A Closed Book

from a ten minute free write on hitRECord

She always was a closed book. And sometimes she would turn away. From me. From everybody. It didn't used to matter though. She'd always turn back. The book would always open and I'd read her while she laughed at all the best parts. But then one day I opened her up and the words were no longer there. A sea of blank pages, shuffling in the breeze.

'You thought you had it all figured out!' she cried, and with that she was gone. Closed off again. Turned away from the world and were you really expecting anything less? 'Someday it'll all make sense.' I heard her voice, giggling in the dark, flickering in and out of perception, but always beyond the range of sight. I didn't know what to do. So I sat down. Flicked open the cover. Started to read the first page.

And as I sat there, flipping the pages of my own story, one at a time, opening myself up to the world, I began to sense her creeping back. 'Just one more story' she seemed to say. And I would start a new chapter, tear a few more pages from my body. I stayed there, in a pool of light with the darkness all around, and I read myself, cover to cover. And as I reached the last chapter she was there again, sitting beside me, a tear running down each cheek.

'Don't cry for me,' I told her. 'My story's almost done.' She wiped the tears from her eyes.

'I'm not crying for you,' she whispered. 'I'm crying for me.' And with those words she opened herself again. And the words were there once more. The story of her life, printed across her pages. And she let me read, out loud, for both of us. Reading of how we were close, and then she turned away. Reading how she was open, and then closed. How she was lost... and then found.

She didn't say a word, not even as I turned the last page. Read the last words. And then I looked up, and saw her eyes closed.

Time is Fluid Here...

So somehow, at the moment I’m in Bryan, Texas. How did that happen?

When I was over in Hong Kong I’d often be asked where I was from. Or more specifically, where ‘home’ is. And I’d stare at people blankly, then muse on the question for a while. Home? What does that even mean? Then they’d ask where my parents lived. Oh. Bryan, Texas. But does that really count as home? It sometimes feels like it, as we’re drinking the fourth of fifth cup of tea of the day and sitting around the back garden in the spring sunshine with the dog. But then I go through the gate and find myself in a wholly foreign land. But this is East Texas! This place is in your bones!

Perhaps. But my soul is still winging it’s way around the world, million miles an hour, looking for a place to land.

The following was written during the journey between Hong Kong and the US last week. And then not sent. I don’t know, I just get distracted sometimes. Oh look, a butterfly…

I’m not gonna rewrite it though. You’ll just have to figure it out. Life moves this way sometimes. Sometimes forwards, sometimes backwards, and then yesterday turns into tomorrow and we look around wondering where today is hiding. It’s all cyclical anyway. Wait long enough and we’ll arrive back at exactly the same spot. Stick with me. We’ll get there.

Flash back.

For those of you out there keeping track of time based on my peregrinations around the globe, go ahead and check another six month block off the calendar. That’s right. I am leaving Hong Kong. Sitting in the airport right now typing this. Although I must confess. I’m not really sure why. Some irresistible urge to close a chapter. But then, I don’t really want to close this chapter. So let’s talk about other things instead. I’ve been traveling a bit. I know. You’re in some faraway place like Hong Kong, and after a few months it becomes home and normal and you have to go see something else out there. So I went to Taipei. That’s in Taiwan. Which is another place that, like Hong Kong, is supposedly a part of China, despite having their own immigration control, customs, currency, and an underlying dislike of the mainland. And yet it’s nominally one nation. How divisive! A setup kind of like America. Bloody Alabamans.

Taipei. It rained the entire time I was there, and I discovered a great coffee scene, so felt perfectly at home. Home in this instance being Seattle. And the food. Sigh… Some of the most amazing street food you could wish for, night markets filled with endless variety… and then you try the stinky tofu. And discover that the smell of sewage is actually emanating from that restaurant right over there on the corner. It’s almost like a self-imposed penance. All of the other food is so amazing, maybe they feel they have to balance it with the strangest, most awful food imaginable. Naturally, I ordered a whole bowl and held my breath while eating it.

I could live in Taipei.

Spent the three weeks surrounding that weekend trip working on the mainland, in the Shenzhen office, assigned to a project team as the token white guy. And no English speakers on the team, except one who worked part-time. Which allowed me to discover that my Mandarin is just good enough to not understand a thing going on. I would sit in on meetings, and be able to understand the framework of the conversation. As in: Architect A- ‘I like …’ Architect B- ‘But I think we should …’ Architect A- ‘Or we could …’ Architect B- ‘But… is better.’ And then I’d come out of the meetings without the foggiest idea of what I was supposed to be doing. I could talk to the servers in the coffee shop near the office though. That’s the important thing.

Iced latte, don’t froth the milk. Please. Xie xie. 

I bailed on work three weeks ago. I mean, if you’re going to sign on for a six month contract, why not make it five and throw yourself on a plane flying somewhere far far away?

Good question. And so I went to Beijing and made a valiant effort to asphyxiate myself the first three days spent there, before it snowed and suddenly the world was made new and the sky, which I didn’t think existed in Beijing, turned out to be lovely and blue. Good day for a trip to the Great Wall. And you know something funny? It really is great. I set myself up to be underwhelmed and overtouristed, but, maybe due to visiting it midwinter, or maybe because we went to a section further from Beijing and the typical tourist trek, but it was a really powerful experience. Even if it’s unfathomable. Or maybe because it’s unfathomable. You stand on a segment of this immense wall, and look at it winding its way over hills and into valleys and around mountains, sometimes turning at right angles to itself. And you wonder, whose great idea was this? Of all the possible exercises in futility of the human existence, this one is undoubtedly the coolest.

But I couldn’t live in Beijing.

Followed that jaunt with a few days spent in Shanghai. I spent my time strolling along the river and tree lined avenues in perpetual rain, so felt perfectly at home. The reference to home being in this case Oxford. Keep up. I’m not entirely sure why, but I loved Shanghai. I didn’t do much there, besides meet with friends and stroll the streets and museums, nor did I get the impression there was as much to do as, say, Beijing. And it’s still not the most idyllic place in the world if you’re into the whole breathing thing. But still. It felt right.

I could live in Shanghai.

Oh look. An episode of How I Met Your Mother. And only five more hours to go on this flight. You know, stars viewed from 30,000 feet are right next door to spectacular. Time to shut off the netbook and fall asleep staring out the window. Maybe I’ll dream a dream for you. And then we’ll send this message from somewhere Stateside, seeing as I’m now finishing typing it somewhere over the North Pacific. These are transient times we live in.

Home tomorrow. Home in this case being Austin. But I don’t know what’s next. I know a lot of things that might be next, but I don’t know.

I kinda like it that way.

Flash forward. 

And so we come full circle. Back in the present. And it’s time now to dash. I’m pretty sure the kettle is on. Anyone else for a cup of tea?

All my love,

Davey

An Ocean Away. Again.

Things are changing. They have a habit of doing that, despite our best efforts. And don’t ask how it came about. It’s kind of a random, convoluted story that sounds more interesting in my head. Suffice to say, I’m moving to Hong Kong. Incidentally, Hong Kong in Mandarin is Xiānggǎng. Which sounds nothing at all like Hong Kong. I think it’s Hoānggǎng in Cantonese. Which is closer, but I could have just made that up. I don’t speak either language. This is going to be interesting.

Anyway, after a year and a half in Seattle I felt I was due for some upheaval. No sense in getting complacent, or even comfortable. So I’m going back to that fickle mistress, architecture. Changing by going back. Everything’s cyclical. Which doesn’t explain why I’m leaving a city I love, a week after summer seems finally to have arrived.

So it goes.

This is the trouble. I want too many things. And there’s not enough time for them all. A friend once said I was a good traveler. Because I wasn’t running from anything. But I am. I’m running from Time. Or rather from her inexorable progress. ‘Good luck with that!’ comes the cry from the heckler in the gallery.

Yeah. Same to you bud.

This then, is how it’s going to go. You’re included on this email because you graced the last travel blog list. Or because I’ve met you since then and it behooved me to add you to the list. Or maybe you’ve stumbled across this on Facebook. Either way, if you’d like to continue to receive updates of my life in Hong Kong, reply now. Think of it as a reverse unsubscribe feature. You’ll be unsubscribed simply by not doing anything! Would that all spam worked that way.

Presumably curious things will happen to me. That or I’ll make up curious stories about things that didn’t happen to me. Either way, we’ll be in touch.

Best,

David

Pinpricks of Light

She told me we were going to cheat Time. Cheat Time by walking backwards and she took my hand and pulled me closer and said I can make time stand still and with those words the world froze. The birds paused in the air, cars on the street, and a leaf falling past us froze there. Froze, until I reached out and clutched it and gave it to her and I said I believe you. I always believe you even when I know you’re lying. And she laughed and spun around with her arms outstretched and caught a snowflake on her tongue. And the wind whipped a flurry around us. So we pulled our scarves tighter and we ran. Running to not be standing still. Running from the cold and out of the wind it’s warmer but it’s never as nice as you want it to be. It never lives up to it.

Then she laughed and it cast a spell over us. And we skipped together, faster and faster along the sidewalk until we couldn't sustain it anymore and we fell on the hill, rolling and tumbling and sliding down to the bottom. And we lay at the foot of the hill, in pain but isn’t pain good at least it lets you know you’re alive. And she asked if I was alright? Alright? I’m alive. I was always more alive with her. And it wasn’t always because of the pain. Come fly with me and I took her hand and we ran. We ran and ran, fleeing from everything behind us and rushing blindly towards whatever was before us and then suddenly we arrived and she threw herself down on the ground rolled onto her back and said she could count the stars. But I told you! I told you there were as many as there are grains of sand and she points out to me the constellations. See? See? A sandcastle in the sky.

Head on my shoulder ankles crossed finger pointing to the sky I wish I may I wish I might have the wish I wish tonight. The star falls and I guess I guess it was never a star at all. But she says she wished it out of the sky. I did that and sometimes we’re so proud of ourselves. Have you seen what I’ve done? Not just anybody could do that you know. Not just anybody can do the things I do. Not just anybody knows the things I know.

Yesterday I knew what tomorrow would bring. And then today appeared and it was all wrong. There was only one way it was supposed to be and it’s not this way.

She had it right you know… Sometimes it’s better to watch the stars and not think about what they mean, so they seem beautiful not scary. And time doesn’t seem to be moving so fast then, either.

Sometimes we’d lie back on the dock watching the stars, making up our own constellations when we ran out of others to name. Untangling a line to the stars. Counting the satellites passing overhead, and wishing on the shooting falling dying stars. And the Heavens opened, shedding tears for the loss of a single soul.

She wouldn’t cry though. No more tears she said with a smile, and a dry sob racked her body. Then she punched me on the arm and said ‘don’t you dare feel sorry for me.’ I wasn’t feeling sorry for you dear. I was feeling sorry for me.

You’ll do the leaving, I’ll be the left behind, and a satellite arcs through the infinite sky above us.

Awakening

Just killing time today, in the hope that tomorrow will produce the next big thing. There are daffodils on all the tables. How marvelous. Why, Spring must be here. Or at least just around the corner. So we’ll take some time to make some sense, and then throw caution to the wind. For a little while anyway. Find a way to change it all, and won’t it be glorious when we can just let it all go? I’m gonna see if it changes anything. Or if it changes everything. Find a hole, and fill it. Spend all my time filling holes, then digging them out again. If only to keep on doing something. Keep on moving, even slowly. I was never one for standing still. The world goes too slowly by like that. Better to get it all out in one mad rush. Run just as fast as you can. But it doesn’t feel like we’re going all that fast. ‘Oh but we are’ she says to me. Million miles an hour, only to feel stationary.

Woops.

Relativity. What a bastard. I’m moving a million miles an hour, but so’s the ground I’m standing on. So much for the illusion of speed. I had a great idea about that once, then it turned out to be not that cool in the end. Don’t you just hate it when that happens? How easy it is to make mistakes. Too easy. And easy to not learn from them as well. That’s just sort of the way it goes. We blinker ourselves. Operate with a selective memory. Call it willful amnesia. This moment is the first moment of a new awakening. No, this moment is the beginning of that awakening. No, this moment…

Make me a wish on a velvet sky and yesterday was my favourite of all possible days, except it no longer exists. Maybe it never existed. Maybe the fragment of it lodged in my mind is all there is left. Or maybe yesterday exists in six billion different manners. Six billion fragments that each claim to be the true yesterday. Yeah, good luck sorting that mess out. Those multiple universes trail back behind us, ever seeking the source. We’re not closing down those untrodden paths with every step we take, we’re opening up the divergence of our memories of experience. My experience and yours, two separate physical things. Wrap ‘em up in bubble wrap and put them carefully away in a box marked ‘later.’

And then someday we'll stumble across that box, pull it out of the attic, brush the dust off and carry it downstairs. Then, one by one, we’ll decide if each piece inside is worth hanging on to. Maybe yours are, mine aren’t. Or the other way around. My goodness but how sad to have nothing left of yesterday but a memory. And even that fades with time. All we have to make up ourselves, our selves, is a cluster of memories that even now begin to dissipate, like smoke on the wind. Like I’m watching myself, a smoke signal rising into a clear blue sky. I used to be whole, then I forgot that little piece of me. I forgot it! How inconvenient is that? And like that, a little piece of me vanished, poof!, into thin air. Time to change identities. Mold a new piece to patch over the old. Got to keep the semblance at least of being whole. If only so that nobody realizes how different we are. No no, we’re all exactly the same. Why, just look at my human shaped collection of moments and discoveries and clung-to sentiments. Then I got a haircut.

Everything changes.

Latte-ing It Up

Have you seen the sky today? No? No, neither have I... There’s one too many damned clouds in the way. But it’s not even raining. Unless leaves count as rain, in which case it’s a hurricane out there. Red and orange and gold and brown and, yes!, green, swirling around outside the window. It’s kind of pretty, but I wouldn’t want to go out in it. I mean, my cap might blow away. And then I’d have to chase it down the street and it would get caught up in one of the tornadoes of leaves and swirl up into the sky and...

I could be chasing it for weeks.

There’s no wind in here. Shut the door and the wind stays quietly outside. Well trained, and even if it does strain at the leash or bark as people walk past, beyond that it bloody well behaves itself. Knows it won’t get a biscuit if it doesn’t.

Did you know that yesterday is the same as tomorrow? No no, true story. It alternates you see. We have yesterday, then today, then tomorrow, which is the same as yesterday, so then, by default, we have to go back to today the day after tomorrow, and then yesterday the day after that. See? It’s all based on wave theory. Very legit.

A car just blew past on the street, swirling in the wind as it fell from the tree.

If I look up at the sky right now, it appears red and gold, like the breath of a dragon. And it has nothing to do with the tree I’m looking through. Sometimes the sky just is that colour. Even in the middle of the day. You wanna talk confusing?

When I’m old, I want to be able to walk quickly. None of this crossing the street only halfway before the walk signal changes to don’t walk. I’m gonna fucking skip.

Would you like to carve a pumpkin with me? I’ve got some Styrofoam, we could carve out a mold, then fill it with latex and, after a quick spray of orange paint, mass produce pre-carved pumpkins. It’s a genius idea, except it might have already been done. Prob’ly by someone with less imagination, just a quicker one. Too many things have already been done. We should go back to the time of cavemen. Man but we would flippin’ rock their world. Every seen one o’ these?! I would say as I drew a circle in the sand. And they’d grunt in astonishment, before revitalizing their entire economic structure.

Kudos to me.

This Happened Once Before

Sing me something new. And it doesn't have to involve anything that makes you feel uncomfortable. Although it would be better if it did. There's so much more tension when comfort isn't involved. But it's really as you like it. Don't let me force my own conventions on you. They're better left to me. And I'll figure out what to do with them later.

Careful. Don't look so rushed. This is a place one comes to to relax. To find a communal sense of flow, and go with it. To go with the chipped unfinished brickwork wall with the crumbling plaster. The antique mirrored dresser serving as a condiments table. The perfectly matched tables and chairs, interspersed with a wholly random assortment of sofas and coffee tables. The clientele, cut from an identical mould that still allows each to maintain some tiny expression of individuality. We're all facsimiles of each other, because we embellish our differences in the same way. Oh go soak your head. Yes, yes, good idea. But the floor's wooden and it just wouldn't do at all to get it wet. I'll soak my head later, when I'm outside. And I'll look forward to it. Nothing beats the heat like a good head soaking.

Hurry up and wait for the next song to play. Something to keep me awake. Something that will give me a feeling I've never had before. I want to feel that everything I've ever felt before was misconstrued reality, and that life really starts here. And it might. It might start here. That might be the truest thing I've said all day. That everything is a lie. I like that idea. The only truth I speak is slanderous. 'You're a liar!' I cried out to myself. But at least I have something to say. Too true, too true. And if that's the case, bring on the lies. To be entertained is ever worth more than hearing the truth.

There's a fly on the wall.

Sometimes, if you squint your eyes, and listen really carefully, you can be that fly on the wall. And catch all the faux-secrets of the myriad people passing by just beneath you. Listen in on all those secrets that can only be divulged amidst the hustle and bustle of life. Amidst the thousand concealing conversations of the uncaring masses. Listen closer. '... ..... .. ....' And I couldn't have said it better myself. Remember those words. They might one day change your life. And now let's all nod our heads and smile.

Coffee only lasts for so long. After that there's only conversation to keep us going. And whatever lingering feelings we can't keep bottled up. Emotions? Check. Emotions in check? Get back to me on that, and I'm sure I'll have an amazing story to tell you about emotional repression and the withholding of feelings. Varying degrees of life getting in the way. But did you see that? Did you see the way he looked at me? Smug little prick. But maybe that's all he has. Be smug about nothing and you've got something. We all need something. And whatever you can imagine, whatever you can dream into life, well... that's enough said. Say too much and it stops meaning anything. All the meaning gets washed away by the flood of following words.

I'll follow you down. And wouldn't we then call you the noblest of creatures? But not that far. For there is after all a difference between nobility and the foolhardy act of one who doesn't know any better. Thinking that, it's probably better if you don't follow me down at all. It's really not that far after all, and it'll be quicker to come back up if you're not blocking the return. There there. There's a good lad. Better luck next time, and luck has nothing to do with it, but as long as you believe it does, then you'll do alright.

Right. Now, let me tell you a story....