a new direction

I'm not entirely sure anyone reads this anymore, given that I did a terrible job continuing posting as I traveled around China. In my defense, Internet was very limited and somehow it just didn't seem as exciting to post months later about the funky tofu I got from that street vendor or the ancient Tibetan cowboy who tried first to grope me and then feed me yogurt....

In any case, this blog is taking yet another new direction as I finish up my master's and make the transition to a doctoral program, wherever it is that I end up. One of the things I spent a great deal thinking about in China is the concept of amor fati, which is a Nietzchen concept meaning "love of fate." The essential idea is to find the beauty and truth in everything--the good, the bad, the ugly. To find a little joy even in the mundane. I realized: I don't need to travel around the world to find something beautiful meaningful. All I need to do is open my eyes now and then and see what is around me. So often we all run around from activity to activity without pausing to appreciate the the icicles on the awnings, the steaming mug of tea, the new stash of Post-Its in the office cupboard. So from here on out, I'm going to post a little something that makes me happy, if for no other reason than to...well, make me happy. 

To begin, the poem that inspired it all:

Amor Fati

by Katha Pollitt

Everywhere I look I see my fate.
In the subway. In a stone.
On the curb where people wait for the bus in the rain.
In a cloud. In a glass of wine.

When I go for a walk in the park it's a sycamore leaf.
At the office, a dull pencil.
In the window of Woolworth's my fate looks back at me
through the shrewd eyes of a dusty parakeet.

Scrap of newspaper, dime in a handful of change,
down what busy street do you hurry this morning,
an overcoat among overcoats,

with a train to catch, a datebook full of appointments?
If I called you by my name would you turn around
or vanish round the corner,
leaving a faint odor of orange-flower water,
tobacco, twilight, snow? 

I love Katha Pollit: her poetry is so simple, yet elegant and poignant. I wish I could write with such clarity! I love the possibility of this poem: the idea of finding joy in the grayness of a subway stop, of the humanity of people pressed together in the cold on their morning commute, of a solitary glass of wine, of a mysterious stranger passing by. 

pickin' flowers

My research is not taking as much time as I thought, leaving me restless and wandering most of the day. My whole life, I’ve dealt with problems by pouring myself into sports or school or work , as if achieving the next big thing will help me achieve peace—or revenge—or whatever it is I seem to be seeking. It doesn’t. In fact, it never does. And as I’ve learned this year, running away does nothing for assuaging anxiety either: first Chicago, then Charlotte, Seattle, Georgia, Costa Rica, and now China. The problems are the same; only the landscape changes.

And here I’ve been given this gift—this incredible summer of time- and I can’t sit still long enough to enjoy it. So I walk. I walk for hours, meandering through the streets, getting lost, getting un-lost, and getting lost again. I buy stinky candies in small shops and honey from street vendors and cheap plastic flip-flops in the Chinese Wal-mart. I sit in cafes. I sit in restaurants. I sit on a sunny bench next to the lily-padded pond. I take bad photos of sunflowers and willow trees. I read. I talk to myself. I talk to strangers. They rarely understand me. I walk some more.

Today’s excursion led me to what was advertised as an English “bookstore.” Turns out, it’s just a bookshelf full of used books tucked in the back of a restaurant—a delightful little secret. I adore used books, and discovering this little sun-lit, glass-ceilinged room was like discovering a hidden treasure. I sat there for hours, curled up alone on the little couch, reading Pollyanna and rediscovering Peter Hessler, who led me to China in the first place.

Eventually, it started to pour. The rain blew in, spraying me and my piles of books with a gentle mist. I’d forgotten about that 12-year-old spitfire, Pollyanna, namesake of the “Pollyanna principle” as well as "pollyanna-ish," an adjective describing people who always find something to be “glad” about regardless of the circumstances. The term is sometimes used pejoratively to describe people whose excessive optimism leads to naivete. As someone who was once described as “relentlessly optimistic,” I’ve wondered about that tendency myself and my ability to move on; I’m not always sure such optimism is a help so much as a hindrance. Spending most of your life with your head in the clouds means that sometimes you can’t read the warning signs on the ground, I’ve learned the hard way

But reading Pollyanna was like getting reacquainted with a childhood friend: refreshing and wonderful. Tucked away in this secret little bookshop in China, rain billowing from all sides, I found such joy. If my Pollyanna proclivity is the source of my anxiety and restlessness, than I suppose that’s okay. As another childhood favorite once said:

"I will be the gladdest thing under the sun! I will touch a hundred flowers and not pick one!" (Edna St. Vincent Millay)

Note: said rain is a product of “cloud-seeding,” or the Chinese government’s attempt to end droughts by injecting the sky with sodium iodide and dry ice…only a lil’ creepy, no?

donde el crepusculo corre borrando estatuas

My favorite time of day here is twilight. The streets awash in a buttery light, the sidewalks and shops bustle with parents and children returning home. In my apartment complex, a calm missing from the rest of the day settles over the courtyard: grey-haired women line up to dance, waving red fans and gently swaying to the music floating from a nearby boom-box. The old men- most of them toothless, or soon-to-be- are finishing up their games of cards or dominoes, their voices often rising and pitching in angry outbursts over the din of children playing on the sidewalks.

Freshly showered, I move through the dusty streets silently, spinning stories in my head from the day just past or repeating some fragment of Chinese over and over like an impromptu mantra. (Hong shan nan lu, for example, is the name of my street, which I so badly mispronounced to a taxi driver the other day that I ended up in a strange suburb before “phoning-a-friend” for help). I can’t help but grinning nearly constantly. How is it possible that I am here, in a Chinese market, haggling over eggplant for tonight’s dinner, when a year ago I was in a cube counting down each agonizing minute until my 5 o’clock escape? Everything delights me: the men brushing their teeth in the streets, the sudden burst of sparks from a second story construction site, the smoky scent of sidewalk barbeque. I seem to evoke a similar effect; although the Chinese are fairly discrete, I catch both men and women secretly staring. Dressed in a summer top and flowy skirt, “yellow” hair falling around my shoulders, I’m not sure if they think I’m Pamela Anderson or a blonde Godzilla. “Nihao,” I say as I walk past, smiling brightly into their curious faces.

Ironically, the only thing tainting my twilight zen is the residual anxiety of life in New Haven. Walking along some dusty railroad tracks with my roommate the other evening, we were approached from behind by a menacing figure.

“There’s someone behind us,” my roommate warned, well aware of my Dwight-Street paranoia. I shrieked and spun around to confront our attacker: a four-foot-five Chinese woman, balancing on her hip a watermelon that may have outweighed her. I laugh sheepishly and let her pass.

Except for these minor aberrations, evening in Kunming is a laid-back affair. It’s refreshing for the sky ‘s darkening to signal the end of the day as opposed to the start of another endless night of studying, for a change. So I go back inside and stir-fry my vegetables, read a little, write a little, and finally, after a year of perpetual motion, relax.

every day you play with the light of the universe

Juegas todos los dias con la luz del universe.

This line, which I have always loved, speaks to me of my mornings here in Kunming. I don’t sleep well here, which is no surprise, after a year of little sleep and even less rest. My sleeplessness is different here, however—my nights are not tormented and ruthless the way they were in New Haven. Perhaps because of the time change, or more likely because my mattress leaves me stiff and sore after only a few minutes, I wake early. (Is this what getting old is like, I question, as my knees and back protest in pain?). I sleep next to a window the length of my bed, and am often awakened by the morning light streaming in (How many mornings has the sun kissed our eyes? Neruda wondered, as do I). Or, just as likely, by the cheap Chinese curtain billowing out my open window, or the roosters crowing, or the bugles blaring their morning song fifteen stories below.

In any case, I rise early, and begin my days with a cup of black tea, with “fresh milk,” as the Chinese say. I love this concept of “fresh milk”: as opposed to rancid milk? Vintage milk? I sip my tea and read some Neruda each morning, which sometimes leaves me sad but more often leaves me hopeful. He is like an old friend, a reminder of the beauty of words in any language: a comfort when I am surrounded by the sounds of a foreign tongue. I read for awhile, or practice my Chinese, before trying to sleep—typically unsuccessfully—again. My dreams here are strange, a mixture of residual New Haven anxiety (still dreaming about SAS coding and data management, weeks after exams) and the new sights and smells which bombard me each day. Eventually, I rise for good, and select one of three possible outfits: my Chinese uniform of jeans, tank, and cardigan. Simplicity in all things, I’ve found, is a refreshing change. Admittedly, even if said simplicity is forced, to some degree, by my missing luggage and foreign locale.

The mornings here are beautiful. Imagine the most perfect mid-summer day: sunny, dry, and seventy degrees. Already the streets are bustling, and the markets churning with vendors yelling in their strange tonality about things I can only imagine. My research hasn’t started yet—and might not in earnest for awhile—so I walk. I walk until my heels bleed. When I can no longer stand it, I find a café where I can access the internet and maybe call home. So far, I’ve spent my days reading and writing and learning Chinese. The luxury of endless time spent to indulge in my old favorites has brought me endless pleasure, although it is a bit strange and a little agonizing to relinquish my American habit of endless multi-tasking. Slowly, I’m learning. I’ve been reading an anthology of writers, most of whom have spend their own endless days and nights alone, writing, and I find hope in this—that maybe this summer will force me to drop the pretense of endless activity and finally do the thing I’ve been wanting to since age seven: write something worthwhile.