Somewhere between a woman and a town, I lost sight of what it meant to be me.
I had invested more of my energy in treading water than in swimming.
Just before Christmas, 2008, the woman removed her pressure. With pressure, comes support. Without pressure you can breath. But when something is pressed so hard against your soul that it becomes your vertebrae;
No matter how sweet that initial rush of clean air to the lungs may seem; it quickly becomes apparent that they don’t work as well as they used to. Before that which was blocking and suffocating became their structure.
In desperation born from fading elation, one tries to come to grips with new found freedom.
I was quickly grasping at straws
The thickest, strongest and most flexible of the straws is one that I have often dreamt of grasping.
China
When the pounding on the doors of my mind gets too loud
And grows to a crescendo
That threatens
To break them down
One of three things happen; either I
Put my dukes up and come out swinging
The Mad Woman in the Attic comes downstairs to take over
I dream of China
* * *
China represents rebirth
The last time I knew her, learned to love food; I understood something that I had chosen to forget: to me food is better than sex.
An epiphany – nearly religious – that is central to who I am and what I do for a living.
I also learned
I love humanity in all its variations, though I sometimes anger myself into believing otherwise
I love the way it feels to be surrounded by millions of people going about their lives; shitting, spitting, snoring, farting, loving, struggling, eating, fighting working, fucking…. Living
I love the feeling of 1.3 billion people waking up and realizing: fuck the West, This is our time.
And that, for me is only part of it
* * *
Option 3 is one that I finally decided to make real.
December 27th, 2008: Take a stack of sticky notes and write: “March 6th I will be in China” at eye level everywhere in my apartmentI had invested more of my energy in treading water than in swimming.
Just before Christmas, 2008, the woman removed her pressure. With pressure, comes support. Without pressure you can breath. But when something is pressed so hard against your soul that it becomes your vertebrae;
No matter how sweet that initial rush of clean air to the lungs may seem; it quickly becomes apparent that they don’t work as well as they used to. Before that which was blocking and suffocating became their structure.
In desperation born from fading elation, one tries to come to grips with new found freedom.
I was quickly grasping at straws
The thickest, strongest and most flexible of the straws is one that I have often dreamt of grasping.
China
When the pounding on the doors of my mind gets too loud
And grows to a crescendo
That threatens
To break them down
One of three things happen; either I
Put my dukes up and come out swinging
The Mad Woman in the Attic comes downstairs to take over
I dream of China
* * *
China represents rebirth
The last time I knew her, learned to love food; I understood something that I had chosen to forget: to me food is better than sex.
An epiphany – nearly religious – that is central to who I am and what I do for a living.
I also learned
I love humanity in all its variations, though I sometimes anger myself into believing otherwise
I love the way it feels to be surrounded by millions of people going about their lives; shitting, spitting, snoring, farting, loving, struggling, eating, fighting working, fucking…. Living
I love the feeling of 1.3 billion people waking up and realizing: fuck the West, This is our time.
And that, for me is only part of it
* * *
Option 3 is one that I finally decided to make real.
January 3rd, 2009: Start applying to every job that opens in Canton through a variety of government run websites
January 4th to February 13th: Continue to send out at least 3 resumes per day.
February 14th: Two weeks after getting my passport I inform my boss that I would be leaving The Metro Group at the earliest late March. This was of course induced by the consumption of lots of really tasty sparklies (we had a pseudo-single/recently dumped bitch fest in honour of V-day, and had some Champs, some Cremant de Loire and a really tasty sparkling Shiraz from Barossa… not important). I had, by this point admitted to soul-crushing defeat. I give up on going to China
February 17th: In spite of the shitty pay – and being treated by the customers like just another highschool-dropout beer store employee who is doomed to live out the rest of his life as a till-jockey – I realize that I love my job, and I love everyone that I work with.
February 27th: Discover Craigslist… okay, mostly discover the testament to the creativity of the human spirit that is “The Best of Craigslist”. You owe it to yourself to peruse it for a while.
February 28th: My Craigslist addiction is now full blown. On a lark, I go to the Guangzhou version. I apply to the only add in the employment section that was posted that day.
March 1st to 5th: Go about my life, loving my job and the people I work with. Completely forget about the application.
March 6th: Recognize this date? Yeah, all over the apartment. I get a phone call. I get a job. In China. Yeah, I manifested it bitches. It’s real, it actually happened.
* * *
Location is important.
Four of my favourite people in the entire world are there, and they have no idea what’s about to hit them.
I got a little weepy here.
ReplyDeleteDon't tell the birds...they'll think I'm soft.