moonnuty

夜寒緬水靜鱗瀾

暗潛龍蛇下大川

猛志天涯人未老

枝頭寧許抱香殘

2013.12.4自Erlangen夜歸

In a busy work day afternoon, it is almost 6pm, and my head is still buried in reading. The window shades are closed so as to block out the summer sun. By accident I raise my head, and from the gap between two halves of the shades I see a mountain in the middle distance by the edge of the city, dressed in a bluish haze. German houses with red rooftops are glistening in the setting sun. How peaceful – almost like my hometown, where a similar mountain is framing a city of a similar population size. With a sudden alarm I realize that I never had the curiosity to walk down those streets to the edge of the mountain. The curiosity that I had as a child to check out each and every corner of the town is gone. I live in this city like an ant, housed in my holes. Places are reduced to their urban functions: phone companies, pharmaceuticals, doctors, shopping centers, grocery stores, cafes, museums, milongas… I lose sight to other parts of its life beyond my functional tiny holes. Such an existence suddenly feels very strange and very sad to me. Shall I run down the streets, laughing, in a rain? And step into every poodle in my rubber boots, fascinated by how the water splatters? When do the cherries first appear on the branches, before they are red and ripe, neatly wrapped on grocery stands? How do birds sing on that mountain? And how do the German grasses smell differently in the spring? All the sensual details that I carry about the locale are the memories of that distant, Chinese city where I spent a carefree, thoughtful childhood. They have defined the natural and cultural abode wherever I go, across two great oceans. I wish to recover that innocent sensuality for life. And relive it like new. Yet, for now, after this spree of nostalgia, all I can do is go back to the reading. The clock is ticking.

When I realize that every single one that I’m missing is afar, Frankfurt becomes suddenly empty. 

當我意識到每個我所思念的人都在遠方，法蘭克福便空了。

A gray Sunday. The smell of summer comes and fades.

灰色的星期天。夏日的氣息乍有還無。

We live in a hasty world. Just when you realize that it was love, look back, and that person has disappeared in an ocean of mankind.

我們的世界如此匆匆。當你意識到愛的感覺，驀然回首，那人已經消失在人海。

I’m a lazy person and seldom take care of my shoes. So today I happened to buy some shoe shine and just started to oil all of them, at midnight. Then I began to find shoes that I’d almost forgotten, tucked in drawers and boxes. They are so beautiful, like forgotten love stories. And I know they are doomed to be forgotten again.

Lately, in my practice of yoga, of tango, and of rock climbing, I repeatedly confronted the same question:

Where is your center?

The center, or the “heart,” the kokoro, is the source of balance and of power. Finding it sets you free.

And I also ask myself: where is the center of the more serious side of my life? Is it my work? No. Is it writing? Closer, but still no. Then I realize that the center is my intellectual curiosity. It keeps pushing me forward. It is an empty feeling of hunger at the stomach. It is the emptiness around which the universe dances.

Knowing that, I no longer regret everything I left behind. I can’t help it. It’s my raison-d’etre.

冬盡春生。忽思往事，如憶前世。舊友有謂余如蟬、飲露而生者，信哉！余非惟飲露，且歲歲蟬蛻。蘇夫子曰：＂平生逐兒戲，處處餘作具。所至人聚觀，指目生毀譽。＂嗚呼！焉得燃犀之火，以焚好惡乎？

I live on small epiphanies

One at a time

8:05 am, Adina Hotel, Budapest. I was woken up not by early birds, but by urgent knocking on my bedroom door. Obviously, my wake-up call five minutes earlier had failed, a result of my deep slumber since five o’clock, after the New Year tango party and some more sleepless torment from an aching throat. I struggled up to make it to the Keleti station, onto the RJ train. Then I lied down on a double seat, covered myself with my white puffy coat, and began to doze on and off.

When I opened my eyes, on both sides of the train, the Hungarian countryside spread like a foggy, frosty dream. All grasses, shrubs, and trees were covered by a fine layer of icicle coating, wrapped in an opaque, infinite milky fog. Even now, till in the heart of Austria, this fog forms a vast continuum that never leaves a gap. I wonder if it has gently embosomed the whole continental Europe like a gigantic cotton candy, cradling it for its New Year healing. So that all the plants can weep the ice in their cells out.

My phone began to have service in Austria. I sent M a message, wishing him a happy new year. Just when I was getting off the train at Linz, my phone beeped. He wished me back a good new year, and told me that he was in a nice party at his colleague’s roof.

Yes, we are both trying to be happy. I seek it in the far, he seeks it in the near. Mine is always mixed with agony.

I went into the station, bought a smoked salmon banquette and coffee, and sat down to eat. There was another single old man eating a brötchen on the little coffee table next to mine, who struggled with his legs. He offered me sugar, I declined. I wondered if he just wanted to talk to someone. I took a few bites, and suddenly uncontrollable tears welled in my eyes, streaming down my cheeks.

I broke down crying, on the New Year day, in a non-descriptive cafe of an Austrian bahnhof.

It seems that no matter which decision I make in my life – staying, leaving, making friends, keeping aloof, getting married, getting separated – I remain lonely. Terribly lonely. I wonder if there’s a permanent quick fix to it, such as by having a baby. But what if it doesn’t? What if this loneliness is truly existential, and not circumstantial?

I also felt again the urge of writing, which had been nagging me all these days, on the street, on the tango floor, in the night. A childlike whisper by my ears. I wonder if this is why men become more successful than women, because of their existential unfulfillment that is harder to fight by convenient means like forming a family or nursing a new life.

At least for some of them. But again, for some of us too.

I cried silently but notably, using up all my pocket paper-handkerchief. The whole cafe was quiet. The old man chewed and chewed. Then I packed my food and rose to leave. I asked the elderly woman behind the counter for some serviettes. She cooly gave me two thin pieces. A fine specimen of Austrian therapeutic detachment. I asked for some more. She gave two more.

My reserved seat on the Deutsche Bahn ICE wad by the window. The frost and mist continued, but now with more sheen of greenness. It’s like deeply frozen Japanese matcha ice cream. A fairy tale for a little Asian girl, who was however crying all by herself over the lost innocence of pure, materialistic existence.

Jan. 1, 2013

一念之差也好，正確的抉擇也罷，我選擇了乘火車，而非更廉價的飛機，來到布達佩斯。早上十點從法蘭克福火車站出發後的十個小時，列車才緩緩駛進了布達佩斯東站。車站很宏偉，卻相當老舊。不論如何，能順利到達已是謝天謝地：大約是逆乘ICE若干小時後暈了頭，在到達轉車的Linz之前十幾分鐘便跟隨同席的老太太下了車。還想去買些暖食，幸虧先看了看大屏幕上的換乘信息，覺得好像不對：這裡不是Linz麼，怎麼會有車去Linz？一呆之下，立刻醒悟過來，拎起行李箱飛跑到站臺，ICE已然不見！跑回大屏幕前，發現一分鐘後有一趟慢車去Linz。考慮到本來有半小時換乘時間，趕上這趟車的話也許還來得及。沖到站臺，恰在車開動前跳了上去。還好，判斷正確，最終在Linz追上了去布達佩斯的火車。

第二場驚嚇是在這火車上才發現，到達的是東站而非西站，而事先google map查好的巴士換乘路線乃是從西站。（匈牙利的出租車是不敢自己叫的，有名的宰客。）滿仗著手機可以在歐盟漫游不在乎的，誰知在匈牙利境內居然沒有了3G信號！列車上雖號稱有wifi，但事實毫無用處。硬著頭皮只能發短信請朋友代為查詢，又請車上人幫我用匈牙利文翻譯了怎樣問巴士站，這才忐忑地下了車。

古舊昏暗的車站裡，頗費周折地找到唯一一臺取款機，再頗費周折地找到巴士站，所幸不久就開來了吞吞吐吐的有軌電車。欲向司機買票，結果人家見我說英文，根本就不理睬我。只好又忐忑地坐下來。（逃票了…）也沒人查票。還好，十五分鐘後，車不失信地恰停在了旅館門口。旅館接待人員說著熱情的英文；而盡管已九點半多，飯館還是迅速奉上了一頓可口的晚餐。期待明天的城市及溫泉之旅！

2012.12.27.