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.

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.

Prep, by Curtis Sittenfeld

It has been a long time since my last book review. The subject of the last was James Frey’s ‘non’-memoir, which was bashed to a million pieces in America’s openly Oprah-rific forum. Looking back years later, I still don’t feel like a helpless victim of Frey’s treacherous memoir con. That’s probably because I find as much truth in fiction as in reality, so am not that fussed about mixing the two. Anyhow, enough with the passé Frey defense, this is about ‘Prep’.

I first picked up ‘Prep’ a few months ago, but I did not choose to read it until this past week as I traveled to visit my father back home. From its opening line, ‘Prep’ hooks into the shreds of high school trauma still left inside you and cinches them out one by one for re-examination. I spent the latter hours of my journey captivated by the novel. Uncannily, when I arrived at my father’s, my high school yearbook, which I haven’t seen in at least a decade, was lying on the coffee table, unearthed during his recent move.

‘Prep’ is narrated in the first person by Lee Fiora (who, by the way, should have been cool just because of her kick-ass name), who applies and enrolls herself into boarding school at fourteen. The messy details of her four years at “Ault” remind you why even your most loathed enemies should never have to go through high school again. The only more brutal form of torture that comes to mind right now is that ball-breaker scene in Casino Royale, but I digress.

The title of the book caught my eye immediately since I went to a college preparatory school for 7 years that was literally (and perhaps a bit unimaginatively) called “Prep”. It was a day school, though, rather than a boarding school. My “boarding school” days were the subsequent four years of college for which I was ironically not prepared for at all. As you can imagine, Sittenfeld’s debut novel dug up queasy memories of my personal 11 year nightmare and was an unexpected exhumation of the awkward, acne-d adolescent self that I’d interred long ago.

Just as Lee does at Ault, I felt like an outsider all throughout high school, and after that, all throughout college. Never quite fit in anywhere, and always aware of it. Sittenfeld drums up these feelings well in her first person portrayal of Lee. The daily self-immolation through embarrassment, shame, confusion, or insecurity (often in rotation) burning in your cheeks. The hyper-self-awareness of how “being cool” was always just out of your reach. The trying on of outfits and facades and characters to see if any fit. Through all this mental distillation, the essence of who you are hardens, crystallizes, and burrows deep inside you, to be mined years later when you are finally ready to appreciate its value.

As much as the details of Lee’s narrative strike dissonant chords, the perspective from which she narrates wrenches even deeper. Sittenfeld not only chooses the first person, but a retrospective first person as well, as if Lee is re-telling the story a decade later. At once you are not simply back in high school, but you are in your late twenties, shoveling knee-deep in the graveyard of past personas. “Don’t go there,” the townsfolk cry! Sittenfeld’s narrative is tinged with an aged bitterness that bleeds off the pages, and you can’t help but squint at your own mordant memories through her vinegar fumes.

Some look back fondly on the yesteryears of young adulthood. I am not one of these people, and clearly, neither is Curtis/Lee. I’d like to think that I’ve moved completely past the bitterness of then and am able to look positively upon those years as the ‘preparatory’ period for who I am now, or better yet, for recognizing who I have always been. After all, surely the phases define the journey. But even so, as I dusted off my old yearbook and thumbed through its glossy pages, the familiar twinge that returned in my gut was a bit sharper than I’d like to admit. Funny, that of all the personas, the outsider is the hardest to decompose.

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.

Ode To The Turtlebug - Divine Delirium

Divine delirium, yes that's the only way I can describe it, the way you make me feel, the way 'we' make me feel, the way our coming together in this improbable world makes me feel. The way I can be completely exhausted and entirely replete with newborn energy humming along the delicate undersides of my skin, every inch buzzing along a single bass line written by you, improbable you, inevitable you. Yes, yes, that is it, that is how I feel, the whole of me awhir, awake and aware of your soul lying sweetly alongside mine. As if every step I have taken, sure and faltering, have conspired all along to lead me to this moment: two weary but ever-spirited travelers stumbling upon one another in a wide meadow of possibilities waving gently. They face one another on either side of a hammock strung between two trees swaying gently. Opposing hands reach out, hesitate, and in a blissful second, fingertips meet, senses reel in a current of pure joy as both realize that the other, facing, is real, not merely an apparition called forth by the stewards of hope and imagination. That blissful second stretching into an infinity of seconds as Time pirouettes and curtsies to a halt.

A Million Little Pieces - James Frey

I read James Frey's uncompromising account of his drug rehabilitation on December 31st, in two separate sittings, the first on the way from Honolulu to Tokyo, and the second from Tokyo to Hong Kong. Would have probably read it in one if it wasn't for the layover. I was taken in by his unyielding stream of consciousness that opens a window to the world of Addicts and their Addictions. Frey's prose does not use standard phrasing and plants you smack dab in the pilot seat as he relives his nightmare. He does not even use any quotation marks to offset the dialogue outside of his head from the monologue within, which is at first confusing but you catch on pretty quick.

The details of drug addiction and the insight into the world of drug use are both fascinating and shocking, oftentimes invoking the reader's morbid curiosity. You learn specifics about crack and cocaine and meth use, as well as the ravages of those drugs on your mind and organs. Most heartwrenching is the extent to which Addicts degrade themselves when in need of a fix. But most captivating of all is how mercilessly Frey sizes himself up within the memoir, placing the responsibility squarely upon his own shoulders. His self-awareness and honesty are inspiring. Addicts or ex-addicts or not, everyone has something to learn from reading this memoir. Perfect read to end 2005. :) 

Oh, and a big Happy New Year hug to you all, here's to an incredible 2006 filled with love and inspiration! =D

Mister Candid – Jules Hardy

Amazing read…I couldn’t put this book down. The very hilarious husband of a friend of mine recommended it to me about a year ago and I just got around to picking it up via Amazon.com. Jules Hardy, first of all, is a female author, which I did not realize until well into the 406 pg novel. Most of the characters in the book are male and I assumed incorrectly that ‘Sheila was a man’ due to her succinct and to the point characterization of these men.

The book evokes a range of emotions in the reader, from horror and disbelief during more macabre scenes to curiosity and revulsion regarding sexual taboos. The way Hardy approaches both the sick and the gruesome is neutral and in a way without judgment, so that the reader himself is left with the scales and the decision to weigh or not weigh.

Morality is a funny thing. We all must have our own sense of right or wrong, but when it comes down to matching societal mores, what if our intuition goes against the guidelines set by the world around us? I have always intuitively been against the death penalty. To me, it is just wrong for any system to make a judgment on whether a person lives or dies. I have always felt that the higher powers that be make that decision for us, and courts should not intervene. That seems so intuitively right to me. And in terms of a person taking the life of another…I always abhorred the slight flitter of contentment I would feel when an evil character in a movie finally dies at the hand of the hero protagonist. Who are we to make decisions on the life or death of our fellow human beings?

Mister Candid challenged these views for me. As the back cover will reveal, the story is about a serial killer who rids society of its depraved offenders, namely rapists and child molesters. The title character, I hesitate to type “protagonist” but in a sense that is who he is, makes a career out of this societal “cleansing”, and I found myself rooting for his success in the end. After all, he is killing the vermin that have themselves killed and tortured before, so it is poetic justice, isn’t it? But who is to judge who should or should not be “cleansed” from society? Where do the lines blur before we evoke another Hitler extreme into our midst?

The story follows how Chum Kane, aka Mister Candid, became the serial killer that he is, and is paralleled by the soul-searching of Flanagan, a cop who wants to find Mister Candid and decide for himself which is the better way, to hand over the depraved to the justice (and often injustice) of the courts, or to enforce judgment upon them by pulling the trigger himself. I found myself closely relating to Flanagan’s moral struggle and when I set down the book reluctantly after the 406th page I found myself at a bit of a loss. Rooting for a serial killer. Hmm…

This novel is extremely well-written in a blunt, matter-of-fact style, and will keep you on the edge of your seat and your principles. If I were to point out any criticism, it would be that the ending seems a bit truncated, almost rushed. But perhaps that’s only because I just want to keep following Chum Kane until he finds redemption. Perhaps.

The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom - Don Miguel Ruiz

This book was gifted to me this Christmas by a incredible, sensitive soul in Vancouver whom I love…she knows who she is! This is an extremely short read, almost like a quick guide to finding happiness, but much more inspired than the many “self-help in a nutshell” guides you find in the Personal Well-being section of the bookstore these days. I am pretty much open minded to any of these “guides” and usually end up reading both fundamentally soul soothing books as well as the Velveeta ordained ones that just recycle a bunch of known “truths” in a jumbled and inarticulately cheesy mess.

So why is this one particularly good? I think it’s in the simplicity of what these agreements are trying to help the reader focus on. Also, as with all of these guides, the timing of when you read it and your readiness to receive the information within all plays into the effectiveness of the guide. For me, it seemed to reinforce things that I have been pondering recently, including the paradigms set by your parents early on in your life, thus creating walls of approval and disapproval that you eventually must break down yourself. There are no walls but those that you erect yourself. The only approval required is your own. How simple these concepts but at the same time it is this seeking of approval that results in the deep-rooted insecurities that plague even the most headstrong.

The book focuses on four tenets: impeccability to your word, don’t take things personally, don’t make assumptions, and do your best in everything that you do. I think the one that was most jolting for me was “don’t take things personally”. People’s actions germinate from their own motives and purposes, and even when they seem directed at you, the true instigator is within them. Thus, it doesn’t make sense to take things personally because it’s never about you. In the same way, your own thoughts and actions stem from within and there is no one else to blame for the feelings and emotions you experience except you. Being rather sensitive in general, I think this is one of those tenets that really made me find freedom in the recent past. I realized my sensitive reactions to other people’s actions were misguided and unnecessary, and that I was enslaving myself to guilt and blame. Once you divorce yourself from those two harbingers of pain and self-doubt, there’s this sense of liberation, of bindings slipped off, of tethers untied, and you begin to soar on your own terms.

A big thank you to the beautiful woman who sent this book to me…sending virtual hugs from Hawaii.

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!!!

Mood: Cornflower - playlist

about to dash off to kona and honolulu for my soul vacation...so much to write about lately but no time just yet...will have to let the music do the talking...big aloha hugs and happy holidays to all you all out there... =D

1. Honey and the Moon – Joseph Arthur
2. Angeles – Elliott Smith
3. Scratch – Kendall Payne
4. A Lack of Color – Death Cab For Cutie
5. To Be Alone With You – Sufjan Stevens
6. Pocketful of Money – Jens Lekman
7. Cannonball – Damien Rice
8. They Weren’t There – Missy Higgins
9. How to Be Dead – Snow Patrol
10. For the Widows in Paradise – Sufjan Stevens
11. Between the Bars – Elliott Smith
12. Songs for a Blue Guitar – Red House Painters
13. The Sound of White – Missy Higgins
14. I Saw Her In The Anti War Demonstration – Jens Lekman
15. Details of the War – Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!
16. Love and Some Verses – Iron and Wine
17. On My Bones – Kendall Payne
18. Silent Sea – KT Tunstall
19. Saturday Sun – Nick Drake