticed that I was trembling with the strain of containing it. I wanted to shout so loud the windows shattered. I wanted to tear my clothes off to release, to let these furies out. I could almost see them, awful, angry witches flying around through my veins, maniacally laughing. I wanted to bleed. Just to get them out of my system. I closed my eyes and tried to focus on my fucking breath.
The waves of nausea began. I was so angry I was sick. I seriously thought that I was going to throw up on my yoga mat. I wondered whether I needed to make a run for the bathroom. Damn you, furies! Get out of here. “OM SHANTI!,” I shouted in my mind. I sighed, probably a little too audibly. But I didn’t care. I was drowning in a twister of rage, with angry witches having taken control of my mind and body. I thought this counted as a crisis and could justify a little noise. It was taking all my will and self-restraint not to allow the terrible cries in my soul to escape.
I tried to reason with myself. I told myself I could manage it, that I needn’t let this anger make me sick. I attempted to step back and observe these emotions, without judgment or attachment, to free myself from riding along with the furies (damn their cackling) on their terrible flight through me. But they were moving so fast. I frantically recalled the visualization exercise our yoga teacher had taught us a few days prior. I took a deep breath and began to gather all of that wretched throbbing anger together and just look at it. The furies cried out awfully as they were caught and collected. Their cries became groans as they melded together into an awful, smoldering mass of anger. I could see it before me in my mind. Keeping the anger together took almost as much strength as collecting it. I was surely shaking by now. But I knew what I had to do.
I envisioned myself holding the awful orb. I placed us on the edge of a very high, clear cliff. I walked to the edge with the smoldering, melded furies. I peered down to be sure I couldn’t see the bottom of this canyon. I didn’t want them coming apart, finding their brooms and flying back up into my blood. Satisfied that I was at the end of the world, in one last burst of strength, I pushed the anger off. I dusted off my palms, turned and did not look back. I tried to focus on my breath again, but was having a hard time. At least, I consoled myself, I hadn’t gone all the way to India to get angry. If I wasn’t going to find bliss, may as well not find it in California. At least I’d saved on airfare.
This dramatic internal struggle took place on a silent yoga retreat in Northern California. We were ensconced in a charming Tibetan monastery and retreat center in the redwood forest. It was remote and peaceful. My blackberry was safely hibernating in a cozy, simply furnished blue room. I had not come here to get angry. Although I doubt that I could have articulated why exactly I had come. Perhaps that was the problem. I had come on a whim. Without clear purpose, the furies had swooped in and caught me unawares. Vultures, really. But that’s what you get for not dealing.
What I had never dealt was with how angry I was at my unfaithful ex-fiancé. This was quite plain to me while I carefully stood up as the meditation session came to a close. I crouched first, leaning forward off my meditation cushion, and looked at the neat purple texture on my yoga mat. I picked at a place where there was a small tear. Yes, I thought to myself, this is what you get for not dealing. I gingerly stood up, staying silent and avoiding eye contact as per the rules of this retreat, and made my way to breakfast.
As I ate, I wondered where all of this was coming from. I was not an angry person by nature, and I did my bit of continuously trying to cultivate compassion. Even amid all of the addictive cycles of passion, betrayal, pain and his “Hail Mary” grand gestures, I never really got angry at my fiancé. I sobbed so hard I came apart and spent the night a dark blue puddle of despair on the floor, but then I was feeling sorry for myself. I screamed so inconsolably I lost my voice for days, but then I was frustrated. I punched the air. I punched the wall. I punched myself. Once, I punched him. But then I was so lost inside my hurt I was blindly throwing punches to find it outside myself. I considered cutting myself, but then I was trying to find somewhere to direct the pain. I considered throwing myself in front of a public bus, but then I was blaming myself. I lost my breath, lost my way, lost weight, lost myself. But I never really got angry.
Perhaps I had never allowed myself to get angry. The anger had been there, though. Focusing on my breath allowed me find it. An invisible undercurrent of rage had been swelling inside me for years. It took the discipline of silence and asana to compel me to turn inward and see it. And be swallowed by it. This was not what I had come here for. Once I considered it, I could see that I had come to this retreat to take a break from being held hostage by this relationship. To escape the intricate and dark cage I had helped to create, and commune with the bigger picture, even if only for a long weekend. Yes, I was still with him. I had given the ring back. He had recently moved out. But yet somehow, I was still with him.
I called him “Bright Eyes.” He called me “Brighter.” He was charming, and charmed. His was an incongruous personal history. The kind of story that leaves you immediately impressed and allows you to believe in America. He was attractive and self-confident, a natural networker and social host. He liked to party. The first time I kissed him and looked into his bright brown eyes, I knew I was in trouble.
But I never thought that I would stay in trouble so long. Something fell off the shelf inside me early into our relationship and it threw me off balance for five years. I did not truly sense this imbalance until I started practicing yoga consistently, a process which began with my agreeing to go on this silent yoga retreat with a friend. Sure I had dabbled in yoga before, but never in a serious or sustained way. I was not practicing at all when she asked, but I agreed without giving it much thought.
A few weeks before the retreat, I injured my foot while running. It was a very frustrating injury. I was constantly in pain, meekly limping around and miserable. I certainly couldn’t run and so I decided I ought to try a yoga class to make sure that I could still go on the retreat. I went to a yoga studio near my apartment that I’d walked by numerous times and had always meant to try. But it took a torn muscle in my left foot to actually get me off the street and into class.
As I slowly limped down the sidewalk en route to the studio on a cold, grey, wet February day, I cursed my luck. “God,” I wailed inside, “I wish I could just cut this foot off!” I made it up the stairs and settled onto my mat in a warm, lofty, embracing wooden space. I lay back on my mat and closed my eyes. It wasn’t until the teacher brought us together with the opening Om that I noticed the woman on the mat in front of mine. She did not have a left foot. In fact, she did not have a leg below her left knee and her prosthetic was neatly stacked against the wall beside her mat. I thought of my careless thought in the street and my heart danced a tornado ballet. I placed my hands in prayer in front of my heart and told God that I was humbled.
I have been practicing yoga at this studio since that humbling moment. I was able to get through class that day, and the next, and go on the retreat. Practicing even helped heal my injured foot. More importantly, practicing yoga began the process that would heal my heart. A process that I did not even know I was looking for until I found myself about to throw up on a yoga mat in a meditation hall in a monastery in the woods.
I first left my ex-fiancé a few years before that moment. I knew then that leaving him was the right thing to do. I had narrowly survived a nervous breakdown; I had thought about throwing myself in front of a bus. I had burned myself up – I was emaciated and exhausted and hollow. This was shortly after he had confirmed his infidelity for the first time. I broke. And I left him. My leaving didn’t last then. And it didn’t last the next six or seven times.
I didn’t seem to have the strength to stay gone. I always promised myself and my friends that this was it – it was over, I was never going back. But I did. Too many times I did. He would return with his charming words laced with heroin. He would return with flowers and poetry, and songs written in Spanish, promises of happily ever after, detailed lists of how he would love me, champagne kisses, jewelry and art. I look into those bright brown eyes and become intoxicated. The initial high was always so good. But the crashes only got worse. I lost a little bit of myself as I shattered each time it all came tumbling, stumbling down.
And then he came back with an engagement ring. When he proposed we hadn’t seen or spoken to each other for a few months. I was in a new city, with a new phone number, a new job, a new beginning. It was not three weeks into my renaissance, and he had returned with the ring. We met on the street. Seeing him took the wind out of me. We walked to a park. We sat. He started reading something he’d prepared. He said so much. He presented the ring. He wanted to make it right.
When I saw the diamond flashing in the summer sun, I was torn equally in two. One part of me wanted to turn on my heel, walk away, and never ever look back. Another wanted to fall into his arms forever. Instead, I was stuck. I stood, unable to decide between these two equally strong impulses. It was agonizing. But I somehow couldn’t move.
I said yes a few hours later. And we were high for awhile. But of course the euphoria slowly began to evaporate until I was upset enough to give back the ring. I told him that this was not the kind of engagement I wanted, that this was not how it was supposed to feel. We agreed that we still wanted to be together, to make it work. We agreed that we wouldn’t get engaged again until I could say to my friends “he is so good to me,” and mean it. He wanted to hang the ring somewhere we could see it, to remind us of what we were working towards. But I didn’t want to look at it, so I just told him to keep it.
I had given him the ring back about six months before I nearly threw up in that silent meditation hall. He had just moved in with a friend of his who was a notorious playboy and a wild partier. His own nights had become longer and more intense. He was always out, always wasted, always unreliable. I got a cat to have something to direct all of my love towards. Although my roommate was highly allergic, she later told me she let me get the cat because she sensed how desperately I needed this small creature. I needed to get lost in loving something. It couldn’t be him. And I wasn’t ready for it to be me.
After breakfast that retreat morning, I started to feel agitated again. I decided to take my silent, meditative self for a slow walk in the redwood forest that surrounded the monastery. The woods were majestic and powerful, and I hoped they could help me still my stormy mind. I tried to get lost in the beauty around me. But I was flooded with images of us. I was tossed recklessly about by waves of regret, hope, pain, tenderness, and anger until I was seasick. I finally turned off the path and pushed deeper into the forest, walking faster as I did so, looking within and without for something upon which to shore myself. But the emotions would not cease. Until suddenly I stopped walking, leaned against a tree, and threw up my oatmeal in anger. At least it had not happened in the meditation hall.
I remained angry for a large portion of that retreat. There were more furies I had to deal with. But I eventually threw them all off the end of the world. Sometimes wrestling them off one by one. It was exhausting. So I didn’t have much time for enlightenment. When we started speaking again on the final morning of the retreat, we were all asked to share what we had experienced in the silence. But I kept my anger to myself. I couldn’t bear the thought of having to explain that I was still with him, still in this thing.
I ended it (again) a few months later. And went back (again) a few months after that. I continued my asana practice. Sometimes I got angry. Sometimes I cried in child’s pose, sobbed in shoulder stand. But I faced the emotions like those furies in the forest. Then one day I ended it for good. And I never looked back. I am no longer angry. I am still practicing yoga. I am still awed by the emotions my asana and meditation practice allow me to discover. And I am still humbled by what I am learning.
in the meanwhile, i would be remiss if i did not note that the us-china human rights dialogues resumed last week in washington. from what i’ve heard so far, and i’ll learn more this weekend, it sounds as though it was a positive opening. this was the first dialogue since 2008, and the one before that was in 2002. and apparently a broad range of topics were discussed and the exchanges were frank. both sides committed to another round in beijing in 2011. the rule of law figured prominently. sandra day o’connor hosted the chinese delegation at the supreme court and apparently spoke very movingly about the important role that lawyers play in American society, and in the criminal justice system, the importance the US attaches to the independence of the judiciary, the independence of lawyers, the importance of pro bono representation. comments from those who were there suggested that the chinese guests undoubtedly got a sense that these values are pretty deeply imbued in our society. (on a complete side note related to the supreme court, i am absolutely thrilled at the prospect of there being three female justices!) all in all, i am hopeful that the resumption of this dialogue and the commitment to regularize it will have positive outcomes for the rule of law and then some.
in a book i was reading recently about the rule of law, there was a great discussion about “thin” v. “thick” understandings of the rule of law. “thin” being an understanding such that the laws – irrespective of their content – are adhered to or enforced. this focuses on rule of law simply as what is dictated by political authority or issued by the state. Under this minimalist approach, the third reich could be considered as having respected the rule of law because in terms of system and statute, the state functioned by the letter of the law. yet that “law” included provisions for genocide, which somehow doesn’t sit well when we think about “rule of law”. indeed, it is hard to view a state which savagely represses or persecutes sections of its people as observing the rule of law, even if the transport of the persecuted minority to the concentration camp or the compulsory exposure of female children on the mountainside is the subject of detailed laws duly enacted and scrupulously observed. the rule of law ought to amount to more. the “thick” understanding of the rule of law provides as much, embracing the protection of human rights as within its scope. this is not a universally accepted understanding of the rule of law, but i believe that one day it will be. our contemporary (and continuing) acceptance of the universality of human rights requires no less.
a final thought that caught in my mind of late. from spinoza, unsurprisingly: law is the mathematics of freedom. perhaps, in a sense, so is silence.
*ahem (keep in mind that this was ages ago):
Anger Through Asana
The anger was overwhelming. It raced through my entire body in electric steaks of deep purple and throbbing orange. I was furious. And then furious about being furious. Other people went on silent yoga retreats in order to be overwhelmed by waves of bliss, to be lit from within by an enduring, poignant sense of the ineffable. Instead, I was just wrought with intense anger. I opened an eye to see if anyone else in the meditation hall had noticed that I was trembling with the strain of containing it. I wanted to shout so loud the windows shattered. I wanted to tear my clothes off to release, to let these furies out. I could almost see them, awful, angry witches flying around through my veins, maniacally laughing. I wanted to bleed. Just to get them out of my system. I closed my eyes and tried to focus on my fucking breath.
The waves of nausea began. I was so angry I was sick. I seriously thought that I was going to throw up on my yoga mat. I wondered whether I needed to make a run for the bathroom. Damn you, furies! Get out of here. “OM SHANTI!,” I shouted in my mind. I sighed, probably a little too audibly. But I didn’t care. I was drowning in a twister of rage, with angry witches having taken control of my mind and body. I thought this counted as a crisis and could justify a little noise. It was taking all my will and self-restraint not to allow the terrible cries in my soul to escape.
I tried to reason with myself. I told myself I could manage it, that I needn’t let this anger make me sick. I attempted to step back and observe these emotions, without judgment or attachment, to free myself from riding along with the furies (damn their cackling) on their terrible flight through me. But they were moving so fast. I frantically recalled the visualization exercise our yoga teacher had taught us a few days prior. I took a deep breath and began to gather all of that wretched throbbing anger together and just look at it. The furies cried out awfully as they were caught and collected. Their cries became groans as they melded together into an awful, smoldering mass of anger. I could see it before me in my mind. Keeping the anger together took almost as much strength as collecting it. I was surely shaking by now. But I knew what I had to do.
I envisioned myself holding the awful orb. I placed us on the edge of a very high, clear cliff. I walked to the edge with the smoldering, melded furies. I peered down to be sure I couldn’t see the bottom of this canyon. I didn’t want them coming apart, finding their brooms and flying back up into my blood. Satisfied that I was at the end of the world, in one last burst of strength, I pushed the anger off. I dusted off my palms, turned and did not look back. I tried to focus on my breath again, but was having a hard time. At least, I consoled myself, I hadn’t gone all the way to India to get angry. If I wasn’t going to find bliss, may as well not find it in California. At least I’d saved on airfare.
This dramatic internal struggle took place on a silent yoga retreat in Northern California. We were ensconced in a charming Tibetan monastery and retreat center in the redwood forest. It was remote and peaceful. My blackberry was safely hibernating in a cozy, simply furnished blue room. I had not come here to get angry. Although I doubt that I could have articulated why exactly I had come. Perhaps that was the problem. I had come on a whim. Without clear purpose, the furies had swooped in and caught me unawares. Vultures, really. But that’s what you get for not dealing.
What I had never dealt was with how angry I was at my unfaithful ex-fiancé. This was quite plain to me while I carefully stood up as the meditation session came to a close. I crouched first, leaning forward off my meditation cushion, and looked at the neat purple texture on my yoga mat. I picked at a place where there was a small tear. Yes, I thought to myself, this is what you get for not dealing. I gingerly stood up, staying silent and avoiding eye contact as per the rules of this retreat, and made my way to breakfast.
As I ate, I wondered where all of this was coming from. I was not an angry person by nature, and I did my bit of continuously trying to cultivate compassion. Even amid all of the addictive cycles of passion, betrayal, pain and his “Hail Mary” grand gestures, I never really got angry at my fiancé. I sobbed so hard I came apart and spent the night a dark blue puddle of despair on the floor, but then I was feeling sorry for myself. I screamed so inconsolably I lost my voice for days, but then I was frustrated. I punched the air. I punched the wall. I punched myself. Once, I punched him. But then I was so lost inside my hurt I was blindly throwing punches to find it outside myself. I considered cutting myself, but then I was trying to find somewhere to direct the pain. I considered throwing myself in front of a public bus, but then I was blaming myself. I lost my breath, lost my way, lost weight, lost myself. But I never really got angry.
Perhaps I had never allowed myself to get angry. The anger had been there, though. Focusing on my breath allowed me find it. An invisible undercurrent of rage had been swelling inside me for years. It took the discipline of silence and asana to compel me to turn inward and see it. And be swallowed by it. This was not what I had come here for. Once I considered it, I could see that I had come to this retreat to take a break from being held hostage by this relationship. To escape the intricate and dark cage I had helped to create, and commune with the bigger picture, even if only for a long weekend. Yes, I was still with him. I had given the ring back. He had recently moved out. But yet somehow, I was still with him.
I called him “Bright Eyes.” He called me “Brighter.” He was charming, and charmed. His was an incongruous personal history. The kind of story that leaves you immediately impressed and allows you to believe in America. He was attractive and self-confident, a natural networker and social host. He liked to party. The first time I kissed him and looked into his bright brown eyes, I knew I was in trouble.
But I never thought that I would stay in trouble so long. Something fell off the shelf inside me early into our relationship and it threw me off balance for five years. I did not truly sense this imbalance until I started practicing yoga consistently, a process which began with my agreeing to go on this silent yoga retreat with a friend. Sure I had dabbled in yoga before, but never in a serious or sustained way. I was not practicing at all when she asked, but I agreed without giving it much thought.
A few weeks before the retreat, I injured my foot while running. It was a very frustrating injury. I was constantly in pain, meekly limping around and miserable. I certainly couldn’t run and so I decided I ought to try a yoga class to make sure that I could still go on the retreat. I went to a yoga studio near my apartment that I’d walked by numerous times and had always meant to try. But it took a torn muscle in my left foot to actually get me off the street and into class.
As I slowly limped down the sidewalk en route to the studio on a cold, grey, wet February day, I cursed my luck. “God,” I wailed inside, “I wish I could just cut this foot off!” I made it up the stairs and settled onto my mat in a warm, lofty, embracing wooden space. I lay back on my mat and closed my eyes. It wasn’t until the teacher brought us together with the opening Om that I noticed the woman on the mat in front of mine. She did not have a left foot. In fact, she did not have a leg below her left knee and her prosthetic was neatly stacked against the wall beside her mat. I thought of my careless thought in the street and my heart danced a tornado ballet. I placed my hands in prayer in front of my heart and told God that I was humbled.
I have been practicing yoga at this studio since that humbling moment. I was able to get through class that day, and the next, and go on the retreat. Practicing even helped heal my injured foot. More importantly, practicing yoga began the process that would heal my heart. A process that I did not even know I was looking for until I found myself about to throw up on a yoga mat in a meditation hall in a monastery in the woods.
I first left my ex-fiancé a few years before that moment. I knew then that leaving him was the right thing to do. I had narrowly survived a nervous breakdown; I had thought about throwing myself in front of a bus. I had burned myself up – I was emaciated and exhausted and hollow. This was shortly after he had confirmed his infidelity for the first time. I broke. And I left him. My leaving didn’t last then. And it didn’t last the next six or seven times.
I didn’t seem to have the strength to stay gone. I always promised myself and my friends that this was it – it was over, I was never going back. But I did. Too many times I did. He would return with his charming words laced with heroin. He would return with flowers and poetry, and songs written in Spanish, promises of happily ever after, detailed lists of how he would love me, champagne kisses, jewelry and art. I look into those bright brown eyes and become intoxicated. The initial high was always so good. But the crashes only got worse. I lost a little bit of myself as I shattered each time it all came tumbling, stumbling down.
And then he came back with an engagement ring. When he proposed we hadn’t seen or spoken to each other for a few months. I was in a new city, with a new phone number, a new job, a new beginning. It was not three weeks into my renaissance, and he had returned with the ring. We met on the street. Seeing him took the wind out of me. We walked to a park. We sat. He started reading something he’d prepared. He said so much. He presented the ring. He wanted to make it right.
When I saw the diamond flashing in the summer sun, I was torn equally in two. One part of me wanted to turn on my heel, walk away, and never ever look back. Another wanted to fall into his arms forever. Instead, I was stuck. I stood, unable to decide between these two equally strong impulses. It was agonizing. But I somehow couldn’t move.
I said yes a few hours later. And we were high for awhile. But of course the euphoria slowly began to evaporate until I was upset enough to give back the ring. I told him that this was not the kind of engagement I wanted, that this was not how it was supposed to feel. We agreed that we still wanted to be together, to make it work. We agreed that we wouldn’t get engaged again until I could say to my friends “he is so good to me,” and mean it. He wanted to hang the ring somewhere we could see it, to remind us of what we were working towards. But I didn’t want to look at it, so I just told him to keep it.
I had given him the ring back about six months before I nearly threw up in that silent meditation hall. He had just moved in with a friend of his who was a notorious playboy and a wild partier. His own nights had become longer and more intense. He was always out, always wasted, always unreliable. I got a cat to have something to direct all of my love towards. Although my roommate was highly allergic, she later told me she let me get the cat because she sensed how desperately I needed this small creature. I needed to get lost in loving something. It couldn’t be him. And I wasn’t ready for it to be me.
After breakfast that retreat morning, I started to feel agitated again. I decided to take my silent, meditative self for a slow walk in the redwood forest that surrounded the monastery. The woods were majestic and powerful, and I hoped they could help me still my stormy mind. I tried to get lost in the beauty around me. But I was flooded with images of us. I was tossed recklessly about by waves of regret, hope, pain, tenderness, and anger until I was seasick. I finally turned off the path and pushed deeper into the forest, walking faster as I did so, looking within and without for something upon which to shore myself. But the emotions would not cease. Until suddenly I stopped walking, leaned against a tree, and threw up my oatmeal in anger. At least it had not happened in the meditation hall.
I remained angry for a large portion of that retreat. There were more furies I had to deal with. But I eventually threw them all off the end of the world. Sometimes wrestling them off one by one. It was exhausting. So I didn’t have much time for enlightenment. When we started speaking again on the final morning of the retreat, we were all asked to share what we had experienced in the silence. But I kept my anger to myself. I couldn’t bear the thought of having to explain that I was still with him, still in this thing.
I ended it (again) a few months later. And went back (again) a few months after that. I continued my asana practice. Sometimes I got angry. Sometimes I cried in child’s pose, sobbed in shoulder stand. But I faced the emotions like those furies in the forest. Then one day I ended it for good. And I never looked back. I am no longer angry. I am still practicing yoga. I am still awed by the emotions my asana and meditation practice allow me to discover. And I am still humbled by what I am learning.
Friday, May 14, 2010
unexpected perspective
i was walking home down the hutong just now when the beer lady biked past, calling out her goods in a singsong rhythm - mai pijiu, eh, mai pijiu, eh, mai pijiu - selling beer, eh, selling beer, eh, selling beer. it was somehow so soothing and simple that it made me stop walking and smile. until that moment, i had been feeling overwhelmingly exhausted. the cheerless grey skies and light drizzle hadn't been helping my mood. illuminating how in an instant all of one's internal clouds can scatter, even if we have scant control over the actual skies (workers in beijing's weather modification office of course excepted from this statement). the beer lady unwittingly re-energized me for the evening.*
yesterday evening i caught up with a dear friend briefly in beijing for work. reminded me again of the enduring value of friendship and the intimacy that can only come with time and consistent compassion. she delivered some difficult news, which contributed to my feeling tired and distraught today. but, as usual, something small and unexpected - the beer lady! - put it all in perspective.
my flatmate asked me this morning to describe myself in one word. i'm not sure why. i answered without taking time to think and my answer was "hopeful". i think that's accurate. and with that, i ought to sashay hopefully off into the some enchanted evening that is tonight.
*although i confess that the massive coffee i was carrying along may have also had something to do with it. in my state of overwhelming exhaustion, i broke my rule about no afternoon coffees. but so goes the world. rules were made to be broken and moderation is overrated and all the rest.
yesterday evening i caught up with a dear friend briefly in beijing for work. reminded me again of the enduring value of friendship and the intimacy that can only come with time and consistent compassion. she delivered some difficult news, which contributed to my feeling tired and distraught today. but, as usual, something small and unexpected - the beer lady! - put it all in perspective.
my flatmate asked me this morning to describe myself in one word. i'm not sure why. i answered without taking time to think and my answer was "hopeful". i think that's accurate. and with that, i ought to sashay hopefully off into the some enchanted evening that is tonight.
*although i confess that the massive coffee i was carrying along may have also had something to do with it. in my state of overwhelming exhaustion, i broke my rule about no afternoon coffees. but so goes the world. rules were made to be broken and moderation is overrated and all the rest.
silence
so i am compelled to silence for a few days. doctor's orders. i have laryngitis. and some sort of viral infection in my throat. and maybe strep. i have three separate medications one of which needs to be breathed in via a nebulizer twice a day. and i am not meant to speak at all. apparently there is some risk of doing permanent damage to my vocal cords. so, silence. it’s actually an interesting prospect – a marked breath from my usual highly articulated, overly verbose life. i see this as an opportunity for stillness and introspection.*
although perhaps i ought to also see this as implying i’d best reconsider my policy of simply ignoring it when i am sick.** (i have had a cold or something like it for basically two weeks. but i, as per usual, just kept on keeping on until i couldn’t speak – literally.) then again, the laryngitis may have nothing to do with said policy. i somehow never seem to manage to just catch a common cold, but always end up with some highly bizarre illness or injury. i was always the kid in p.e. class who would somehow manage to get hit on the head with a basketball. (this was not an uncommon occurrence.) i have also managed to get sick after being stabbed with the fin of a dead catfish while walking on the beach in bali and digging at something shiny in the sand with my foot. (dead catfish’s fins are full of toxins and best avoided, just fyi.) in college i endured a puncture wound on a big toe inflicted by deadly stilettos at a tito puente concert. (i was so lost in the music i didn’t even notice until i realized i was living bloody footprints. (and we couldn’t afford to drink so i was literally drunk on jazz. i love that feeling!) while shopping at a luxury food market in DC in preparation for a 30th birthday celebration weekend some friends were throwing me at a wonderful farm in maryland, i managed to somehow get a thick, rusty nail embedded into my heel.*** i have also managed to tear a cornea after a bug fly into my eye and needed to have my upper jaw worked back into place after a fall. i suppose, in comparison, laryngitis is nothing to be coughed at (pun intended).
i do think that i am partially to blame for this current ailment. i didn’t slow down while sick (see, supra, my policy of ignoring illness) and had a very fun weekend. though not as fun as everyone assumes – when my voice started becoming hoarse on saturday, multiple people asked me whether i was out until 6 am singing karaoke on friday. i was not. i went to a very mellow dinner and then hung out a friend’s courtyard. i did, however, hold a fish (gently). so maybe that had something to do with it. i was out rather late on saturday – by then i had mistaken the hoarseness for a chance to sound like a husky, silky jazz singer for a day. but it was still all fairly tame. writing this recalls my perhaps most bizarre injury back from my days of riding my wild horses in shanghai.
i remember when found myself sitting in a doctor’s office in shanghai with what can only be called a nightlife injury. “the red line moving up your leg is not a good sign,” the shanghainese doctor said, frowning. “it is either a simple spread of the infection in your foot or blood poisoning. this is not something to mess around with.” i nodded gravely; nothing about his manner was messing around. he explained that if it were blood poisoning, I would be dead by the time that charming little red line reached my heart. the doctor called for the nurse and informed me i needed to be put on intravenous antibiotics immediately. yowsa, I thought to myself, drugs straight into my bloodstream all as the result of a blister on my toe and too much dancing.
then i looked down at my infected foot. the offending toe was now the size of my fist, my foot was size of a medium-sized eggplant, and there was that unmistakable red line creeping up my shin. this was all the fault of a pair of new shoes and a night out at a new hip-hop club. a blister on my toe opened as the night wore on and got infected somewhere amid the sounds of booming jay z, whispering japanese hipsters, chain-smoking euros, and screaming young shanghainese. i hadn’t noticed the slow swelling until the champagne cocktails wore off, and I awoke to discover my foot had ballooned overnight and my walking was compromised.
i wasn’t sure how to explain my champagne-soaked shanghai days to the doctor, so didn’t really have a good answer for him when he asked why i’d waited so long to come in. “ummm, i thought it might just go away?,” i feebly offered. he remained silent. i think he expected me to continue. but what could i say except i’d been in bed all day after a big night out? wasn’t that enough? was it possible, i wondered to myself, that not everyone in this city was still living as though the swinging jazz age never ended?
the nurse came with the i.v. they put the needle in my arm and left me to contemplate the ceiling as the antibiotics seeped into my blood. when i was ready to be unhooked, the doctor explained that i would have to come back every six to eight hours for more antibiotics. taking out the needle and re-inserting it each time would be cumbersome, the doctor said. tnstead, he calmly informed me, they were just going to leave the needle in my vein and wrap my arm in a bandage while i was away from the clinic. he must have seen the horror in my eyes, because he noted that this would save them having to re-find the vein each time and would make my visits faster. even so, i was aghast. the doctor smiled and said he’d see me later.
having a needle in your arm at the crook of your elbow for any significant amount of time is an incredibly strange, softly agonizing sensation. i could feel the needle in my vein with the slightest movement, and had irrational, paranoid visions of a sudden move jerking the needle out of my vein or causing major injury to myself as i rolled over in my sleep. i thought the bandaging made me look tough and people were suitably shocked and horrified when i explained that i had needle semi-permanently in my vein. on the bright side, i completely forgot about my foot because i was so distracted by the needle in my arm. on the less bright side, i had a needle in my arm.
i somehow found myself thinking about that experience in shanghai this afternoon while inhaling medicine through the nebulizer and waving at our ayi. ahh, a few days of silence and introspection. here i come!
*this is not the same as over-thinking, i swear.
**i realize this policy has also at times applied to injuries. about a year ago at this time, on a blue sky morning, i decided to go for a run. i had barely made it out of my door before i managed to trip over a well-hidden sprinkler head and bruise and batter myself. the bump on my knee rapidly swelled to the size and shape of a baseball and my elbows were bleeding rather profusely. but i brushed myself off, hobbled home, had a shower, and went about the day. my boyfriend at the time, little trouble, suggested that i should probably go to hospital. but i said no. my elbow continued bleeding and when there were droplets of blood near the printer, my office manager politely gave me a plaster. that night i had a conference call which ended around 10:00 pm. as i got off the phone, little trouble wanted to have a look at my elbow. as soon as he peeled back the plaster, i knew i was in trouble. he said we needed to go to the emergency room right away, that it was still bleeding, there was a deep gash, and i clearly needed stitches. even then i tried to argue, saying that i had a doctor's appointment the following morning (which i did) and i could just deal with it then. eventually he won (although not after i called both my sister (an ER doctor) and my ba (my father) to get their opinions, which i think infuriated little trouble). i did need stitches, but my knee was ok (although i wasn't able to run for many months). some might find it strange to be in the ER at 11:00 pm for an injury that occurred at 7:30 am, but it seemed very natural to me.
***in a very calm manner i informed my friends of the situation and there were some moments of panic. then i instructed one friend to go inside and search for a first aid kit, another to look for ice, and a third to pull the nail out because i didn’t think i could do that. everyone executed brilliantly. we considered whether to go to the emergency room, but decided against it. i wanted to get started on the drive to the farm, didn’t want to ruin the weekend, and was hungry (and a rusty nail was not going to stand between me and a good meal). we also reasoned that it was a friday evening in SE washington and if we did show up in the emergency room, we would clearly be lower in priority than the gang shootings surely trickling in at that point. and we had so much fresh produce! we laughed at the idea of turning up in the waiting room with our fresh seafood and gourmet cheeses – humboldt fog, anyone? i hobbled around for the weekend and went in for a tetanus shot on monday morning after realizing that i was not, as i had assumed, up on my tetanus vaccinations. the doctor who looked at my foot said that i was incredibly lucky because the nail had penetrated quite deeply and i was dangerously close to having done real damage. she asked why i hadn’t gone for treatment right away. i squirmed a little when i said i prioritized delicious cheese and the sunset over the potomac.
although perhaps i ought to also see this as implying i’d best reconsider my policy of simply ignoring it when i am sick.** (i have had a cold or something like it for basically two weeks. but i, as per usual, just kept on keeping on until i couldn’t speak – literally.) then again, the laryngitis may have nothing to do with said policy. i somehow never seem to manage to just catch a common cold, but always end up with some highly bizarre illness or injury. i was always the kid in p.e. class who would somehow manage to get hit on the head with a basketball. (this was not an uncommon occurrence.) i have also managed to get sick after being stabbed with the fin of a dead catfish while walking on the beach in bali and digging at something shiny in the sand with my foot. (dead catfish’s fins are full of toxins and best avoided, just fyi.) in college i endured a puncture wound on a big toe inflicted by deadly stilettos at a tito puente concert. (i was so lost in the music i didn’t even notice until i realized i was living bloody footprints. (and we couldn’t afford to drink so i was literally drunk on jazz. i love that feeling!) while shopping at a luxury food market in DC in preparation for a 30th birthday celebration weekend some friends were throwing me at a wonderful farm in maryland, i managed to somehow get a thick, rusty nail embedded into my heel.*** i have also managed to tear a cornea after a bug fly into my eye and needed to have my upper jaw worked back into place after a fall. i suppose, in comparison, laryngitis is nothing to be coughed at (pun intended).
i do think that i am partially to blame for this current ailment. i didn’t slow down while sick (see, supra, my policy of ignoring illness) and had a very fun weekend. though not as fun as everyone assumes – when my voice started becoming hoarse on saturday, multiple people asked me whether i was out until 6 am singing karaoke on friday. i was not. i went to a very mellow dinner and then hung out a friend’s courtyard. i did, however, hold a fish (gently). so maybe that had something to do with it. i was out rather late on saturday – by then i had mistaken the hoarseness for a chance to sound like a husky, silky jazz singer for a day. but it was still all fairly tame. writing this recalls my perhaps most bizarre injury back from my days of riding my wild horses in shanghai.
i remember when found myself sitting in a doctor’s office in shanghai with what can only be called a nightlife injury. “the red line moving up your leg is not a good sign,” the shanghainese doctor said, frowning. “it is either a simple spread of the infection in your foot or blood poisoning. this is not something to mess around with.” i nodded gravely; nothing about his manner was messing around. he explained that if it were blood poisoning, I would be dead by the time that charming little red line reached my heart. the doctor called for the nurse and informed me i needed to be put on intravenous antibiotics immediately. yowsa, I thought to myself, drugs straight into my bloodstream all as the result of a blister on my toe and too much dancing.
then i looked down at my infected foot. the offending toe was now the size of my fist, my foot was size of a medium-sized eggplant, and there was that unmistakable red line creeping up my shin. this was all the fault of a pair of new shoes and a night out at a new hip-hop club. a blister on my toe opened as the night wore on and got infected somewhere amid the sounds of booming jay z, whispering japanese hipsters, chain-smoking euros, and screaming young shanghainese. i hadn’t noticed the slow swelling until the champagne cocktails wore off, and I awoke to discover my foot had ballooned overnight and my walking was compromised.
i wasn’t sure how to explain my champagne-soaked shanghai days to the doctor, so didn’t really have a good answer for him when he asked why i’d waited so long to come in. “ummm, i thought it might just go away?,” i feebly offered. he remained silent. i think he expected me to continue. but what could i say except i’d been in bed all day after a big night out? wasn’t that enough? was it possible, i wondered to myself, that not everyone in this city was still living as though the swinging jazz age never ended?
the nurse came with the i.v. they put the needle in my arm and left me to contemplate the ceiling as the antibiotics seeped into my blood. when i was ready to be unhooked, the doctor explained that i would have to come back every six to eight hours for more antibiotics. taking out the needle and re-inserting it each time would be cumbersome, the doctor said. tnstead, he calmly informed me, they were just going to leave the needle in my vein and wrap my arm in a bandage while i was away from the clinic. he must have seen the horror in my eyes, because he noted that this would save them having to re-find the vein each time and would make my visits faster. even so, i was aghast. the doctor smiled and said he’d see me later.
having a needle in your arm at the crook of your elbow for any significant amount of time is an incredibly strange, softly agonizing sensation. i could feel the needle in my vein with the slightest movement, and had irrational, paranoid visions of a sudden move jerking the needle out of my vein or causing major injury to myself as i rolled over in my sleep. i thought the bandaging made me look tough and people were suitably shocked and horrified when i explained that i had needle semi-permanently in my vein. on the bright side, i completely forgot about my foot because i was so distracted by the needle in my arm. on the less bright side, i had a needle in my arm.
i somehow found myself thinking about that experience in shanghai this afternoon while inhaling medicine through the nebulizer and waving at our ayi. ahh, a few days of silence and introspection. here i come!
*this is not the same as over-thinking, i swear.
**i realize this policy has also at times applied to injuries. about a year ago at this time, on a blue sky morning, i decided to go for a run. i had barely made it out of my door before i managed to trip over a well-hidden sprinkler head and bruise and batter myself. the bump on my knee rapidly swelled to the size and shape of a baseball and my elbows were bleeding rather profusely. but i brushed myself off, hobbled home, had a shower, and went about the day. my boyfriend at the time, little trouble, suggested that i should probably go to hospital. but i said no. my elbow continued bleeding and when there were droplets of blood near the printer, my office manager politely gave me a plaster. that night i had a conference call which ended around 10:00 pm. as i got off the phone, little trouble wanted to have a look at my elbow. as soon as he peeled back the plaster, i knew i was in trouble. he said we needed to go to the emergency room right away, that it was still bleeding, there was a deep gash, and i clearly needed stitches. even then i tried to argue, saying that i had a doctor's appointment the following morning (which i did) and i could just deal with it then. eventually he won (although not after i called both my sister (an ER doctor) and my ba (my father) to get their opinions, which i think infuriated little trouble). i did need stitches, but my knee was ok (although i wasn't able to run for many months). some might find it strange to be in the ER at 11:00 pm for an injury that occurred at 7:30 am, but it seemed very natural to me.
***in a very calm manner i informed my friends of the situation and there were some moments of panic. then i instructed one friend to go inside and search for a first aid kit, another to look for ice, and a third to pull the nail out because i didn’t think i could do that. everyone executed brilliantly. we considered whether to go to the emergency room, but decided against it. i wanted to get started on the drive to the farm, didn’t want to ruin the weekend, and was hungry (and a rusty nail was not going to stand between me and a good meal). we also reasoned that it was a friday evening in SE washington and if we did show up in the emergency room, we would clearly be lower in priority than the gang shootings surely trickling in at that point. and we had so much fresh produce! we laughed at the idea of turning up in the waiting room with our fresh seafood and gourmet cheeses – humboldt fog, anyone? i hobbled around for the weekend and went in for a tetanus shot on monday morning after realizing that i was not, as i had assumed, up on my tetanus vaccinations. the doctor who looked at my foot said that i was incredibly lucky because the nail had penetrated quite deeply and i was dangerously close to having done real damage. she asked why i hadn’t gone for treatment right away. i squirmed a little when i said i prioritized delicious cheese and the sunset over the potomac.
Monday, May 10, 2010
sweet suppression
so i had to shake the glitter out of my hair swiftly on monday morning (while poor ayi was at home cleaning up the crime scene). on the very day that there was already a roundtable scheduled bringing together china's top public interest lawyers to discuss the seemingly tightening climate, we awoke to news of two more lawyers having had their licenses revoked for political reasons. this is just the latest in a string of instances of the license-renewal procedures being used to apply pressure to or punish lawyers who take on cases that the government deems sensitive or unfavourable. some argue that the intention is to intimidate the legal profession into advocating strictly within party lines (and presumably with the party's voice). in the case of tang jitian and liu wei, their efforts to represent a member of the banned spiritual movement falungong resulted in their being banned for life from practicing law. tang sees their punishment as a warning to other lawyes. ahh, sweet suppression. as described in an AP story:
The Beijing Municipal Bureau of Justice posted separate notices Friday on its website announcing that Liu and Tang had lost their licenses. The notices said the pair had "disobeyed court personnel and disrupted order in the courtroom" during an April 2009 trial at the Luzhou Municipal Intermediate People's Court in Sichuan province.
The lawyers say they were illegally videotaped during the trial, interrupted repeatedly by the judge and ordered out of the courtroom by unidentified men. Tang and Liu eventually walked out of the courtroom after they objected to being videotaped — which is illegal in Chinese courtrooms — and the court descended into chaos.
in addition to the seeming illegality of the lawyers' treatment at trial, the process by which tang and liu's fates were decided did not comply with the requisite administrative procedures - such as providing the lawyers an opportunity to see the evidence against them (apparently a letter from the luzhou court to the beijing muncipal justice bureau recommending they be punished) - and is deeply disturbing.
as i see more and more of this happening, and am inspired by the courageous lawyers who continue to advocate for real justice nonetheless, i finally appreciate how suprression can slowly make one more radical. the government's attempt to divide the legal profession into "bad" rights-protective rabble-rousers and "good" commercial or uncontroversial public interest lawyers is a blow to the inegrity of the profession as a whole. all attorneys are rights protective. or should be, whether they are protecting corporate interests or freedom of religion. i see how this tactic can compel even a "good" lawyer to do a little "bad" rights work in order to highlight the incoherency and immorality of this divisive approach.
and yet, even amid the sweet suppression there remain moments of authentic sweetness. i realized this at the aforementioned roundtable. i believe it was martin luther king who said that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice. i have faith that he is right.
The Beijing Municipal Bureau of Justice posted separate notices Friday on its website announcing that Liu and Tang had lost their licenses. The notices said the pair had "disobeyed court personnel and disrupted order in the courtroom" during an April 2009 trial at the Luzhou Municipal Intermediate People's Court in Sichuan province.
The lawyers say they were illegally videotaped during the trial, interrupted repeatedly by the judge and ordered out of the courtroom by unidentified men. Tang and Liu eventually walked out of the courtroom after they objected to being videotaped — which is illegal in Chinese courtrooms — and the court descended into chaos.
in addition to the seeming illegality of the lawyers' treatment at trial, the process by which tang and liu's fates were decided did not comply with the requisite administrative procedures - such as providing the lawyers an opportunity to see the evidence against them (apparently a letter from the luzhou court to the beijing muncipal justice bureau recommending they be punished) - and is deeply disturbing.
as i see more and more of this happening, and am inspired by the courageous lawyers who continue to advocate for real justice nonetheless, i finally appreciate how suprression can slowly make one more radical. the government's attempt to divide the legal profession into "bad" rights-protective rabble-rousers and "good" commercial or uncontroversial public interest lawyers is a blow to the inegrity of the profession as a whole. all attorneys are rights protective. or should be, whether they are protecting corporate interests or freedom of religion. i see how this tactic can compel even a "good" lawyer to do a little "bad" rights work in order to highlight the incoherency and immorality of this divisive approach.
and yet, even amid the sweet suppression there remain moments of authentic sweetness. i realized this at the aforementioned roundtable. i believe it was martin luther king who said that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice. i have faith that he is right.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
smells like teen spirit
so it smells like teen spirit in my flat at the moment. or something like it, anyway. so i've escaped to write from the tranquil space of a friend's tidy courtyard. our place looks like a crime scene. we had an outrageous rocker of a housewarming last night and i awoke to see that my gold stilettos were still gorgeously flung under a chair, where they landed after we pushed the couches back to make more room on the impromptu dance floor. i noted the red wine splattered across the floor like blood, the empty bottles and glasses everywhere, flowers strewn about like fallen soldiers, and great wilting hunks of cheese - the silent witnesses to it all. it was a grand soiree.
ostensibly* this is a blog about the rule of law and then some. not parties. although i suppose parties fall comfortably into the "and then some" category. nevertheless, i'll let the details stay with the cheese except to say that our signature cocktail - christened "momentum" - was a strawberry-liquor mash & champers and it was a smashing success. as was the sangria. and the ballroom-dancing to snoop dogg at 3 am. i can't help but delight in the details.**
as per my previous posts, life is delicious details. moments.
and momentum.
more on the rule of law later.
*i have a long relationship with that word. in grade four, i used it in a paper on paul revere (well, insofar as one wrote papers in grade four) and was very pleased with having looked it up. (i even remember the context: "ostensibly to buy supplies".) unfortunately my teacher just accused me of plagiarism. which stung.
**speaking of details, this is the actual exchange of sms messages between a friend who dared to think of not making it & yours truly from 11:00 - 12:30. oh and there was a massive downpour in the middle of the night. ahem:
friend: almost to your place, but pouring rain now... won't add to your wet crowd in the apt - heading to d lounge for a couple drinks if you all adjourn to somewhere else
meiling: you suck. we are waiting for you. hate you forever.
friend: really? i'll come over... but didn't think you really wanted wet additions to the party.
friend: it's a mess outside!
meiling: get it together
friend: ok - will come with four or five people in about half an hour. you'll still be going?
meiling: of course
friend: okay. see you soon!
meiling: whatever. still kind of barf that you didn't come here first.
friend:okay... next time then? or no text / no show? this seems better than both... we were there - at the corner of jingshan dong jie and hou jie and got out of cab to find it.... then rain came
meiling: bite me
friend: on the way now.
meiling: awesome
ostensibly* this is a blog about the rule of law and then some. not parties. although i suppose parties fall comfortably into the "and then some" category. nevertheless, i'll let the details stay with the cheese except to say that our signature cocktail - christened "momentum" - was a strawberry-liquor mash & champers and it was a smashing success. as was the sangria. and the ballroom-dancing to snoop dogg at 3 am. i can't help but delight in the details.**
as per my previous posts, life is delicious details. moments.
and momentum.
more on the rule of law later.
*i have a long relationship with that word. in grade four, i used it in a paper on paul revere (well, insofar as one wrote papers in grade four) and was very pleased with having looked it up. (i even remember the context: "ostensibly to buy supplies".) unfortunately my teacher just accused me of plagiarism. which stung.
**speaking of details, this is the actual exchange of sms messages between a friend who dared to think of not making it & yours truly from 11:00 - 12:30. oh and there was a massive downpour in the middle of the night. ahem:
friend: almost to your place, but pouring rain now... won't add to your wet crowd in the apt - heading to d lounge for a couple drinks if you all adjourn to somewhere else
meiling: you suck. we are waiting for you. hate you forever.
friend: really? i'll come over... but didn't think you really wanted wet additions to the party.
friend: it's a mess outside!
meiling: get it together
friend: ok - will come with four or five people in about half an hour. you'll still be going?
meiling: of course
friend: okay. see you soon!
meiling: whatever. still kind of barf that you didn't come here first.
friend:okay... next time then? or no text / no show? this seems better than both... we were there - at the corner of jingshan dong jie and hou jie and got out of cab to find it.... then rain came
meiling: bite me
friend: on the way now.
meiling: awesome
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
moments and musings
i love china in the early morning. this is not news. but i share it now because i always marvel at the discovery. i did so on a morning run through beihai park the other day. i love moving swiftly through the beijing's morning motions - the stretching and the shouting, the old ladies gossiping, the men dancing with scarves or jumping into lakes, the babies being pushed about, the clothing being changed in public, the steam from the youtiao being fried and the smell of morning bing. as the moments go by in blur, so many captured scenes, so much humanity, i am soothed and delighted by it all. of course, sometimes i get accidentally spit on or run into patches of filthy construction work, which is decidedly less delightful. but it's all part of the blessing of being here. and in the end it is the moments of surprise and delight that i remember, the ones that count.
i am counting my blessings these days. and appreciating the moments as they come. the weather is finally fine and i am spending less time fretting about the state of civil society in china and more time chatting in the sunshine with friends. (or doing both.) my weekend was filled with sunshine, good food, and friends old and new. who could ask for anything more? i have declared may the month of momentum. so i have great expectations for moments to come.
in actual news that is not news, last week the i.o.c. stripped china's women's gynamstics team of its bronze medal from the 2000 sydney olympics because one of the gynasts was underage. this is not surprising.
in actual news, i have decided that the gmail chat status* dots have given new meaning to the green light at the end of daisy's dock. ahem-
Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter - tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms further... And one fine morning -
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
*part of the month of momentum involves moving my creative outlet beyond my gchat status. while a unique genre, i think i need a more spacious canvas.
i am counting my blessings these days. and appreciating the moments as they come. the weather is finally fine and i am spending less time fretting about the state of civil society in china and more time chatting in the sunshine with friends. (or doing both.) my weekend was filled with sunshine, good food, and friends old and new. who could ask for anything more? i have declared may the month of momentum. so i have great expectations for moments to come.
in actual news that is not news, last week the i.o.c. stripped china's women's gynamstics team of its bronze medal from the 2000 sydney olympics because one of the gynasts was underage. this is not surprising.
in actual news, i have decided that the gmail chat status* dots have given new meaning to the green light at the end of daisy's dock. ahem-
Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter - tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms further... And one fine morning -
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
*part of the month of momentum involves moving my creative outlet beyond my gchat status. while a unique genre, i think i need a more spacious canvas.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Monday, April 26, 2010
embraced by grey skies
so i am safely ensconced back in beijing’s grey embrace. seriously i couldn’t believe how grey the sky was when i landed. why are the skies always so startling? you’d think i’d be used to it by now. but i am likewise always astounded by the outrageous and inviting blues overhead upon arriving in north america. maybe it’s simply the suddenly shift. there used to be so much more involved in travel – more time required, more preparations made, more challenges, more formal attire, more etiquette, more smoke – and as a result more time was typically spent wherever it was you were getting to. and all the time and energy necessary to do so made it all seem less sudden and the skies less strange. or maybe not. maybe i just don’t take the skies for granted anymore.
in any case, i am back in the northern capital and taking very little for granted. my sojourn under the blue skies was brief and hectic. activities included: networking at our global staff retreat, nephew cuddling, communing with family and friends, and pondering the great imponderables. i have returned feeling very blessed and determined to become ever more generous, less afraid, and always curious.
also, i am (finally!) reading kazantzakis’s report to greco and taking seriously his imperative ‘reach what you cannot!’ his dedication in the book is as follows:
THREE KINDS OF SOULS, THREE PRAYERS:
1 – I AM A BOW IN YOUR HANDS, LORD. DRAW ME, LEST I ROT.
2 – DO NOT OVERDRAW ME, LORD. I SHALL BREAK.
3 – OVERDRAW ME, LORD. AND WHO CARES IF I BREAK!
that about sums up how it is we conduct ourselves in this world. (how we balance the terror and the wonder!) i am the third kind of soul.
the staff retreat and conversations in DC have me thinking expansively about the rule of law / development / foreign policy and how china doesn’t fit into any theories. i am hoping to create some space to write and think about that in a more structured way.
meanwhile, the grey goes on. it’s good to be home. and though i already miss lei feng, he’s happier in northern virginia. he was a really impressive little traveler, in case you were curious. he only cried for 10.5 of the 13 hours on the beijing – dulles flight. i was really proud of him for pulling it together for a whole 2.5 hours at the end. mind, the constant crying ranged from barely audible mewing that only i could hear (he was under the seat in front of me) to full on wailing with fur flying, paws flailing, and a shaking carrier. it was quite a performance. really he was just acting the way we all feel when trapped on a plane for seemingly interminable stretches of time.
i am choosing to see these grey skies as replete with possibilities rather than pollution. and i have great expectations for this spring.
in any case, i am back in the northern capital and taking very little for granted. my sojourn under the blue skies was brief and hectic. activities included: networking at our global staff retreat, nephew cuddling, communing with family and friends, and pondering the great imponderables. i have returned feeling very blessed and determined to become ever more generous, less afraid, and always curious.
also, i am (finally!) reading kazantzakis’s report to greco and taking seriously his imperative ‘reach what you cannot!’ his dedication in the book is as follows:
THREE KINDS OF SOULS, THREE PRAYERS:
1 – I AM A BOW IN YOUR HANDS, LORD. DRAW ME, LEST I ROT.
2 – DO NOT OVERDRAW ME, LORD. I SHALL BREAK.
3 – OVERDRAW ME, LORD. AND WHO CARES IF I BREAK!
that about sums up how it is we conduct ourselves in this world. (how we balance the terror and the wonder!) i am the third kind of soul.
the staff retreat and conversations in DC have me thinking expansively about the rule of law / development / foreign policy and how china doesn’t fit into any theories. i am hoping to create some space to write and think about that in a more structured way.
meanwhile, the grey goes on. it’s good to be home. and though i already miss lei feng, he’s happier in northern virginia. he was a really impressive little traveler, in case you were curious. he only cried for 10.5 of the 13 hours on the beijing – dulles flight. i was really proud of him for pulling it together for a whole 2.5 hours at the end. mind, the constant crying ranged from barely audible mewing that only i could hear (he was under the seat in front of me) to full on wailing with fur flying, paws flailing, and a shaking carrier. it was quite a performance. really he was just acting the way we all feel when trapped on a plane for seemingly interminable stretches of time.
i am choosing to see these grey skies as replete with possibilities rather than pollution. and i have great expectations for this spring.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
balancing terror and wonder
i read somewhere once upon a lifetime when i was eighteen and searching for an epiphany* that the art of living involved balancing the terror of being a man with the wonder of being a man. the very idea of living is of course gendered. (but what isn't?) nonetheless, i found the concept of balancing appealing. why i recall this now i am not sure except that i have been meaning to write for some time partially because i seem to be suspended between the terror and wonder, the highs and lows.
so, terror.
gao zhisheng has been released. yet his spirit seems crushed. which makes me at once want to weep and also fight. i shudder to think what the chinese authorities did to him this time. burning cigarettes on his eyeballs and electric shocks to his genitals were not enough to break him, insufficient torture to compel him to cease his pursuit of justice and rights in china. now he says that he no longer has the capacity to persevere.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/08/world/asia/08dissident.html?scp=5&sq=gao%20zhisheng&st=cse
the saddest line to me in that piece is the description of his returning home and seeing his family's shoes. (they fled china after his last disappearance and have received political asylum in the US.) but what is perhaps most devastating is this:
“You know that past life of mine was abnormal, and I need to give up that former life,” he said. “I hope I can become part of the peaceful life of the big family.”
his saying that being a human rights lawyer or defending the legal rights of vulnerable groups is "abnormal" makes my heart sink. even more so the idea that he can now join the peaceful (harmonious!) life of the big family of the chinese state at the expense of losing his own family. although i hope that they will be able to be reunited somehow.... the brutality of this government, and the seemingly willful blindness to its darker side by so many, is literally terrifying.
there have been some other dark moments this week related to the ever-tightening space in which international organizations such of ours can operate; government scrutiny and suppression of public interest-oriented work and civil society. i can say no more, but it was certainly disconcerting.
so, wonder.
my parents came for a visit and i cooked a spring feast for them and my chinese parents and others. our families' lives have been intertwined for seventeen years and inexorably altered as a result. feeding them all in my new home was incredibly joyful. even if the dinner conversation turned bloody while my chinese mum and landlady swapped tiananmen stories.
i also had a great work trip to changsha to check in on one of our programs focused on providing training to police on intervening in domestic violence cases. i rode in a chinese police car for the first time with an incredibly thoughtful and remarkable local precinct chief who has really embraced improving the police response to domestic violence and made it a priority. he described how he was able to have the local procuratorate bring charges against a man he had known was abusing his wife for years after one beating left her with a broken nose and other injuries that rose to the level of "light injury" and therefore sufficient for an assault charge under the criminal code. domestic violence is not a separate crime in china and unfortunately it is common for police to respond to cases of violence between intimate partners by treating them as "family matters" or "domestic disputes". if the same incident had happened between strangers on the street, it would be an assault and charges would be brought, but because it is a man beating his wife, it is seen as just the way of things and not needing police involvement. that is why it was so heartening to hear this officer discuss his approach to his work. he told the woman to think of him and his police force as part of her family and there to protect her.
i realize i've just unwittingly echoed the "big family" remark. ironic how the same way of describing how an individual relates to her community or country can be suppressive or protective. context is all. or, more accurately, balance.
*being eighteen i believed that one could seek epiphanies, obstinately ignoring the truth that epiphanies are by their very nature ephemeral and gossamer things which cannot be grasped. then again, one epiphany i've had since then is that nothing that matters or endures can be grasped. anything worth holding onto seems ungraspable. and therein is life's greatest lesson. (she says in a footnote.)
so, terror.
gao zhisheng has been released. yet his spirit seems crushed. which makes me at once want to weep and also fight. i shudder to think what the chinese authorities did to him this time. burning cigarettes on his eyeballs and electric shocks to his genitals were not enough to break him, insufficient torture to compel him to cease his pursuit of justice and rights in china. now he says that he no longer has the capacity to persevere.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/08/world/asia/08dissident.html?scp=5&sq=gao%20zhisheng&st=cse
the saddest line to me in that piece is the description of his returning home and seeing his family's shoes. (they fled china after his last disappearance and have received political asylum in the US.) but what is perhaps most devastating is this:
“You know that past life of mine was abnormal, and I need to give up that former life,” he said. “I hope I can become part of the peaceful life of the big family.”
his saying that being a human rights lawyer or defending the legal rights of vulnerable groups is "abnormal" makes my heart sink. even more so the idea that he can now join the peaceful (harmonious!) life of the big family of the chinese state at the expense of losing his own family. although i hope that they will be able to be reunited somehow.... the brutality of this government, and the seemingly willful blindness to its darker side by so many, is literally terrifying.
there have been some other dark moments this week related to the ever-tightening space in which international organizations such of ours can operate; government scrutiny and suppression of public interest-oriented work and civil society. i can say no more, but it was certainly disconcerting.
so, wonder.
my parents came for a visit and i cooked a spring feast for them and my chinese parents and others. our families' lives have been intertwined for seventeen years and inexorably altered as a result. feeding them all in my new home was incredibly joyful. even if the dinner conversation turned bloody while my chinese mum and landlady swapped tiananmen stories.
i also had a great work trip to changsha to check in on one of our programs focused on providing training to police on intervening in domestic violence cases. i rode in a chinese police car for the first time with an incredibly thoughtful and remarkable local precinct chief who has really embraced improving the police response to domestic violence and made it a priority. he described how he was able to have the local procuratorate bring charges against a man he had known was abusing his wife for years after one beating left her with a broken nose and other injuries that rose to the level of "light injury" and therefore sufficient for an assault charge under the criminal code. domestic violence is not a separate crime in china and unfortunately it is common for police to respond to cases of violence between intimate partners by treating them as "family matters" or "domestic disputes". if the same incident had happened between strangers on the street, it would be an assault and charges would be brought, but because it is a man beating his wife, it is seen as just the way of things and not needing police involvement. that is why it was so heartening to hear this officer discuss his approach to his work. he told the woman to think of him and his police force as part of her family and there to protect her.
i realize i've just unwittingly echoed the "big family" remark. ironic how the same way of describing how an individual relates to her community or country can be suppressive or protective. context is all. or, more accurately, balance.
*being eighteen i believed that one could seek epiphanies, obstinately ignoring the truth that epiphanies are by their very nature ephemeral and gossamer things which cannot be grasped. then again, one epiphany i've had since then is that nothing that matters or endures can be grasped. anything worth holding onto seems ungraspable. and therein is life's greatest lesson. (she says in a footnote.)
Thursday, April 8, 2010
radio nowhere
this is a not very good pic of lei feng loving the floor. it is also not recent. i share it because (a) i am trying to become more blog-savvy and include pictures (next stop, wonderland (well, that or learning how to post links or at least link to previous posts)) and (b) because he has been on my mind of late. lucky little kitty is immigrating to america next week. (although he doesn't know it yet.) soon this sweet beast will feel the winds of freedom blow in his fur as he roams with the deer and the antelope in northern virginia. more plainly, i am taking him with me when i go on my next work trip and leaving him with my parents until such time as i am in a living situation which will allow me to take him in again. i had a day of feeling unusually accomplished this week when i picked up both his registration papers from the animal hospital and my canadian passport from the embassy. i just felt that we were both much so more accounted for (and accountable? authentic?). documentation does that. perhaps that's why we bother to document, although i am now not thinking of documentation of the official, state-sanctioned sort, but the kind that actually imbues our lives with meaning. this kind varies tremendously, but i think we all have some impulse to document, or shore up, what matters. and what matters seems always to be the details. moments, idiosyncrasies, characteristics, quirks. so we squirrel the details away somewhere - in writing, in photographs, in song, in stories we dance over and over in our minds or share with each other - to sustain us.
i suddenly find myself less occupied at work for a few days which has been at once a relief and also unsettling. i realized that i was allowing industry to sustain me more than is appropriate or prudent. mine was a busy march, yes. and i find meaning in what i do. but still. it is a cheap trick to rely on work for sustenance and i know it. at least i have realized my folly and am correcting it. moving on.
i have also realized that there is absolutely nothing useful or interesting on chinese radio. well, at least not the radio stations that beijing cabbies listen to. i confess that i have not sought out inspiration from chinese radio on my own so the sampling underlying this offensive conclusion is flawed. and yet, i find it fascinating. well, maybe that's too much. i find it mildly amusing and slighting intriguing. the intrigue (and the amusement) come from how much air can be occupied with nothing at all. it takes real talent to expend a lot of time and energy and verbiage to say nothing consequential and radio broadcasters in china excel. i am always impressed by the sheer amount of time people can speak and the number of the words they can utter without actually saying anything substantive. sometimes i even wish i had that skill, especially when giving speeches in chinese. it would be nice to be able to draw them out. maybe its more adverbs. maybe it just takes practice. (i am, in fact, practicing at the moment with this post. my apologies. please consider this merely a cultural expedition that you get to come along with minimal effort!) then again, perhaps i am too harsh a critic. maybe radio all around the world is filled with empty static. we so often must face how imprecise language is, how inadequate to its occasions.
speaking of occasions, there are a number on the horizon. lei feng and i will go bopping through the wild blue and end up in DC, where we'll connect with family and friends and colleagues. give toasts and talks (me) and try a new litter box (him). by the time i return may will be nearly upon us and i am hoping that life will feel more rooted. that i will feel more rhythm.
Monday, April 5, 2010
tomb-sweeping and touch
it's qing ming jie - tomb sweeping day - a day to go outside to enjoy the greenery of spring time and tend to the graves of departed ancestors. springtime is indeed slowly sprouting here in the northern capital - evidenced by the sweet green shoots poking their noses out of the earth in our courtyard and the sunlight that smiled us yesterday during a mellow hike on the great wall followed by a sunday afternoon celebration at a friend's countryside home in mutianyu. pic above. we went out to enjoy the not-quite greenery a day early, although we entirely neglected our tomb-sweeping obligations. it was truly just a delicious day - in so many senses. delightful company, engaging conversation, great food (cupcakes even!), impromptu song and dance, a sweeping view of the wall and the mountains, clear skies and sweet, sweet sunshine. i am not sure if it was the wine or the promise of spring that was getting us drunk. but i'll take spring (and summer) in copious amounts any day! [i recall a line from the joni mitchell song 'california' - i could drink a case of you and still be on my feet. ... i could drink a case of summer's potential and still be on my feet.]
sadly the clear skies scattered and today it is back to grey. but no matter. as i walked to catch the bus this morning, i was content. my cheeks were still glowing from yesterday's sunshine. i just felt so lucky to be in this incredible city, this complicated country, blessed with health and perspective and endless opportunities - to meet interesting people, to hike on the great wall, to eat cupcakes.* sunday's skies and sunshine scoured away the frustration of last week in wuhan and i felt refreshed. perhaps it was also having a dear friend in town this weekend. or perhaps it was conquering a fear. which i did last thursday.
after getting back from wuhan, i went for a massage. this may not sound like much, but for me it was conquering a fear of touch by a strange man. and i have been thinking about touch lately. not entirely sure why. although i was inspired after reading an article about the importance of touch and the positive effect of simple physical contact. and noticed that i have taken to doing this kind of awkward shoulder-slap when saying farewell to chinese male local partners. (we are beyond shaking hands and hugging wouldn't work. i think they are mostly baffled by the shoulder-slap. as, i confess, i am! i hadn't even realized i was doing it until one of them did it back and i discovered how strange it is.... and then caught myself doing it again with other partners two days later!)
anyway, most expats i know here love going for massage and consider it one of the better aspects of living in beijing and a nice release when you're having bad china days (or weeks as per mine in wuhan). i always politely demurred or changed subjects when massage came up because until last thursday i had never gone. a few weeks ago during a conversation with a few girlfriends, i finally confessed the reason - that my one previous experience with a male masseuse (in the US) was deeply traumatic (entirely due to my own neuroses). most of the masseuses in beijing - and apparently all of the good ones - are men. and that was enough to keep me away. mind, the trauma of my one previous experience, which was part of a recruiting trip with my former big, bad law firm, may or may not have also had something to do with having encountered a very large M & A partner whose robe didn't quite go all the way around him in the co-ed waiting room at the spa. that awkward staring hard at the floor aside, what i actually found difficult was accepting that the massage was not intimate touching. i felt so bad for the poor man assigned to knead my worries away that lovely june afternoon. his name was eric. i remember that clearly because even as i was checking at the spa's front desk and was told i would be "with eric", a small fist squeezed my heart. and held steady. as eric did his best, i became a fiery little ball of stress under his hands. every time he moved the sheet, i was a bundle of nerves. i stopped breathing. and had to use my yoga breath to make sure i was getting oxygen and to calm myself down. i began repeating the mantra "this is not intimate touching" in my head over and over. at some point i started adding "this is his job, he is a professional" to make sure i was really clear. at some point mid-way through, i thought about stopping and telling eric i was sorry, it wasn't his fault, but maybe we should spare us both further trouble and call the whole thing off. but i didn't. i wasn't capable of speech since i was too busy quietly hyperventilating and trying to breathe deeply at the same time. (inhale: this is not, exhale: intimate touching.)
i was convinced to go for a massage in china only after having been encouraged repeatedly to do so and having been informed that there is more than one layer between you and the masseuse: a nice set of pyjama pants and matching long-sleeved shirt and a blanket. no skin-to-skin contact. it was great - he tended to the tension i carry in my neck and shoulders. but this style of massage is not exactly relax; it's quite intense actually. he on blood pathways and it can be painful. for example, as he pressed a point in my lower back, i had the distinct sensation that blood and muscle was going to spurt out of the front of my thigh. but i think working through this tension must be good. and so i am going back tonight. besides, having this safe touching in my life is perhaps positive it and of itself.
i have also been thinking about touch after a friend drunkenly tried to kiss me in an alley a few weekends ago and i leapt back saying, 'i'm just not there yet'. (which is true.) and found myself ambiguously holding the hand of another friend while shopping. and noticed the shoulder-slapping thing. and realized that spooning with your cat isn't a substitute for human intimacy. the take away is that massage is all the touch i can manage at the moment.
the late afternoon light is fighting through the grey, so i may make most of this holiday and reflect on my ancestors for a moment before this evening's massage, even if i have no tombs to sweep. all of this - paying respects to the departed, basking in the sunshine and appreciating the here and now, considering connections and touch - of course recalls how quickly time flies, how fleeting life can seem if you fail to take the time to marvel in the moments, and impermanence. a teaching on impermanence my ba sent recently:
Taking impermanence truly to heart is to be slowly freed from the idea of grasping, from our flawed and destructive view of permanence, from the false passion for security on which we have built everything. Slowly it dawns on us that all the heartache we have been through from grasping at the ungraspable was, in the deepest sense, unnecessary.
At the beginning this too may be painful to accept, because it seems so unfamiliar. But as we reflect, slowly our hearts and minds go through a gradual transformation. Letting go begins to feel more natural, and becomes easier and easier.
It may take a long time for the extent of our foolishness to sink in, but the more we reflect, the more we develop the view of letting go. It is then that a complete shift takes place in our way of looking at everything.
*the only negative about the fact that perfectly cute cupcakes are now available in beijing (http://www.lollipopbakery.cn/) is that i can no longer engage in idle chatter about opening a revolutionary cupcakery. no matter. i will just need to double up my discussion of abstract business plans for a champagne / wine bar.... sadly, all my alleged 'business partner' (a girlfriend equally willing to dwell entirely in possibility / our own imaginations on this) and i have managed to do is conduct 'research trips' to 'assess the competition' and drink wine a number of beijing bars. mind, we still consider that a worthy accomplishment, living in the moment and all.
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