love letters from my 34th summer

July 13 2003

To A Silly Girl,

Today, I’m sitting in this large room. There is this musical tonal echo of voices bouncing off old gray walls, and I’m smiling like a fool. A generous, smiling, thirty-eight year old man is pressing a coal-like papaya against my ankle, which I messed up several days earlier playing basketball. It suddenly hits me that I’m in China. I’m sitting in a huge kitchen, and loud, fat cooks are walking by and poking my belly and telling me about their daughters. It is all music and wet ink to me. When I laugh, I’m laughing with my whole body. It is been a good 45 minutes since I said anything sarcastic or felt smarter than anyone. (more…)

Some of you wonder what I have been doing since I got back from China . Well, to answer your questions…lots of things. Here are a few of them:

• Safely back in the States, I blew the whistle on rampant and widespread steroid use among China Bloggers.

• Moved in with my current roommate, Brian—a chef, who spends his free time organizing his Grateful Dead tapes geographically according to tour year. Tried to convince him to let it go. Failed.

• I secretly renamed my roommate’s three black cats.

• I finally passed the last of my intestinal worms, named Chen, after a street vender in Hangzhou . I had a simple yet heartfelt ceremony in my back yard. Chen’s memorial service was not well-populated even though I passed out invitations and wrote an obituary for the newspaper. It was in the middle of the week, so I guess people had a lot going on.

• Stole all the pumpkins from my neighbors “Harvest Displays” during the fall and took them to the Salvation Army to cheer the less fortunate. Watched homeless guys throw them at each other for a few hours. Felt bad as a skinny, white-bearded old warrior named “Ace” got a face full of pumpkin while trying to bum a cigarette from a telephone pole.

• Discreetly undertook a plan that would change the way people viewed Accrual Based Accounting forever.

• I had Thanksgiving with my family, and tried to defend the direction of my life so far with my older siblings. Failed.

• I finally got a job—but with a medical collection agency. I was a real go-getter and climbed the company ranks quickly. I even won a free vacation to Hawaii after repossessing three prosthetic arms, a Craftmatic adjustable bed (1001 comfortable sleep positions at the touch of a button), an artificial kidney, seven walkers (assorted colors), a colostomy bag (empty) and a sleep apnea machine after only two weeks on the job. But after I returned from Hawaii , I just didn’t have the stomach for it anymore.

• I began to miss my intestinal worm as I began to gain weight.

• Cleaned out the trunk of my car and found two squirrels (one dead and one alive) and a rare Coke bottle buried under the tomatoes growing near my tire jack.

• I went to 80’s Night at a local club and “brought the funk.” I even asked several bystanders if they had noticed how I had “brought the funk,” and received overwhelming affirmation.

• Worked on the Hubble Telescope for a couple of weeks.

• Tried to “bring the funk” again at 90’s Night but failed.

• I started a Jody Foster Fan Club. I wonder if she even knows I’m alive. If there were just some way I could get her attention…

• I began working as a lobbyist for the powerful, but mysterious Asbestos Lobby. I started to crave the taste of asbestos despite harmful effects. Quit.

• Bought a lottery ticket on a “gut feeling,” but somehow didn’t win.

• “Got served” in an impromptu dance-off while waiting for a table at the Olive Garden.

• Started to work on my novel and update my blog.

I think I should know

when I’m looking at

a picture of me. But instead,

I squint hard, tilt my head

and whisper

vaguely

“that’s me.”

That person isn’t me.

I’ve twirled

in rain-soaked shoes

at a wedding

then argued the

finer points of economics

at a funeral. I’ve

found a sentence here

while misplacing

volumes of words there.

I’ve laughed till my eyes hurt

at jokes in a dialect I’ve never heard,

and cried once or twice almost like

I meant it.

I’ve asked for

and received the kindness of

strangers who seem to

recognize me even though

they’ve never been to America.

I’ve been kicked

getting on a train in Suzhou. I’ve

kissed a pretty girl, cute babies,

old ladies, lost friends, black cats,

a lame dog, and the last paragraph

of a book. The dog kissed me back.

My smallest niece has

held my hand—all her fingers

around one of mine—while

smiling for no reason.

That person looks like me, but he hasn’t

lost enough love, or seen enough

tea leaves, or sang enough sadness.

Not yet.

The Chinese have been

at this awhile. They

have seen murders, experiments,

and plots. They have been betrayed–

betrayed by the sky, by history, by their

own tongues.

They are still here. Deep lines

linger–plowed by rains that

never came, or came too fast,

or came like blood.

And for their trouble they have

a Wall, and a Lake, and

a Language, and buried Cities

guarded by buried

soldiers, and an idea of

Time.

In some places their language

is sung, in others flung; still in

others it’s hummed; and in

more it’s whispered haltingly.

They are still here. Time

is an ancestor that died as

a child.

Time is quiet, silky

tears digging

holes in rock faces.

But they are still here, bent

over slightly, drinking tea

delicately, bouncing all

their possibilites

on their knees.

Bouncing their

rewards hopefully

to the hum of

an idea and

a memory that

stretches like

a Wall, and shimmers

like a Lake in

the spring under

willows and lillies.