The art of losing

isn't hard to master

summer evening in May

according to the lunar calendar,

summer arrived in May

good thing

it's just in time 

for sitting on the balcony

with a calico kitten and a quiet guitar

curtains of laundry that dried earlier in the white sun

all resting together in the soft dark

parted by the hush of cars across the bridge below

beaded by the music drifting from a nestled iPad

in the orange-lamp-lit shaded dark

warm summer evening

国际劳动节

And on this May Day, one more international worker was liberated :)

镜子 - Chinese: mirror

People ask me why I'm interested in China and Chinese.  They've been asking me for 5 years.

I tell people that I seek contrasts, conflicts, contradictions, because where these things are, there is much to learn from.  I also think to myself that there is something about China that I feel I relate to - something that I see myself in - but of course that doesn't make much sense.  It makes more sense today, though.

I was reading this article ( http://www.theworldofchinese.com/magazine/articles/how-to-like-cheese-as-a-chinese-person/ ) about things that I have never experienced, but still desperately wanted to understand, as if this article about the 80's generation in China could tell me, as a 80后, about myself.

Do you remember that everything is a mirror?  I think that, as narcissistic as it sounds, one of the more compelling actions is to look oneself in the face - in the eyes.  I think that's why I'm interested in Chinese.

To seek myself in China is to explore the nature of this mirror.
And, I suppose,
to discover the nature of the mirror is to see myself. 

There are many many mirrors - China and Chinese just seems to be the one that's most fascinating to me right now.

For 5 years, that didn't make sense in words.  It still doesn't quite, but it's much closer.

Upon learning about the title of "The Thorn Birds" from the last sentence of Wikipedia, I thought...

I am on my 3rd life

one by one those gone before have found their thorns,

I am reborn

from their tragic ashes.

They sang themselves to death.

Who's next?

robin's shadow

we met in April,
flowered in June,
I loved him like a robin loves the northern spring
and winter came

we fell with the temperature
froze with snow
We were the swallow and the Happy Prince
the nightingale I was, oak I remain

I think the sun is like a flower that blooms for just one hour

May the glow of those days light the rest of my life forever