our moving castle, part one

China, in chapters. Transcription of journal entries from March 27th to April 14th. Many messy words and minute details (see meals), but thought that they had to be told to some one. Endless thanks to the Liu family for the trip of a lifetime. 

3/27/13.

midnight arrival in Qingdao

I couldn't sleep last night. I had the chasing dream, the one in which the large, muscular, inescapable man hunts me, to kill. But when I woke up, the morning was a beautiful one indeed. The trembling, quandarious night always unfolds into a half-lidded, loving morning, light and white. I stretched time, 8:30 to 11:30, by making pancakes and braiding my hair. Then I slathered my parents with "I love you"s, enough to last them for two weeks. For our time remaining is so little, and the hours of contact during the day so scant. But my departure grants us fewer hours than normal.

Then I saw Samuel and Ariel and Mr. Liu, and in no time we were at SFO, in all of its light-blue, sine-curve glory. After a smooth passage through security, we settled into a Japanese restaurant. The sushi (shrimp tempura, unagi, avocado) was quite delicious (avocado soft!), and the ramen had a pleasant chew and a soup with depth. Samuel had crispy chicken teriyaki, and our orders were echoed by the company opposite. It was at this nameless eatery that Samuel and I frantically refreshed pages and rooted through emails for passwords to college portals on wifi that was otherwise occupied. My heart accelerated as the letters loaded -- two rejections (kindly phrased in "not able" w/ sorries). I was numb for a while, until we boarded the plane (which we held up -- arrived 5 minutes before posted take off time). As I sent an update text to Mom and Dad, the stupid tears with minds of their own trickled down, as thought I had to type the news to know it. Well, I know it now, I know it truly, and I do not resent it. I move along, phased, but re-phaseable. I hope my parents are too. 

There's not much to say -- I don't want to revisit that heavy, tired state following rejection. Somehow, with a half-hour, God -- working through His people, past and present -- has made all whole again, and hopeful. I trust in His plan, even when I cannot make out the path and width, and rejoice for others as they walk along theirs. Now I have certification from these schools, replies that do more than sit on the shelf and fade to insignificance, but instead move one to action every time I lay eyes on them. There's more to do, there's always more to do, and right now there's a little more than usual, as usual. It's all forward from here. Thank you God for amazing grace. Music of the day: Shostakovich Piano Concerto no. 1, 3rd movement (absolute exuberance), Barber Adagio for Strings (supplied by Samuel to aid mourning), Dusty Blue... And of course, the persistent hum of airplane that doesn't seem so loud anymore.  

3/30/14. 
Indescribable... How to recapture the last two days? They have been times of incredible joy, of new depths of insecurity, of comfort and loneliness, of warmth from all that I've met. I've opened email after hard-sought (on internet rations) email from colleges that, after thoughtful deliberation, politely said no. But every minute eases the disappointment and brings encouragement -- I had a dream of Middlebury, and [my classmate] was in it too, maybe because we are both not yet settled (his rejection quite affected me, I guess). But as I talk to Samuel's relatives, the more I love the idea of immersing myself in languages at Midd, of being able to communicate with all. [mushy thoughts] while sitting on the rocky Qingdao shore, we decided to decide without considering the other. But from shores opposite or near...

moveable feast

After exploring Kang Youwei's home (which featured his souvenirs from every continent), we scattered onto the sand. 大伯伯 took them to play volleyball. Then we returned home to steaming plates of fresh dumplings on 奶奶's round table, supplemented by all sorts of beautiful dishes crafted masterfully by aunts. I downed 14 dumplings (pork, too!!)!!!11 And they were velvet packets of garlic-soaked goodness. The more garlic you take here, the louder the approval. Garlic sauce is initiation, as is the beer.

The. Beer. Olala. The first full cup of beer (two, in fact) of my existence. And if you can't tell, I just had another one! Ah. I feel las a lovely, loose, goose. The ink flows from my potent pen!

Napped last afternoon, and rose to practice piano at the neighbor's flat across the floor. Her space was spotless, the piano pleasant and muggy voiced, as was the room steamy. Her daughter used the computer next to me while I ran through warm-up and Haydn, striving for spotlessness. My constance, my constance. Practiced 'til sweaty, then headed home for a meal of fried fish and steamed fish and ___ fish and more fresh dumplings. Ahhhhh. Slept at 9:30, like an infant.

it's a city by the sea

This morning, ate breakfast with newly arrived Timmy and handmaiden. Then we visited the cemetery: a manicured garden oasis in a concrete desert. The rocks, thoughtfully placed throughout, housed speakers which played soap-opera-soundtrack-style music. We placed flowers (I held wrappers) at the graves, prayed. They thanked God for his peace. We exited in paris. Whenever I partake in these happenings, I gain much-needed perspective, and the limited trials in my life take their proper place, but small instances of small significance (even Snapchat stories) knock me back into deep, catatonic doldrums. Thankfully, I wake quickly.

Church: at home. They sing and pray. Ariel and I sing in English and said 阿門. They were absorbed, focused, passionate. A circle of brothers and sisters, a link in the chain. Before lunch, Samuel and I walked up the road to the open-air market. Little kiosks spilt from every doorway, bearing black rice and crayfish and butt (of pork). We got a strawberry ice cream ("Breyer's!") and scuttled home for fancy lunch at teppenyaki place. 8+ courses (each an animal), sashimi, starfruit, ice cream buffet. A whole brick of yellow butter (I love oil) and giggles over handsome cheekbones, adam's appleses. New friend: his basketball playing added points to the college entrance exam. Sedated afternoon of nap and piano and browsing the blackish market, topped off by a dinner of clam soup (and a wee cup of beer). Samuel and I found a talking nook, a curtained extension where laundry is hung to dry. Two chairs, one rocks. A wide window through which Samuel shone a laser when he was small. Now, Timmy does. Samuel's dad shared reunion wisdom: look forward. Compare less. Give hope, and encourage old friends to be better than they were before.

Monday, fonday. After breakfast (麵疙瘩, dumpling knots) I walked with 大伯母up the nearby mountain that Qingdao folk used for defense (little stone forts, tunnels, checker walls). People kicked hacky-sacks, did taichi, meditated. The air was cool, was warmed by walkers. Every few paces we admired the view: an old city, a new one, and the sea (white as the foggy sky). She held my hand and lead me along me like a mama. On the way home, we stepped into little markets, convened at home and headed for Koreatown, very silver and posh. Samuel recounted his great uncle's stories from that morning's interview as we went. Each store was lovely, soft, baby-toned, Korean. People demonstrated fitness bikes outside to loud K-pop. Ate gratifying Western meal at Pizza Hut (again, shiny and granite). 

Qingdao colors

Before schmoozing with oro, though, Samuel and I took another walk, in the other direction. Concrete jungle, cement rivers. Broken glass, abandoned high heel, stamped advertisements for graffiti. We watched loud elementary schoolers at recess play basketball, did air-walking at play structure (they're placed thoughtfully throughout town). An evening of 韭菜盒子，more nook, dancing with the small person, and Cloud Atlas. Ariel had a fever that abated by the beautiful morning. I write as they pray for breakfast.   

the snail and the cuckoo / the stjepan and the luka

It came time for me to sight-read. Olya's daughters were joyfully and unquietly jumping on the trampoline; she rose from her stool and strode over to the sliding glass door to shush them. I turned to today's piece, called "The Snail and the Cuckoo," and took note of the usual suspects: key and time signature, tempo,  dynamics and accidentals (I love sight-reading, you see, because the first time is always the freshest).

Live stream (requiring excess ellipses): Time to deliver! 1-2-3, 1-2-3, nice and walky. Peculiar choice of notes, though, and wonky meter shifts... Oi, a tie! Forgot to hold it. A stifled stumble, and a giggle... from Olya. A giggle? My stoic teacher never lets slip a stray sound... No matter, proceed. Here's a crescendo... Grow, grow, carry it to the edge of doom... A snort, from Olya. Do I really sound that awful??

I bear the snail and cuckoo out to the end, enduring the poorly stifled shouts of laughter from over my shoulder. At times, I join in, my titters swelling to forte as well. Olya dabs her eyes with a tissue as I slump on the bench, mystified.

"What was so funny?" 

"Ha, uh hah! F-f-floating about w-without any form, hee hee, like gormless... Globs!" 

"Oh, so... the snail and the cuckoo." 

"Hee hee! I can't take it! I haven't laughed like this all year!" 

True, the notes plodded along pointlessly, and were scattered across the staff like spilt rice. This made my teacher laugh like a maniac. She went on to describe a concert from her youth, during which she laughed so hard that she had to leave. Until today, I only knew of music's power to move. Now I know of its power to move dignified matrons onto the carpet, where they roll. One day I'll get the joke.  

Now, on another, far cooler note, I share with you two treats from the 2Cellos: their newest upload, and an old gem that Julianne showed me :). These sorts of sounds spill off of the stage.

   

pallindrome

 cracks in the plaster don't solve themselves.

Her glasses rest on a bed of burst veins. Her eyes, too, are framed by red wreaths. Her cheeks, ruddy as apples, porous as winter pears, fold into neatly sectioned curtains. They rest beneath a sheer veneer of powder. Her lucky nose is shaped like ancient currency, falsely indicative of prosperity. She looks upward, and I see cross-stitches of crimson. Still, she makes a smile for me.

Her sponsor says she'll burst, soon -- a wrathful grape grown heavy. The vessels in her brain will pop and seep; erasing attachments to us, self, God. Like her tormentor, she'll live on a mattress, unfruitful and irritable, trapped in a tiresome cycle, watching the toilet leak and irritate the paint downstairs. But she protests. She shouts back to her critic-confidant, then takes a pill, the same ones prescribed to her centanarian father.

It's the weight of fifteen years that rolls her shoulders forward, leaving a thick boulder where neck should be. Knobbed fingers reach for the crack in the paint. Back arches, boulder cracks. Then she hangs from to the deep indent of the life-line cut into her palms.

Rewind. She hangs onto the deep indent of the life-line cut into her palms.

The canister of diuretics flies into the waste-bin. She seeks a plumber for the leaky pipes in her body, nimble needles to knit them back together, a seamstress to smooth over crimson cross-stitches: he who knit her in her mother's womb.

Volatility dwindles so swiftly that she feels emboldened to approach him. She kneels by the mattress, brushes some hair out of way. A whisper, a nod. A vow to wake, after a moment's more rest. Now, she argues, and tears the crier from the crypt. The pair plunges once again into a sea of code and connections, special skills and speculation. While the grapes are young, they guard; at the peak of ripeness, they reap. The cycle reverses.

Her lips are limber and limpid; her glance glows white. Time tastefully fulfills her nose's prophecy, never granting excess, but heeding her need. There's a glow, matte and steady, that inflates the cheeks. Her eyes tuck away the yuletide laurels gules, and peer through patient lenses. Those eyes that watched the paint peel and broke free from trance.       

pastiche

Poetry: the premeditated overflowing of questionable emotions recollected in test-induced haste. Listen as you read :)

Ode to the Fugue
from the author's hearing Vivian play Chromatic Fantasy & Fugue in d minor.

I dreamt of an Abyssinian maid,
who on a clavichord played
a chromatic fantasy by Bach.

All that's best of loud and soft
Met in its tempo and its form;
A venerable fugue which with every turn
Denied attention to Keats' precious urn.

Over arpeggiated mountains and figured bass*
Pulsed a song of mellow grace,
as steadily as my darling's chest palpates.

Each note, precisely placed
to provoke contrapuntal motion,
A sunless sea of sonorous sounds --
Abluted by priests into a mellifluous ocean.

The subject** wandered lonely as a cloud
momently stumbling upon a host of golden cadences!
Softly I sank into this bed of cadential joy.

The swell of every mighty chord
struck my heart like Bruce Lee's foot a board;
As consecutive notes ascend,
urging in the end --
I tugged the fugue from Time!

But alas, after three minutes' war
The maid re-folded her hands
And the music slipped beneath fleeting dream-sands.

*characteristic of Baroque music -- the clear notation of harmonic progression over which a soloist improvises.
**In a fugue, the main melodic figure is called the subject.

anatomy of a break

To commemorate the past few days of blissful breakage (of attendance, bread, and red-envelope bills, that is). 

Friday 

They see the sea. At the aquarium, she finds him seated, watching the otters blow silver bubbles. A ceiling of mackerel, a wall of water: the bounds of the monstrous mobster-tuna's patrol. Schools of children, likely on field trips, clot the exhibits. They flee the flood for fried shrimps and frizzled mushrooms, among other stolen frissons. Eighteen and eager, they sign their own waivers, and bike away the blue day. They find a shelf in the rocky shore and read, legs dangling into tide pools. Adhesive Dippin' Dots (banana was best) tide them through the evening's engagement. Festivities carry over from school stage to kitchen, as they bop to Crazy Indian Video, with zip-up sweaters for saris. Discovery: he can still fit into pink laundry basket. He gives her roses and salted chocolate squares, which her brother eats for breakfast.

Saturday

She sketches to the grating Song of Auntie S, which blasts up the stairwell: 

Verse 1: This house must sell! 

Chorus: 小咪, you are in deep [poo-poo]!

Verse 2: Escrow1031Exchange!

Chorus x10.

She gets a great deal of drawing done, though. Several hours later: she is startled from sweet slumber by a pair of fragrant arms, belonging to none other than Cat. An inebriated Cat, in fact. In a small, decorative hat (almost). And that was that.  

Sunday

The Cat feels better in the morning. After church, they take The Cat for a walk at the duck-pond park, which is drained due to drought. The Cat hops into the cement mire, flaps her elbows, and transforms into a duck. Her brother savors the scene with a Snapchat.      

Monday

Three women on a squashy yellow couch watch Joaquin Phoenix pseudo-snuggle with Scarlett Johansson. She is sandwiched by Auntie S and the Cat. She wonders if men of the slight future will wear high-waisted pants, and if Los Angeles shall take on shades of peach and bisque. 

Tuesday

A blissful morning passes at the piano bench. What begins as an innocent lunch-date morphs into an escape to the City with the Big Red Bridge. They face each other on the train, pocketing stares; they walk in circles, not minding. With the swiftness of a coursing river, [Shang and Mulan] sneak into a glossy office building and ride the elevator to the top floor, where they encounter a ping-pong table and a conference. A trip to Ghirardelli yields salted-chocolate samples (Valentine's Day loss regained!). On the train home, they face backwards.            

Wednesday

She cinches the working-morning with a dumpling lunch, then bounces out the door / up a mountain with ☃ and a young padawan. The hills, normally clothed in flaxen fields, wear shawls of scraggly gray grain. Cheery chatter distracts from distance. He is propelled by Hi-Chews; she, by he; and the padawan by that springiness eternal. Animal behavior studies: a boy gleefully spanks his brother. A quick visit to Oceania: the bunny is not in, though winter's chill is gone. Summer is coming (hai-yah, House Stark!). 

That night, she dines with Jubbly: a pot of melted cheese (not fondue, but fundidos) and banana pancakes. They sneak off to Target, sigh over Lindt truffles of every cocoa percentage, deliberate between Cadbury Creme Eggs or nail polish, and rush home to process purchases by way of pie-hole.

poems into pixels

Poems like these make standardized tests enjoyable. Had to share.

The world is a white bowl, the continents are carnations.
Finger-painted on iPad because stylus went into hiding :(. 

The Poems of Our Climate (1977)

by Wallace Stevens

I

Clear water in a brilliant bowl,

Pink and white carnations. The light

In the room more like a snowy air,

Reflecting snow. A newly-fallen snow

At the end of winter when afternoons return.

Pink and white carnations – one desires

So much more than that. The day itself

Is simplified: a bowl of white,

Cold, a cold porcelain, low and round,

With nothing more than the carnations there.

II

Say even that this complete simplicity

Stripped one of all one’s torments, concealed

The evilly compounded, vital I

And made it fresh in a world of white,

A world of clear water, brilliant-edged,

Still one would want more, one would need more,

More than a world of white and snowy scents.

III

There would still remain the never-resting mind,

So that one would want to escape, come back

To what had been so long composed.

The imperfect is our paradise.

Note that, in this bitterness, delight,

Since the imperfect is so hot in us,

Lies in flawed words and stubborn sounds.

muah (ha ha)!

Yet another collaboration with my dear Julianne (woolianne) in Lit class! Today's exercise required us to churn out two sonnets in a half-hour. Sadly, we had barely finished the first quatrain of each before Madame Teacher collected them. In need of closure, I rushed home to complete the Shakespearean sonnet here (never mind Petrarch). Thus, I present to you Sonnet I, inspired by numerous after-school adventures at CVS Pharmacy, sub-titled "MAC Viva Glam IV" or "The Case for Lip Lacquer":

Within the garden of your pink visage,
The two-lipped tulip breaketh barren soil;
Though some would say it bare makes best corsage,
Gild them instead with hydrolyzèd oil.
Make no mistake, do not equate her to
Those ball-point instruments incarnadine --
The errant marks and quarks she does not woo,
Rather enhances character with shine. 
As pilgrims' palms and flushèd cheeks do meet,
A crimson cape seeks contours to caress;
Hark, hear her from cylindric bed entreat, 
Dost thou intend to waste her coy largesse?
When winter maketh lips Grand Canyon-shaped,
Ensure they be in blushing curtain draped.

... Our early Valentine's Day salute to you. XO