we walked to Chinatown and he asked in Chinese about the longyan. she said that they are so sweet and delicious that we would be back for more. and we nearly did walk back for more after eating them facing the East River- fingers sticky and tongues salivating from the sweetness. shortly afterwards, we found a piano in the river.

i learned how to roll a proper burrito today, and that's where i met D, all curly hair and short sleeves in the 50 degree weather. she rolled the best burrito because, according to her, "i like tacos better so i don't fill my burrito with too much stuff."

we found out we went to the same middle school, two years apart.

she works at bloomingdale's, and her method of dealing with the cost of living in new york city is to compile a list of restaurants she wants to try and get guys on okcupid to take her to dinner and buy her drinks a few times a week. "a girl's gotta eat," she whispered, and winked while taking a bite of her free burrito.

yup.

i walked through chinatown today,
lower lower chinatown,
across columbus park, and onward even further to seward park

i tried to contain my nostalgia as i stood behind the excited men watching and discussing heated games of chinese chess, thinking about the groaning afternoons that i spent in extracurricular chinese chess classes after obligatory chinese school. the chess games were set to a soundtrack of the straining, gasping lilt of the erhu filtered through shouts from the soccer fields.

in true Amelie fashion, I sank fingers into and through the bins of watermelon seeds, thinking of all the times we sat at the kitchen table cracking our molars on opening those seeds to get the tiny morsel of flesh inside.

i walked slowly through the bakeries, inspecting the sweet glutinous rice treats. i felt heartsick about the Mandarin language as i listened to toddlers point out in bird-like voices the "tu shu guan" (library) to their smiling and proud mothers. heartsick because our children may never experience as close of a link to their "heritage" and language as we did, as the sons and daughters of immigrants.

i thought about my grandmother's wrinkled hands gripping my tiny ones too tight, but how i never dared to complain. all i could think about was the pain of the handhold as she sang me songs in Fukinese, songs that i never understood and don't remember.

i thought about the value of the mangoes my mother cut up, how she saved all the fleshy parts for us. she only ever ate off of the peels, biting off what was left after she fed us. i felt immense gratitude flood across my heart, for the times i never saw the sacrifice that helped put the grapes and strawberries and Asian pears on the kitchen table. the water added lovingly to congee, to stretch the grains of rice just a little bit further. the pots of soup that were made from not just the chicken, but the bones themselves, to stretch it just a little bit further too.
this actually haunts me regularly these days, in the face of the seeming gluttony of our $12 salads (oh and add four dollars for chicken breast).

perhaps it's all so pessimistic. perhaps i'm dancing the fool's dance, thinking this way. i feel almost guilty, that it's all too easy to walk down a few blocks with a few dollars in hand acquire the rare and coveted and scarce treats of my childhood.
i feel like if i put all the words i could craft together in a bucket, it would still be too shallow to show my family how i feel about this, to tell them that i understand now. it feels a little like walking backstage and seeing what really made the play come to life.

i stood quietly behind a fence, watching a lone man practice qi gong. i studied the sweeping and dancing of his feet, the discipline behind his movements, the serenity that sat in the stillness of his face.
i know i panic daily, everything is in a rush, has to be part of a plan. it ruins lives, all this planning. let me learn how to slow down.

how do you sink into the noise around you? how do you transcend it?

I spent the weekend in strangers' arms.
Many asked if they could do it again.
Many smiled noiselessly.
Many felt music differently from me.
I spent the weekend saying hello and then walking away quietly in the span of 3 minutes and 28 seconds.
We can live a lifetime like this.
We can build a lifetime like this.

1) hello, my name is
2) where are you from?
hold each other.
move with each other.
feel intimate, or don't.
"i'm sorry i hurt you, it was an accident"
pause. or move on.
staccato, or to add a fermata.
"i am sorry, this is too fast for me. perhaps next time."
"could i find you again later?"
"i really enjoyed that. could i dance with you to different music?"
3) are we on the same rhythm? can we coexist to the same rhythm while moving differently?
move quickly, violently.
move slowly, sensually.
improvise. or follow patterns.
fall into habit.
fall into novelty.
try something new. fail.
try again.
fall down.
4) thank you.
5) ...
look for the next one.

I came to, feeling thrilled. I had lost the past three hours. The room was still throbbing with light and sound. I realized I couldn't feel anything below my shins. The first thing I did was turn to my friend and whisper, "it's so hot in here."

She put a glass of water to my lips.

I sat on the edge of the luxurious bathtub, watching it fill. We were quiet from an argument after dinner. Something about a tone, and then a look someone gave, and someone got offended, but we don't remember which was which. If you asked us now, it would seem immaterial. I remember silently getting up to get my coat, and stepping out into the unreasonable cold. The icy streets had rendered my leather-soled boots absurd. I wanted to laugh, but even smiles froze before they could get to my face.

The water in the bathtub was too warm. Still, we sat - touching but not really touching since the touching wasn't intentional and it was only a byproduct of the size of the space- in the tub with the roaring jets that sprayed hot water at our backs.  

We made lighthearted conversation about how good it felt, and how soft our skin was from the salts. 

Our hands brushed occasionally. I watched my long hair surf the waves. 

We fell asleep wearing our robes, not touching, but side by side, in front of the fireplace. 

I awoke, groggily, and my stomach felt like it had a fist trying to punch outwards from inside. 

I spent the next twenty four hours prostrate on various surfaces and feeling like dying. Sometimes, I would shuffle to the window and watch the snow. Mostly, I watched various shows that I didn't understand because they were all in French. Even Harry Potter spoke French. Willing my stomach to feel better. 

We held onto the privacy of disappointment. Allowed that to be a place where we hid from each other a little while. You raised your voice once, telling me to stop telling you to go do something else exciting, away from me. Because, you said, it wasn't that I was sick. If I was sick, we were sick. Together. Then you apologized for raising your voice. 

You force fed me some water from my purple water bottle. We ate chicken soup from tin cans and congee that I made. 

An hour before midnight, I woke you up.  Wearing more clothing than I had ever put on at one time in my life, we walked outside. Our bodies, limited by the huge lumps of warm clothes covering them, twisted in funny shapes as we tried to dance with each other in the snowy cold while holding hot beverages. Our gloved hands clumsily clung to each other. Our eyelashes and nosehairs froze as we shook off all the ache from the previous day. As we lifted our eyes, fireworks filled the mountain sky. 

i guess, wherever we are traveling, and in whatever direction, and towards what (a destination? an emotion? power? a goal?)- we all want the same damn thing.

when we were driving to Vermont, i liked that the windows were down and the leaves would greet us mutely in less than muted tones of yellow and red. in between bouts of launching into off-tune singing of whatever was playing on the radio, i stuck my fingers out the window (the way my parents always scolded me about not doing!) and wove them through the air.

the passing coolness would ripple across my skin, and giddyly, stubbornly, i kept my fingers outside. equal parts full, and filling.

i checked outside.
leaves still reaching toward the sky like my grasping fingers.

something mended at that moment at the same time, something else broke. something along the lines of hearts, and walls.

My obsession with accordions began at a young age.

I really thought I wanted to play accordion, and my parents bought my twin sister and me identical tiny accordions. Tiny accordions for our tiny fingers. Our small house was not rich or fancy, but it was filled with two of the richest things that this world has to offer: books and musical instruments.

I still remember strapping the accordion onto my shoulders and pretending I could play.

My discovery of Julieta Venegas came later (here is her Tiny Desk Concert at NPR).  She is tiny and bursting with talent, and she masterfully demonstrates the art of traversing several different instruments during her all of concerts. The accordion always made me feel like it could transport me to another place, another time. It makes me explore the curious paradox of playful seriousness, and the feeling of sitting outside a cafe, or participating as an onlooker to a parade.

Then came Argentine tango. Along the shores of the Seine river at night, I sat in front of the bandoneon player, and listened until dawn. I'm not sure whether the movement or the music lulled me into believing I'd dance tango one day. Perhaps it was the water, or the Parisian night.

I still get lost in the accordion notes. They seem a little bit naughty, but every part innocent. Pushes, pulls, pressing, bellowing, resonating.

I sit next to MB's office. He's a Steel City old-timer, been here all his life working in the oil and gas industry. He's worked in the field all his life, wears jeans to the office every day ("because no one has told me I can't").

When cookies or candy or other sweets are involved, I compete readily with him. I can down 6 cookies in the blink of an eye. Yesterday he stopped by to chat, and we started talking about Reese's peanut butter cups. He said he can eat an entire bag of the Reese's pieces, and I said I would too except for my wariness about my waistline. He stared at me for a full 30 seconds in disbelief and told me that I am the size of a stick. I never deny that I'm in decent shape, but I know that my metabolism isn't that of my 16 year old self, either. But MB asked me why all women are worried about this stuff. I conjured up what I usually say, some mish-mash about the media, and magazines, and models.

He said, "let me tell you something. When I look at a Monet painting, I think, that's really beautiful. I think, I could look at this for a long time and think it's beautiful, but inevitably, when I see the same thing every day, and the same type of painting at every turn, even the paintings that everyone consider extraordinary are going to get ordinary. So I don't think people should be so concerned about their paintings looking like a Monet painting. Maybe they should just make their paintings look like their own painting."

And that was the mind blowing wisdom I received yesterday from a guy who works out in the field.

For the record, I almost never listen to my voicemails. It's a really strange habit, since I'm almost neurotic about reading emails on time.

I just spent an hour going through voicemails that I hadn't listened to since May. about 80% of them are from two people. I loved to hear the greeting in each one. The most popular ones being: "Rose!" or "This is..."

It makes me happy to click through them all and hear the different emotions that come from the same voices.

something struck me in conversation the other day.

we are all waiting for miracles. we are all waiting to be saved in our own ways. we are all waiting for love to appear. we are all waiting for our dreams to come true.

what if we've been waiting all this time for something that looks a certain way to us, but when it appears, it will be almost unrecognizable with a hint of mischief dancing across its eyes? what if it just looks different from what we have imagined-- what if our miracles have arrived, but we are too preoccupied with our assumptions to notice?

this morning was cold after the rain that rode in through the night. last night we stayed past midnight outside, drinking the air as it grew colder on our lips. the fog sat heavily on its haunches, watching the green mountains soak deeper colors into its bones. i feel autumn coming, and it fills me with hope that  this year's winter will bring a different kind of warmth, unlike previous years before it.

an old friend called me last night.

and another old friend fell in love.

--



By the Same Author
James Longenbach (2012)

Today, no matter if it rains,
It's time to follow the path into the forest.


The same people will be walking the same dogs,
Or if not the same dogs, dogs that behave in similar fashions,
Some barking, some standing aloof.
The owners carry plastic bags.


But this is the forest, they complain, we must do as we like.
We must let the dogs run free,
We must follow their example,
The way we did when we were young.


Back then we slept, watched TV—
We were the dogs.
By the time the screen door slammed, we were gone.


Nobody really talks like that in the forest.
They're proud of their dogs,
Proud especially of the ones who never bark.
They're upset about the Norway maple, it's everywhere,
Crowding out the hickories and oaks.


Did you know it takes a million seeds to make one tree?
Your chances of surviving in the forest,
Of replicating yourself, are slim.


Today, the smaller dogs are wearing raincoats,
The bigger ones are stiffing it out.
They're tense, preoccupied,
Running in circles,
Getting tangled in the leash—


It's hard remaining human in the forest.
To move the limbs of the body,
To speak intelligible words,
These things promise change.

my mom, after i forgot to turn off the faucet after the pitcher had already filled- "you forgot about the water. your dad does that too."
i told her, "it's scary how much i really am like my dad"
my mom, "so, you need to love your dad so that you can learn to love yourself"

i was thinking about our trip to Peru and how we met Mark and Sheri while heading towards Machu Picchu. it's amazing how close you get to strangers when you share every minute of a grueling, beautiful journey. you wake up before sunrise together, you groggily and grouchily eat breakfast together, you shiver your ass off together, you chew coca leaves together, you laugh together, you commiserate together about not showering for five days, you get sick together, you get better together, you distract each other while others are going to the bathroom up ahead on the trail, you get lost together, you watch the big soccer games together on a jerryrigged TV in the middle of the mountains, you commiserate about crazy traveling companions together, you ride buses together, you sit down together, you get back up together, you walk through freezing water together (the Canadians took it better than the Texans), you dance together after your legs are so tired that you have to keep moving them or else you might never stand up again.

and when you reach your destination and you awkwardly stand around realizing you may never see each other again, it feels like you've grown these limbs that you have to say goodbye to. and you aren't really so used to them that it warrants too much sentiment at first, but that "together"' journey really changes everything.

listening to Bach's unaccompanied Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major: Courante

i love hearing the breath of the cellist, and even if you can't hear the breathing you still know exactly when they breathe

this is one of the two times i've wanted to cry this week. just at how beautiful the breath between notes is.

the other time was in yoga, when c. talked about urgency, about how we have to fight our tendency when living in this city to feel like everything is urgent. i held my breath hoping that no one would see my tears, and he said, "the best yogi is the one who moves the most air" so i let go of the air inside my lungs.

oh, and the third time i had forgotten about was when Florence talked about her roots in Texas, and how right when she steps off the plane "the air in Texas smells like my childhood."


so everything i want to cry about has to do with air

this morning, i kid you not, i was driving to work and i was thinking about all the things i have to do, and thinking about looking at my phone, and i had just called my friend to sing her a happy birthday rap song, and i'm looking up at the sky and the sun is shaving through the clouds, and the underbelly of the clouds is a little dark but with blue and silver trimmings, and birds fly up across the piece of sky that i'm looking at, and the light is dimpled on the outwardly plain street of downtown houston, and i was like goddamn this is exactly what mornings should look like.

she called me about a relationship that ended 2.5 years ago.
she couldn't believe that something about that relationship could still trigger feelings inside her, after so long. she is still looking for answers to a question that can never be answered.

--


we were driving together in the night, and he sighed and told me he hadn't slept much the night before. he said he had taken a five minute nap, and during the nap had one of those intensely vivid dreams. he said he dreamed only of their hands, his hand holding hers. and when he woke up she was not there, and he felt intensely sad.

somehow he knew it was her hand he was holding.

i think it was March. i was sitting in the car with you, and i was thinking that for some reason it was funny to have you drive me somewhere.

we were both quiet, and i just remember your quiet heartache speaking to mine.
my baby brother with his new heartbreak, not saying a thing.

i told you i was sad, too.
and you reached over and gave me a brother-hug, this sideways hug. it was like on Big Bang Theory when Sheldon hugs Penny. and i knew it would be all right.

i had a conversation with S. the other day, and she told me about how her brother married a girl before he had lived with her.

S. said that her brother calls her every other day, complaining about things that his wife does, things that are mundane but matter a whole lot.

i think i told you once that i felt like we were always going through something. but when i look back on it, i realize fondly that i know how you will react in these situations, and i like the familiarity of knowing how you take care of things, the way you think through them with reason.

even though there were some very dark periods, there is a familiarity to your pragmatism, a familiarity to your emotion, a sweet expectation to the way you leave your wet towels on the bed and your empty coke bottles on the coffee table.

there was a growing tenderness to the way you would touch my belly when it hurt, or kept me company when i lay on the restroom floor with pain.

the little things are the ones that helped drive my heart back to you.

the incredible warmth of your hands whenever you touched my skin. i remember maybe only one time when i took your hands in mine and they were cold. but even when your hands are cold, they are not clammy. they are smooth, like rocks in a riverbed.

the way your hair feels between my fingertips.

the roundness of your eyes, the slight droopiness at the corners. it was in your eyes that i could tell you loved me, the way they would soften across the room. i could tell the times you felt nothing for me, and the times you felt everything.

your expression when you're driving

your laugh

the way your face changes with embarrassment, the cute kind, where you smile in a square shape


your feet


i used to think that the methodical way you spoke was analogous to hardness, but you are just that way. your enthusiasm comes in volume more than animation, and your animation comes in your hands.

in denver, the light was low (hotel rooms are always lit in the same way).

i turned to you and said, "i am always writing the same thing, over and over again, in different forms. but still the same reincarnation"

you said, "really?"

and i said, "yes, i think all writers and artists (in all shapes and forms) are always re-making the same thing."

i turned to carrie and asked confirmation. she nodded, with that famous look of infinite wisdom and innocence, if such a paradox could exist. and what are we living then, if not a circle? and what do we breath in, if not a rhythm? and what do we love within, if not a cycle?


"As soon as you stop, it's because you've started again.
You can put a picture aside and say you won't touch it again, but you can never write the end." - Picasso