Midnight Meanderings – a fragment

Leaving the jazz club, I realize there’s something different about tonight. There is a melancholy that cramps my insides. More than your usual, everyday melancholy. So I do exactly what my eighth grade Physical Education teacher would have told me do in the event of a cramp: "Walk it off, Chan, walk it off." (Yes, Ms. Green. Yes, ma’am. By the way, ma’am, are you gay? I’ve always wondered that.) Never mind. I’m gonna go walk it off now.

Rejecting the line of cabs in front of me, I head southwest with the vague idea that home is in that general direction. I may have lived here for four years, but I remain geographically stunted and directionally challenged. I take a left turn and find myself on a completely deserted street. The air is musky with the almost-rotting leaves of autumn and the lamplight casts a sienna filter over everything. Intricate lamps under the eaves and along the walls give just enough light for me to appreciate the details of the building facades and the quaint architecture of Shanghai’s French Concession. I stop to catch a photo of a huge stack of construction bamboo abandoned on the sidewalk across the street, elegant in its own right in the amber light. This city of mine is full of contradictions. For decades, the host of speckled plane trees lining these streets have solemnly witnessed them all.

It is unbelievably quiet. Walking in the thick of this deep silence I am as insignificant as the dead leaf fluttering beside me. Only the trees are aware of my coming and going. My thoughts turn inward and I consider the melancholy that had coaxed me into this adventure to begin with. It’s strange. I love the life I have now. There’s nothing more that I want. Save the relocation of my dear friends around the world to Shanghai, that is. But I’m a reasonable girl. I’m thankful for all that life has given me. So what’s with the melancholy?

I’ve been spending a lot of time alone in jazz clubs. It’s a bit weird, I know. But, first of all, I am weird, and second of all, I’ve fallen in love with this minx and nightly it lures me into its various lairs, taunting me to listen, to learn, to live within the music. I love it for its raw energy, its spirit of change, its intellect. Yet I confess that I often feel like a complete loser as I hang out in the dark, watching, photographing, writing, keeping my ears open, open, open as I take in whatever the minx is offering onstage that night. Listening to music is not the most social event. For one, it kind of requires not talking. It also requires convincing your friends that jazz is awesome. Even if they do agree, no one in their right mind is going to accompany you on your rounds every single week. So more often than not I fly solo. Which is cool for the most part.

Except, I’m a puppy dog. Anyone who knows me, knows that well. Sometimes even a regular bitch. But past the snapping jaws there’s the fundamental need to be liked. Lately, with my frequenting of music venues and shameless self-introductions to musicians, my puppy-dog insecurities have been catching up with me. To me, with their dedication to their art and their love of music, these musicians are kindred spirits of sorts. To them, I’m some random chick who keeps turning up. Not all of them, certainly. There are those who walk past, pretending not to see me, and there are those who seem to sincerely want to be acquainted. Perhaps it’s because I’m new to living in my art, that I think everyone else who’s doing the same is going to want to chase kittens together in the neighbor’s backyard. But I forget that they are all cats themselves. Ah well. This is the life you chose, as my brother-in-law would say.

I pass the stately night guards in front of the Dutch consulate, minding their post with the shared silence of the street, and think of the shared silence of humans in general. Beneath the layers of friends and lovers, spouses and family, every single one of us are alone. As insignificant as the dead leaf fluttering beside me. Doh. I said that already, didn’t I? Now that I am no longer in the corporate world, no longer in a nine-to-five post, I am no longer surrounded by humans by default. I’ve grown accustomed to being in my own head for most of the day, writing, writing, forever writing. Living inside your head is wonderful, but it can also be daunting. Troubling, sometimes, especially when you’re attempting to mine the depths and transform cold, hard ore into gold. Probably why I have such a hankering to get out of the house after office hours.

Another corner later and the city is rustling around me. I’m in a more commercial part of town now. There’s the lady in red, red cartoon-patterned pajamas that is, stopping by the ATM. There’s the crowd around the late-night skewers guy grilling all sorts of yummy goodness atop his mound of glowing coals. There’s the faint sound of someone practicing violin at midnight. There’s a lone window draped in red and lit from within, full of secrets. There’s a barber shop glowing pink, its furtive treasures lounging half-clothed beyond the pane, waiting for the right man to pass. ‘Leg shops,’ as my husband calls them. And where is this husband of yours, you may wonder? On a plane, en route from Beijing, and landing any second now. No matter where he is or where I am, he is always the warm ember presiding in the core of my soul.

There’s a rush of water beneath the manhole to my right and suddenly I hear it. Piano music, floating in the street and buzzing along the telephone lines draped precariously above my head. I look up to find the source. And there, above a dilapidated storefront, I see a small yellow square of light, shrouded by a dingy, makeshift curtain. I cross the street to stand beneath this unlikely font. The music is beautiful. A lilting piano ballad streaming into the night, the perfect score to my dead and fluttering leaf. It touches me that some anonymous soul above is feeling the exact same way that I am feeling in this moment. I walk away reluctantly after a minute or two. I want to make sure that I’m home by the time my husband arrives at the door, exhausted from his trip, worn out from being my constant ember.

Home is just a park’s length away now. I cross the large boulevard and my heart lightens as I pass the very serviced apartment that I stayed in four years ago when I was deciding whether or not to move to Shanghai, wondering what this fickle, fabulous city had in store. I had no idea how full and fulfilling my life here would be. Of course I didn’t. My husband, my Duraflame source, was still a couple months away from entering my life then.

My heart quickens as I enter the last dark alley before home, even though rationally I know that there is no random Jack lurking in the shadows ready to jump out and steal my iPhone. It is crazy how safe Shanghai feels. I scratch at the newly formed welts from the opportunistic mosquitoes I’ve met along the way, those last irritating troops perservering until the season's end. My war wounds from tonight’s adventure. Forty-five minutes after leaving the club, the cramp has gone gently into that good night. Ms. Green was right after all. Walk it off, Chan. Walk it off.

Writing and Writhing - a fragment

Writing and writhing. The two aren’t very far from one another when you’re trying to write a novel. You write, you writhe around in self-doubt and confused tenses, then you write some more. Write, writhe, write, writhe. An endless seesaw that is the state of my mind these days.

“Hurrah! Things are making sense, I love my characters, everything is wonderful! I can almost touch the sun...Daddy!!”

“Mayday! Nothing’s right, I want to shoot my characters, everything sucks! I can almost see the color of Todd’s underwear...Mommy!!”

I’ve been writing for four months. Three straight, then a month’s hiatus ( I was travelling, gimme a break!), then another. I’ve set a schedule for myself now, much more disciplined than before, and my days start at 1:00 pm (or 1:30, sometimes 1:45, tough life, isn’t it?), and I write for hours until my eyes are blurry and my brain politely requests a hall pass. On a bad day it’s four, on a good day it’s seven. At the end of most days I sit back and think, darn, that wasn’t too bad, was it? Maybe I am a Writer after all! I relish in the words, the phrases, the lines, the paragraphs I’ve created that day, and all the dots and dashes in between.

But then there are those other days. I push away my laptop after hours of blinking cursors and Doubt creeps in. Ravenous, it wraps its long dark arms around me, sniffs my neck, rakes its bony fingers through my hair, presses the tips of its yellowed fingernails on my face, and asks me in a low but nasally hiss, “Who do you think you are? Do you think you can actually write something worthwhile? Worth reading?” A pause for breath, do these things actually breath?, and then the wraith continues, pressing closer to my face, “What makes you think you are not just another wanna-be, recycling emotions, recycling clichés, recycling garbage into garbage?”

And I am captive, I am hypnotized, I am frozen. My ego the size of a pea. The seesaw clatters to the ground with a thud. My butt hurts. Todd’s nowhere to be found. I am alone in a playground full of shadows.

Then my husband comes home, tired after a long day of work but jubilant all the same, and he looks at me with his kind, kind eyes and says, “So how did it go today?”

I tell him. He smiles and says with all the faith that has abandoned me, “You are a wonderful writer. There’s always tomorrow.”

Ignoring his compliment, I say, “Okay. I’ll work harder. I’ll work harder tomorrow.”

I dig my feet into the dirt and push off. The seesaw gives and I begin to rise again. Into the air, into the clouds. I look down and Todd’s back, grinning up at me from his perch below. Smiling feverishly, I lift my face to the sky. 

Waiting for Tripe and Balls - a fragment

It’s a Friday night over here and we are anxious for the doorbell to ring, announcing the arrival of tonight’s delight – Vietnamese  pho with “rare, flank, brisket, balls, tendon, tripe”. Nothing like an assortment of cow parts to get the evening going. Things couldn’t be better around the Lyman parts. Buddy Josh is hanging out with the Internet. Husband’s at his DJ booth, head-bopping to new and old records. “Just a little lovin’, early in the morning, just a little lovin’, early in the day…” reminds me of January 2006 when I was first introduced to his monkey mixing at a dark club. It has almost been three years to the day we married. Then again, I pretty much felt like we were married the day we met.

But enough cheese factor. The end of last year and start of this year are waiting to be summed up. We were chock-full of resolutions at the end of 2008. On the very last day of the year, we hiked to a little bay on the coast of Kona famous for sun-bathing tortoises, heading for a particularly inspiring tree we like to call the Planning Tree. Under its winding branches, we revisited the ups and downs, high-fives and do-overs of 2008 and got excited about the year to come. 2009 will be all about writing, writing, and writing. Getting healthier. Being stoked about each moment of every day. Taking it easy on the things that don’t matter and really going for the things that do. For the first time I feel like my life is my own. No one looking over my shoulder or demanding my attention. No more pushing myself down a track that I’ve been following since I was five. 

Ah, five. What a magical year. My birthday present was piano lessons with an amazing teacher who not only saved me from the embarrassment of being Jan Chan, but also taught me how to spell. Newly arrived in a foreign country and thousands of miles away from relatives, my brother and I were blessed to have found much more than a piano teacher. Ms. Davison was more like a stern yet gentle grandmother. As it often goes in a family of hard-working immigrants, by five I was already fully apprised of the expectations to come. A’s were a given; A+’s were better. College of course, but not just any college. The very university that Ms. Davison herself attended circa 1933 was my final destination. 

And there I went, circa 1995 after twelve years of mad studies. Then four years of not-so-mad studies; it was college after all. Then slaved and worked, worked and slaved in a soul-sucking, spine-buckling field for what seemed like forever. Then last September, I finally got around to quitting my job. It only took a few months for my shoulders to lose the up-around-the-ears look that I've had for as long as I can remember. I wake up every morning thankful for everything and stoked about the day. I practice unclenching my fists and find it easier and easier to let it all go.

So here’s to a brand new 2009: a year of Barack, letting go, and living the dream for the unforeseeable future. And here's to foot-stomping happy times in the days and months to come for every one of you out there. Except for you evil bastards - no foot-stomping times for you.

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.

A Sketched Presence – a fragment *20&29may07*

Today is a day of thought bubbles overcrowding the space between the outlines of my sketched presence and the bold square framing this moment of my cartoonish existence. As of late, I have had better control of these overlapping bubbles, an ability to focus the synapses into maybe five separate highways instead of twenty crossed paths, but today is just one of those interwoven days. Could be from reading a couple of very disparate perspectives this afternoon, the dizzying whirl of Kurt Vonnegut mixed with the reassuring glow of Mitch Albom. Truly an odd couple.

Vonnegut is a satirical, bumpy roadtrip where the signs are in another language and the roads angle in boomerang fashion, taking you first in this direction and sending you spinning into the opposite with no warning. Cat’s Cradle: no cat, no cradle, where the meaninglessness of life is captured within a web as simple and complicated as a cat’s cradle itself, threads twisting and repeating one upon another. For One More Day: hand upon your arm, Albom gently guides you through another rite of passage experienced by protagonists and narrators who are close, always close, to the whispered wisdom of the dying and the dead. Where the meaning of life is captured between prologue and epilogue, always found within the pages if you care to look, manifesting as graceful dancers tiptoeing across the tense tightropes that connect you to those that you love. The cynic and the optimist, and I sandwiched in between, all within the fading in and fading out of a sunny afternoon.

It has been forever since anything landed from my mind onto paper. Funny how the hours shoved aside by days and replaced by months are so hard to slow once you get into a groove. Especially when the groove is double-etched with happiness by the hand of the partner in your life, and when daily problems seem to bounce right off the protective force field that activates when Wonder Twins unite and transform into something else entirely. Thoughts swan-diving just past the edge of the blank page to be forever forgotten, crumbling on impact into ashes around the page. A kind of collateral damage that happens when there is not enough time to sit and reflect, record and translate the language of the synapses flickering a personal Morse code in your mind.

[break]

As I pick up this fragment from where I left off more than a week ago, the visual of my sketched presence surrounded by grey ashes of forgotten thoughts still lingers. More than a week has zipped by, nine days plummeting deep into the archives of my existence as I whirl around, hands desperately groping into the indigo deep, but alas, Cher’s made it more than abundantly clear that one cannot “turn back time”. Ashes are piling up around the frames. Personal life, work life, and personal life at work have formed a cat’s cradle of overlapping lines. I can only thank the myriad of gods, lords and heavens above that I have my husband’s constant bass tempering the pace of these frames reeling past. The metronome’s tick, tock, tick patiently separating one sketch from another to form some recognizable linear storyline across the projection screen.

Yesterday we began his birthday celebrations as we count down to his thirtieth in nine days time. Although some may consider the thirties to be a good pivotal age for the separation between the child and adult in us all, we are much more the type whose stubborn fists refuse to release the naiveté, the wonder, the hope and the promise of remaining just a kid. Just a kid skipping along into another decade of inspiration and experimentation. I am so looking forward to what this next volume has to offer, now that sidekicks have finally joined paths, psyched and ready to face the trail ahead. Wizards and warlocks? Alien bounty hunters and never-dying one-armed dudes called Krycek? Smurfs and Oompa Loompas? What is waiting to be sketched into the shared frames of our existence? And more importantly, do we truly have any control over the hand of the Artist? Or are we talking about frames that have already been drafted and only await the livening touch of the watercolor brush?

A or B, it really doesn’t matter, does it? Our linear perception demands our reverence to seconds ticking one after another, skipping along as you hasten to keep up. This slice of reality electrified as the watercolor spreads across the plane, overtaking the monochrome skeletal frames, opening, expanding and soaking different wavelengths into the very fabric of our souls. Whether we are choosing each color now, or have mapped them out before in a color-by-number fashion, from this limited perspective it seems to make more sense to join hands and wonder at the spectacle of colors unfolding right before our eyes, rather than firing synapses into the why’s of what has been and what is to come. Hopeful to discover the meaning in the present frame, naïve to the rigidity of frames long established, and wise enough to enjoy each stroke of color for the singular beauty it represents.

Document1 - a fragment

In moments of sheer ennui the one thing I always have to turn to is the vast potential of the as yet untarnished white expanse of "Document1". I can't quite explain the nature of my languor. The nature is no doubt just as boring as the boredom itself. Hmm...what does that even mean? I don't really think it is even boredom...a quick Shift+F7 is giving me "world-weariness" and I think that's closer to what I'm feeling.

I just took a walk around the building and it was not the most soul-sating experience, although I did like the brief sun-baking. It's not that I'm not working or don't have work to do; it's just this inexplicable lack of motivation to do more than what's necessary to get through the day. I don't understand it, it's strange. I just downed a tall non-fat mocha like it was a tall glass of something special, but even it failed to hit the spot.

Let's turn away from my inexplicable insouciance and wind the reel backwards. I took a new route to work today. The junction of madness had a flashing red man denying passage and instead of standing with the rest of the herd I looked ahead and noticed another pathway that would eliminate one unpredictable stoplight out of my two stoplight commute. I headed down the sidewalk towards the elevated walkway arcing above the busy avenue below and felt a new energy surging through me. I sucked my belly in and reveled in the extra exercise of two winding flights of stairs, one up and one down. Whew! Funny I hadn't thought of this path before.

During this new and improved walk I reflected upon the past year, paging quickly through the incredible material covered since December. Let's see: renounced hope in male/female relationships; decided it'd be okay to live alone for the rest of my life and adopt only if that maternal itch got too unbearable; went to a place far, far away; met the love of my life (a man, wow!); moved to a country still rising with the crimson tide; agreed on the general approach to curtains; proposed to twice; married once; migrated to a new position at my job; and erm...what else?...right - moved a second time. Weave into this general plotline trips to Beijing, Hong Kong, Chengdu, L.A., Oakland, Beijing, back to L.A., San Francisco, Denver, Chicago, Hong Kong again, London, Edinburgh, Paris, Devon, Singapore, Chongqing, in that order. Then just to throw in a bit more "spice" add the love of my life alternating between Beijing and Shanghai every week, with side trips to New York and Inner Mongolia. So as I was saying, an uneventful seven months.

It's all whizzed by so quickly. I find myself now happily married and anxious to hang out with my husband on those wonder-filled days when the Fates graciously weave us both into the same city. I actually have a full year calendar tracking the days we are in the same city and the current forecast has us together 52% of 2006's 365. No joke. I am not sure what's sadder, the percentage itself or the fact that I came up with a percentage at all. Ah well, now's not the time to examine my slight obsession with the wonders of Excel (for the record though, Sheet1 can be just as enticing as Document1 depending on the particular demands of the day, oh and don't get me started on cell A1...ah, the possibilities!).

I'm not completely sure what I'm trying to get at here. I rarely have a plan when I open up a Document1, the trip-hop of words/random thoughts forms its own rhythm on the page. But I have a sneaking suspicion today's fragment has something to do with the fact that life is just speeding full throttle ahead and at times I'm the one strapped into the passenger seat, braced against the armrests, my right foot grinding through the carpet as I slam on the imaginary brakes - reminiscent of my mom when I was learning how to drive. Ah, the exhilarating memories of those first left turns into oncoming traffic.

I still have ultimate control of the steering wheel, but more often than before obligations and responsibilities force a warpspeed auto-pilot I'm not accustomed to. Not only are there my own responsibilities, but now those of my other half as well. The Technicolor has become even richer than I'd ever imagined it could be, but along with it comes the occasional blur of white as the reel motors on with you in tow.

So perhaps this inexplicable ennui is in fact not languor or boredom or world weariness at all, but a kind of wide-eyed Rothko of white. White whooshing by as I struggle to grasp the reel and slow it down enough for the technicolors to separate and form actual images. This leads me to think...perhaps at this very moment my way of slowing the wheel is taking the time to send these thoughts skipping across the expanse of white that used to be Document1. Hmm...a Rothko overcome by typewritten text, row after row laying claim to the white expanse - a strangely satisfying image.

A Walk in the Clouds - a fragment

I walk to work every morning these days. When my husband is in town, he walks me the ten to fifteen minutes it takes from our apartment to my office building, and we talk about our morning to come or various random observations. Otherwise, I walk alone. On the days that I walk alone, lack of conversation turns my energy outwards and my surroundings come into full view. Just today as I was walking in the clouds of exhaust and emission I could not help but admire just how intricate the human species is. Everywhere I looked there was a myriad of details involving the human beings coursing in waves around me.

Before I proceed, let me reinforce the fact that I now live in Shanghai – a metropolis teeming with humans that overflow from the gaping portals of subway stations and tumble from buses sighing and jerking along wide and narrow streets. There is this one large avenue that I cross every morning that particularly amuses me. The thoroughfare has three to four (cannot remember exactly, though I cross it everyday!) lanes going each way, and I cross at a T-intersection that leads into another fairly large three lane street. With each switch of the stoplight, the number of bicycles that pile up, biting at the reins to continue along the arm of the T or turn left into the leg of the T, never ceases to amaze me. When the light switches green, a whole army of bicycles are set in motion, along with the humans who then make their way across the zebra path in a massive horde. Bicycles and humans weaving in and out and around each other and somehow managing (most of the time) to avoid collision.

Amongst this throng I am in closest contact with my immediate neighbors, local Shanghainese people with a spattering of expats. It is an interesting feeling, to be so close to one another that you notice the fraying seam upon a blouse or the blossoming of sweat beads along a neckline. I find myself wondering what the lady with the ruffly yellow lace blouse matching a paisley green skirt is thinking on this Thursday morning as she carries on in pink kitten-heeled shoes to whatever workplace she is headed towards. Or the concerns of a delivery man sporting an offwhite towel and grayish-white vest, displaying an incredible strength of the thighs as he manages to ride with five mattresses in tow, stacked atop one another on the rickety cart tied to the back of his bicycle. I wonder if individual cows contemplate the thoughts of other cows as they are herded by angry looking traffic patrol "officers", in this case played by barking women wearing reflective vests over everyday clothing. These crazy ladies have a fondness for loud whistling and yelling at pedestrians to keep their feet off the streets and onto the sidewalks.

Today I saw a man, shirt tucked in the back but flapping defiantly in the front, who deliberately crossed the street in diagonal fashion without any noticeable concern for the cars and bikes about to run him over. When accosted by one crazy traffic whistler, he proceeded to yell at her unintelligibly (well, to me, since I do not understand Shanghainese. Judging from the traffic lady's expression I think she understood him loud and clear) and gesturing towards his diagonal destination as if to say, "I am going here, you idiot! Why would I cross one street, and then another, if I can cross diagonally?!" From an efficiency standpoint he is totally right, the hypotenuse is the way to go (details) but it was his attitude that struck me. Although he was obviously in the wrong, he yelled at the traffic cop as if she was mistreating him. I have noticed this general attitude often here, like when a taxi driver abandons his passengers in the middle of nowhere, yelling at them for not knowing the way, since of course, that is not his job. "Does it look like I have a map of Shanghai stored in this brain?!?" Um, no. He is right, what were they thinking? Silly passengers.

Other random Shanghai moments flock to the forefront. A crowd surrounding an accident scene, just looking, but not helping. Marketing folks sweating in subway stations that try to force business cards on you, and when denied, surreptitiously stuff them into your bags. Throngs of child beggars outside nightclubs, pulling at you to buy a single rose for 10RMB at three in the morning, led by women who are obviously not their mothers that you end up wanting to shake violently by the shoulders. "What the heck are you doing? Take these kids home! Put them in bed, you evil mother impersonator!" Strange land, I tell you.

I feel like a foreigner here, because I am. Do not let the Chinese face fool you. I am distinctly not Mainland Chinese. Distinctly not Shanghainese. Communicating is tiring here. Invariably taxi drivers have no idea what I am saying until I have said the same thing pronounced the same way six or seven times in crescendo. With waiters and waitresses, even if I know how to say the dishes in Mandarin, I find that it is easier and more efficient to just point at the right item on the menu. I learned that one from my husband, who has been here a few years and knows the Shanghai way. In fact, relying on elementary Japanese in Tokyo is much less stressful than speaking "intermediate" Mandarin in Shanghai.

It is funny, I started writing today thinking about the wonders of being in close proximity with humans that you may never have any contact with again. How humans manage to flow in hordes without running each other over, for the most part. How each of these humans around me represent an individual separate entity with a separate brain full of separate synapses firing at varying speeds, every single one teeming with his or her own throngs of thoughts and emotions and senses, coursing through the avenues of his or her body, feeding and nourishing the soul. And yet, I am only truly privy to my own set of entity/brain/synapse/thoughts/emotions/senses/soul. The closest I will ever get to most of these other sets is a brush of yellow lace.

But then one random thought of some rude guy and a traffic officer launched a whole trainful of negative Shanghai observations steaming fullspeed ahead into Shanghai-bashing land. Funny how the mind works. Well, this particular one at least.

A Place Far, Far Away - Kona, Hawaii - a fragment

There’s just an hour and a half left to Christmas Day…Merry Christmas to you all out there in different corners of the earth. My Christmas has been awesome so far. Christmas Eve stretched out to the wee hours of the morning and by the time I woke up for Christmas it was already four in the afternoon. My kinda holiday. I am currently listening to one of my wonderful presents, Sounds from the Verve Hi-Fi album, compiled by Thievery Corporation. Very chill stuff for a very chilled vacation.

This past week in Hawaii has been unbelievable. I feel so utterly removed from my daily life in Hong Kong, in a way it almost feels like I could just remain here in this Hawaiian bubble forever. My first five days in the Rainbow State were spent in a place far, far away from everything, nestled up in the hills of Kona on the Big Island. So removed is this place, in fact, that it is self-sufficient in terms of water (collected from the rain), power (generated by solar panels), and telecom (networked via satellite). Just knowing that makes you feel even more isolated, tucked away in your own little haven that could run without any intrusion from the world beyond the drystone walls.

The simplicity of life up there struck me immediately when I woke up the first morning to a peaceful quiet. The stillness up there is infectious. Even my own typically whirring mind was coaxed into silence. The usual drivel was held at bay and the only thoughts I really had were…hmm…gosh, did I even have any thoughts at all? I think for a moment there I even forgot what I did for a living. I may have even ignored my Blackberry for more than 48 consecutive hours. Just awesome. My buddies and I talked about music, constellations, old memories, recent memories, music and more music. We laughed, and laughed, and laughed incessantly, tickling the silence with our chuckles and guffaws.

Under the stars and in front of the fire (yes, believe it or not it was COLD in Hawai’i!) I got to know an amazing gathering of people, some of whom I knew before and some just recently acquainted. If you were to examine each of us on an individual level, you may think, wow, how did this random bunch get together? An unlikely assortment of backgrounds, ages, and professions. But there were such good vibes radiating from each person and within the group, it was obvious we were all meant to cross paths.

In the stillness, it was as if I could hear the pieces falling into place. A perfect culmination to 2005. 2005 was the year for finding strength and how we apply that strength in 2006 and beyond is completely up to us. It’s exhilarating to know that we have within us all that it takes to realize whatever dream we may hold in our hearts. Some of us may be selling crystal right now before traversing the desert to find our true calling, but selling crystal is part of this amazing process and not to be scoffed at. As long as we keep our hearts wide open we will hear the signs from the universe conspiring to help us towards where we are meant to be (unabashed references to Coehlo’s Alchemist as some of you may know ;), and if you don’t know, go to the nearest bookstore and hook yourself up!).

In that very stillness, it was as if I could hear my soul quietly mending, the tranquil up and down motions of a needle joining the formerly fragile fragments together, each patient stitch adhering strength to the seams, the seams together safeguarding the verve of my soul. Mele Kalikimaka, everyone. :)

In Transition - Yahoo! Cafe, Narita Airport - a fragment

Just yesterday I'd been complaining about how there's absolutely nothing to do at Narita Airport, and today I discover that there's actually a Yahoo! cafe in Terminal 2 where you can log on for free! Sweet! Not only that, had an excellent 20 minute massage and a bowl of kitsune udon that just hit the spot. Now there's just half an hour before I board my flight to Honolulu, a perfect slot to contain some of the thought-streams that have been go-karting around in my mind for the past few weeks.

Suffice to say that the past year has just been incredible. Full of ups and downs and all sorts of madness that makes life unbelievable. As the velvet curtain begins to draw on 2005, I find myself eagerly anticipating what the curtains will reveal in 2006. This last quarter of the year has been exceptionally enlightening...old patterns have been revealed and rooted to a common seed in the past, relationships have been redefined in my head and heart, or rather than redefined, perhaps it's more accurate to say that they have been 'updated' to my current reality, and strengths and weaknesses have been acknowledged and accepted, figuratively shown the welcome mat to my inner courts where previously they'd been weighed and judged. There's been a shift in me. One could call it a paradigm shift, as my buddy did, whereby unexpectedly, the world around me just seems a bit more in focus, and more importantly, the 'me' inside me has survived the harsh light of chronic criticism and somehow survived even more whole than before.

It feels as if all the minor adjustments that I've been making throughout the years have found a harmonious chord and things just feel right. Sometimes I'd look around me and felt as if I'd been treading water for ages, not making any actual progress and still in the same place, but now I realize that treading water just builds up those muscles for the long journey ahead. I guess now I feel like I've set off...the part of my journey for honing those muscles is coming to a close and now I am moving forward, not only within, but without as well. It's an exciting feeling, this sense that I am ready for anything that's to come. A few of my thirty-something friends have commented that they went through this transformation of sorts in their late twenties, and now that they are in their thirties, their sense of self is more secure and their need for approval has subsided. The only approval required is the approval you give yourself. Such a simple concept, really, but the implications are profound.

So in a sense I feel as if I am in transition, except this time there is no destination in particular. Sure, right at this moment my mind is on dropping my heavy laptop bag in relief when I finally arrive in Kona, but I find the beauty is in the transition. Every moment in our life is transitional, when it comes down to it. Focusing on the 'goal' gives you determination in a way, but better yet, why not focus on improving every moment in this ever transitioning life we lead? We never know what to expect tomorrow, yes yes, so cliched I know, but so very true. So rather than ask ourselves what we are transitioning to and where the destination is, I find for now I'd like to just relish in transition itself. The purity of your soul remains constant, but you can always define what part of your soul you would like to experience at any given moment.

Speaking of transitions, my layover is quickly coming to an end and if I don't 'transition' myself out of here soon I'll miss my flight to Honolulu...more to come later and in the meanwhile, happy transitions to all of those in my circle whom I know are going through changes, some major and some minor, in their lives right now. This journey is what it's all about, and as 'journey' signifies movement and change, let's make the most of these transitions together. ALOHA!!!

I Heart Hong Kong - a fragment

(obvious SATC reference, for those who are fans…)

I’ve been living in Las Vegas for a good part of this past weekend. I can’t say I’m proud to admit it, but it’s true and it’s been a helluva good time. I’ve been a semi-hermit this past weekend because I was supposed to be packing and performing a serious purging session, a colonic of sorts for the clutter that fills my apartment for no good reason. Old clothes I haven’t looked at for years, trinkets from xyz restaurants and abc vacation resorts that don’t really add much to my general “décor”, things I own that I don’t even know about, things of other people that I need to return…a one by one bagging of all the “stuff” that is just that…stuff. Not so much definition 2 found on http://www.dictionary.com/: “The essential substance or elements". But more like definition 3.c: “Worthless objects”. It's imperative that I start this purging as soon as possible, since my move is in less than a week, but...I just couldn’t do it.

So instead I retired to Las Vegas, the world of Ed Deline and Danny McCoy, ah Danny…now’s there’s a fine specimen of a man there. In between episodes I contemplated all that I had left to throw out and then proceeded to push the stuff out of my mind once the titles began playing again on the next mind-numbing episode of LV. Finally, the Sunday evening of a weekend that was earmarked for productive expulsion is drawing to a close, and I wonder to myself…why the heck have I been procrastinating so much? What’s keeping me from chucking out the first unnecessary item in my over-cluttered life? And then I realized…I’m suffering from DIP…Denial Induced Paralysis. Yes, that’s a medical term and you may want to go out and get the latest edition if your copy of Black’s Medical doesn’t have it.

I love Hong Kong. I love my little apartment on Mosque Junction, tucked behind the more boisterous Robinson Road and atop a beautiful little area us Hong Kong people call Soho, even though it really isn’t much like the New York equivalent it’s named after. But hey, in HK, we take what we can get. We have spatial limitations here but we make the most of the horizontal limits by extending vertically. Way vertically. I am sitting by my window looking out over my beloved city and I realize how goddam high up I am in my 17th story pad, which is considered not very high up in the HK scheme of things. I look out across the way to my neighbor’s flat 30 ft away from me, so close I can see the bubbles rising in the violet fishtank beside their window, behind the silhouette of, randomly, a row of four of five Chinese vases. Palpable, the humanity across 30 ft of thin air. Their light is still on and well, there’s my anonymous neighbor, HK style. 7 million of us stacked up like legos across this town, lit up at all hours, the constant inhale and exhale of 7 million souls fueling this little energy grid we live in.

My day began perfectly today. I left Las Vegas to cool in my DVD player and took to the streets. First, breakfast with my friend Victoria’s extremely impressive and accomplished father (who climbed Kilimanjaro at age 62 last year) at the newly erected Four Seasons hotel. Another incredible steel and glass structure adorning Hong Kong’s renowned skyline. Service with a smile trained into waiters, bellboys, and valets, alike; an immaculate and stylishly streamlined décor; a menu offering a range of international breakfast alternatives; basically everything you’d expect from the most recent addition to Hong Kong’s upscale hoteliers. From the lap of luxury I meandered through the many covered overpasses of the Central district that shield millions of suited executives from the sun and rain during the weekdays and shelter thousands of Filipina maids (aka “helpers” of these aforementioned executives) on Sundays. Funny how the day of the week can change the atmosphere along those walkways so dramatically. With the kind assistance of a random passerby I found a little shop in an alleyway that alters watchbands while you watch for a mere HKD20. Minutes later I left the crowded lane with two perfectly fitted watches. Ah, the satisfaction of small errands efficiently executed.

Up several lengths of the Mid-levels escalator and I run into a brand new café advertising San Francisco coffee, perfect place to get through the final chapters of the book I’m trying to finish. An hour and a few SMS’s later I meet a friend for a second breakfast at a little café in Soho. Brilliant use of space – we end up in the back “patio” section of the café, technically en plen air dining, but in reality a square of space completely enclosed by apartment buildings on each side, offering the very familiar and priceless sight of undergarments and mops dripping from laundry lines above. A visit to my favorite leather goods store, Lianca on Graham St., lightens my mood and my wallet. Then a bit of pampering at a hair salon on Wellington, whose second floor perch allows a direct view into the gym across the street, where a whole squadron of gym bunnies are sweating it out on a row of treadmills. All this, and it’s only 5pm when I meet an out-of-towner for a slice of French apple pie at Portobello’s on Staunton St. 7pm, take-out from Chicken on the Run and back to the comforts of my couch and the action on the Strip.

The simple details of my day feel so perfect that I realize that I must be a bit lovesick for Hong Kong, lovesick for the life I lead here. I feel so at home in my little flat, so comfortable in this little city with its cocktail of cosmopolitan accents cut with the ever-present dry and guttural local dialect. I’m spoiled by the ease of my Mid-level life, trudging up and down the escalators, to and fro in this microcosm. And speaking of bubbles, it’s 2am and my neighbors are still up but the violet bubbles have ceased their ascent. Ah…even fish need to sleep.

You’re probably wondering about the relevance of these details to the DIP I mentioned before. Simple, really. When you love where you live, it’s tough to take those first little steps of disassociation. The beginning of the colonic signifies the start of my move, and although my due date looms close I am still reluctant to acknowledge its ineluctability. Just one day more of simple comforts. There’s always tomorrow for the purging to begin. Now, to join the fish...

Sleep-deprived in Tokyo - a fragment

Don’t know if that’s even an apt title…”super sleep-deprived” is more like it. And I’m not really “in Tokyo” anymore per se, since I’m an hour away from landing in Hong Kong. Details. My mind is relatively blank as physical sensations vie for my attention. My spine’s whimpering from being scrunched up in seat D row 45. I’ve got that dull eyeball headache that comes from stress and a cigar hangover. My nose is raw and my allergies relentless, or perhaps I should just admit to the possibility that I’ve caught some flu from my colleague. The kind stewardess felt sorry for me mid-flight and gave me an entire box of tissues.

This week has been utterly exhausting, but there have been some very good moments, as always is the case when you find yourself in Tokyo. Last night was hilarious…ended up at a quaint cigar bar in Akasaka in the company of three great guys, a mini-goblet of Grand Marnier and a Montecristo No. 5. These three dudes are all married with kids and more than a decade my senior, but such a riot to hang out with. It’s so funny how people in totally different stages of life can just get along…sense of humor is the best common denominator. General grounded-ness comes in second, and rounding third is a shared love of chocolate – Japan’s got its chocolate culture down pat. That place has THE best chocolate in the world. Even in a cigar bar you get these little plates of exquisite chocolate coming your way non-stop. Okay, tangent. But like I was saying, it’s great to have a chance to hang up your labcoats once in awhile and hang out with the characters underneath, brings a lot more humanity into the workplace.

Tokyo is awesome, and even better in the fall. The crisp, dry air didn’t agree with my allergies but it was rejuvenating to breathe it in anyway. Scarves and trenchcoats are out and about and there’s nothing like a warm sake to stave off the chill after a stressful day of work madness. Work is absolutely insane and I’m dizzy just trying to keep track of all the balls in the air. We never seem to do things in a straightforward way, the pioneering company that we are, and I’m always finding myself deep in the brush and way off the beaten path. Tiring but exhilarating all at once. But you can’t complain about a job that takes you to Tokyo every so often to practice your elementary Japanese.

I could definitely live in Tokyo someday, would be so great to buckle down and learn the language with the locals, but seems my number’s being called in Shanghai, so Tokyo will have to wait. Not to mention, would kind of hate working in Tokyo because it really is annoying being a woman in the workplace here. There’s also such an abnormal degree of fronting that goes on day in and day out that I don’t know if I’d have the patience to keep up such a super-evolved workface…forget it man. I’ll live in Tokyo when I can just be a bum and hang out at the pachinko parlors…scary, scary prospect, that. Oh yeah, and there’s still Europe to do after China…ah well.

Things are so quaint in Tokyo, even the convenience stores have an elegance to them and you feel like you can eat off of any surface, everything is so psychotically clean! The word “clean” doesn’t even do justice to the level of hygiene these people keep up on a minute by minute basis. Amazing. You can pick any random place to walk into and it’ll be immaculate and the food will be good.

Most likely it will cost you as well, because Tokyo is also psychotically expensive. Our ride from the airport in a taxi cost over US$200. I know, I know, you’re thinking, what the hell were you doing taking a taxi from Narita into Tokyo, but exhaustion messes with your sensibilities and when you put three exhausted colleagues together after a long workday and a few hours breathing in stale plane air, a taxi seems like a really swell idea. We cited “economies of scale” as our excuse. Of course, still cost us twice as much per person as it would have to take a limousine bus or the Narita Express, but whatever…details. And what is up with those limousine buses anyway? I’ve heard that the Narita Express is purposefully kept from going any faster so that these limousine buses can stay in business and take their sweet time (give or take 2 friggin’ hours) to get you to and from the airport. Makes you really appreciate the speed and no-nonsense efficiency of the Hong Kong Airport Express…23 minutes into Central, trains every 12 minutes - it’s a beautiful thing, man.

We had a splendid listing anniversary cocktail at the Grand Hyatt at Roppongi Hills, the Lost in Translation hotel. This, after a wearing day of “lost in translation” sessions with an assortment of advisors. “Lost in translation” is a big recurring theme when you’re in Tokyo. Ask for two bowls using sign language of a) peace sign aka “two”, and b) cupped hands aka “bowls”, and they give you a stack of four little plates. Ask what the squidgy, lima-bean sized morsels in your free side dish are and get the answer “sperm”. I mean what in heavens name has sperm the size of lima-beans?? Hmm…forget I asked. Ask your advisors how many shares for blah blah blah and get a nod. “No, no, hooow…maaa-ny…shaaa-res,” you lengthen your syllables and make some totally unrelated hand gestures, thinking that somehow this will make them magically comprehend English. And without a hitch, you get the same exact response: a nod and an affirmative “mm” followed by an uncertain smile and silence. Perhaps that was Japanese sign/body language for “twenty-five thousand and six hundred shares”. Sigh.

I don’t want to imagine how much more lost I’d be without the few elementary phrases that I do know, e.g. “turn right at the next corner”, “I need to eat please”, “how much is that sea-foam green couch”…and my most recently acquired ancient Japanese proverb: “For desserts there is another stomach entirely”. "Amaimono wa betsu bara." Now I’m definitely all set and ready to roll.

Looking forward to getting into my own bed tonight. If you happen to be really lucky, Japanese hotel-rooms sometimes feature two twin beds circa Lucy and Desi era and of course they assign these rooms to one guest who will have so much use for TWO twin beds. Very, very strange. Also, be very wary when you see a row of buttons right next to your toilet seat. Can be more of a surprise than you can handle when you accidentally press a button at 1 am in the morning. Clean freak culture, I tell you.

I’ve also been toting around my yoga mat and practicing by myself in the mornings, which is great, except for my having no clue what I am doing - am looking forward to having an actual class tomorrow. Need to sweat out these stale stress fumes wading around in my mind and clogging up my veins...or is it residual Montecristo smoke? Uh oh, better close up, seems we’re descending into Hong Kong International Airport. Till next time, then, Tokyo.

Club Jin Mao, Grand Hyatt, Shanghai - a fragment

I am basking in the gentle haze of Shanghai’s early afternoon sunshine and I feel like I am on another world. In fact, I am sitting here at an elegant table previously set for six (now just for one) at the Shanghainese restaurant on the 86th floor of Pudong’s Grand Hyatt. The sun outstretches a lazy arm across my table and the fine china glows, matching the subtle golden tones of my chrysanthemum tea, served in one of those old-fashioned glasses with the silver handles. I’m surrounded by a very “old Shanghai” feel and the sun feels so much closer up here. Nice to be able to step away from the daily din and hang with the big guy for lunch.

I look down to my right and the river winks back at me, while boats move in slow motion up and down along its berth. I am definitely having a much better impression of Shanghai from this very excessive and over-privileged vantage point. It is so hazy here, is it pollution, I wonder, or just the by-product of the frenzied momentum generated by millions of entrepreneurs and opportunists below?

The food has arrived – three tiny but perfect looking xiaolongbaos still steaming in their bamboo crib. Baby bokchois laid out just so in a mustard yellow ceramic boat, their green crispness contrasting perfectly with the subdued browns of the ox-tongue slices layered in a similar ceramic dish beside it. Quaint and perfect. Must break for awhile and actually dig in.

First, a sip of tea to neutralize the palette. A cluster of chrysanthemums float atop the fragrant tea and I breathe in the calming fragrance. Mmm…the xiaolongbao is an exquisite explosion of soup and crab flavors, accented by a splash of black vinegar and a fine sliver of fresh ginger. I eat all three in quick succession after the waiter stops by to remind me that they won’t be very good if they’ve gone cold! What sweet service!

I move on to the next dish and the baby bokchois are as crisp as their coloring suggests. The mustard sauce adds a real kick as well. Looking out at the silhouettes across the river, it’s just unreal how expansive Shanghai looks, and well, actually is, I suppose. High rise after high rise form shadows along the skyline and deep into the fog (or smog?). I try a piece of the thinly sliced ox-tongue and am happily surprised by the gentle sauce that is tasty but not overpowering, allowing the ox-tongue’s natural flavor to come through. The combination of these distinctly flavorful dishes and the soothing tea is taking me back into a time I don’t even remember, maybe because, well, a) I’ve never lived in Shanghai before and don’t believe I have any roots here, and b) I have an over-active imagination so this “time” most likely never existed.

My eyelids grow heavy and I feel as if I’m in a strange swoon. Perhaps I am falling in love with this hazy city at my feet – full of new adventures and possibilities! Hmm…or is it just PCL, post-consumption lethargy? It’s not as if this vantage point allows me a clear view of the city below – I can’t really see much, in truth. The haze prevents clarity and clairvoyance. Hah! Maybe I’ve hit the nail on the head there…it’s probably the unknown factor of this upcoming move that’s getting to my head. I think I am finally starting to warm to the idea of moving out to this gi-normous, crazy city.

I finish my last bite of ox-tongue and set my silver-tipped wooden chopsticks down with a satisfied clink! Only one more delicacy left to top off this memorable lunch for the tastebuds and the mind – a hot soup dessert featuring pumpkin and hasma, otherwise known as frog’s testicles. Yup, you heard right. Frog’s balls. Didn’t think they had any, eh? I grin and lean back in my seat, taking in the view and contemplating the ridiculousness of what I am about to eat. The Shanghai sun is flirting with my eyesight and everything is taking on a golden hue now. Perhaps someone spiked my tea? Or is it just this heady eagle’s eye view sending me into a pleasant stupor?

My first mouthful of pumpkin and frog’s balls does not really impress me at all. This may be one of those Chinese delicacies that your mom swears is good for you, and you just gotta have faith in its secret healing powers and gloss over the fact that it tastes like absolutely nothing. I push the empty bowl away from me and am stuffed like a suckling pig…someone come now, gut me and hang me upside down in a Cantonese roast shop. I’m ready.

I stand in front of the floor length windows and am surprised when I don’t get vertigo looking all the way down. The sun is glowing brighter now and a rainbow halo surrounds its brilliant yolk. Better "mai-dan” and cross this big fat satin ribbon of a river below me, head back into the frenzy beneath the haze. Or, I could stay up here forever and just hang out with the sun. Also good. :)

Calm Before the Storm - a fragment

It’s Halloween today, well, not exactly Halloween, but for all intents and purposes it is, since tonight is our Superhero Deviants Halloween extravaganza. I’m sitting on my bed at home right now, enjoying the few hours of calm before the storm. The weather is absolutely beautiful today, despite slightly overcast skies. Fall has taken Hong Kong into its arms and the city feels still, almost as if she is holding her breath in anticipation of tonight’s revelries. Through the gossamer curtains I can see building upon building bathed in gentle light, basking in the quiet of a cool afternoon. These few precious hours, after the noon sun has given its utmost and right before dusk smoothes away the last creases of light, are my favorite time of day. In this balancing point between extremes, anything seems possible.

My phone rings and it’s the co-organizer of the party, letting me know that alas, the last detail to my ensemble tonight is still MIA: a stuffed animal teddy-bear backpack. Hmm…may have to rouse myself from my window-side reverie and descend into the city to complete the mission myself. Maybe just a few minutes more.

Today’s a day for introspection. My pensive mood is muddying all my features and the one release I can think of is channeling my million and one thoughts through these fingertips onto this glowing screen, where my thoughts can reside in peace, stripped from the dangerous alleyways of my mind. For some reason lately my rearview mirror has been taking me back not a day or a week or even a month, but across the past months and years that have made up my “mid-to-late” twenties. Does 27 count as “late” twenties, or could I still pass for “mid”? Leafing through my ‘at a glance’ planners of 2003, 2004 and 2005, sometimes the events marking the coffee-stained pages seem fictitious, notes of a make believe reality that I conjured up to make my past seem more interesting and melodramatic.

But no, these things actually did happen to me. Nice try, though. The ironic twists and turns that have made up the past few years were not figments of my ever-active imagination. Time and time again I’ve exclaimed to my friends and to myself, “you can’t WRITE sh*t better than this!” and it’s true. People who first meet me may think, ah, she’s just a drama queen, but after having known me for awhile, they too realize that sh*t just happens to me, good sh*t and bad sh*t, yes, but sh*t happens at a hypernormal rate. A week goes by and my whole life may have switched course because of some event of another, but the thing is, another week goes by and sure enough, another curveball whizzes my way and another tangent has formed, another pathway has opened up, or another lesson’s been learned. At least I can’t complain that life is boring. ;)

Sometimes I look back and I feel like I’ve traipsed through decades in the span of three years. I wonder if my Dorian Gray portrait is out there somewhere, showing the truth of who I am inside: not a girl in her MID-twenties but a middle-aged woman, shoulders slightly hunched forward, streaks of grey running through her hair, forehead creased and the stamp of crow’s feet at the corners of her rather small eyes. All in all a noticeably weathered countenance. But as you move down past the rounded cheeks and bulbous nose you find lips curved in an easy smile, and then you realize that the depth of the crow’s feet may have something to do with the fact that she’s grinning like an idiot despite it all. Because that’s exactly how I feel. Weathered, but still smiling. It’s like the base of me is happy, no matter what curveballs life decides to throw at me, despite the pain and hurt that runs through me from time to time. When it all comes down to it, the face in the portrait is a happy one. Content despite life’s discontents.

Don’t get me wrong, this doesn’t mean I don’t have my fair share of complaints, tears of anguish, and fits of frustration, but, somehow, I know deep down that it is all okay. The up’s and down’s, the freak incidents and freak-outs, they are all okay. They’re just manifestations of life in all its grandeur. Let’s face it, sh*t happens and it’s up to us to either wallow around in it or scrape it off the bottom of our shoes. Okay, let’s move away from this analogy because it’s getting kinda gross.

And how it all affects me, well, that’s just a result of the way I choose to live. I let emotions run through me that some wiser than myself may choose to avoid or suppress. If I am happy, I am over the moon, and if I am sad, the melancholy roots deep into my soul. If I feel some intuition, I go with it, despite the fear of consequences. And sometimes that leads me into the wrong path, but in the end, are there any “wrong” paths to begin with? It’s the ability to have these feelings and emotions that makes me who I am. It may leave me weathered and stooped, but most importantly, it leaves me to be who I am. For that, I am content. For that, I grin like an idiot.

But now another minute more has turned into half an hour and my teddy-bear is still out there somewhere waiting to be found. The Warm and Fuzzy Lara Croft won’t be the same without a teddy-bear backpack full of Halloween treats. Better get on it then.

Fall Freedom and the Fear of Tears - a fragment

October is a “trigger” month. Pumpkins of recollection sprout out of nowhere and I stub my toes on their unyielding surfaces everywhere I go. Sometimes it’s hard to know if I’m growing them myself, or if God just likes chucking them my way this time of year. It’s not hard to understand why – Ryan’s birthday is at the end of month and he would have been 29 this year.

But October also marks the burgeoning of fall and the end of persistent summertime in Hong Kong. Fall is my favorite time of year no matter what city I’m in, but I anticipate it even more in this one. October is when the humidity begins to ease off, allowing fans and air-conditioners to heave a sigh of relief and take a break from relentless summer days. Despite the pumpkins clouding my mind and sight, the past few mornings I’ve walked out of my apartment complex into the brisk, serene air and immediately felt the need to stretch my arms out to the sky above, undoubtedly looking a bit foolish with a happy grin overtaking an otherwise stubbornly pensive face.

Always feels good to stretch up and feel those arm muscles lengthening towards the possibilities above, not so out of reach as they seem in the oppressive summer heat. Stretch up and feel the sense of freedom - freedom from the clinging smog, freedom from perspiration filling every single pore, freedom from having nothing in your closet to wear that would feel like another sweat-drenched wool sweater upon your skin…ah yes, the freedom of fall, crisp and clean, opening a whole other closet door of possibilities: minis atop knee length boots that instantly make you feel like a fashion icon, cashmere tanks that allow you to be warm and cool all at once, cute little berets and stylish skullcaps for bad hair days.

But I digress. Let me continue...to digress that is. Fall is also for falling in love, hehehe, I’ve always believed that. Come on, there’s a reason they call it “fall” right? No other season has an alias. Spring is spring, summer is summer, and winter, well, winter, but autumn has another distinctly suggestive name. Fall is full of possibilities and hopes and dreams hanging in the still air, hanging amongst the colored leaves aflutter in the gentle breeze, hanging like exhilarated first-time paragliders suspended above green seacliffs, hanging like that perfect line you could have said but didn’t, letting the moment pass you by.

This year, “fall” seems to have taken on another aspect of meaning for me - the cascading of tears from a well I thought had long dried up. Tears squeezing out from the corners of my right triangle eyes as I wince from another stubbed toe on yet another pumpkin. Tears catching me unawares as I relate to another moment in a novel that just so happens to be about a girl whose husband dies at an early age leaving her to traverse the colorful pages in her chapters of grief. Tears springing uncontrollably when I hit another “trigger point”, be it the never-ending estate paperwork that needs to be signed, or the anticipation of my godparents' impending visit, aka Ryan's parents.

You’d think years down this path alone would have steeled me from these tears, but just because you lock it all in an aluminum silo does not mean the waterworks dry up, in fact, as soon as an outlet punches through the metal walls the tears rush out with added pressure, much to your dismay. Not only that, but tears, I realize more and more, tears frighten those around you. Not only are you freaked out by them but those around you are invariably more freaked out than you are. I think it’s because our culture is not a big advocate of those big fat harbingers of emotional release that stream down our faces. You’re advised not to cry, to hold back, keep those emotions tucked safely away from sight, patch up that aluminum silo in your soul and dam those suckers from making their way to the light. Yet I wonder, what is so terrible about crying anyway? What is there to fear in tears?

Tears carry the grief out of you, don’t they? Grief, worry, helplessness, agony, fear upon fear are plumbed from the depths of your being, lined up one by one in bleary eyes awaiting to throw themselves onto the slide of freedom scaling down the contours of your face, ultimately to dry in salty patches on your skin or meeting their demise by Kleenex (or Tempo if you’re still in Asia). Each droplet distilling a part of those emotions somersaulting inside you. Each drop a part of the process, that beautiful process that transforms the Traumatized into the Survivor, and eventually, into just You, sans titles, sans labels.

So I say, cry away. Go crazy. Let those rivulets flow, I tell you. Let them tears freefall in peace.

No more fear of tears.
It's fall, for goodness' sake.

***sent to me today, by one who knows the way***
"...So let the mind with care o'rought,
Flow down the gentle tides of thought;
Calm visions of unending years,
Beyond this moment of fears."

Worry Whorls - a prayer for the weekend

Ah...Friday. I love Fridays. Fridays are full of possibility. Looking out across the expanse that is your impending weekend, every hour waiting to be filled at your whim - will it be an hour of doing nothing followed by an hour of doing absolutely nothing? Sinking back into the ease of my spacious white sofa, limbs outstretched with abandon, bassbeats of Bob Marley massaging my tired body, flushing out the toxins of weekday life aka Work and Worry...

"Rise up this morning, smile with the rising sun, three little birds, stood by my doorstep, singing sweet song of melodies pure and true, saying this is my message to you..." You all know how the rest goes. =) No? Alright lemme help you out then: "...singing DON'T WORRY...ABOUT A THING...'CAUSE EVERY LITTLE THING'S, GONNA BE ALRIGHT..." Somehow when Marley sings it you can't help but smile and believe him.

I look back at the week and think of all the worries that have siphoned through me, both my own and those of the people that I love, and I wonder...what the heck is it with worrying? We're all so obsessively concerned with the future. Will I have enough saved by such and such time to support the family I plan to have? Will I meet someone with whom I can share my mornings and evenings? Will I ever find a job that fills my pockets and fulfills my soul? Will he say "yes"? Will she say "no"? Will "we" make it?

Even the chillest of those that surround me cannot shake this disease of the mind that does nothing but mold that funny vertical line in between your eyebrows and clutter your brain. I imagine all these little worry whorls, born from the dust on the cellar floors of our mind, swept up by some irresponsible breeze of thought or another, twirling slowly at first, suspended in the stale air, then whirling at an increasing rate, reaching dizzying speeds, shooting up and up until meeting smack with the roof of rationality above, disintegrating in a millisecond, worry particles descending slowly down, down, down to rest upon creaky floorboards, only to be swept up again...ad infinatum. How much energy is wasted in this process, I wonder?

And yet, for all the the rationality we store up in our day-to-day, the worrying never stops, does it? We know worrying doesn't help, we recognize how it hoovers up our positive vibes, we see the muddied puddles it leaves after stomping through our minds, and yet we are all hard-pressed at stopping its onslaught.

So for this precious weekend unfurling at our feet, I bow my head and pray that all these dusty whorls plaguing those I love (and those I have yet to love) will remain lifeless, stay in "corpse" pose upon silent floorboards and allow us all some peace. Namaste. =)

Refuge - a fragment

Music has been my refuge lately. Not that there is anything so terrible out there in my world that I need to hide from, but rather, music drowns out the constant drivel in my mind…the doubts, the worries, the random hypotheses, the portentous scenarios…yep, music drives the drivel aside and gives me some makeshift peace.

So what cards have been precariously stacked into this rickety shelter of mine? So many wonderful artists out there to evoke a myriad of moods through the tightening of a chord, the piercing edge of a string, the persistence of a bassline or the impatience of drums. And, of course, the unique timbre of each voice crying out to be heard.

A few that have run through my veins lately…
Joseph Arthur – Honey and the Moon: Arthur opens the song with a delicate acoustic, joined almost immediately with his equally gentle voice. There something about this song that reminds me of a memory - sitting on a soft-sanded beach in Langkawi, hugging my knees for warmth as the sun descended inch by inch into the ocean spread before me. Stars joined me as I waited, first hesitantly, a twinkle here, another there, until the full glory of the starlit skies took my gaze upwards from the horizon to the deep indigo above. Whispers of contentment accompanied me as I patiently waited, uncertain of the inevitable and somehow still, safe. And hopeful.
“I wish I could follow you, to the shores, of freedom where no one lives…”

Damien Rice – Cannonball: Maybe I’ve been in an acoustic mood lately. Rice’s voice in this song, however, is not really gentle like Arthur's, but more contemplative. Like he’s undecided, mulling through whether or not the person beside him is the one. Lately I’ve been lying in bed at night feeling such a sense of relief that I am sleeping alone, rather than with the wrong person breathing softly beside me. I remember how I used to go to bed feeling a sense of loneliness that I could not shake. Now, after getting back on my feet, having fallen for the wrong person again, I am more relieved to be without. It’s through these dichotomies that you learn about yourself, though, isn’t it, the wrong one teaches you what the right one should be...
“Stones taught me to fly. Love taught me to lie. Life taught me to die. So it's not hard to fall, When you float like a cannonball."

Howie Day – Collide: Another ballad from a male singer/songwriter, what is my deal? Howie Day’s hopeful ballad explores two people crashing into one another…always makes you wonder, is it meant to be? Some sort of destiny, or just randomness? The romantic optimist in me will always aver that everything happens for a reason, you don’t JUST run into people, your energies bring you together for a specific purpose, big or small, doesn’t matter. Each shift in energy changes you, and those that you collide with imprint you forever. It’s such a beautiful image to me, all these collisions that happen every split second of everyday, people weaving in and out of each other’s tapestries, sometimes a recurring pattern, sometimes just a single thread seemingly misplaced but perfect from an eagle’s eye perspective. Makes you wonder though, when a collision occurs that only you are aware of, how does that thread play into your unsuspecting counterpart’s tapestry? A thread missed, unrecognized, blended into the background, while simultaneously that same thread stands out brilliantly in your own weave, shouting out for recognition.
“Out of the doubt that fills your mind, you finally find, you and I collide.”

KT Tunstall – Heal Over: Tunstall’s voice soars above simple chords, intoning lyrics that resound so true to my heart that I was taken aback the first time I heard this song. She offers to wipe my tears away and I am beside my speaker ready to take her up on it. I know, a sad and pathetic image, but have you heard this song yet? A woman speaking to another woman suggests such loving friendship, the kind that gets you through each snag and bramble in the path ahead. Reminds me of how lucky I am to have the friends that I have now, each having tread a well-worn path straight into the depths of my joys and sorrows, each unafraid of the un-ending torrents of emotion that overcome me, each at the ready with the remedy of the day, be it a word of comfort or jest, massaging deep into the pain I sometimes feel or caressing lightly the bruises I accumulate from the sometimes trying, sometimes trivial travails I encounter daily. Healing me over, everyday. Yeah, you guys know who you are. :)
"And I don't wanna hear you tell yourself
That these feelings are in the past
You know it doesn't mean they're off the shelf
Because pain's built to last
Everybody sails alone
oh but we can travel side by side
Even if you fail
You know that no one really minds"

Gods and Monsters - a fragment

So...many thoughts lately...all convoluted and jumbled up, served on a platter like a plate of poorly scrambled eggs (shells and all)...sometimes my mind just self-entertains and I like to sit back and watch my own internal mono-drama-logues unfold. I got an email from Matt the other day...Matt who is my "soular" ambassador, the one who always prods me to focus on the inner light, the core of enlightment, the seat of the soul, you know what I'm talking about...the ME in me. The last time Matt came around was the last time I practiced energy channeling, the last time I chanted like we used to do in the Tunnel, that underpass in Irvine where we'd sing our overtones and scare away all dogwalkers and jumpsuits straight out of a scene in the O.C. So weird, seems like a parallel universe, the me singing mantras to a harmonium and the me sitting here covertly typing away in my little "corporate" cave, skiving on the work I should be doing. Alright, time for some beautiful Hawaiian skies to take the edge off...(picture courtesy of my big-hearted buddy BLU)


But that's the thing...the day to day life I lead now doesn't really make a lot of room for the chanting of mantras, does it? And so those mantra muscles atrophy, until someone like Matt comes around and reminds me through his cheerful emails...knock knock knock, hey you, looked inward lately? Matt and I had this whole plan, we did...of using music to communicate to one another from the O.C. to Hong Kong, yes I know it sounds crazy but hey, I'm not one to deny my own penchant towards weirdness. It was those hours in the Tunnel though, that I'll never forget as such an important part of my self education, my contention with the gods we have to choose from in this wide world of religions and theories and spiritual guides, you name it. Exploring the tools for purging the monsters within us: will it be energy channeling? yoga and meditation? Tarot card readings? Occult practices? Yikes, ok maybe not the last one. For me, the primary means for inviting more peace into my life was through reading…hehehe, big surprise coming from me.

Matt was the one to lead me to read a book that made so much sense to me that it was as close to “enlightenment” as I’ve ever come. The book is Conversations With God by Neale Donald Walsch and as much as I’m sure many would say his claim of being dictated to by God is preposterous, well, I guess somehow I just was able to suspend my disbelief, get past what seems implausible and benefit from a lot of the explanations and theories provided therein…some would call this a leap of faith, I suppose, and yes it does seem like one. Feelings are the language of the soul; the opposite of love is fear; what would Love do now?; every soul must walk its path – I guess I could go on and on about the points that resonated in me from the pages of this book. I believe Walsch has since reached some sort of cult status worldwide now, but cult-related or not, “Conversations” helped me through one of the toughest times in my life and still guides me to this day.

It’s been more than two years since I’ve read it…hmm…may be a good time to pick it up again, review some of those basics that brought me such peace in a time of need, see how my mind would process it now after two more years of random experiences and emotions. Maybe I’ll even start singing mantras again…Matt, be prepared to break out your harmonium! :)

Reflections - a fragment

It happens all over again, you know, every time I retell the story to someone new. Yup, he’s there again with his “Big Dog #1” jersey on the glossy basketball court floors where I can almost make out my own reflection of helplessness and horror. Comes back everytime. It’s as if my masochistic brain never tires of the image. But two and a half years later, it’s a bit faded, that reflection. Years of dust and neglect. Bring it up, though, tell that story again, and it’s like rubbing on a layer of wax, rediscovering that lost person that was me so long ago. And there he goes, falling over each time in slow motion just the same. I don’t know the exact timing of when the soul left the body or when the heaving in his chest was out of bodily reflex rather than his life force, and I will never know, because if I didn’t know then that he was dead upon arrival, how would I ever really understand it now, looking back through that dusty glass pane of memory?

So I wonder. When I reach out to others who are going through similar experiences, do I make it worse, or even just a little bit better? Last year, I was still scanning the crowds in a weird and slightly disturbed way, still scouting peripherally for tall people in the distance. It’s surprising that in the past few years I have yet to meet people my age or around my age who have gone through similar experiences, meet them and talk to them and relate to them and hopefully offer some mutual support. St Barbara is the closest I’ve come to but his loved one died more than a decade ago.

If I were to observe the reflection on the dusty floor of that basketball gym, what would I see today? I've led a great life in the past couple of years, despite the grief and sadness, or maybe even, because of the grief and sadness, which makes you appreciate what you have around you so much more. The pain has subsided, mostly, and my memories of the one I lost, the one who escaped this world, or this sliver of reality, are all mostly happy...kinda like warm embers at the base of my soul. I haven't "moved on" or "let go", it's not like that at all, really, it's more like...I've survived. And hey, in a weird peaceful kinda way, that's really alright with me. What with all the emotional pitfalls and heartrending challenges surrounding you in this minefield of day-to-day life, survival is not to be scoffed at. Okay, so I've survived...what now?

I met someone recently who was talking about this Indian practice called Atma Vikasa (?), evolution of the soul/self. I couldn't help but wonder what that entails, and what one discovers about himself through this inward focus? And I wonder, would I have the courage to face those demons inside of me, all those negative ions lurking, ready to pounce and remind me I am capable of so much good and yet I choose to lead my life not based on how much good I am doing on a daily basis? I mean, I'm in finance for goodness sakes!

Then there is the other side of me that thinks, well, every soul is experiencing who it really is not, in order to embrace who it truly is, right, which means that we are all entitled to the experiences that we are creating for ourselves on this plane, in this particular slice of reality. Haha, yeah, many would laugh at that and call it some major metaphysical rubbish just to make our new age selves feel better. And there’s probably some truth in that as well. In fact, there is truth in so many conflicting, contradicting statements that we are surrounded by in this lifetime, that is it even possible to really pinpoint what the heck truth is, or is it that simple, really, just to turn inwards and be content, enjoy the experiences you create for yourself each day and decide, make conscious choices in the face of those decisions, good or bad, better or worse, responsible or irresponsible? Deep down I know that each experience I have right now will give me another building block to stand upon the day I do become a teacher or a writer or both. But that gut feeling doesn’t stop me from feeling like a sell-out so often. Well, maybe not even so often anymore, as daily life takes over and ambitions get shelved.

Sigh...so I guess we'll see. The job is taking me to a new bright lights big city, and do I really want to go? Not really. I don't feel like leaving friends and family behind. But will I go? Most likely...another jungle to scout out and attain survival in? Why not??

Doubt - a fragment

Doubt can be introduced so quickly, in so fine a point. The lightning slash of a pickpocket’s blade, the almost nonexistent tap of the space bar in between letters strung into words, the breathtaking moment when sunset slips into dusk.

I think doubt is a self-protective shield for those who are afraid of exposing their hearts. Even upon mouthing the word “doubt” in my mind my expression is contemptuous and disdainful, not very pleasant at all. Why introduce doubt? Nary a pleasant conversation could be had with doubt at the cocktail party of blossoming romance.

Is it because I am a hopeful romantic full of optimism on the possibilities between a boy and a girl? I know what I feel, I know what I don’t feel. That’s the way it’s been and that’s the way it remains, with me. I don’t have a million doubts, no, not when I feel the way I do, which is that there is someone on the planet that I’d like to be sitting next to right now…and carry on sitting next to for a good long time. No, we don’t have to be doing anything mind-blowing or mind-numbing, I don’t really care what we do at all. Just the presence is stimulating enough. That is such a special thing in itself, I do not want doubt to come in and ruin it all. One seed is enough, just one.

Perhaps I have exposed to much too early on, in my writing, in my intense verbiage that has the potential of driving persons away. Ah, but yes, only those who want to be driven away would be, isn’t that true? Those that harbor doubt, those that bring doubt to the forefront, what are they sidestepping? The potential of disappointment? But what difference does it make to anticipate disappointment? You will be disappointed all the same. All you have, other than having potentially soiled the path ahead, is the sick satisfaction of being right. Somehow you were astute enough to sense the impassable walls ahead. But what do you miss along the path when you are busy craning your head forward to anticipate said walls? And that leads to the overwhelming question: which is the bigger risk, to risk happiness by harboring doubt, or to risk disappointment by harboring faith?

Hunger - a fragment

I’ve grown so comfortable in this place I’ve created for myself, surrounded by the fluffy down of memory. Walls of my cell lined with frames of you and I, interspersed between bookshelves overflowing with things-unsaid and things-that-maybe-should-have-been-said and things-that-would-have-been-nice-to-say. How can I take these pictures down, these photographs lodged into my being, the removal of which would be like a surgeon going in to the jugular for repairs? I would have to tear myself apart to tear myself away from you. Is it true that when people die they grab onto a piece of you on their way out, a piece which stretches across parallel dimensions like multicolored taffy? My multicolored taffy soul has stretched over a million miles of memory. A million miles of you.

It’s so sunny in this place, so warm and fuzzy without being itchy or uncomfortable like last winter’s sweater mistake. I could lie here forever, reading, rereading, writing and rewriting more and more volumes of imaginary conversations.

But there’s no food in this cell and I’m hungry. I know, it’s mundane. It’s not otherworldly, this hunger. But it’s true. The little “love” gremlin inside me has shriveled up, malnourished beyond recognition. This little monster is dying. It looks out of the bars it’s created for itself. Looks out at the Love Out There and knows its spindly arms cannot reach this coveted L.O.T. So it steps away from the bars, averts its eyes, slumps down onto the cement floor and raises its weary head, distracting itself with the frames, the multicolored frames on the walls until finally it falls asleep. The next day and the day after that. And now the monster, once chubby and burping out loud, has lost its chatter. No strength to grasp the bars and peer out anymore. Slowly the L.O.T. has become another frame, another memory, another distant non-reality. Another dream snuffed out of That Which Is Possible. And T.W.I.P. slowly recoils and begins to take the shape of the perimeter of this cell and its friendly shadows.

I never wanted to live this way. You know that, I know that. So what is stopping me from coming out of this cell, anyway? (In case you didn’t know, this cell is unlocked. The jailkeeper and the jailbird have conspired and merged.) I just can’t seem to tear myself away, just can’t seem to shake free of my taffy web, the more I twist and turn the further cocooned I’ve become in this sticky sweet, funhouse dream. Even I have drowned out my own muffled cries.

*08oct04*