I've been realizing that everything changes. After reading through my blog the same way one reads through a diary, I see a lot of differences within even myself. Other than the fact that I speak differently -- for instance, though you can't tell from the writing, the abundance of slurred syllables and street proclitics is now much less prevalent in my speech -- my life has taken several turns, my fast friends have slowly faded from my life, and the music is great. When people say, "You've changed", it often carries with it some negativity.
But last night, my sister put her son to sleep in the crib and sang him lullabies. One of them she seemed to make up or, at least, tailored the lyrics for him, and in it she sang that she will love him forever, that she will like him always, and that Nolan would be her baby for as long as she's living. Something about it was so touching that I felt suddenly like I should disappear, that I was witnessing something of a depth more intimate than what I was a part of. And then, it was something so familiar. I realized what was sacred to me suddenly was the realization that my sister -- this woman I grew up with, fought with, ate with, cried with, this woman I saw through our soccer games and sweaty summers, bicycle accidents and crummy youth orchestras, bandaids and Barbie dolls and broken lego pieces, was now a mother. My sister was now a mother.
So people change as well. And sometimes it's just as beautiful.
On my way to the stop, I came across a tiny, striped kitten. It sat watching me attentively by the shade of a parked car. When I stopped to look at it, it scampered over and tried to play with my right boot. Like all cats, they do that thing where they rub the side of their bodies against your leg, except he was new at this, and managed only to lean his head across my ankle. I knelt down to pet it and he rolled over on his back the way my dogs do, all the while swatting playfully at me with his paws. I scratched his head gently and, with his face smiling in the sun, it struck me that his immediate trust was the most touching of things adorable.
He had no collar but I figured it belonged to one of the residents in the area. Once, I had seen a cat by my place and went through great pains of finding its owner; the owner wasn't at all pleased that I had hunted her down. I guess cat owners are different than dog owners.
I walked from the kitten a little sad to leave him with his vulnerable paws in mid-air, but reaffirmed in the beauty of life, the innocence of animals, and God's curious majesty in the tiniest of creatures.
On the train, a lady walked in with a muzzled lap-dog, with the face of a Jack Russell, but larger ears that jutted straight out, sideways from the head. His simple joys put me in a better mood.
There's something so innately evil about humans and our ability to manipulate and scheme, our cabalistic gestures and weary distrust of others. As much as words like "animalistic" and "brute" have negative connotations, ones of carnage and crass indifferences, I see a great deal to learn from animals. To be "human" suddenly rings hollow in its virtue.
I think some people take issue with the existence of God because they cannot readily see or hear him. While praying today, it struck me that this makes sense. As some of you may know, I've been recently grappling with the subject of human love and I was marveling at how my mother and my sister's love for me has been unshaken and steadfast; they communicate their love to me with words and actions that I can understand. When they speak, their sounds are immediately comprehensible. But imagine something so large that its voice is actually the largest sound wave, a sound wave so large that your whole person makes up only a fraction of its size. That's basically a vibration that you can't hear. But maybe one you can feel.
After playing the concert, I really didn't expect this kind of reaction from myself. I guess it's because my dad was really involved with the church there and I used to play there -- running around sweaty, playing hide-and-seek, drawing -- for hours when I was a kid growing up. I was born into the church, pretty much, and I remember the pews being shorter, the ceiling higher, the room bigger. But I was grown up now, and the place was much smaller, but still a great space. Playing the cello up on the stage for this concert, I pictured my dad, who was one of the two interpreters, standing up there with Rev. Ng during one of the sermons and imagined that what he saw, the rows of people in those pews, was kind of like what I was seeing now. But I wasn't gifted in languages, I wasn't eloquent with words, and my language was now music.
So I'm crying for some reason. I don't know why. I think it's because this concert was more difficult to do than I thought. I had stepped on stage at more intimidating spaces, and on more pressing occasions, but there was something about being 26, being there. My dad knew a 12-year-old Adrian Fung. And what that church means to me is unique and odd: It catapults me back to a time where I was the way my dad knew me; I feel little again and all these old memories rush past me like sheets of rain.
Some people say I look like my dad.
Goodbye, My Lovely
I love you love you love you
(However cheaply that lands on your ears)
And nearer still to the point:
Nothing is wrong, you see me and blink
your love.
I have learned to lean on your love
And I don't know where to stand without it.
So stay. A thousand times, stay.
I bank that this is enough
for the hundred you hate me; please
don't escape me.
In your eyes, my throat turns to sand
My hand, a film of sweat,
slick and muffled
My Gordian stomach pickled with salty citrus.
Is this our last, our very last
exhale
into a fast fantasy rushing past
like so many moments
of grain --
My words flung against and lost in that stream
of time; starved
of hope, skeletal and sinewy, from gristle to grist
Don't deny me the foggy mist of hope
Or, better, denial. For in your
eyes I see a tender glow
And however much in those radiant beacons
I will be no more, I have but one last favour,
one last request:
For all that you do, that which you say
and that sword you wield
I beg you let me live
out
my desperate liquefaction of pretend. Darling
please don't tell me
not even with your eyes
how this story ends
|
