Mood: Ultramarine - playlist

It's been so long since I've put together a compilation that's not for a wedding! What was originally created as a pre-show mood-setter had found audience in my tiny amygdala instead. A bruised ultramarine haze has slipped under the door, slithered across the floor, spread itself thin, and upon finally settling in, has commanded a very specific mood for this nippy November weekend. All this to capture: "Um...I need music that makes you think, something to lead up to Al Green's Ain't No Sunshine". Hmm. Well, at least I'm thinking.

1. Heywèté / Ethiopiques: Volume 10
   
2. Una Música Brutal / Gotan Project
   
3. Love Song / Ofra Haza
   
4. Lament 1, "Bird's Lament" / Moondog (Louis Hardin)
   
5. Angkor Wat Theme 3 / Umebayashi Shigeru 
   
6. Like A Star / Corinne Bailey Rae
   
7. Anger Management / Nathaniel Merriweather 
   
8. Why Don't You Do Right / Alan Silvestri
   
9. No Quarter / Led Zeppelin
   
10. Time / Xiao Tu Do
    
11. The Sensual Woman / Herbaliser
    
12. Pretty Little Thing / Fink
    
13. Familiar Ground / The Cinematic Orchestra
    
14. Day Dreaming / Aretha Franklin
    
15. Ne Me Quitté Pas / Nina Simone
    
16. Ain’t No Sunshine / Al Green
    
17. Sonata No. 1 in G, BWV 1027, 3. Andante / Yo Yo Ma
    

An Oakland Memorial: Ginny Kleker 17jun77-08oct08

The heavy, uncomfortable silence was immediately familiar as we walked into the room, packed with mourners and hushed voices. My grip on my husband’s hand tightened ever so slightly as each step brought us deeper into the jittery crowd and closer to the somber reality of his dear friend’s sudden death. We were both caught off guard when her mother led us to the front row, where two empty seats awaited. As we sat down between a calm elderly lady and a young man close to our age, shaking between sobs, it dawned on me that this was the first funeral I’d been to since the one I hosted s0 many years ago. 

The memorial began and I glanced across at Ginny’s family. Her mother, Teresa, was huddled against her shattered and numb fiancé, Jon, who stared vacantly a few feet ahead of him. On her right, Ginny’s sister, Kate, was composed, features strikingly similar to Ginny’s. She rose to the podium and began reading a letter written by her mother. As her even voice faithfully delivering the heart-wrenching story of Ginny’s struggle, the stone lid inside me shifted a little bit with each word, uncovering a well I thought had long since dried out.

My face flushed and my eyes brimmed with tears as the pain unwound itself, slithering loose from the knot I’d carefully twisted over the years. I wanted to reach out to her mom, to her sister, to Jon, to all those she’d left behind to suffer her absence, and assure them that their incredible despair was not bottomless. That the massive hole ripping into their core would mend. That the heartbreak becomes a less demanding bedfellow in time. But I knew that nothing could penetrate the fog of grief that hung over them now. It was too soon. Levi squeezed my hand and I responded in kind, hoping beyond reason that somehow my tears could take away at least some if not all of his pain as he started down his own journey of grief.

Without her mother’s brave words, it would have been difficult to understand why Ginny had chosen to take her own life. I did not know her well myself, but from having met her a few times and what Levi had told me, she was young and inventive, recently happily engaged, and, as the bulging congregation attested, loved by many. Sadly, her mother related a daily struggle against relentless depression that eventually led her to choose death over life.   

It is hard to believe that someone has really passed away without witnessing the actual death. You always remember them as you last saw them, turning the corner, waving from the window. Who is it really, lying there painted in the coffin? Could a handful of ash and bone be all that remains? A name typed on a program or engraved upon a headstone insists on your acceptance, but barely breaks through the haze of disbelief. Rather, it is that continued void, night after haunted night, year after tormenting year, that truly carves their absence into your heart. 

The heart is a resilient organ, though. The dull ache of loss pulses thickly through your veins. Jagged shards of remembrance cut indiscriminately into the walls of your heart. Night after day after night. Then comes one evening, when the sun sets without dragging your soul behind it. Then one afternoon, when the curtains flutter unexpectedly, letting in a bit of light from the outside world. Then one morning, when your first thought upon waking is no longer of death.

Ginny lives in everyone’s memory. For me, she is looking back with a smile on a foggy December morning, picking up the paper as she walks up the steps to her house, her half smile fading from the rearview mirror as we wave and drive away.  

*in memory of Ginny with love*

Night, Elie Wiesel; Atonement, Ian McEwan; The Road, Cormac McCarthy

Uncannily, the three books I picked at random this February all feature arduous treks along which the characters’ livelihoods are at the mercy of some despised, faceless enemy. The tragedy behind each of these stories serves as a reminder of all that we have to cherish, and how short life really is. Strange coincidence, for sure, since all the while I am pondering my own dogged march for the past eight years and when I may finally be able to step off the track, fall out of step with my comrades and explore what lies in neighboring woods and inland lakes just beyond my current reach. 

Night, by Elie Wiesel 

This little dagger of a memoir has the power to gouge into your gut with a twist of its blunt edge. I never heard of Elie Wiesel before Amazon.com listed this book as one of my recommended reads. I learned quickly in the preface that “Night” was published decades ago in longer form and is a rather famous Holocaust memoir. This recently released version, however, is a new translation by Wiesel’s wife, Marion Wiesel, and edited down from the original. In short, the memoir recounts Wiesel’s trek as a young child from his hometown to Auschwitz. Separated from his two sisters and is mother, Wiesel endures the unimaginable with his father by his side. 

What I found most touching, besides the obvious father and son storyline, was the horror that Wiesel describes when witnessing his own humanity shrinking in fear. When your shaken soul cowers in the battered shell of your body, you find within yourself thoughts and actions you never thought you could be capable of. Makes you wonder how you much dignity you could preserve when reduced to a naked, shivering waif by so-called fellow humans. 

Atonement, by Ian McEwan 

Despite raging reviews and the whole Oscar nomination thing, I was not that impressed with this one. The writing is elegant, sure, and the characters all have their eccentricities, but I failed to find resonance in the stories unfolding through parts I, II or III. Maybe it is because I could not get Keira Knightley’s face out of my head from way too much media bombardment. Given the intricacies of the story, I found myself mostly unable to believe that “that just happened”. Something about it was forced. Or maybe it was I who felt coerced, obliged to plod on and on until the final kaboom. 

The Road, by Cormac McCarthy 

The style of this post-apocalyptic account brings you right back to the high school Eng. Lit. stalwart, The Old Man and the Sea. Throughout his methodically sparse storytelling, McCarthy chooses to go with character names of “the man” and “the boy”, seating the reader squarely in the mezzanine section of the third party observatory. At the same time, however, you find yourself leaning forward in the creaky velvet seats, drawn into a story that is much more personal than the prose lets on. In the event of some global nuclear disaster, “the man” could very well be you, and “the boy” your son. 

As in the other two February picks above, resounding themes include courage in the face of extreme adversity, humanity fraying at the seams, and the primal instinct to survive. Somehow though, where Atonement’s extensive imagery and lengthy character studies lacks a certain degree of soul, The Road’s simplistic depiction guides you straight into the heart of humanity under attack. Definitely a book I would recommend for the uniqueness of its style, subject, and characterizations.

Annette Vallon, by James Tipton

It’s funny how context and history change perception. Before I read Annette Vallon, William Wordsworth was simply a poet that I loved for his affinity to Nature, for the unrestrained passion pouring into his verse. After reading this historic fiction, carefully told by Tipton, I cannot help but notice a constriction in Wordsworth’s verses that I never noticed before, a catch in the throat that checks a person from speaking straight from the heart, and a slightly querulous limp in his laments of foregone Youth.

The heroine, on the other hand, shines in the novel against the wider backdrop of the French Revolution. Of course, it’s important to bear in mind that Tipton’s storytelling, although compelling, has woven a version of reality from selected phrases in letters, fragments of history, and faded parchments of verse, with the hypersensitive imagination of a researcher trawling the stacks in a university library. In actuality, not much is known about Mme Annette Vallon except that she was Wordsworth’s French lover with whom he had a little girl named Caroline Wordsworth. The English Channel and repeated wars separated the two, and a decade later, Wordsworth went on to Mary, a Mary Hutchinson he wed in 1802.

Tipton’s portrayal of the puritan influence of Wordsworth’s cherished sister, Dorothy, leaves a sour taste of cowardice and lack of will in the character of the celebrated poet. The frightful anecdotes of the French Revolution also impress upon me just how horrific Robespierre’s Reign of Terror was. The valor with which Annette Vallon survived the perpetual separation from Wordsworth and faced the French Revolution endears this mysterious figure to the heart. And when you reach the final page, you may very well feel impelled to launch into a close reading of Wordsworth’s works in attempts to discern a reference here or a line there alluding to this love he left behind.

“Though nothing can bring back the hour

Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;

We will grieve not, rather find

Strength in what remains behind.”

- Ode ‘There was a time’, lines 180-183, W. Wordsworth

my first snow day in shanghai

Inclement weather conditions have taken over all of China. Okay, so maybe that's an exaggeration, but not a huge one, given that even Hong Kong is at nine degrees Celsius now. Kids in Guangzhou are apparently hanging out of their open crotched pants in the freezing cold. We've been snowed under for the past week in Shanghai and lugging around our space heaters from bedroom to bathroom, bathroom to living room, and full circle back to the bedroom in desperate attempts to stay warm. My furry Russian beehive of a hat has been a big hit - what once may have looked silly now looks perfectly well-suited collecting snowflakes on the top of my head.

En Route - a fragment

Dreaming of home, I passed grove after grove of naked trees, calm and dignified after yesterday's light snow. In the dead of winter, these man-made forests, measuring 50ft deep on either embankment of Beijing's airport expressway, stood as candid reminders of the pre-Olympic make-over that began years ago. Every so often we would whiz by a lone nest, dark and thickly wedged amongst bone-grey branches, indicating that these groves did not merely constitute a carefully planted backdrop for incoming and outbound travelers, but were a transplant of Nature itself in its delicate simplicity. A home, after all, for the feathered inhabitants scanning the dusklit skies above, akin to the humans peering out of frosted windows below.

Days have passed, and this particular human, having returned to home's dreamlike existence, has found herself back along that highway often, hanging amongst those tall boughs, swaying ragged in the dry winter winds, fate uncertain. Not because of anything lacking at home, far from it in fact, but a feeling of general displacement during that daily trek to and from the nest, gathering worms, acorns and what have you. I like to call this journey "work". Finding the gusto to run up and down the ice-cold tree trunks laden with worms a-squirm has taken more joules than two servings of oatmeal every morning have to offer. Sure, I find plenty of fascination in gathering acorns and worms and other fruits of the forest, but knowing myself, I could likely find something fascinating about almost anything.

Thing is, I'm not sure that this is all that new of a state. Winter's glacier-like crawl has surely played its part in overall weariness of the mind, but perhaps I've been this way to a certain degree since the summer of '99 when I took that fateful first job and nestled myself in the fat, wrinkled underbelly of investment banking. The topic's getting as old as that belly, surely. I consider myself a decisive person but my husband kindly points out evidence to the contrary: "maybe I should quit, maybe I should stay, maybe I am meant for the corporate world, maybe I'm not..." Get a grip already.

So when does it all come together? I suppose it does when you allow it to. I suppose it does when the hunger edges out the fear. I suppose it does when the crystal is all sold out and there's nothing left before you except the rolling dunes of soft sand calling your name and a hot, hot sun standing by. But will your limbs and joints be too gnarled from decades of minding the shop to outmaneuver the desert and make it to the first oasis? And then the next?

It seems my worldview has become even more idealistic and risk averse as time wears on. Waking up in the nest beside my husband every morning, I feel like there's nothing impossible for us, nothing out of reach. In the afternoon during a midday caffeine injection I feel as if I'm not even reaching. Do I take a leap and thrust off this paycheck parachute, see where I land? Or do I let the plane get closer to the tarmac and tuck and roll to safety? I don't have the answer, and much to the dismay of those in audible range, I may just have to keep batting back and forth until either the plane nosedives into the runway or I get booted out the hatch en route.

The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova

Kostova’s tale of vampiric legend and intrigue overflows with deliciously researched details much like a Dan Brown mystery yet delights with the polished prose of an author who can actually write. Descriptions deep and lush draw you into the shadows of Central Europe, rickety carriage rides through lands and mountains with names like Wallachia and Les Pyrenees-Orientales. Different perspectives are told through letters ancient and new, illustrating how black ink continues to link the past with the present despite the harried hand of time.

Even more notable than the above is the ingenuous narrative of the main character. Neither a weathered Tom Hanks nor an “o”-mouthed Audrey Tautou, the young protagonist is propelled to the forefront of this adventure by curiosity and daughterly devotion alone. There are definitely portions of the 704 page novel that seem tedious and off-track, but as a whole, a wonderful way to pass hours of air-time en route from one city to another.

Catching the Big Fish, by David Lynch

This was an ideal way to kickstart 2008. I read this in one sitting on the afternoon of January 2^nd, soaking in wintry rays that slanted through the living room window and the charming eccentricity of David Lynch. In eighty-three mini-chapters, he contemplates a random assortment of facts and opinions and Muses that have shaped his life, including, of course, his dedication to Transcendental Meditation. What’s funny about David Lynch is, the more you get to know his films and the more you catch those occasional glimpses of his personality, the more you realize that it just doesn’t do to put him on a pedestal. He’s more like the guy at a diner you casually strike up a conversation with and recognize midstream you never want it to end. 

Just the other night, Levi and I finished our annual January Twin Peaks marathon, starting with the pilot and ending with the film. The first time I saw Twin Peaks, I remember being freaked out by the strange images and inexplicable plot twists. This time, entering the town of 51,201 was like a familiar homecoming, or, better yet, like revisiting a funhouse where you’ve already seen it with all the lights on. Nothing to be afraid of, the protective ego lies back and lets the rest of you climb aboard the ride to enjoy the sights and sounds for all their mystifying beauty. 

For all those Lynchian fans out there, I’d venture that this book is a must read. Much like having a conversation with an old friend over a piece of cherry pie.