That's the way it goes

written in Huizhou, China, 2005

That is the way it goes.  Lose some gain some.  In a constant motion, a wave uproarious, a trickle silent, we go on to ever more mysterious and confounding allegories.  Just when I think I have found someone, I know sooner and naught, it isn’t happening. 

An overcast sky is enough to turn off the a/c and open the door.  The students are taking exams today and tomorrow, so I have nothing to do.  Joy called me earlier to inform me that the English corner with the other teachers at the public number eight school would not be held.  I have nothing to do.  Except observe.  I watched a swarm of four winged horse flies do some kind of ritual dance.  Their yellow bodies zig and hover, sometimes they stop and wait, but never for too long.  And they are silent.  Drops as big as half dollars came, the flying tribe dispersed, a few stray in the courtyard turned a slow gait to a sprint. 

The sun comes out and within seconds the heat returns. 

Joy reminds me to say nothing to Stephen.  A principal from Hong Kong will be upset if he knows his two American teachers are not teaching today and tomorrow.  Oh, you have much free time, you very lucky.  Yes, I consider myself fortunate.  As long as I remain busy, then all the time in the world is welcome. 

Last night I spoke with Heidi for two hours and change.  It was nice to speak with someone familiar, someone who’s known me for longer than three months.  A breeze comes into the room.  Because I have no windows in this cell block I never get breezes.  It is nice.  I can see fancy palm trees from my desk.  They are the kind with the thin white striped trunks.  An elegant sway reminds me of beaches  on Koh Samui, or boulevards in Dubai. 

None of us are free.  What control do I have in my life other than what I do for myself.  None of us are free.  Everything is changing, all the time, even when I think nothing is happening, it’s all happening, albeit sometimes it’s a slow slow process.  Am I restless because I know change is happening all the time?  Heidi settles down, has a man that loves her, has three beautiful children, and she talks to me as if restlessness is going to throw her over a bridge into traffic. 

Maybe it’s just like me, I whinge in her ear, on her computer, there is no one else.  No one.  But she’s got plenty of people around her, with perhaps stories told differently pending the audience.  The rain comes again and it pours.  I turned on the a/c with the door open.  Am I a wasteful American or what?  The palm fronds wave at me, come out and soak it in, nature and everything else. 

The blues come over me.  Sometimes they stay infinitely long.  But it never presses my soul into nothingness. I guess I’d never appreciate how fortunate I have really had it unless I went into the pit of despair once in a while.  For reasons I go into the darkness are not hard to understand.  It’s all about finding connection with others, with nature, with god, if I may say that without shame, without fear, without a damn clue who or what god is, if he is or she is, or it is, watching me or has wound up my clock and has let me go to see what I can do for him, her or for humanity, or for creation, or for all of it.  How the hell should I know, it’s a mystery I’m not even sure I am sometimes up for, especially when I hover like the dragon or horse fly, unsure but always moving, doing a little jig, never staying in one place for very long. 

Do horse flies have a long life span?