white night, anna akhmatova / edward hopper / the glass essay, anne carson / i bet on losing dogs, mitski / ten love letters, clementine von radics / supercut, lorde
Even more than the mess, honestly, is the fact that I would be caged up in my own space, in the accumulated wreck of it all, all the dreadful awful evidence that I existed in piles of clothes on the floor, the overflowing trashcan, the ruin of my scattered makeup bag, lipsticks rolling. I wanted empty. I wanted sparse.Ā
I wanted upheaval, and so the day after I got back from AWP--my flight from Austin to San Antonio to Denver to New York--I thought, fuck this. We can go.Ā Which is exactly what I told Peach the other night.
āI could like, go live in a farm upstate,ā I emphasized, chomping down on my turkey meatball sub. Peach was nursing their second beer and I was still working on my spiced cider. I am a slow drinker. Everyone always has to wait for me to finish.Ā āI could go and move upstate.āĀ
āI support you,ā Peach said, because Peach is perfect.Ā āIām actually headed up there with Sasha and Katie for a day or two, to work on our thesisā.āĀ
āThatās a great idea,ā I said, sipping my cider. āHave so much fun. Ugh, this cider.ā They always put too much whiskey in it. āAm I being too impulsive? Do I sound,ā I didnāt know how to finish. Around us shadows elongated on the wooden walls, evening chatter looping in neat patterns. Hi how are can I get goodbye then a storm sometimes the virus virus virus China China China.Ā
āNo,ā Peachās brow wrinkled.Ā āYouāre not. This would be a good opportunity. Everything is online now. All our classes.ā Outside a siren pierced the night and I swerved in my seat to get a glimpse of the lights. My room at home, books and clothes, my sheets I hadnāt washed in forever, the drab curtains Iād bought at IKEA hanging limp like ghostsā dresses, the piles. The piles the piles the piles. The filthy mirror I had to look into every day, the products scattered all over the floor making it hard to step anywhere, the four-feet-tall tower of novels I still hadnāt read, the papered walls. The grease smudges. The mothballs. The dust in my closet. The Ziplock of sleeping pills I promised Jaz Iād flush.Ā
Donāt slip, girl. I couldnāt stay there. That night I booked everything I needed to. The next day Elliott invited me over so I cleared out my fridge and brought them all the produce I wouldnāt be able to finish. Elliott is Elliott, and Peach is Peach, and my friends are my friends, and they let me stay however longer than welcomes last, and that night I curled around Elliottās shoulder and breathed in warm, thought of what it means to be taken care of. My luck is my luck. Thank you, god, for people who will still love me after a sin, who will still love me after I leave them.Ā
.x.
Number One tugs at the hem of my pants. Number One follows me into the living room, tongue lolling when I sit down to watch Netflix, curls into a ball and whimpers when Alex isnāt home. She is a lovely, nervous little dog. I adore her immediately.
āIām getting another dog soon,ā Alex tells me while I pour cereal into a clinking bowl. His voice a warm crackle, joy slipping through.Ā āA Rottweiler. Iām bringing Number One over to meet her tomorrow, and then weāll get her and her current owner over to the farm, see if she likes the place. I want to do this right.āĀ
He is a sweet man. I adore him immediately, want to bake him things. I tip milk into my bowl. āI hope that Number One likes her new friend,ā I murmur, scratching her behind her ears.Ā
āShe grew up with a big dog when she was little,ā Alex says.Ā āI think itāll be good for her nerves.ā He pats at her head. Heās a big man, with a beard and a wide face, tanned from his work in the sun. Earlier in the morning Iād run out with him and Number One to check out the shishito peppers, the twisting vines in the glass greenhouse. The ground was muddy and soft. I had to pull on rubber boots. Dry sun, cold clouds, the wind turning my ponytail into a whip, Number One yipping at my heels. I ran acres. I ran inches. I ran until the ground unstuck from my boots, the river pounding its own shine just a few yards away, sparkling underneath all the dead wood.Ā
Now, back in his beautiful country kitchen, I pat butter down onto pans, whisk eggs. I cannot get over how big the kitchen is, how well-stocked, the heart of the house. Alex is a former chef from Miami, works catering events now. Everything I need is at my fingertips.Ā
In my Brooklyn apartment the kitchen is crammed into a tiny hallway just outside my room. Barely big enough for a person, let alone four sharing it. The lighting is terrible and so is the air circulation, since we donāt have windows in our communal areas. Alex finds me in the kitchen at 1 am and his eyes widen when he sees the three gigantic roasting pans: barbecue chicken thighs, roasted garlic potatoes, stuffing from a box but properly seasoned, a big balsamic strawberry salad in a huge metal bowl.Ā
āYouāve made a feast!ā He exclaims.Ā āIt smells delicious. What are you doing?ā
āI canāt sleep,ā I say, helpless. I am washing my hands, wiping them on a towel.Ā āI got hungry.ā I rub down a pan with a sponge.Ā āI meal prep a lot. Do you have Tupperware?ā
He does. In fact, Alex has a lot of Tupperware. He has mountains. They crowd out his countertops in the kitchen aisle. If he were a dragon, empty Tupperware would be his hoard.Ā
āIāve never been in a kitchen this big,ā I say, which is a lie, but I never felt completely at home in my momās kitchen anyway, the white countertops, the scattered array of multicolored pots and pans, her jars of spices and rubs and cooking wines.Ā āI canāt get over yours. I love it here.āĀ
Alex shrugs.Ā āUse it whenever you like,ā he says, the same thing heād said about his piano, guitar, TV, and espresso machine. He goes back to bed. I put everything away without eating and go back upstairs to sit on my bed, wring my sore hands until they feel like bulky stones.Ā
.x.
It wasnāt that I couldnāt sleep in Brooklyn. At night the street outside lulls itself into a quiet being. I am lucky to live on a block that is more suburban than most parts of the city. I am lucky that I can revel in silence. None of those things are why I keep staying over at other peoplesā places.Ā Iām not entirely sure why.Ā
Jaz's theory is that Iām trying to stay alive, but I think you can say that about most things.Ā
Are you experiencing suicidal thoughts, sheād asked on the train ride home, and Iād shaken my head. Not all the time. Itās not--itās not all the time. I swear, not all the time. I wrote that poem for workshop and I meant it. I was really really happy.
I know you were, sheād said, her dark eyes missing nothing. I know you were.Ā
.x.
I text Bernard on the third day. Hey B. Do you feel like youāre going crazy. I get high and walk down the Kingston train tracks for three hours, the sun dappling light on the trees. I lean down to touch the metal rails, warm and coppery. I try running on them but keep slipping. The rails are nailed together with huge bolts, rusted and worn, wooden planks connecting the two sides. I think of old silent films where the villain ties the damsel to the tracks, and it makes me shiver, makes me a little aroused. I like being held down more than I think anything. In Austin Jaz--not New York Jaz, other Jaz, first Jaz, Jaz 1.0--had tied a scaffolding ladder of rope on my arm, twisted purple.Ā
Bernard responds,Ā literally yes. Cat isnāt working at her job anymore since Di Blasioās executive order, has just enough in savings. Elliott visiting their brother, hanging with Jeff. Janelle in Tennessee with Lynn. Peach quietly losing their mind in Brooklyn. My family shut up in the house in Michigan, my grandparents the same in their apartment. My sister muttering to herself in her living room, typing away on her laptop. Everyone feels so far away but at the same time theyāre all home, so why do I upset so easily? Why so tragic, why so nervous, why so sad all the time, all the time, all the time?
.x.Ā
Not a lot of people know that Pablo Picasso wrote poetry, and my favorite of his poems goes like this: i have a face cut from ice / a heart pierced in a thousand places / so to remember / always the same voice / the same gestures / and my laughter / heavy / as a wall / between you and meĀ
the ones who are most alive
seem the most stillĀ
āthe morning of the world.ā While typing this I accidentally typed mourning. I might write that poem instead, after him. I might buy a book of his poems. I might do a lot of things once this crisis ends, if it ends, god help.Ā
My laughter, heavy as a wall. Heavy as a wall. Itās startling, how angry it makes me that he is multitalented. Decent people donāt show off with many skills. Decent people will pick one.Ā
Picasso is saying all jokes, all humor, is meant to create distance. He is saying you can live the past over and over again by replaying your actions over and over again. He is saying there are people in the world who are strange and dangerous but they look normal, and no one can tell what they are.Ā
.x.
I donāt want to stay in my room because I hate the dark and I hate being alone and I invent reasons to be sad when Iām by myself. Iām so lucky and I should be so gracious. I should be so grateful and kind and generous and rewarding. I am so lucky my ancestors would spit on me if they saw me. I am the peak of ungrateful.Ā
I have a stack of books I brought with me. I have my thesis to work on, classes to plan. Things to write. Right now I am not afraid of the next twelve hours. I know what to make for breakfast tomorrow. I know what to do.Ā
We make the drive to Suzhou in good time, Ayi plying me with cucumbers and coffee drinks the whole morning. The buildings here are beautiful, white-walled and dark curled roofs, brown tile splitting into slender ends at every corner. Spirits only travel in straight lines, which makes it impossible for them to nest in these homes.
We turn on the dirt road to a street lined with houses, fruit vendors selling baskets and baskets of loquats. They hold out handwritten signs on cardboard and gesture us toward them.
I am accompanied by three Ayis in total; my Ayi, in her purple overcoat, the Ayi next to me in yellow, and the Ayi in her pink plastic jacket upfront, driving. We could form a band: Nancy and the Multicolored Ayis.
āLetās try their loquats. If we like them we can pick from their orchard,ā Pink Ayi says. I have dubbed her the Mom Friend of the group. She parks and we climb out of the car, into the bright and stunning heat. An old lady gestures us inside the courtyard of her house.
āCome, come! Try our fruits!ā Her home is traditional, a two-story delight lined in dark wood and glass, sturdy furniture and an intricately-carved staircase surrounding an outdoor courtyard for family gatherings. There are red good-luck knots hung from the ceiling, jade accents, calligraphic paintings on the walls. I want a home like this, I think, a place that cools me with its hush and reverence, windows breaking in light.
On the floor of the parlour are baskets and baskets of bright yellow loquats, handpicked by the family. We have to peel the skin from the flesh, pit them in our mouths, spit the rest on the ground. Theyāre sun-warmed and sweet. The matriarch shows us batches and batches of pearly fruits, healthy and ripe and golden.
Yellow Ayi fans herself with a hand, places her sunglasses on her head. āHao. Letās do it.ā
āCome, come.ā The old lady pats a manās shoulder. āLet my son direct you. Itās only a five minute drive to our family grove.ā We get in the car again. There are multiple groves that we pass in order to get to his familyās; he ends up directing us halfway up a small hill, where we climb out.
The orchard is dark and chaotic, messy branches twisting every way, creating a canopy above our heads. āHere we are,ā the man descended from these trees says, and in a second he scrambles up and shakes a branch.
āWah! He can climb!ā Yellow Ayi says. She thrusts a basket in my hands. āLetās start picking.ā
We pluck fruit from its branch. I make sure not to take any unripe ones. Loquat trees are hard to farm; the trees donāt take root easily, and they havenāt acclimated to many untropical climates. How many generations have tilled this land until itās bursting and mountainous, humming with fruit? I slice fruitskin open with my thumb, spit the pits onto the ground, where theyāll grow more trees and branches, enough to canopy shade everywhere, enough to cover the entire sky.
Pink Ayi scrambles up a tree, and we get photos of her swinging around up there, laughing gleefully. āLike a little monkey,ā my Ayi says. I ask the man, idly scrolling through WeChat on his perch, how many generations have been here. āIām the last one,ā he says. āMy mother, my grandmother, her mother.ā
Four whole generations. I canāt think in centuries; I look around the grove. Some of the trees are so young, just sprung from the ground. I walk around to try and find the oldest one, the great-grandmother. Try and count how many were a part of each year. Itās honestly impossible to tell.
We end up eating most of our bounty (bounty! I love that word. I feel like a pirate!) on the spot, honeyed hands reaching for more branches. We drive to Mudu, the ancient water town. Suzhou is dustier than Shanghai, flatter. The people have a swirling accent. They gesture, sharp. My Ayi asks how I will remember my trip if I donāt take any pictures.
Words, I think, Iām a writer. But that feels impossible to say out loud.
.x.
Mudu is packed with tour buses. We park in a small corner near the boat dock and follow the huge swath of people to the front entrance.
āItās not even a weekend,ā Yellow Ayi says, eyebrows raised. Around us there are at least five tour groups, their leaders waving tiny flags up high. I shrug and smile. I think the Ayis are getting accustomed to my silence, my remoteness. I am a completely different person in Chinese.
The cobblestone is lined with trees, the water canals on the right side. I remember my friend Liz back in middle school, who went to Venice for vacation and came back without a heart, how she fell in love with a sinking city. Iād brought Calvino with me because I wanted to read about Venice here, along the water, with the willows swaying silly and gentle.
āThereās bound to be food up there,ā Pink Ayi says.
We pass so many shops; silk shops and peanut brittle shops. All the Ayis stop to buy some guasha stones, bargaining it down to five kuai.
āHere, one for your mother,ā Yellow Ayi offers, handing me a pure black comb. Itās made of ox hooves, the seller says. āItās the best for healthy strands. It redistributes the oils in your hair.ā
Itās smooth and slippery. I think of my mom at home, picture her trying to use the comb, the streaks of white in her hair like thin laps of sea foam. We walk along the right side of the town, watching canals bob, idle. The bridges are all shaped like half circles, so when the water reflects it back to the world they look like unending stone.
āLetās get some cold noodles,ā Pink Ayi suggests. We grab seats at a crowded noodle shack. Between all of us we eat five bowls; we walk around and drop stones into the water to watch it ripple; we head back when the air starts to buzz.
.x.
I donāt love everything here. I find some parts of Shanghai very ugly and plain, almost clumsy.
(But do I? Do I really? The grey cement blocks, the moss-thick alleys, the trash-heaped dumpster corners, the empty dust that covers all the roads. Grey sky.
I donāt know if I just need to rethink the mundane. All I know is that there are things in this country that reject beauty. I canāt name anything in America that would do that willingly.)
āHow will you say goodbye?ā I ask Mathilde, who is stirring sweetener into her coffee. The sky is a light powder grey today. We have gotten every shade of grey sky: soot grey, ocean grey, dark grey, lightning storm grey, cement grey. Wool grey, which is my favorite.
āI think I will take a walk on the Bund at nighttime. And I will eat some sweet tarts.ā She smiles. She is a beautiful woman who has traveled so far. She must be so tired. She must be so angry and sad, with the places her work takes her. But she toasts me with her coffee and goes back to work on her database. She has laugh lines around her eyes. I love laugh lines.
My friend bought me eye-tightening cream once, to get rid of the wrinkles, and I never use it, will never use it. I want to be a woman like that, a woman who laughs at the world. That same day, while I am trying to buy my subway card at the station, a man and his friend come up to me with their phones out.
āIām out of coins,ā he says. āCan you buy me a card? Iāll pay you back.ā
āIām sorry,ā I say. āI donāt have WeChat. Iām a foreigner.ā Waiguoren. Waiguoren.
āOh. No problem.ā They walk away. āI thought she was Chinese,ā he says to his friend.
I am, I want to say, but thereās no way to explain that to him.
.x.
Back in Shanghai, Rafa and I are joined by Barry, Reed, Ray, and Mathilde. We are eternally trying to find room in all our schedules to go out together, but so far it isnāt happening.
On a day where the sun decides to lurk behind a cloud, I go to Tianzifang. I do my best to haggle over a silk scarf, the vendor eyeing me suspiciously every time I try and lower the price. In the end she tries to get me to pay more for the price of two scarves, but I put my foot down.
Tianzifang is overrun with tourists, with different music blaring from every kioskās speakers. I shell out more money for some ice cream and wander along the shops, red lanterns strung across the roofs. Itās more an open-air market than an actual neighborhood district, and the light pours in everywhere, even in places where I thought it couldnāt be, between the alleys of ancient shikumen and through the ledges of windows.
I buy tea. I buy silk. I contemplate buying a porcelain tea set, but I donāt know how I would take it home. On days I forget to bring an umbrella, the rainclouds burst.
.x.
I donāt love everything here.
In Beijing my Er Jiu grows his garden lush and messy. Miniature pumpkins and squashes hang from the grate in front of his door, their vines grafted patiently around the wood. I help him with the harvest in the morning; we pluck onions from the ground, bees and flies humming around us. We bundle the onions next to the ruined dirt, so many onions, I am sick of onions. The heat in Beijing is awful I almost canāt stand being outside.
āLetās go,ā he says, and we put them in baskets and go from door to door in his neighbourhood, handing them out. I watch closely as he introduces me to everyone, but nobody offers any form of payment. Everyone invites us in for tea, but we decline.
He is a good neighbour. He asks after everybodyās kids. I get to pet all the dogs. We hand out all the onions, a task that takes all afternoon. There are so many houses. When we get home I collapse and ask him what else he grows for the neighbours.
āTomatoes, cucumbers. Garlic. Chives. Squashes. Jalapeno peppersāyour Ayi will make you a dipping sauce with them. We grow everything fresh and will cook every meal for you.ā My family always loves me more than I expect them to. āThe neighbours will help out, too. They bring us things we need.ā
And, over the course of the two weeks I spend with him, I see that he is right. Every day someone comes into his garden knocking on the door with offerings. A basket of swan eggs, freshly laid. I can still see the bits of feather and gristle on them. Ayi has to wash them in the sink, dry them on her apron.
Someone brings us loquats. Mangos, a watermelon, a loaf of fresh bread. Some tiny, ruby-like strawberries that my uncle hands to me. āThey smell just like summer,ā he tells me. Once, a couple brings us a live fish, wrapped in plastic.
We invite them in for tea, and sometimes they say yes. Everyone calls each other by name. They all know who they are; I donāt. They never drink alone. I do. They invite me to karaoke night after night, and I thank them and thank them and thank themāand say no.
I promise that you are real. Yes. You have always been here. I apologize. I know it hurts.
.x.
Yayoi Kusama doesnāt want you to have a good time. She wants you to have anĀ interestingĀ time.Ā
Her newest exhibit, All About Love Speaks Forever, spills over two floors of the Fosun Art Foundation, a building lined with fountains and organ-pipes, an intricate treasure among its skyscraper neighbors. Around me are all the other art nerds of Shanghai: a girl and her boyfriend flipping through the exhibit pamphlet, two women speaking in lightning-fast Japanese to each other, an American kid and his mom writing in notebooks.Ā
Iād run from the Bund fifteen minutes ago, huffing and puffing, scrolling through my phone desperately for the ticket Iād bought online. Iāve been trying to get into an Infinity Room since I first read about them, and this was my first opportunity.Ā
Iād planned this visit before my flight to Shanghai, telling myself Iād go to at least one art exhibition, one music concert, one poetry reading, one play. Shanghaiās art scene skews towards the avant-garde, and when Iād seen her name inĀ Time Out Shanghai Iād jumped on the tickets.
Yayoi Kusama insists on you having a body; you have no choice but to face your own existence. She doesnāt give you one. If, all your life, youāve had an inkling of doubt about being real, about being corporeal, she will dismiss it. If you donāt exist, then you couldnāt have walked into the Infinity Room.
I promise that you are real, she says. Yes. You have always been here. I apologize. I know it hurts.
.x.
The former Opium Commission is across from the Peace Hotel, a crowd of tourists gathered in front of it for photos. The Bund is the old city, the ancient port of the British and French colonists, the solid granite resembling some ancient European square, more Gothic than Asian, more stone cathedral than temple. The streets arenāt as busy as they will be later, at night; I came midday for a good reason.
Shanghai was founded because of colonialism; thereās no way to escape it.Ā I look over the balcony of M on the Bund, the restaurant that sponsors the Shanghai Literary Festival every year. I peer across the Huangpu, a river that calls my name back to me, to look at New Shanghai, from Old Shanghai.Ā
My name the dividing line. Poem where I am every cityās river, I write. Every cityās dividing line. The Pearl Tower seems so close, like I could reach out to touch it. The clock tower on the Bund ringing every thirty minutes, the sound of clinking glasses behind me, laughter on the streets, boat horns on the water, city where my name is the difference between the past and the future.Ā
I snap my obligatory photos, then turn away. If I am the water dividing, then I can also be the bridge.Ā
.x.
Kusamaās Infinity Room eliminates shadow, but even the lights are an illusion. Your physical presence is needed to complete the work.Ā
There is nothing elegant about infinity. Kusama trapped herself in that room, too--her red body photographed, posed on the floor with her head and hair splitting into endless other hers. I exist outside of that room, though I donāt remember that as much when Iām inside it. The void is full of whimsy, of color and light.Ā
āSheās amazing,ā the American woman is telling her teenage son, flipping through the art books on display.Ā āItās beautiful. Look, just for you.ā
āAre those turnips?ā He asks, his forehead wrinkling.
āI was thinking penises.ā She laughed
.x.
āYuyuan Gardenā is a chai tea situation, a Sahara Desert. Colonialism...is great.
āJust say Yuyuan,ā I say, out loud, to no one, for the third time that day. I am talking to all the English signage on the street, pointing foreign travellers in the right direction.Ā āOr Yu Garden. Either or. Just pick one. Please.āĀ
Yu Garden Garden is beautiful, but Iād known it would be. Itās ancient and knowing in the way few things are. Yuyuan wraps me in its intricate architecture, makes my body into something holy. Every day I am growing more and more confident in my Mandarin, so I order two dozen soup dumplings in a basket from a kiosk.
āJi kuai?ā
āEr shi er.ā
I eat them standing, with chopsticks, people-watching. I use the bite-and-sip method, daintily blowing into each dumpling. Around me the garden pulses with action, the lights lining all the scallop-roofed buildings making the place feel strangely fake, the sky turning a slow lilac. Suddenly I see a great movie set built up around me, the cardboard props of the ancient buildings lit up, the painted backdrop of the evening, the actors of tourists and families and vendors mouthing their lines, miming their roles, playing parts they donāt believe.Ā
I throw away my trash and walk back to the subway, keeping track of what color the sky turns. I resolve to only visit again during the daytime, without all the lights.Ā
.x.
On the third level of the exhibit, Kusama has huge canvas paintings installed, with Flowers taking up the center.
I pause in front of Entrance To The Universe, 2013. It truly is an unnerving painting, a sludge of tiny red eyes (doors?) framing the orange square, the flaming border. I canāt tell which way is up, where Iām supposed to walk through, into existence.
I know now; itās not a door. You donāt walk through the entrance. You fall.Ā
Entrance To The Universe, 2013, byĀ Yayoi Kusama.Ā
.x.
How to stitch back a mother tongue: do it in stages.
Ask questions. When your uncle says a phrase you donāt recognize, ask him to repeat it, then define it. Use context clues. He will not over-define. When you get it, say you get it, and he will stop. Your uncle knows you are smart. Only ask this favor from people who trust your own intelligence.
Repeat things. Over and over and over and over.
Write the longest, most beautiful lines. Perfectly constructed, grammatically correct sentences. Build them up in your head, then practice out loud. I am very lost, and I canāt find my way. Can you tell me where the bathroom is? Thank you so much. Almost like poetry, these lines.
Get to slang now. Take those beautiful sentences, lined up neat in your notebook, and sabotage them. Condense. Cut. Remember that anything built can be unbuilt. Tell me where the bathroom is.
Come up with alternate ways of saying the same thing. Where is the bathroom. Do you know. Have you seen. Can you help.
Start small. Even things like good morning. Have you eaten today. Just make sure the first words out of your mouth every day are Chinese ones, even if you have to say them to yourself.
Forget your old metaphors about spitting out language like itās rotten fruit, like it soured on your tongue. All language is a muscle. All words are a practice exercise.
Forgive yourself for starting over. Even when you donāt feel brave, tell yourself that you are. Act like you are.Ā
.x.
The Infinity Room is light, reflection, an endless repetition of the same scene. The scene is you. You are standing at the center of a box, but also the opposite of a box.Ā
You are here. Every inch of you is going on record. Every inch of you is present, echoed, multiplied. You have never been more here.Ā
In Norse myth, they say Odin hung himself upside down from the World Tree for nine days to discover the universeās secrets.Ā
I am not upside down.Ā
.x.
As it turns out, everyone in China has a VPN.Ā
WHAT internet block, I think when I get to NYU Shanghai and my phone automatically connects to the guest internet. Twitter immediately pings me with 14 notifications. Oh, China.Ā
I meet with Vivien, our supervisor for the program, and Rafael, another GRI fellow. Vivien is an absolute sweetheart (an absolute!! sweetheart!!!) who gives us a welcome packet and a tour of the building. She shows us our office stations. Weāre the first ones here, which means we get first pick of desks in the office. Both of us automatically choose the desks by the window.
Rafa is an international student from Mexico. He is here for three months, working on a project about political power grabs and the formation of warlords in China after WWII, a topic I know absolutely nothing about.
āThe same thing happened in Colombia and Mexico after Independence,ā he says. āThere is always an interesting tension after a political struggle. Itās a pattern I have been noticing. But every country is different, of course. The Japanese occupation is the reason why Chinaās warlords were defeated.ā He is a political science PhD candidate at NYU. He is fascinated that I am a poet.Ā
āI love poetry,ā he tells me.Ā āI have so much respect for writers. I listen to the New Yorkerās fiction podcast, oh my god it is so good! Iāll send you my favorite episodes!ā Like a lot of my favorite people in the world, he is inherently charmed by everything.Ā
āWhose poetry do you read?ā I take out my phone, ready to write down recommendations.Ā
āSo many! I can send you a list. In Latin America everyone loves poetry.ā He mentions Borges and Calvino. Crystal, I automatically label. It is a bad thing, I know, to separate everything into two categories (all binaries are dangerous, the Elizabeth-McCracken-in-my-head instructs), but I canāt help it.
A classmate told me once that she used to separateĀ āmind writersā from āheart writersā.Ā Writers of the crystal are typically intellect over passion, and writers of the flame are impulse over logic. So many different combinations sit at the axis of these two arbitrary points, though, and many others off the spectrum entirely.Ā
If you asked me which one I was, I wouldnāt be able to tell you.
.x.
Da Jiu is waiting for me when I leave customs. He and Yun Jie Ayi wave me over to the other side of the crowded platform.
āNan-xi!ā He says, a transliteration of my English name. āLet me take your things.ā Da Jiu has gotten older since the last time Iāve seen him, the lines on his face more pronounced, wiry muscle on his arms evidence of his daily swim sessions. His girlfriend, Yun Jie, is a shorter woman with curly hair and a stylish coat.Ā
I push my luggage cart over and stand there, unsure. My hands are shaking. I donāt know whether to hug them or shake their hand; Iām unsure of any kind of contact that I should be having with them, whether there are rules that I donāt know. In the end he grabs my suitcase and she grabs the larger one, me protesting the whole way.Ā āDonāt worry about it,ā he says, and leads me straight to the car, where his friend Bo Xing is waiting to drive us.Ā āAre you tired? Are you hungry?ā
āBoth.ā I am worried that my one-word replies sound curt, so I spurt out questions Iād prepared.Ā āDid you drive a long way? Do you need to rest? Da Jiu, itās been so long since Iāve seen you.ā
Yun Jie tells me to call her Ayi andĀ hands me a cell phone.Ā āUse this so you can call us anytime,ā she says.Ā āIt has a SIM card.ā I protest and try to stammer out that I have a phone already, but she shakes her head and places it in my hands.Ā āYour phone canāt call in this country. Use this.āĀ
Every time I say thank you Da Jiu shakes his head. The ride to my lodgings is quiet. I am looking out the window most of the time. My weather app tells me that visibility is good today, so the closer we drive to the center the more outlines of buildings I can see, the city revealing itself layer by layer. Each time I think Iāve seen its scope thereās always more.
Smog in China works like backwards mist. There is a logic to it. Sometimes the higher you go the less is visible; stay closer to the ground. Prepare to squint. Bring sunglasses. Wear a mask.
I think Da Jiu senses that I am on edge, but he says nothing of it. I try to make conversation to put myself at ease.
āDa Jiu, howās your daughter? Is she still in Singapore?ā I ask. I remember my cute cousin as an energetic kid who loved swimming, who would create abstracts with MS Paint on our desktop.Ā
āYes.ā
āHow old?ā
āSeventeen.ā
This blows me away.Ā āWhat? No! Sheās still little.ā I remember her tiny, the time we stayed together in Beijing.Ā āSheās seventeen?āĀ
āDui,ā he confirms.
Thereās no way. No way that much time has passed; I would have felt it. I would have noticed somehow. I would have talked to her before then. This is when I feel it, in the arch of my mouth and behind my eyes, those twelve years welling up, hot and slick.Ā Iāve missed weddings. Iāve missed birthdays. Iāve missed anniversaries, holidays. Iāve missed so much. For a brief second, I hate it--not my parents, but their idea to leave, to leave for years and years and years, no matter the reason.Ā
I close my eyes, lean my forehead against the glass. Sheāll be considering college soon, studying for the gao kao.Ā I make a note to ask him what presents to buy a high school grad in China; I know itās common to send Kit Kat chocolates before the gao kao, another homophone good luck charm. Da Jiu can help me send something to Singapore, Iām sure.
I should have loved her better.
We cross the bridge and I stare up at the Pearl Tower, round and sharp at the same time, its surrounding buildings paling in comparison. The skyline is iconic, yes, but it does not inspire awe in me like I thought it would. I told you Iād be back, I mouth to the window. Remember I promised? I was eleven and I missed the look of you. Your outline. Iām back. How many people can say that? I came back.
.x.
In New York Iād written in my notebook that the opposite of losing something isnāt finding it, itās conquering it. I still believe itās true, though memory is such a stupid thing, an unreliable narrator, the trickster hiding under the bridge.Ā
Whatās the opposite of finding something, then?Ā Iād written, and pondered for a while before answering, hiding it.Ā
There is an answer to every question. In Norse myth, they say Odin hung himself upside down from the World Tree for nine days to discover the universeās secrets.
I am not upside down.Ā I lied, earlier. Iām a crystal writer desperately trying to be flame. I intellectualize emotions in my writing; Iām a planner; I catalogue. I care about what is proper. I donāt care about rules but I care about the correct way to break one. I am not that impulsive, though I try to be.Ā
.x.
We drive to the French Concession, a place that Bo Xing remarks asĀ ātourist-heavy.ā Jasmine is at work, so the place is empty when we unlock it. Itās a clean, lovely apartment. There is a balcony with a laundry line set up, shirts billowing with the breeze (Chinese people prefer letting their clothes air dry). The windows let in so much light.
Ayi heads into the cozy room Iām staying in, with a chair and a pink bed. Iām relieved to see a crammed bookshelf, just like in the photos online.
āNan-xi, I bought you everything you need. If you need anything else just tell us and weāll buy it for you,ā she says as she unpacks. Toothbrush, shower kit, socks, slippers, pajamas. She hands me the charger kit for the phone. Again I am overwhelmed by how courteous they are being versus how courteous I am supposed to be, the discrepancy of acting polite versus acting comfortable. I canāt not thank her. I canāt treat this stuff as a given, as things I am entitled to.
Da Jiu comes in.Ā āLetās go eat,ā he says.Ā āSomething easy and nearby.ā
We walk. Shanghai is perpetually five degrees warmer than New York. I am enjoying the heat immensely. At the restaurant Da Jiu immediately orders six dishes; milky tofu, shrimp and vegetables, egg and tomato soup, red-braised pork, fried beef and potatoes, garlic-heavy bok choy. Bo Xing, a funny man who is smoking the entire time I see him, pours me Mao Tai Jiu, which reminds me of my grandfather, my fatherās father. Ayi doesnāt drink alcohol with us, but she laughs when I sip mine and keep a straight face.
āYou drink in America?ā Da Jiuās driver asks. He brandishes his cigarette at my empty cup. āShe finished that shot in one gulp!ā
I am regretting it. The shot burns hot all the way down my esophagus, but it strangely has a numbing effect in my chest that lasts several seconds. I donāt want them to think I Canāt Hold My Alcohol though, so I will keep my face still even if it kills me.
āYes, I drink in America,ā I say.Ā āDonāt tell my mom,ā I say to Da Jiu, and he booms with a laugh.Ā
āSheās your younger sisterās daughter?ā Bo Xing asks.Ā
āYes. My sister is the most successful of all of us.ā Da Jiuās face breaks into a smile.Ā āThe smartest person in our family was Lao Lao, who youāve never met. And then your mother, then Er Jiu, then me.āĀ
Lao Lao was my grandmother. Itās true that I never met her, one of my momās greatest sadnesses. Mine, too. Grief is a weighty inheritance.
āItās not good in China to be a smart girl,ā Da Jiu continues.Ā āSometimes men would get angry about it. But your mom was in the best class in our school. She wasnāt a perfect student, but she tested well. She gotĀ scores that guaranteed her a spot at the best universities in China.ā
I have heard this story before, many times. My mom has told me throughout my life. But I never knew she wasnāt always a good student. I never knew she fought her teachers, hard, when they accused her of cheating. Da Jiu is still boasting about her after we are done eating, smiling all the while. He hands me cash and tells me that he doesnāt appreciate polite people. He drops me off at the apartment and waves me goodbye from the car as they drive off.
.x.
āNan Nan! Can you hear me?ā
āHi mom.ā I roll over to face the window in my room, the sunlight making me cringe. āWhat time is it over there?ā
āItās early in the morning. Itās the same time wherever you are, just opposite! Did Da Jiu drop you off? Are you at the apartment?ā
āYeah. Sorry, Iām really tired. You just woke me up. Da Jiu is really nice.ā
āDui.ā Her voice is smiling. āIām glad you made it safe. Your roommate is home?ā
āNot yet. Iām alone here.ā I canāt hold back another yawn. I check my clock and cringe. Itās only six PM. Thirteen-year-old me is shaking her head right now.Ā
āDid you eat?ā
āYeah. Da Jiu paid for everything.ā
āDonāt feel bad. Ta you gong zuo. Iāll let you rest. Go back to sleep.ā
āOkay.ā
.x.
When Jasmine and I finally meet she is all cheery smile and helpful advice. She tells me that getting WeChat set up wonāt be difficult; that the subway system is easy to use and very close by; that she can help me on the weekend when she isnāt busy; that my Chinese may be limited but my pronunciation is perfect. She helps me connect to Wifi. When she learns I am writing a novel she makes an impressed sound.
āHao li hai! What is your book about?ā
āUm.ā I stare at the ground. I always have a hard time answering this question because I am not very sure what, exactly, it is about.Ā āItās set in Shanghai.ā
āIs it a romance?ā She smiles while she folds a towel for me.Ā āI really like reading romances.āĀ
āThere can be romance in it.ā
āIf itās about Shanghai then that means you have to go everywhere in Shanghai and visit tons of places. Fall in love!āĀ
āHa, I can go to Tianzifang, zhao nan peng yo.ā
āVery good!āĀ Jasmine is very excited about the idea of me falling in love with a local. She maps out my route so in the morning I can leave early for my meeting with Vivien. Later that night she tells me about her work in copywriting and advertising, how when she was younger she dreamed of being a writer. I tell her she still is one. She can have it back. It isnāt easy but she can have it back.
.x.
I draw a map to Tianzifang and fold it up, put it in my bag. I donāt have data here, which is the hardest thing to navigate, but as long as there are coffee shops with wifi I will be able to function in this city. For the time being, I will use my crude, hand-drawn maps.Ā
I say goodbye to Rafa and on the way home I buy two you tiaos from a street vendor, gnaw on them until they disappear. They taste exactly how I remember.
Everyone says New York is a city that never sleeps, but thatās a lie. All cities sleep.
The days before leaving I tried, for a while, to flip my sleep schedule so I could kick jetlag to the curb. I drank espresso after espresso at the cafe I work at, marathoned shows until 4 AM, wrote poems in the early hours of the morning, took long walks around my neighborhood in Brooklyn. I observed more sunrises, ran against circadian rhythm, pushed a backwards pendulum.
(āWhy arenāt you sleeping?ā Janelle asked me when I told her. āWhatās up?ā
āIām just not very tired lately,ā I said, rubbing my eyes. It felt true.)
This reprogramming made me drowsier during my classes, and eventually I had to stop. It was a constant, murky blurriness that never alleviated. Some days the world would seem off, swaying at the hinges before it slammed shut.
I know, I know. Time is not on my side. Iāve packed up everything in my apartment. Iāve put together lists of presents I want to buy for everyone (hair sticks, strings of pearls for my mom, silk scarves for Peter, jade carvings, good Asian stationary, facemasks, tea products for Kevin and Patty). Iāve outlined my research proposal seven times, itinerized how much writing I would get done each week.Ā
With every list I print out and every article I highlight, I get more and more agitated. I know whirlwinding my way through this planning is dangerous, but I canāt help myself.
.x.
At this point, everyone and their mother knows that I am going to Shanghai for the summer. It isnāt a secret. It is the direct opposite of a secret, whatever that is. I literally never stop talking about it. I tell everyone about all the food Iām going to eat, about all the research Iāve done, about all the writing Iām going to do, the exploring, the cafe-snooping, the shopping, the drinking, the dancing.Ā
I never tell people I am terrified, that crossing the threshold is the hardest part for me, that I am walking straight into the open mouth of something I donāt recognize.
(I used to recognize it. Maybe thatās whatās so scary--easier for me to hate a thing I used to know than a thing I donāt know.)
.x.
My mom calls two days before I leave and tells me to have fun, to stay safe, to let Da Jiu (Big Uncle) pick up the check at whatever restaurant he takes me to.
āDa Jiu does not like ke qi. Do you know ke qi?ā she asks.
I am making my packing list. āYeah,ā I say, writing down scarves, socks, wallet. āIt means donāt be polite.ā
She laughs. āNo, donāt tiptoe around him. He will not appreciate. I tell him, Nan Nan shi ge hen ke qi de hai zi. You are very polite. It is insulting.ā
.x.
Gift etiquette in China: bring something small and impersonal if they are not relatives. If they are relatives, bring a personal thing (cost does not matter). Offer it with both hands. They will try and refuse, but stay strong. Three tries, and they will take it. Wrap the present; never give a gift still in its plastic buying bag. Clocks are bad; pears are bad; shoes are bad; they symbolize death, separation, and break up, respectively. Necklaces and ties are too personal, and are only given by lovers. Your family will offer you presents too, and you have to refuse a few times. If you wrap them and make tags, make sure to write the relativeās title and not their name. No one in your family in China will call you by name. If they are not family, you can write their name, but never in red ink, since itās bad luck.
Never write a Chinese personās name in red ink.
.x.
āI want you to get me tea products,ā my sister says, and I groan.Ā
āYou can get that here.āĀ
āNo.āĀ She is adamant.Ā āNot good Chinese tea. Just get me whatever youāre getting Kevin.ā
Puāer, oolong, green. I add it to the list.
.x.
Ke qi is a very interesting idea in China.Ā
A family member can take offense if you thank them too profusely. It represents distance, the same way immigration represents distance. Or time.Ā A friend of mine told me once that she could tell I wasnāt used to people taking care of me, because of how often I thanked her for doing basic things.Ā
āI think saying thank you is better than saying sorry,ā I said.
āYou donāt have anything to be sorry about,ā she said.Ā āI offered. Iām offering.ā
.x.
I tell my host, Jasmine, that in English shanghai can be a verb. She laughs at that.
āWhat? No!ā
āIt means to kidnap. Well, it used to. Now it means you get coerced into something. Like, I was shanghaied into chaperoning the prom.āĀ
āThat is super weird to me.āĀ
āIsnāt it?ā I agree.
.x.
At the bar I tell Elliott and Bernard I am afraid my family will not like me, that I will turn out to be a disappointment. This is a scenario. This is a fear. Not of crowds, or the wrong type of feedback, or ridicule. This is what I am without ego, a fear of impact: that I will do something wrong, that I will not be able to contribute, that what I have to contribute will not be enough, or that nobody hears me through the mesh of my tongue.
(āJust tell them youāre a professor at NYU,ā Elliott suggests.
āGod. I canāt just say that.ā
āI mean, itās technically true. Youāre teaching next semester, right?ā
That night I desperately Google translate Iām a professor at NYU and practice saying it in Chinese.)
āYour familyās gonna love you,ā Bernard had assured me, and I wish so much for it to happen that maybe it will happen.
.x.
I order the Uber and already I know I will fall asleep in the car. My suitcases are against the wall, straight and poised like bodyguards. I have everything I need. I am everything I need.
I sit in the dark of my room and watch Uber count down the minutes.
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