clarification

currently i am in 北京. i stay until near the end of june.

and after a july whirlwind of texas, dc & tulane for family, training and orientation...

...i'll be in argentina, come the first day of august.

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i suppose i should feel excited. and perhaps i will as the time gets closer.

but i feel like that man in the leonardo da vinci sketch, being pulled this way and that: endless exploration and adventure are exciting, but perhaps the desire for permanence and stability is still human.

or perhaps your heart feels pulled towards something, has an anchor and it's hard to lift yourself out. in this case, china has been my anchor. i think it always has been, really.

就是很矛盾啦.

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anyway, it is always hard to say good-bye.

a friend took me to a french restaurant for my birthday. the owner was saying that it's best not to eat oysters in the months without an "r" (though coming from monsieur french it came out as more of a purr: "rrr...")

may, june, july, august.

i suppose with the opportunity to live and study in china and argentina, the world really has been my oyster. but in these r-less months, i kind of wouldn't mind a bit more permanence and stability for a while.

perhaps i will just miss my family and friends.

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shall i compare thee to a summer's day?
thou art more lovely and more temperate.
rough winds do shake the darling buds of may
and summer's lease hath all too short a date.

chuang-tzu

a fist trap is for catching fish;
once you've caught the fish, you can forget the trap.

a rabbit-snare is for catching rabbits;
once you've caught the rabbit, you can forget about the snare.

words are for catching ideas;
once you've caught the idea, you can forget about the words.

where can i find a person who knows how to forget about words,
so that i can have a few words with him?

-chuang tzu

mingled dreams

it is nighttime. we are driving. he is there with me.

and unlike in the past, my hands are on the steering wheel.

---

it is summertime. the cool night breeze belies the sweltering rays of an earlier endless afternoon sun. i am with a girl i just met; she is from argentina. we stop at a wal-mart. the fluorescent lampposts scatter their bright lights like wind-blown daffodils on a deserted parking lot. we go inside. i am looking for a pair of shorts. black ones, i want.

what is it like to live in argentina? i ask. i want to buy a bicycle with big handlebars to roam around on in the evenings.

i also hear it's near the beach? i miss the ocean. i hope to live near the coast.

she looks at me. she is quite pretty. brown hair, light skin, deep mauve-colored lips--a love-hate mixing of european colonialism in latin america.

her eyes are serious.

be careful, she warns. the streets are dangerous at night.

i look at her, slightly surprised. covered in a shroud of boundless excitement and adventure, i had overlooked vulnerability, alienation and those one hundred years of solitude.

be careful, she repeats.