Context.

I tend to think that my experiences/feelings/thoughts are unique. The details certainly are. But I often need to remind myself that it’s really not singular. That many, many people have the same experiences/feelings/thoughts. When its something positive, something that makes me really happy, I could care less about whether anyone is experiencing the same (I’m terribly selfish). When its something less positive, however, I like to know that I’m not unique.

What I mean to say is that people have been feeling these same emotions for centuries! millenia! And most of them muddle through. Some of these individuals have even left behind their ideas, experiences, and emotions in tangible works–music, literature, paintings…movies, TV shows, magazine articles, blogs.

In History Boys, Mr. Hector explains how poetry becomes our own expression:

Timms: Sir, I don’t always understand poetry!
Mr. Hector: You don’t always understand it. Timms, I never understand it. But learn it now, know it now, and you will understand it…whenever.
Timms: I don’t see how we can understand it! Most of the stuff poetry’s about hasn’t happened to us yet.
Mr. Hector: But it will, Timms, it will. And when it does, you’ll have the antidote ready. Grief, happiness–even when you’re dying.

For the same reason, I love Before Sunset. Each time I watch the film is a unique experience. I watched it again recently and as always, I discovered things about myself.

The Book of Psalms kind of works like that as well. Some passages are really lovely, but only at the right time.

Psalms 16

Keep me safe, O God, for in you I take refuge. I said to the Lord, “You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing.” Lord, you have assigned me my portion and my cup; you have made my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance. I will praise the Lord, who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me. I have set the Lord always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure. You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

Love.

I’m really silly sometimes.

There’s no need to be flawless, wow.

Life is tricksy.

Walking back from Peet’s in the Ville this evening, a walk I have made countless times, I had nary a thought but that my ears would freeze off. Just past Freeman, I happened to look to my right towards the Academic Quad with the Science Center in the foreground to its right and Stone-Davis to the far left. What a breathtaking sight. The combination of isolated lights from lit interiors and our orderly street lamps was so lovely.

It hit me at that moment that I’m graduating. Will I ever again live in a place so serene and beautiful?

What a trickster life can be. I’ve seen this same sight so many times without noticing it. The evening I first see how beautiful my campus is happens to be less than a week before I leave for good. At least I saw it.

091409_Class trees

I thought I’d restart the habit of documenting the lovely little snippets of life that I encounter.

Today, while walking back from the library, I came across a tree. I don’t know what kind of tree it was, but it was clearly young. There was a little rock at the bottom with a date- 2003. I never knew that a few of the class trees were located between the library and my dorm!

I walked on. The 1950 tree was gorgeous. Aspen, perhaps? It’s trunk was white and it was very, very tall. Really phenomenal. Next to it was the 1932 tree. 1932! That’s amazing! Wellesley girls were planting trees in 1932!

It was amazing to see how large and stately the trees have become in 60 years, 80 years. I thought trees grow slowly, but no, they can be pretty amazing!

I don’t know where the other class trees are, but I think I’ll walk around campus and look for them. The class tree is something that each class plants in their junior year. Hm, speaking of trees, I’m not sure where the 2010 tree is. I’ll look for it!

‘Blue Caravan’

It’s been awhile. Sitting in Fisher Library listening to Vienna Teng and studying Islamic garden architecture, lovely, isn’t it?

I can hardly believe I have just one semester left. I must make it a fabulous semester, then one day I’ll look back and be content that it was all worth it.

I can already do that, actually. It’s been terrible and wonderful. I feel very, very thankful that I can appreciate it now and that I don’t have to wait until I’m, say, 40 and hitting a mid-life crisis to understand the things I now understand. I think I hit my mid-life crisis prematurely, that’s all 🙂

I’m beginning to grow a heart, and that makes me happy. Once the 障碍 are removed, I think I will like the person I will be much more than the person I was.

I worried about ‘college-ish’ a lot before college. I don’t know what it means, exactly. I think it means getting caught up in the superficial and in present worries. I think it means forgetting to dream and to imagine and to love little pleasures. I think it means forgetting to value the friends of one’s past.

I am guilty of it sometimes. I know that there are times when I forget to care about people besides myself. I get so caught up in me that I forget. I haven’t done a good job of appreciating the little pleasures…I always start the semester doing a good job of it. I remember walking up the steps to the Academic Quad in October on a rainy day and loving the rain, the grey skies, even the chill air. But then I forgot and all I could think about was how cold it was, how miserable, how wet, how shitty.

Part of it is that I love melancholy. All the songs that I love most are tinged with it, Before Sunset is sad, through and through. It must be subtle, however. Subtle sadness breaks my heart and perhaps that’s why I like it. Because sometimes I worry that I have no heart, that I don’t feel. And I watch something like Before Sunset, see a painting like Picasso’s Blind Man, listen to a song like ‘Blue Caravan’ and feel overwhelming sadness, which confirms to myself that I do, indeed, have a heart.

I don’t know why I had the sudden urge to blog. I think it had a lot to do with ‘Blue Caravan’ playing in the background. What a lovely day.

Half Full or Half Empty?

I am a day-to-day pessimist but a long-term optimist.  It is rather a challenge for me to see the positive yet I firmly hold to the idea that all things work out or have a reason for being.

Case in point: A few days ago my mom and I made 包子.  We prepped the dough using the bread machine, which was fun to observe.  Afterwards, we let the dough sit around for a bit in order for the yeast to do its thing.  My mom found a lot of frozen filling from previous attempts at 包子 and 水饺 so we defrosted that and mixed it together.  Now the fun part.  For the most part, my mom flattened the dough into flat, thin circles while I placed filling in the center and folded the 包子。 Admittedly the first few were somewhat lopsided and boasted very few folds.  After awhile though, I got the hang of it.  Seeing how we rarely make this stuff (my mom being a rice-loving southerner), we spent a good amount of time on it.  Batch #1 turned out fairly well; Batch #2 would be that much better because I’d gotten the hang of it by then.  Unfortunately, mom decided to put Batch #2 into the oven to allow it to rise a little more…I think the yeast died.  So our dough died.  So Batch #2 came out looking like sad, misshapen lumps of dough.  Devastating.  I took one look and announced that I’d never seen such unappealing 包子。 Mom concurred.  When Dad came home, we regaled him with the misshapen clumps.  Dad takes one look and announces that those are the cutest looking 包子 he’s seen because they look like little turtles with their heads tucked in.  Cup half empty, cup half full.

To my credit, however, for more ‘serious’ matters (which are generally more long-term), I am unabashedly optimistic.  True life can suck from time to time, but one can always learn from such moments and things turn out OK eventually  🙂