[Oe List ...] Christmas Eve

Tue Dec 24 00:17:22 PST 2013

I've gotten used to sitting home on Christmas eve since I avoided the crowd as the west commercialized Christmas, and now, China is christianizing commerce.  So I hacked my newspaper column for Dec. 30.  The usual caveat: curious, welcome, not, see you at the bend.

Shen dan jie kuai le!

Dusting off the Yearthat Was

It started yesterday, the white puffs flurrying down likefeathers from medieval angels molting from the stratosphere.  It was not much but enough to make myfoothold on the icy ground a bit shaky while I carried the potted plants frommy classroom after my last class session. The school shuts off the radiator on the last day of the semester untilthe spring semester opens.  That’s eightweeks in the cold that even the sturdy spider plants could not possibly endure.

I carried my plants in one of those oversized shopping bagsthat boutiques like to provide.  I liveonly about four blocks from my classroom so I did not bother to bring plasticor towel to cover the plants.  But afterfifteen minutes outside in between warm rooms, the plants resembled weeklongleeks in the fridge, or newly harvested kelp from the icy waters, alldesperately crying out to be cooked and consumed, or be thrown away.  After two more trips, half of my study/livingroom looks like a section of the Chicago botanical garden.

This dusting-off exercise in our mind is not, however, ourwilting in the Dong Bei cold after my retirement from the formal teachingservice.  Rather, it rehearses mymarkings and turning points of the past year, so we can move on to the next.  

I am a historical figure, by upbringing and choice.  I love history – the facts-based reminiscingof the past so that the future does not come as too surprising nor tooscary.  I no longer live the present withfear of the unknown, cowed and resigned; history gives me the confidence tolive freely each day like it was the only day of the rest of my life!  At every moment, I encounter the past,present, and the future, all at once!

But my gray matter is accustomed to the rhythm of a 365-daytrip of the planet around the sun so I dance with the crowd in Gregorianpatterns and come now to the completion of another earth revolution.

I made two trips to Honolulu this year to visit 93-year oldmother who was diagnosed to be frail of bones to require 24/7 attention at amedical facility.  My fealty was mademore intense by her mothering smile even in the midst of her frailty.  She reminded me of the longevity that isprogrammed in my genes, but I abused the lungs with tar and nicotine in myyouth, so I am prudent in my life’s covenant. I lopped off almost a decade from my statistical staying power.

This year, I also decided that I lived too much at the edgeof hoping against hope, and adjusted my radar accordingly.  Wayward was a word applied to my fidelity inpersonal relationships in the past (playful was my term), and though mymonastic mendicare these past fewyears is rooted in the understanding that being solitary is not a lonelyjourney, I found myself pining for company though much more in the romance ofthe imagination rather than in the plane of earthy reality.  I have since distanced myself from the cuffand cusp of illusion.

Aging got dramatically demonstrated as the jowl of a secondchin and the sag of a previously firm and rounded heine became more pronounced. I experienced loss of breath while navigating four flights to myclassroom.  It has become a federaleffort to reach down and sock my feet warm in the cold.  My hair now blooms like Jack Nickolson's side on abad hair day!

My residence does have an elevator, which thankfully assistsmy knees.  I live on the eleventh floor,but some of my students reside in dorms that are above ten floors withoutelevators. Just imagining how they strive up and down the stairs daily exhaustsmy faculties.  So this year, I shifted tothe last scheduled 17-year phase of my life’s odyssey, retired until really tired.  I no longer protest when a young thing offersme her seat on the bus!

The University delivered the coup d'grace when it decided to no longer hire teachers over 65years old.  Approaching the sunset of myyears, I signed loan papers on a dwelling with my host family; I get the use ofa room on a first floor three-bedroom apartment near the University, at a fifthof the cost.  This will be home base totreks to Irkutsk and Tashkent in the next few years.  Friends and family can also visit me shouldthey travel to my northeast corner of China.

As the snow flurries drifted down this morning on my way tomy last day in class, I ran into one of the grounds’ maintenance men sweepingthe snow off the walkway. Equipped with homemade dried twigs attached to a pole, he diligently and thoroughly swept thewhite cover off the red-bricked pathway. 

I stopped to catch his attention, looked him in theeyes, and said ‘thank you’ in the only Zhongwen I can decently pronounce.  He was surprised that I would bother, andrecognizing me as the foreign teacher who does not speak the language, he brokeinto a toothless but winsome smile.   

I turned around and before entering the building, took adeep breath, cast a broad look around me including another glance on the bentbut proud worker, and to no one in particular, uttered, xie xie!  For his life andmine this past year, I wrapped it up in Peace! Equanimity and tranquility to all.
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