A submerged dreamer
I don't know what has happened until I write about it. How about you? Are you able to synthesize your life as you experience it? If so, how I envy you. For me, it requires many empty hours and pages. I can't necessarily scoop out meaning, change, or emotions on the go, from the ever-changing melting and re-forming icecream bucket of my life. Nor can I force it. I have to simply wait, exactly for what, I don't know. I'm not even sure of the 'signal' that alerts me to my readiness; I just know that it's something that I have to approach as it approaches me. That's how my processing works: its two cats who notice each other from across a field and slowly make their way towards each other. It requires effort and listening in equal parts. Often, one cat will get distracted by small animals, scents, and sounds. They can easily miss each other.
For a writer, this can be frustrating. If you read anything about art, inspiration, and successful writers, you'll likely trip across the fact that most artists, including writers, approach their craft in a practical, industrious way. They force their cats to meet each other; they dangle cat treats, they chase them in circles, they physically move them closer together. I wager that this is something I could do more of, especially when it comes to purely creative writing. However, when it comes to understanding, reflecting on, and synthesizing my own life experiences, I know that I just have to be a better listener and learn to recognize when my two cats are in the field, searching for each other. I need to be able to see them.
Well, my cats are currently rubbing noses in the long meadow grasses.
I'm sitting alone in my little apartment. Cuong just left early this morning. This will be the first day that I have been alone, sans visitors, since mid December. Before Cuong came, my dear friend Dani was here for a week, over Christmas. In the past month, I have spent more than half the days traveling around China. Tomorrow, I leave for the Philippines for the mid-year conference for all of the Asia-located English Language Fellows. I have this one day of sitting still and then I'm moving again.
Right now, I'm noticing that I have access to an inner-reservoir of okay-ness for moments when I'm prepared for intense loneliness. For all the time that I spend noticing my smooshy, sensy qualities, I'm surprised to be able to easily sense this strength. It feels like a hug that I have reserved only for myself. It feels like self-love and an ability to be whole even when alone. I'm really thankful for it now.
I was visited by two remarkable people. It's fair to say that coming to China, particularly Wuhan, for vacation, is a little like going to the Mall of America to meditate. These two are basically zen masters. With both of them, I feel like I was able to explore China and better understand the country and my reaction to it. My reaction to and feelings towards China, in the last few months, has been less than rose-colored. When Dani arrived, I felt worried that my negativity would affect her experience. Dani, being the emotional kung-fu master that she is, was able to help me see beyond the binary that I've been creating. She helped me honor my feelings and also infused both of our experiences with a fresh inquisitiveness about China and Wuhan.
Dani is a fellow sensitive soul. It felt amazing to bob around China in a hyper-sensitive and emotional bubble with her, discussing our feelings and our feelings about our feelings, and our feelings about the feelings we had about our feelings. In our week together, we took many walks, drank lots of tea, and ended up in bed early to read almost every night. With Dani, I had my first experience of being a tourist in China. Up until her arrival, most of my experience in China had been confined to teaching and traveling to do presentations. When moving outside of the world of my campus, I had to be our navigator and assume more responsibility for us and this included speaking a lot more Chinese. I have a funny relationship with the Chinese language; even more than other languages I've studied, it is intimately tied to my emotional state, motivation, and current feelings towards China. On a good, open day, I surprise myself with my ability. On other days (the majority), I am alarmed at how little I can actually communicate. During our week together, I spoke a ton of Chinese, to varying degrees of success.
The strangest and most memorable part of Dani's visit was our visit to a 'nearby' mountain for Christmas. Since I had only one day to travel (due to final exams), Dani and I set off for a 24 hour trip to the neighboring province to stay overnight on a mountain. Because traveling to China to stay in Wuhan is tantamount to spending all your time in Houston when visiting the US, I felt morally compelled to get us somewhere beautiful. We took an 1.5 hour train to get to the closest town to the mountain, knowing that we would need to jump on another bus/shuttle once there to actually reach the top of the mountain. As this is a very famous mountain, I felt pretty confident that it would be obvious how to do this once we arrived. However, if you'd read any of my past posts, you'll know that doing anything in China as a foreigner is about as easy as a giraffe treading water. Invariably, after an hour or so of wandering around the train station and talking to several people, it became a logical conclusion that we were likely the first foreigners ever to conceive of going to this mountain. That's the thing about China. It's this huge, developed country that has tons of foreigners in its big cities, but when outside of Beijing or Hong Kong or Shanghai, you invariably end up feeling like you are exactly the first non-Chinese person to be doing x,y, or z, or to be standing in this exact spot. Well, we got up the mountain in a van driven by a very sweet man who was extremely concerned about our existence and emotional well-being, demonstrated through his impeccably safe driving up the side of the extremely misty mountain and constant verbal reassurances. "Just 10 more minutes," he'd update me. On the way, we chatted about how his son attended my school, and how proud he was of him. That's the disarming thing about China: you are an alien until suddenly you aren't. Once up the mountain, we were greeted cheerfully by the fatherly owner of our hotel, who at once began to admonish us for not staying for a week. Not only were we the first foreigners up the mountain, we were also committing a deadly error by staying for only one night and missing all of Lushan's wonders. By and by, we assuaged his concerns, and left the hotel to wander around in the thick mist. There was something about our 24 hours in Lushan that is hard to explain. It had to do with the ever-present, thick, obscuring mist that enveloped everything around us, the incredible friendliness of locals and Chinese tourists that we met, and the fresh mountain air. Dani and I stumbled around, sampled the local tea, and stuffed ourselves on fresh, mountain vegetables, shocking everyone in sight with our presence. The place itself was a poem, and indeed has been a famous site for poets for centuries.
Having Dani with me as fellow eater, wanderer, reader, thinker, and friend, was a huge gift. Before her arrival, I'd started to feel a bit of an alien to myself, since my life here has been so myopically focused on work. Her presence and unique spirit buoyed my submerged dreamer and wonderer. She reminded me again of what I had remembered on a train the month before; that my priorities should be the nourishment of my soul and spiritual communion rather than only the small, distracting things.
And, that's a freshly-synthesized theme that I'm extracting from the past month of my lived experience. Despite not having written down any January 1st goals, I know that this year I want to focus on my spirit and on the constant renewal of meaning, love, and wonder that makes me me. We are all surrounded by and responsible for taking care of the tangibles that compose our daily lives---the chores, and work, and lists, but I want to return to taking care of the intangibles that infuse life with love.
I hope to post about my travels with Cuong soon.
Love and Loons,
Ils
For a writer, this can be frustrating. If you read anything about art, inspiration, and successful writers, you'll likely trip across the fact that most artists, including writers, approach their craft in a practical, industrious way. They force their cats to meet each other; they dangle cat treats, they chase them in circles, they physically move them closer together. I wager that this is something I could do more of, especially when it comes to purely creative writing. However, when it comes to understanding, reflecting on, and synthesizing my own life experiences, I know that I just have to be a better listener and learn to recognize when my two cats are in the field, searching for each other. I need to be able to see them.
Well, my cats are currently rubbing noses in the long meadow grasses.
I'm sitting alone in my little apartment. Cuong just left early this morning. This will be the first day that I have been alone, sans visitors, since mid December. Before Cuong came, my dear friend Dani was here for a week, over Christmas. In the past month, I have spent more than half the days traveling around China. Tomorrow, I leave for the Philippines for the mid-year conference for all of the Asia-located English Language Fellows. I have this one day of sitting still and then I'm moving again.
Right now, I'm noticing that I have access to an inner-reservoir of okay-ness for moments when I'm prepared for intense loneliness. For all the time that I spend noticing my smooshy, sensy qualities, I'm surprised to be able to easily sense this strength. It feels like a hug that I have reserved only for myself. It feels like self-love and an ability to be whole even when alone. I'm really thankful for it now.
I was visited by two remarkable people. It's fair to say that coming to China, particularly Wuhan, for vacation, is a little like going to the Mall of America to meditate. These two are basically zen masters. With both of them, I feel like I was able to explore China and better understand the country and my reaction to it. My reaction to and feelings towards China, in the last few months, has been less than rose-colored. When Dani arrived, I felt worried that my negativity would affect her experience. Dani, being the emotional kung-fu master that she is, was able to help me see beyond the binary that I've been creating. She helped me honor my feelings and also infused both of our experiences with a fresh inquisitiveness about China and Wuhan.
Dani is a fellow sensitive soul. It felt amazing to bob around China in a hyper-sensitive and emotional bubble with her, discussing our feelings and our feelings about our feelings, and our feelings about the feelings we had about our feelings. In our week together, we took many walks, drank lots of tea, and ended up in bed early to read almost every night. With Dani, I had my first experience of being a tourist in China. Up until her arrival, most of my experience in China had been confined to teaching and traveling to do presentations. When moving outside of the world of my campus, I had to be our navigator and assume more responsibility for us and this included speaking a lot more Chinese. I have a funny relationship with the Chinese language; even more than other languages I've studied, it is intimately tied to my emotional state, motivation, and current feelings towards China. On a good, open day, I surprise myself with my ability. On other days (the majority), I am alarmed at how little I can actually communicate. During our week together, I spoke a ton of Chinese, to varying degrees of success.
The strangest and most memorable part of Dani's visit was our visit to a 'nearby' mountain for Christmas. Since I had only one day to travel (due to final exams), Dani and I set off for a 24 hour trip to the neighboring province to stay overnight on a mountain. Because traveling to China to stay in Wuhan is tantamount to spending all your time in Houston when visiting the US, I felt morally compelled to get us somewhere beautiful. We took an 1.5 hour train to get to the closest town to the mountain, knowing that we would need to jump on another bus/shuttle once there to actually reach the top of the mountain. As this is a very famous mountain, I felt pretty confident that it would be obvious how to do this once we arrived. However, if you'd read any of my past posts, you'll know that doing anything in China as a foreigner is about as easy as a giraffe treading water. Invariably, after an hour or so of wandering around the train station and talking to several people, it became a logical conclusion that we were likely the first foreigners ever to conceive of going to this mountain. That's the thing about China. It's this huge, developed country that has tons of foreigners in its big cities, but when outside of Beijing or Hong Kong or Shanghai, you invariably end up feeling like you are exactly the first non-Chinese person to be doing x,y, or z, or to be standing in this exact spot. Well, we got up the mountain in a van driven by a very sweet man who was extremely concerned about our existence and emotional well-being, demonstrated through his impeccably safe driving up the side of the extremely misty mountain and constant verbal reassurances. "Just 10 more minutes," he'd update me. On the way, we chatted about how his son attended my school, and how proud he was of him. That's the disarming thing about China: you are an alien until suddenly you aren't. Once up the mountain, we were greeted cheerfully by the fatherly owner of our hotel, who at once began to admonish us for not staying for a week. Not only were we the first foreigners up the mountain, we were also committing a deadly error by staying for only one night and missing all of Lushan's wonders. By and by, we assuaged his concerns, and left the hotel to wander around in the thick mist. There was something about our 24 hours in Lushan that is hard to explain. It had to do with the ever-present, thick, obscuring mist that enveloped everything around us, the incredible friendliness of locals and Chinese tourists that we met, and the fresh mountain air. Dani and I stumbled around, sampled the local tea, and stuffed ourselves on fresh, mountain vegetables, shocking everyone in sight with our presence. The place itself was a poem, and indeed has been a famous site for poets for centuries.
Having Dani with me as fellow eater, wanderer, reader, thinker, and friend, was a huge gift. Before her arrival, I'd started to feel a bit of an alien to myself, since my life here has been so myopically focused on work. Her presence and unique spirit buoyed my submerged dreamer and wonderer. She reminded me again of what I had remembered on a train the month before; that my priorities should be the nourishment of my soul and spiritual communion rather than only the small, distracting things.
And, that's a freshly-synthesized theme that I'm extracting from the past month of my lived experience. Despite not having written down any January 1st goals, I know that this year I want to focus on my spirit and on the constant renewal of meaning, love, and wonder that makes me me. We are all surrounded by and responsible for taking care of the tangibles that compose our daily lives---the chores, and work, and lists, but I want to return to taking care of the intangibles that infuse life with love.
I hope to post about my travels with Cuong soon.
Love and Loons,
Ils
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