#12 - Beautiful Changes

When you imagine a world without peace,

You glimpse in a mirror and fail to recognize yourself.

Perhaps there is a dimple that has been drawn on,

Borrowed from the late Monroe,

Perhaps the hair style has changed the angle at which the jawline meets the ear.

There is something that is looked at that is not seen,

For it is a peaceless world that we have,

So imagine it we must not.

Only to look at it simply, honestly, truly,

And create only beauty to mend the pain of the grotesque.

Everyone holds a bandaid.

It is dirty and wrinkled and small in our large hands.

It was no longer Fall.

It was the kind of Winter Day that made you glimpse at your emotions differently than most.

The kind of day where a particularly well-directed car commercial could make you cry.  One with sprawling views of Canyonlands or perhaps something about families reuniting during the holidays.  It was the kind of day on which you knew that something spectacular could fall into your lap.  You could fall in love with someone if they looked at you a certain way… or played you a beautiful piece of music. Or you could have a nervous breakdown over a cup of therapeutic tea.  In short, a day anything could happen.  And maybe nothing would.

 The seasons have changed in Korea.

 I awake every morning wondering if the newly-fallen snow will stick.  Or whether black ice will fill my walk to school and I will have to crawl over it as if there were a giant, wooden rod lodged between my legs.  There is a bite to the air now, which makes the environment less friendly and the inside of myself more welcoming.  It is in the winter that I retreat to my thoughts and feelings – I retract like a sea cucumber, wearing my insides on the outside… which explains the recycling of the same favorite winter sweater. 

 There is only so far one can go with one well-designed sweater before there is a stench or people start to notice.  But there is a delight in turning into a cartoon character, always wearing the same thing.  It is yourself reminding yourself that the stability in life, the unchanging element of comfort, is actually just… you.

In my cartoon, the big picture has changed.  Or the setting, at the very least.

In March, I am trading in my Korean life for a Chinese one.

 I am going to be teaching English and a bit of Drama at a university located one hour north of Guangzhou, which is 3 hours inland of Hong Kong.  The town is called Chini, and so far I have heard it is rural and I have spied pictures of bicycles overflowing with hanging bananas.  A friend from Hong Kong told me this is, in fact, a myth.  “There are no bikes with bananas in China anymore,” he said.  In my romantic brain, I refuse to believe him.  If there are no bananas, there will surely be another type of fruit. 

The only other thing I know right now is that Guangzhou is a culinary capital of China, which is a terrible thing since a lot of people purportedly do not like Chinese food.  This is typical Cantonese cuisine, meaning things like dogs are fried and battered and sauced.  Or so rumor has it.  However, one thing I have learned in my travels is to never believe what “people” say.  There may be bananas on bikes and no battered, fried dog after all.  Oh, to the disappointment of my stomach intestinal capillaries. 

The other city close to me is Macau, which still is a hybrid of Chinese and Portugese cultures.  From my brief research, I have found statues of the Virgin Mary in the style of a typical Buddha.  This means she is smoother than usual, a bit chubbier, with flowey fabric and a more satisfied look on her face.  This conflation of imagery is fascinating to me and perhaps the only time I have seen this woman smile in art.

This is a shorter love letter to you all because, in effect, I am going thru so much change now that my writing metabolism must slow.  I am going to absorb life now for a bit before I can get to the point in which I am reflecting again.  I’ve learned that for the artistic mind, a little bit of both is absolutely necessary.  The most thrilling thing is that I am going to be working now in such a way where I have time and space to develop creative projects again. 

I can daydream out my window, leave my head in the clouds for a couple hours, and suffer no consequence.  Now, something is always pulling me back.  But soon, I will be able to let the brain and heart hang out on a cloud together… drinking tea, eating crumpets, and talking nonsense for a long while.

In holiday spirit, I leave you to your warm insides.  And the images of the future to your imagination.

The Beautiful Changes

BY RICHARD WILBUR 

One wading a Fall meadow finds on all sides

The Queen Anne’s Lace lying like lilies

On water; it glides

So from the walker, it turns

Dry grass to a lake, as the slightest shade of you

Valleys my mind in fabulous blue Lucernes.

The beautiful changes as a forest is changed

By a chameleon’s tuning his skin to it;

As a mantis, arranged

On a green leaf, grows

Into it, makes the leaf leafier, and proves

Any greenness is deeper than anyone knows.

Your hands hold roses always in a way that says

They are not only yours; the beautiful changes

In such kind ways,

Wishing ever to sunder

Things and things’ selves for a second finding, to lose

For a moment all that it touches back to wonder.

With joy and change,

Sabina Teacher