Translated by Hinh
Yesterday, I said something similar on the blog.
I meant that I want to see a drop of dew on a flower branch, or take in the beauty of a few birdsong notes.
Just as KFC has Crazy Thursday, Thursdays have always been my busiest day. If I cannot stagger my schedule, then from morning to night I am swallowed whole by messy, crowded classes. The evening classes especially leave me both regretful and grateful, because the teacher is someone who knows how to speak gently. These days, speaking well to others is such a rare thing. And those who cling to a little authority and wave it around, pointing fingers in every direction, are exhausting beyond words. Life is always full of extremes: there are teachers unworthy of the title, people who love to suppress and to torment, but there are also many kind teachers who have lifted me up. Perhaps the ratio is 3 to 7. It satisfies no law of inheritance.
You can probably tell that I am writing in a clear-headed state today. Around me the rain beats against the pipes, a thin unbroken rustle that does not stop. Beijing had a violent storm today. Last year I planted a row of tulips in the field, and now they have all opened, holding up their hollow stems in the rain as if proudly reclaiming the worth they once had in Holland. Beside the greenhouse, the purple blossoms of dame’s rocket cluster together, and at last a trace of apricot-colored spring appears in my eyes.
Today was not a beautiful day. But I want to leave behind some beautiful memories, for no reason. And if I must find a reason, then let it be the hurricane rain, the soles of shoes about to be soaked through, and those half-true forms of approval. Every generation has its own eggs to collect. A reagent vendor, eager to promote their products, cheerfully handed over a cute capybara keychain, a canvas bag, and a mouse pad. I watched the mouse pad in front of me change—years ago, I had managed to grab a very strange mouse pad on Pinduoduo for 8.99 CNY. It looked like a television with no signal. Not static exactly, but that unformed pattern a channel fails to tune into. It was part of my childhood memory. That television with no channel looked like a gaping mouth ready to swallow people, the only source of light in the dark.
When one is too awake, inspiration disappears, and everything turns into a special kind of plain record. But this is my blog. Who am I fighting? Whose judgment am I waiting for? Sweet Jesus doesn’t care.
Today I took a brave step. I secured a part-time job for myself, a small little errand. Compared with being a tutor, it feels more like learning alongside someone. I seem to have succeeded, and yet after receiving that small sum of money I immediately felt like an utter failure. I keep asking myself: if I had grown up in such an environment, what kind of person would I be now? A warm and gentle atmosphere is such a rare thing. I still think too much and do too little—or perhaps both my thinking and my doing stray too far from the ordinary. I want to clutch everything with all my strength, and yet the quicksand keeps cutting my skin, while time slips through my fingers all the same. Losing everything. The self that failed to perform well. Endless regret. Infinite reflection. Things with no meaning. Last night I dreamed of my middle school classmates—and today I realized I did not truly know them after all. They are like unread messages that never receive replies. I ask, saying: how have you been lately?
How have you been lately?
The stone sinks into the sea. It stirs only a moment of ripples, becoming the splash of my sneakers stepping into puddles today. Everything turns toward colder tones. I bought an umbrella, a transparent and delicate long-handled umbrella, and beneath the heavy rain it opened a thin curtain of water. I try to tell my own story, and other people’s stories, telling countless stories in spoken-language practice. I try to move certain things forward. I try to learn waiting and patience, and to place trust in several baskets at once.
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Let us think about why it has become like this. It feels as though I have lost a kind of spirit. I look at this screen the way your gaze glides across one character after another.
Or perhaps this is another version of me speaking—the one who does not forget things, who carries the weight of reality, who is terribly boring. Under too much pressure I do not perform well. I am like an ugly, bloated black bear carrying stones on its back. Many shadows, together with a bottle of beer, become acid rising in my stomach. I gradually sink, losing the ability to speak and to bring anything out. Some things have not left forever. Better to wait until the day I can run again beneath the sunlight.