在雨中观景一颗缓慢的心 Rudimentary Knowledge

[asmalldot]

yellow

Something was leaking from the neighbor’s garage. I noticed it when I went out to smoke in the back parking lot. I only smoked in times of celebration or great stress, and all of it had to be done without my roommates seeing. At that present moment I was stressed, I had just sent a long text to Avanthi explaining why I kept taking her seltzer, I was going through a tough time, I thought it was communal, I was anxious and unstimulated all the time and the violence of the fizzy water had been really helpful, almost therapeutic. She hadn’t responded.

  It was coming out of the cracks between the roof and the wall: yellow, not quite solid and not quite liquid, it looked a bit like styrofoam was bursting from the room within. I wondered if I should do anything. It was a bad habit of mine to encounter a problem and then to jettison it from my brain, until it reached catastrophic levels of damage. But this didn’t seem like my problem. So I left it alone.

  I went out to smoke a few days later. Avanthi had been avoiding me, she said that she “needed some space.” I had gotten her a 16-pack of La Croix as an apology, but it had been sitting under the kitchen table completely untouched.

  There was now yellow leaking on the ground outside the garage. I touched it with one of my slippers—it was soft and springy.

[asmalldot]

from friends

M told me that her aunt had found an injured squirrel on the road in front of her driveway, so she had picked it up, intending to move it to safety. But the squirrel had latched on fiercely to her aunt’s finger and could not be shaken off. So her aunt strangled the squirrel, and was sorry.

K told me she went back home for a few months, she couldn’t stand the smallness and meanness of the apartment she’d once shared with her ex-boyfriend. She left, in her wake, thirty-some houseplants, which she figured would die a tragic but also satisfying death. What she didn’t expect was for her ex-boyfriend to come by the apartment to water them. Then, without speaking to her, he gave them away. So when K returned, she found the sills empty. That’s why she couldn’t forgive him: he’d stolen her chance to give their breakup the ugly symbolic death it deserved.

[asmalldot]

bday party

A great many things happened that fall. Kit, my older sister, had graduated from college in the spring and was now home all the time. I didn’t know what to do about this development, it was puzzling to me. There was an atmosphere of sourness in the house, of waiting. I imagined a great shimmering bubble between Kit and our mother. It could pop at any time. But every night at the dinner table Kit said grace with gusto, my mother nodding along to every word. She made lavish meals throughout summer and fall: we ate wobbly steamed egg, big scallops stuffed with garlic and glass noodles, hand-wrapped wontons floating among tiny salted shrimp. I couldn’t understand whether she wanted Kit to stay or leave.

Kit was sweet to me, if somewhat distracted, like it didn’t occur for her to have a sister but she was glad when she could remember. Most of the time she spent in her room, where I could hear her murmuring quietly on the phone. Sometimes she wasn’t home when I got back from school, and it would be up to our mother to say grace, looking determinedly away from the empty seat. I would hear the Honda Civic back into the driveway as I was falling asleep.

[asmalldot]

arctic fires

Cold tonight. Cold every night. Feel it in the bones. Better not start at the light. Never matters anyhow. Dream soundly. Dream of lakes and tall blades of grass. Sinking elbows into clover. Jessa so large in view, smiling, blinking. Ache without reason. The park at night. Cars and cars going by.   

Bell, one time. Up with a groan.   

Not gone home. Not gone home in a long time. Back of lids thin and hostile. Can’t remember rising without the sun in the eyes.   

Seen it for a reason. Rise no morning in sight. Concept forgotten. Climb down steady without creak, Clyde still stirring below. Must have been a good dream.    

No water for teeth. Remember runningwater. Toothpaste powder goes in, spat out. The grime lingers. Not to be thought of.   

The long metal table. Shifts the tray over image. Face might as well not be owned. Can’t be helped. Clyde slides in, tray clatters. Breakfast is sparing. Never thought of it if can be helped. Could be coarse bread or potato, don’t think of it. No one speaks, just eats. Mornings stay for us, before we’re retrieved and delivered into bright abyss of day.   

Suits on, one long zipper. Emyko comes with a clipboard and a nod. Wagons loaded. Slide into the driver’s seat. Driving this week. Circuits check next cycle. Groan of doors. Bracing.   

We go out on the cold burning land.

[asmalldot]

What seemed so elusive before arrives in front of you with ease and yet you’re drawn back into the same patterns of dissolution! 

[asmalldot]

chang-gen

I had not thought about Jinjin in many years. I told Big Du as much, when he showed me her Chang-gen profile. But it occurred to me immediately that this was a lie, since she appeared frequently in my mind—but so shrouded over with unease that any thoughts were quickly flattened, until it became reasonable to believe they had never existed at all.   

We were getting a late dinner in Ginza, after a company party. It was our custom to convene in the food court after staying late at work: I had a Japanese chicken curry, Big Du a fish stew with pickled mustard greens. I had the fizzy feeling I often had after these gatherings, I felt uniquely charmed, like someone had cracked life before me for the taking. Big Du was agreeable company, he had the quality of making you feel witty, when he was certainly always the funniest person in the room. Then, towards the end of our dinner, as I began to feel heavy and low-lidded, we wordlessly vacated our conversation towards our separate phones. Big Du absently pushed the greens around on his plate, gaped-mouth. I read the recent press on Chang-gen, and felt swollen with pride.   

“Boss,” Big Du said, interrupting my reverie, “Have you seen this?” He angled his phone towards me, looking serious.   

It was a Chang-gen profile. “What’s wrong? Everything looks normal.”   

Big Du shook his head, and stuck the phone more urgently in my face. “Look—it’s Jinjin.”   

“What?” I said, “What do you mean?” I took the phone from him—but it was Jinjin, I hadn’t recognized her short brown hair, or her somber expression. Below the photo—someone had purchased a ring of flowers that buzzed around her face—it detailed her top ranked grievers, and then her afterlife items.   

“I looked it up,” Big Du said, "and found the obituary. It said she died over a year ago, in her hometown. A car accident, she was on her way back from seeing her parents." 

I didn’t say anything. I thought of the wet of her mouth, and had the sensation like I was falling.

[asmalldot]

My body also has a train

我身体里也有一列火车

Original poem by 余秀华

My body also has a train

But I never show people. It’s not a secret

The moon could be round a hundred times: it couldn’t move me.

But there are those who get on

those who get off

those who drop fruit peels out the window

and hankerchiefs. Some say it has to do with spring

Passing through and not to stop

It’s that small plain, dew-dazed in the wind 

The low grass house, smoke wobbling

That little boy’s bent head, sitting backlit, tears undry

Flower big-eyed in hand 

Looking at him 

The train in my body, paint already mottled

Slowly, lets drunkards, beggars, peddlers, or some leader

On and off 

The train in my body never veers off course

Permits snow, wind, mudslides, and mocking  

[asmalldot]

So we've gotten old, aren't you a little bit moved

我们都老了，你就没有一点点感动吗

Original poem by 余秀华

No longer games, no longer madly running to your building 

No longer the shock of the waterbird by riverbed, facing west slant of sun

And no longer winding talk of when the wind rose, we got used to pressing down skirts and thoughts at the same time 

Slower down stairs, slower to turn on the TV, tomorrow’s plans 

Small hearted & heavy 

Floating clouds passed, running water passed 

Of course, rumors have fallen 

Oh—you’ve rusted, you’ve been beautiful 

In the yard a tree with great sheets of shade 

So we’ve gotten old 

I still say I love you 

 Oh—this is so many years of careful thought

[asmalldot]

变得多复杂，街上的暴力或者自己的growing pains 还是能感到（生活）发出的光线。 跟宾宾和明明在一起，做饭洗碗，嘻嘻哈哈的，好像就取回一片家的感觉。住在小时候的家里，看到了爸妈年轻时的影子，他们的功劳 感动和后悔 起来看到宾宾在外面watering the grass, 简直就像一个老爸一样。 夕阳 我们都长大了。

[asmalldot]

一片模糊，想回到一开始的状态：就像幼儿认识世界。眼睛长大一点，不用害怕，还是要勇往直前。

[asmalldot]

trying on my cousin’s Yunnan tie-dye bucket hat

[asmalldot]

Out of Town (July 2020) 

[asmalldot]

McD

Going from McDonald’s to McDonald’s, experiencing the physical distance between each only to be confronted by an utterly homogenous interior—giving a feeling that we (as a people? a society??) are going nowhere & doing nothing, just walking up to the counter and asking, for the fifth time, if they have hand sanitizer. I have a Filet O’ Fish lodged in me. The sandwich was ostentatiously plain, I ate it quickly in the thick heat of the car and then immediately forgot about it. 

[asmalldot]

那就算了吧

没想到会跟S吵架。昨天躺在他床上，聊到我刚写完的散文。一开始逗他玩，说：“怎么还没打开我的散文？是不是没兴趣？” 但我越想越不满。其实我对自己的散文无所谓，没什么期望。但他好像不愿意面对我的却则，或者不想照顾我的理想。我想：“是不能跟白人相处恋爱，最终就是这个结果。我想：“ OK，那就算了吧。” 以后不用分享我的作品。让他先处理他的自我。

[asmalldot]

爱听《老男孩》，一边哭，一边怀念

[asmalldot]

The poplars behind the house

屋后几棵白杨树 (余秀华)

Wind or no wind, they look almost the same 

I like them better with wind 

A leaf collides with another 

A clump of leaves collide with another 

But like a fish, there’s no possibility of overturning 

In summer, a village’s sky bluer than another 

Standing under the poplars, they are so tall 

 Smoke drifts, almost like them 

Their greens let people feel life’s fortune 

will never run out of water in this lifetime 

 Their dictionary doesn’t have “wither”

[asmalldot]

十月份回老家，没想到“家”的概念已经撤退到无法取回的状态。还不如在姜堰跟姑姑们高高心心的一起吃葵花籽。