Animal pain. My best friend’s daughter died today. She was 18.

I crept into my pole room at 1 AM and tried to move the pain through my body. The helplessness I feel. That my friend should have to experience this. It’s like someone called me and told me they shot her in the heart. I’m angry in the same way.

Every moment I’m alone I think about Meimei or Rose or my son. When I’m with Sky and Denny, I feel alright. Cheerful. A bit irritated by the chaos. When I’m alone I ruminate. How can someone be there one moment and be gone the next. It’s wrong. It’s against all feelings of safety.

This is my worst fears of love coming true. Loss. This is at the core of why I did not have another child. To love someone that much is to put that much on the line. Sky is my heart living outside of my body. To do that twice?

In my lifetime, there is no age at which he could die that I would be fine with. 3, 18, 29, 35, 45, 60, 73, 80. If Sky died at 80 on my 114th birthday, that would still be my baby boy. And ultimate betrayal of betrayals, I will die before he does, if all goes well. So it will have been a lie I told him all this time, that I would always come back. Because one day, I will not.

Love hurts so much. He laid on my chest this afternoon as he was napping. He said sadly, “I don’t want to go away from you mom,” and I said, “you don’t have to, you can come lay on me.” And he was so happy. He laid on me, his heavy little body. And I felt close to someone, an animal closeness, like two puppies in the same litter. So rare for me. That intimacy. I was happy. But it hurt! It burned me! It hurt so much. I hated it. And loved it. “It’s going to go away!” my brain screamed at me. “You’re going to lose this!” “He’s going to die! And if he doesn’t die, one day, he will stop doing this because he’s going to grow up and hate you!”

Why do we chase after love, this thing that hurts so much?

And it irritates me. He irritates me. His constant questions and requests and calling my name. The way he stands right in front of me or runs in front of my feet so I trip over him. When he spits for no reason because it’s funny, or throws things, or tries to hit. But against my will I find myself patient. Against my nature I am patient. I am pulled by a ring in my nose towards kindness and loving behavior. Or sometimes I pull away in defiance and I’m sharp-tongued or snappy, and I feel doubly guilty or ashamed. Love is torture. Why?

As a mom, I am loving, patient, empathetic, kind, fun, creative, curious, attentive, thoughtful, and respectful. I think those are perfect qualities for a mom to have. I think I am a good mom. But as a person, I am afraid, tired, worried, anxious, fearful, in pain, lost, insecure. I’m still a small animal hiding. I can be great for other people, but I struggle to be great on my own. I find strength doing for the sake of others. but in doing so, it highlights how little I can do for myself.

Latchkey Serenade

After Leila Chatti’s “Hometown Nocturne”

They called me a good girl for doing my part, 

said I could eat bitter. With praise I could bear 

anything, so I kept faith — shrunk down and sequestered 

myself. Learned that the cruelest line in the world, 

is the one that runs rectangular around the front door. 

Perhaps it didn’t scare the other kids like me

who wore a key around their necks and locked 

themselves away until their mothers opened the door. 

Half the year she was a herald of the still-bright evening

and would fill the house with chatter and instructions,

even her admonitions welcome. Then the onset of winter,

locked in till dark, no lights, no A/C, no TV – CPS was watching

me, shh, behave. My best friend’s mother had just been 

run over. I assumed mine would be killed sooner or later, 

would call her at the university listening to the dial

intoning as shadows stretched across the living room

darkly – a hushed dove of panic held in my chest. Summers

interminable, but something that could be got used to. There’s

a lot a girl can do in an apartment all her own and

a kitchen full of guiltily stocked offerings – Milky Way bars,

Act II popcorn, Bar Q hot dogs. I launched my small

rebellions, putting the TV on at volume setting three to

watch Lucy in Hollywood and Gilligan on his island, 

drenching myself in the comfort of other people’s

full houses – the Tanners, the Banks. Boy meets world,

girl meets herself. And who did I meet in that one-bedroom

apartment? Some creature who played hide-and-seek 

alone, threw popcorn into the air like confetti, 

slathered the tub with soap to make a skating rink, spied

on the postman through the vertical blinds, spilled

water purposely on the hot carpet, cooked eggs

that filled the house with smoke, fantasized

about Monte Cristo, and going treasure hunting in caves.

A room can be a jail cell or a kingdom or a wilderness 

and I could be a prisoner or a king or a monster

if I kept it to myself, even after they came home

to pat me on the head and call me good girl.

Watching the Shanghai Lockdown from Abroad

My friends and my family in Shanghai are going through rolling lockdowns right now. Some have not been allowed to leave their homes since mid-March. Others went in on April 1, and don’t know when they’re going to be let out.

I’ve been watching from afar. I see posts in WeChat Moments about how hard it is to find fruit and vegetables. This issue seemed to be top of mind for my loved ones just a week ago.

Some were selling shares on truckloads of veggies, some were showing off a fridge full of bok choy, others were making jokes that cabbages and celery were luxury items, like LV or Chanel purses.

My best friend, Rose, told me she didn’t really pay close enough attention, so missed the veggie hoarding craze, but on her way home on the last evening of freedom, all the restaurants that had been shuttered were bringing down their inventories to sell on the street. She managed to pick up some tomatoes, radishes, eggs.

Neighborhood committees across the city are distributing bags of food. Some better than others. One friend posted a single daikon radish in a thin plastic bag with frozen chicken wings accompanying. Others showed off a beltfish and said, “my entire neighborhood smells like stinky beltfish today.”

Behind these relatively benign grumblings about discomfort and disorganization are real fears. As of this week, the fears are growing.

Fears of shortages have given way to fears of what may happen if you test positive. It’s rumored that conditions at the mass quarantine center are terrible. No showers, no privacy, no release date in sight.

Here are some of the most harrowing tales I’ve heard:

• Covid positive infants and toddlers are being separated from their parents
• Hospitals are filled with asymptomatic COVID+ cases, and serious mistakes are being made in triage. Cases I’ve read about:
  • A nurse suffering an asthma attack went to the hospital where she works to be treated and was turned away because the emergency department was shuttered. She died.
  • An otherwise healthy 77 year old diabetic man tested COVID+. He had mild symptoms, and was sent to quarantine at a hospital. They didn’t give him insulin for 5 days, and he died.
  • An emergency vehicle abandoned a man suffering a heart attack because they arrived to pick up his neighbor. Refused to lend their defibrillators, refused to bring the more severe case to the hospital first, even at the urging of the neighbor’s family. The man died.
  • A father with a 3 year old child who’d hit his head and was coughing up blood was barred from leaving his compound. He drove through the barricade and said to the guards, “you’ve got a gun, if you want to stop me, you’ll have to shoot me.”

The people I know in Shanghai range from middle class to upper middle class. These are wealthy people by the world’s standards. They buy 25,000 dollar Hermes purses. They live in apartments costing a million USD, under normal circumstances, they travel to the Seychelles, Iceland, Europe, everywhere you can imagine. They are sharing these stories. They’re outraged.

It could be their child, their parents, their friends who are suddenly dehumanized by a COVID+ label.

In my family’s group chat, my aunts and uncles are talking in frightened tones. They’re all 70+ years old. When they were teenagers and 20-somethings, the government took them away. My mother was sent to Heilongjiang, my aunt to Chongming island. They weren’t allowed to leave for 10 years. What kind of memories do you think this current situation is bringing back for them? These gentle, elderly people, who need 10 to 15 minutes to communicate anything these days.

To them, being sent away is as frightening as a death sentence.

People think Chinese people trust the government. We don’t. Only idiots trust the government. The average person knows it’s everyone for themselves. The State will dump you in a cold, dank corner and ignore you as you go into diabetic shock. They’ll take your baby and pen him with other babies for two weeks, three weeks.

You take care of your loved ones and friends if you have the resources. The circles of care grow smaller and smaller, the more dire the situation is. But you take care of your family.

But today, in Shanghai, your sisters and brothers are imprisoned in their neighborhood, and you are imprisoned in your own. You couldn’t help them even if you found a way to leave. The streets belong to the police. In the US, my mother and I are as helpless as someone from across the street.

If someone came to take them away, they’d be gone. Just like that. Just like half a century ago.

There’s not much to be happy about, but I’ll leave you with this video from the quarantine center. I want you to know that these are people.

https://youtube.com/shorts/-8dw2KvEUws?feature=share

My favorite song

This is my favorite Chinese song

My friend Jason calls this kind of music “诗和远方” (poetry and the far away)

It captures the wildness of youth and the muted sigh of regret that comes when time and age force us to confront some unavoidable realities, in all their bleak fluorescence.

Realities (not necessarily mine) such as:

• I am not a genius
• I am really all alone
• I will always choose what’s comfortable and safe
• I’ve compromised myself away
• I care more about money than ideals
• I’m going to give in to tradition
• I don’t want to fight
• I don’t care enough to go after my dreams

I love it especially because it proves to me that in China, a place that can be so conformist and materialistic, the young people experience the acute anguish of compromise. Young Chinese mourn the selves they bury, the constellations and cascades that ran unbridled within them.

In the end, we all compromise, a little or a lot. Here, those days of being wild are hallowed. In some art, at least, compromise will not be tolerated.

Here is my translation of the lyrics:

A joke that twists the heart and a lingering daydream

Sneaking out the back door of my generation’s bank
Tearing open the night and its dark, muted prairie
Leaping over the off-season, forests, and electricity
Leading the thread of our darkest of hearts

In this, the final season of desire
Dissipation of daybreak as well as dusk
In this, the final season of desire
I recall the blades I hid deep within me

Who has travelled across mountain streams, oceans and lakes
Only to be confined to the kitchen and Love’s embrace?

Now, at the frontiers of my self-awareness
I see my father, smoking at the edge of the clouds
He says to me, “child, make peace with yesterday”
Just as we did in our day, the accepted way

Use countless methods suited to the future
To replace the constellations and cascades within you
Use countless methods suited to the future
Adulation of birds that come together and disperse

Who has travelled across mountain streams, oceans and lakes
Only to be confined to the kitchen and Love’s embrace?
Who has travelled across mountain streams, oceans and lakes
Only to be confined to the kitchen and Love’s embrace

In a mere instant
In a mere instant, hold tight my hand and its cloak of contradiction

揪心的玩笑与漫长的白日梦

溜出时代银行的后门
撕开夜幕和喑哑的平原
越过淡季森林和电
牵引我们黑暗的心

在愿望的最后一个季节
解散清晨还有黄昏
在愿望的最后一个季节
记起我曾身藏利刃

是谁来自山川湖海
却囿于昼夜厨房与爱

来到自我意识的边疆
看到父亲坐在云端抽烟
他说孩子去和昨天和解吧
就像我们从前那样

用无限适用于未来的方法
置换体内星辰河流
用无限适用于未来的方法
热爱聚合又离散的鸟群

是谁来自山川湖海
却囿于昼夜厨房与爱
是谁来自山川湖海
却囿于昼夜厨房与爱

就在一瞬间
就在一瞬间握紧我矛盾密布的手

Unsent email that makes me ache for my younger self

Hey – I guess I am a little drunk right now, and will probably not like that told you these things in the morning.

I mentioned this a couple of times obliquely, but I didn’t want to harp on them because who has a good childhood, anyways? But the past makes the present, so I’m telling you these things about me so you’ll know them and know why I’m the way I am sometimes.

When I was little, I just wanted affection and love and my dad, really, to pay attention to me, and he would, then he wouldn’t, then he would. Sometimes I was his star and other times he was annoyed and brushed me off. Then he’d go to Alaska or Minnesota or Flagstaff to work and I wouldn’t see him for a few months, and it didn’t upset me really, I kept his picture under my pillow, but I didn’t think about him. I guess it’s true that how we’re raised really forms the core of how we are, because I find myself a grown woman and still not feeling quite safe enough or loved enough or something’d enough. And i guess i have a hard time with separation because I either ignore my loved ones or feel ignored. So that is why I might be coming off as needy. And I realized that my constantly begging for my dad’s attention as a kid in some way just made him perversely withhold attention from me, and give it at times and not give it at other times, so trying to get people to stay close just drives them away eventually.

The stuff I wrote above is the most common thing in the world for people, and some people take it in stride, but I’m one of those who can’t help getting stuck, and I hate myself for it.

Then there’s the fact that my parents and I have a pretty large gap between us, and I’m constantly looking for understanding outside of that core relationship. Which, incidentally, is why I’m writing you this e-mail, which you probably will scan and put aside because you are doing other things

The problem with writing for work is the lack of carte blanche. Someone always has a better idea or a different approach or a preference, and that someone tends to be your boss.

The other problem with writing for work is that I find it so hard to care.

Of course, I find it hard to care about so many things these days.

??

I find myself shutting up

mouth closed

around a big walnut.

If I open up

I might just burst

piss and shit and vomit across the sidewalk

How embarrassing.

Better to keep me bottled up.

I haven’t written poems about getting old.

Now that I’m actually getting old.

What’s there to write?

Fingers hurt, briny throated mornings, cranky in the elevator, resentful.

Somehow, I’m a mother?

How can that be?

When I haven’t even forgiven my mother

when I’m still crying, angry inside.

Yet I did.

Last June.

Give birth.

The midwife, she said, “hold ON!”

When his head was crowning

at the widest diameter.

Commanded so, I did.

Waited 3 seconds and eased him out

three and ease

three and ease

Attagirl. Good job.

That old, guilty gush of approval

Then, a baby of my very own

Mess of limbs tumbling huge onto my chest

And I became: a mother.

But how can that be?

When I am still a child?

We are two children. I see him and look away, bashful.

There’s been some mistake.

So I’m fat

So I’m fat. It’s fine. I’m ok with it. But other people ARE NOT.

ESPECIALLY ASIANS. They are MAD about it.

When I was living in Shanghai, I had a downstairs neighbor lady, as everyone does when they live in Shanghai. And I used to pass by her every day on the way to my apartment. And one day, it was summer, I was sweaty, hot, annoyed, and as I was trudging home walking past her flat to get up the stairs, she saw me through the screen door. 

She saw me, and she CAME OUT SPECIFICALLY (banged the screendoor!) to tell me I was TOO FAT! TOO FAT TOO FAT!!!! YOU’RE TOO FAT! YOU’RE FATTER THAN THE LAST TIME I SAW YOU, YOU’RE EATING TOO MUCH! TOO MUCH! EAT LESS EAT LESS!

My fat ass started booking it up the stairs.

Prior to this, the only words we’d exchanged had been, like, “hey” “good morning” “you have a cute dog.”

Which was a lie. 

She had a dog but it wasn’t cute. It was a goggle-eyed chihuahua, and that chihuahua had the biggest dick, proportionally, that I’ve ever seen on a dog. Its dick was about 30% the size of its body, and it had HUGE BALLS that grazed the ground when it walked. 

And as I was running up the stairs, I was thinking, “fuck you lady, I had the decency to lie to you about your dog. I have never body shamed him for his huge-ass disgusting balls and dick, which are so very apparent to ALL OF US who live in this neighborhood. Why are you coming at me?”

Asians just have a hard time keeping up the big lie that lubricates our society. You know, the lie that each of us, every single one of us, is a skinny, beautiful, smart, interesting, amazing, special person. 

Coz we’re not. We’re fuckin’ gross, petty, disgusting, fugly, and BORING. We’re all stupid, we do the same stupid shit day in day out, we pick behind our ears and smell it. We look fucking WEIRD dude.

And Asians will RIP OFF that lie and just GUERILLA ATTACK you with REALITY when you least expect it.

When I was teaching English in Shanghai, I was teaching some lesson to these adult students I had about how to use the word “should” and “because” in a sentence, like:

“I should go to sleep because I’m tired,” or “I should read more books because I’m a dumbass,” etc. 

This one dude, like 18 years old, he STANDS UP in class, which I did not require anyone to do. He STANDS UP, stares straight at me, and goes: “Teacher Fei should do more exercise because she is too fat.”

Like…excuse me?!!? Kudos on the sentence, top notch and well-reasoned, but EXCUSE ME?! Why are you snatching my wig like that? Did I solicit feedback!?

Turns out, I never had to do anything. I just had to exist.

It’s not just Asians though. This one guy I dated, a big tall guy from Yorkshire. One day we’re sitting outside at a cafe, and he shows me this video? Card? He’d made. One of those Christmas ones where you put someone’s face on a dancing elf. 

Which. I find that to be an insane thing to do, but anyways.

He shows me this dancing elf card, and I’m in love with him so I’m thinking, aww nice he’s thinking of me, and he’s showing me he thought of me in a slightly bizarre way, but I’m on board with this.

And he goes, “look how nice you look on that dancing elf. You’d look amazin’ if you just lost a few pounds, you’d look just like that dancing elf and you’d be soooo hot. So much hotter. You just need to exercise, you’re just lazy. You’d be hot if you wanted it.”

I’m like, great, I’m now being compared to a two dimensional Christmas elf. My body is so bad that a cartoon is much much better. That’s the ideal. A cartoon 2D dancing elf is what I should aspire to be. It’s the pinnacle, and I could reach it, if only I wasn’t such a fat lazy slob.

It wouldn’t be much of a life, outside of dancing a merry jig to Christmas tunes, but at least I’d be skinny.

Arizona Again

Traffic lights dot the night, stars too large and multicolored. Stopping behind a car, I sense myself again as I was: heartfelt and willing to bleed.

I bled my heart out in Shanghai, there on the plastic shower floor, and the water washed it away.

I cried my eyes out in Rose’s attic. Magnolia cutting with buds unfurling above my head. It was early spring.

I tore my flesh out in the suburbs of Tokyo. The next day it snowed — we kept saying “but it’s April” to bind our wounds with the obvious.

This woman I’ve become, she’s wary of emotion thudding into the pavement like a falling body. Doesn’t want to be struck by lightning out of the clear blue sky.

But this desert is full of ghosts. Ghost feelings, ghost pain, ghosts I abandoned across the ocean.

终于懂了

妈妈，

今天我终于懂了，由始至终你从来都不想理解我，甚至不喜欢我。对你来说，有主见有自信的我会让你非常困惑因为你不能接受观点与你不同的人。

你说你不想知道我在干什么，不想知道我在想什么。我终于听懂了。我离开家这么多年来你不问候不关心，是因为你不想知道。知道了关于我的细节你就开始烦恼。我就是一个烦恼。

从来不问我工作在做什么，我在想什么、盼望什么，那是因为你听了会烦。想到我你就觉得烦。

就像你不爱吃披萨，提起“披萨”这个词你就皱起眉头觉得反感。我就跟一片披萨一样。咬了一口也会被吐出来。

其实我有很多优点。一直以来我都在想方设法的告诉你其实我有很多优点。这也令你觉得反感，你觉得我很自大。我一直在推销自己，很可悲吧，孩子要对自己的母亲推销自己。傻傻的等着不喜欢披萨的人有一天改变自己的喜好。

你总是问我，为什么你要所有人都夸奖你赞美你？

所有人？你错了。我只希望世界上那么一个人夸我。孩子被自己的母亲看好那不是理所当然的事情吗？在你那里不是。得不到你的夸奖我只好到处去收集别人的赞美。只盼望自己的母亲能够对我有一丁点认可与肯定。

昨天我跟你说我的上司看好我，想让我回去替她接手部门。我承认我对这件事情感到自豪。你非但没有夸我，你还贬低了我的学校、我的期盼。说我不稳定太冲动。自大自以为是。

我在你那里总是碰钉子，受到冷言冷语与讽刺。

为什么我一辈子都在努力理解你，你却从来没有花那么一点心思站在我的立场考虑事情。作为一个35岁的女人，我努力建立起一个家庭，带孩子，工作，现在有机会升职连考虑都不该考虑吗？如果我在你的面前说这些，你的反应一定是立刻否定我，说我自以为是可笑。

所以我觉得你是下了决心讨厌我。

一个人不可能得到所有人的认可。有时候最应该喜欢你得人就是不喜欢你。这是你想说的吧？

好吧。我的妈妈就是不喜欢我。你是一个讨厌自己的孩子的妈妈。就这样吧。我也省点事，不用费尽口舌跟你说自己的经历了。今天我才发现你这十几年一直在刻意疏远我，令我们变得冷淡陌生。那我们就继续陌生下去吧。

但是我得表明你没有尽全力理解自己的孩子那是你作为一个母亲的失败。孩子生下来总有一天会有自己的主见。她会出错，有时候她需要安慰需要肯定需要夸奖。这些都不是荒唐的事情，也不是不正常的需要。缺少这些她会焦虑自责缺乏自信。她活在这个世界里会觉得孤独没有安全感。这是常识。

或许你们那一辈的人都没心思去想那些事情，因为你们面对的都是生存危机。但是生存危机过去了，你们用自己的心血给下一代打拼了一片天地。在这种条件之下你认为我没有权利要求更多。什么理解啊认可啊？你已经把整个世界都交给了我，我还敢要求你理解我？

或许这是正确的。但是我想问你，把世界给了孩子但是不认可孩子在这个世界里做自己想做的事情，那不是白给了吗？

算了。说了也没用。你让我很明确的意识到所有人都是孤独来到世上孤独离去。很冷酷的一件事实。谢谢你，我牢牢记住了。

以后我们就做两个合不来的同事吧。公事公办尽量少沟通少接触。大家都轻松点。