I Don’t Want to Miss you

I missed the winter.

I missed the spring.

I may have to miss the summer.

But I don’t mind

If I don’t miss you.

There was death.

There was betrayal.

There was so much sadness.

But there was you

That stood by me.

I hoped for peace.

I strove for excellence.

I saw things differently in retrospect.

But nothing matters

As long as the flame of love 

Keeps on

Because you are still around.

错失

我错过了冬天，

失去了春天，

夏天眼看也要擦肩而过。

可是只要你在

什么都在。

死亡无处不在，

背叛也不新鲜，

道不尽悲从中来。

你却从来没有走远。

我祈望过平安，

为了出类拔萃努力拼搏，

回头时满目疮痍。

只要因着你的存在，

爱的火焰仍在燃烧，

这些哪有什么可提的？

美国的山河和四季：2020年母亲节纪念

          2013年夏天从肯塔基中部搬家到亚利桑那北部。作为U-Haul乘客，我记得温润的绿色变为干红色。2014年夏又搬到了科罗拉多州中部。作为司机，我记得我的小型汽车盘旋于崇山峻岭，穿过溪水茂林，滑过牛羊成群的草原，最后来到燥热的半沙漠。2015年夏，作为U-Haul司机，我拉着家当和汽车一路开到弗吉尼亚南部。科罗拉多以东是片片黄花地，美国中部的平原农田布满大型灌溉机，阿巴拉契亚直上直下的山路边藏着秀美的绿地、花园。2016年的夏天，再拉着家当穿越近二十英里的海峡开到马里兰的半岛。海鸥阵阵，江河入海，海风轻柔，阳光亮丽。2017年夏天，我开着我的五年伴侣小型汽车从东海岸到西海岸。记得罗斯福国家公园的牦牛群、秃山和总统一天痛失妻母的故事。

          这期间的旅行算下来行程远超两万英里，大概是地球赤道的长度。

          其间2014年冬天我乘灰狗大巴从科罗拉多到肯塔基，换小汽车到弗罗里达，再换乘大巴返回科罗拉多。纬度的关系，我看到了冰天雪地的西部、凉爽的南方海滩和绿植。2016年冬天我从弗吉尼亚坐火车到纽约。一路迷茫的雾和雪、纽约的节日购物人群、毕加索画展我记忆犹新。

          2017年春的陆路旅行始于马里兰，西至密苏里，北达威斯康辛，再折回马里兰。南方和中西部的油绿和马群偶尔被威斯康辛的皑皑白雪取代。2016年深秋我开车从弗吉尼亚到肯塔基，看到的是簇拥枝头的橙黄在山间绵延铺展。

          另有几次上述路线的重复旅行，加上在居住各州的专门景点旅行和其他旅行，美国的美丽山河、丰富的四季我了然于胸。

          中国俗语讲：读万卷书、行万里路。为的是长知识、吸纳自然的涵养。

          远方的母亲却在我这些不倦的旅行中渐渐病入膏肓，2018年初与姥姥九天内携手离世。我这些知识也终究没有派上用场。这几年也有师长和朋友离世，我也并没有能够尽我想尽的心。

          又值母亲节，想起了姥姥关于她身家后事的一句话：“人老了不走，那些年轻人往哪里放？”我想她的意思是她那些未能得到回报的付出是为了后代也可以为其他人无私地付出。这大概是传承的意思吧。

America’s Beautiful Land and Rich Seasons: On Mother’s Day of 2020

          In the summer of 2013, I moved from central Kentucky to Northern Arizona. As the passenger of U-Haul, I remember the shift from the greenness in misty warmth to the dryness of a red landscape. I then moved to central Colorado in the summer of 2014. I drove my compact car through steep valleys, shallow creeks, forests, and grassland with herds of cattle. My new home was located in a semi-desert wrapped in heat. The following summer saw me drive a U-Haul with my belongings and car attached to southern Virginia. To the east of Colorado, sprawling grassland was covered by wild yellow flowers. Massive irrigator machines decorated the central part of the country. Graceful gardens and lawns hid behind the steep mountain roads in Appalachia. Then the summer of 2016 witnessed my move to Maryland with the same gear through a 20-mile bridge over the ocean. I saw flocks of seagull and rivers merging with the sea in the bright sun while feeling a breeze blowing. In 2017, my 5-year companion car carried me from the east coast to the west coast. The image of buffalos and bold mountains in the Theodore Roosevelt National Park has followed me since then. So has the story of the president’s tragedy of losing two family members in the same day.

           The total distance of my trips on land during this period is well over twenty thousand miles, about the distance of the earth equator.

          In the winter of 2014, I took a grey hound bus from Colorado to Kentucky. Then a car took me from there to Florida after which I switched back to grey hound to return to Colorado. Due to the changing latitude, I experienced the icy west, and went to cool beaches and saw green tropical plants in the south. I took Amtrack train from Virginia to New York City in the winter of 2015. I remember the fog and snow along the way, NYC’s holiday shopping crowds, and the exhibition of Picasso’s paintings and sculptures.

          In the spring of 2017, I took a road trip from Maryland which took me to Missouri, then Wisconsin, and eventually back to Maryland. Exuberant grassland and horse farms in the south and mid-west were punctuated by deep snow in Wisconsin. In the late fall of 2016, I drove from Virginia to Kentucky. Orange and yellow leaves flowed in mountains after mountains.

          During this 5-year span, I repeated some of the above trips and had other travels. I also visited national and state parks and other tourist spots in my residential states. The beautiful land and rich seasons in the U.S. displayed themselves heartily to me.

          A Chinese proverb goes like this: one should read ten thousand scrolls of book and travel ten thousand li around the world. The purpose is to obtain knowledge and nurturing essence from the nature.

          While I engaged in these tireless trips, my mother on the other side of the globe gradually fell fatally ill. She passed away in early 2018, nine days after my grandmother’s death. I was not able to use the acquired knowledge in both forms to help my mother after all. The past several years also witnessed the passing of other important people in my life. I was not able to do what I would like to, either.

          Another Mother’s Day arrived since 2018, I recalled grandmother’s comment on her own death, “Where can young people find a place to stay if an old person never dies?” What she meant is probably that the unreturned favor to her should be selflessly given to others. Maybe this is what legacy is about.

Covid-19: Shared Meaning and Future

Abstract:

This creative writing uses Covid-19 to present two principal characteristics of symbolic interactionism. The first feature is SI’s assumption of human empathy. That is, people have the ability to understand other’s stand point. The second is the capacity of SI to link the macro and micro social phenomena.

          At around 9am on the last day of March 2020, I looked out of my window, a thick layer of frost had collected on my car. “The nature is indeed revengeful,” I sighed. The unseasonal snow and frost in the past couple of weeks in Central Washington did not help a bit with the Covid-19 pandemic. Yet, I could not help hoping and believing: the nature would eventually understand our pain when we retreated into our homes. Our withdraw from the invasion of the nature was a friendly gesture to it: we were one and we understood your suffering.

          In the midst of this first global public health event, I am as optimistic as everyone in the field of symbolic interactionism (SI) with regard to the human ability to empathize. I am probably a little more adventurous than many others to entertain the idea a shared meaning of life can be reached between human being and the nature. But of course, sociology, as a discipline, has always included the nature in our standpoint of collectivity. And I firmly believe SI does include such a conversation as we humans are embedded in the nature, which provides everything material and spiritual we need in life. What is more important than that?

          Just one month ahead of other countries, China was there in the dialogue with the worst of the nature in the form of the novel coronavirus. With that encounter came a changed way of life that impacted 1.5 billion people. It was a forced talk, but a talk that was necessary for the life as we knew it to continue. In pictures taken from the space, the rest of the world saw the end result of that conversation: a larger breathing room for the nature free from human activity. Now the rest of the world is forced to give the nature that space. As bizarre as it may sound, the pause in human industrial activity strikes a mutual understanding between humans and the nature. In a sense, it is a victory for both.

          If a sociological lens gives me the language to extend SI’s approach to shared meaning, SI does sociology a favor by linking individuals with the society. As sociologists, we often talk at extremely abstract levels such as race, gender, and class. Yet, social reality in our personal space never ceases to amaze us with human kindness as well as misbehavior. SI stitches together everyday life and abstracts. Interestingly, the most SI oriented remarks are from a friend who probably is not a trained scholar in the field. She said, “your family, your community, your country are the same people.” Artificially separating the macro from the micro can only produce misunderstanding of the real world we live in.

          The connection between the personal and collective is the reality we live in during this pandemic attack. The short time period since December 2019 witnesses individuals around the world act on their own and/or organized initiatives to help alleviate the damage, done by the pandemic to so many important aspects of our society: human life and mental health, economy, security, culture, education, and global cooperation. The list goes on. People living in epicenters of the pandemic volunteer at the expense of their own lives and resources for their families, communities, and countries. These are people from all most often used sociological categories such as race, gender, class, nationality, educational level, and so on. These people occupy all possible combinations of the above attributes. This small time span also shows how each person’s behavior is amplified in the spread of the virus from individuals to families, communities, countries, and now the planet, as 90% of the countries and regions in the world are living in the shadow of the disease. Some people add to the damage brought by the pandemic to profit themselves without discrimination. Not surprisingly, these individuals also share the same classifications and combinations of these characteristics. Indeed, individual and society depend on each other.

          At this point, we still do not know the outcome of the pandemic globally. However, some countries such as China, Japan, and South Korea seem to have successfully contained the virus. The joint effort of people in those countries and the world has yielded the first light of hope. Or rather, humanity has managed to survive.           

          I can hear the cynics: This pandemic is socially constructed by the overreaction of societies. I do not know how many lost lives can lend legitimacy to global coordination to end this tragedy. One? Ten? One hundred? Ten thousand? One hundred thousand? One million? Or more? I do know no one wants to be the human sacrifice behind that number. I also know at the current scale of damage the pandemic is causing the world, only concerted effort from all can stop its momentum as soon as we can.

          As it stands, this piece is hardly a personal account or an empirical paper. Rather, it is a summary and expansion of the principles of SI thanks to the unique challenges posed by the pandemic.    

          Let’s go back to the image of the space. It looks so inviting, so conquerable. But what is also possible is that we humans are crushed before take-off. This micro-organism we read in news every day shows that we are not yet allowed to be free from vulnerability. A universe we are dependent on can hardly tolerate an alien force we have learned to become to destroy it.

          Another space-related image comes to my mind as I am exhausting what I would like to say: a spaceship, ready to be ejected. This is from a television program I watched more than two decades ago. The message echoed by the anchor was: this spaceship is amazing, but it is just the tip of an ice burg of human capability. That ice burg itself was never able to emerge on the surface of the sea because of human internal conflicts. 

          To conclude, we need the optimism in human empathy symbolic interactionism so profusely provides. The capacity to bridge the micro and macro SI possesses is also keenly needed.

          Woops, I should not have written this piece. Covid-19 never happened. Sorry, it is a different day now. Happy April Fool’s Day!

         

          

园中漫步

          三月初华盛顿中部仍然是初春。信步公园，吹到脸上的晚风还有些凉，但是一池深蓝的湖水却丰沛充盈，很有些生命的讯息了。枝桠间的鸟儿呼朋唤友，湖上的几只鸭子结队前行。“春江水暖鸭先知，”一个新的春天悄然而至。一对夫妇在湖边垂钓，雪白的头发映着渐落的夕阳。

          此时的新闻如中国春节期间一样满是新冠肺炎的报道，往西一百英里的西雅图每天都有死亡病例，东邻的县也有了第一个病例。更有劝告老弱者闭户修养。可是这对夫妇却尽享二人世界的安详。我远远地摆手跟他们打了招呼。人生很长，也很短。很长，这样的天灾人祸每每会降临。很短，只要一个人的陪伴，再多的阴影也不过是风吹树梢的附和响应。

A Walk in the Park

          Early March in Central Washington saw the coming of the spring. I strolled in a park at dusk.  The Breeze was still chilly while the lake was dark blue, rich with life. Birds chirped to their fellows in trees. Several ducks swam together over the lake, quite a picture as described in a classical Chinese poem, “ducks are the messenger of the spring river warmth.” Another spring had landed here quietly. A couple were fishing by the lake, their silver hair shimmering against the setting sun.

          News around here were full of information about COVID-19, just as China a month and half before. Seattle, which was around 100 miles to the west, reported coronavirus-related deaths every day and our neighboring county to the east also had a confirmed diagnosis. Professionals advised the elderly and weak to stay at home. Yet, this couple seemed to be relaxed, enjoying the happiness of each other’s company. I waved “hello” to them from afar. Life can be long. It can also be short. Life is long due to the many ordeals we all have to endure. Life is short when the shadow becomes a pleasant whistle from the woods just because of a loved one’s company.  

2020年的春节

         2020年的春节与新型冠状病毒的爆发和恐慌同时降临。总想写些什么，却没有辞令。也许是寻求慰籍，也许是为了以书告慰母亲和外祖母，想到了2017年底、2018年初母亲去世前后的事，也找到了2018年的一些写作。

          “母亲去世前的两年我有幸与她见面并在她生命中的最后一个冬天与她相守五个星期。在她医院的病榻前我与母亲渡过了我的生日并合影。每每想到这些我不由得感到欣慰。我想生命本无意义。只有当你赋予了它意义，它才向你呈现意义。我在期望新的美好的旅程，因为很多人曾经、正在为我的人生付出。正像母亲说的：‘为什麽活着？为了别人。’”

The 2020 Chinese New Year

          The Spring Festival of 2020 arrived with a bang from the coronavirus and its shock. I had so much to say, yet not a single descriptive word or clue came to my mind. Instead, I found some writing from 2018 when I journaled after the passing of my mother and my maternal grandmother in early 2018. I would like to share those thoughts I had in memory of my mother while she went through the ordeal from late 2017 to early 2018. I found some comfort in these memories. I would also like to use this opportunity to offer my book to my mother and grandmother.  

          “I had the fortune to meet with my mother in the last two years of her life, and spend five weeks with her for the last winter she would ever see. I celebrated my birthday by tending to her needs by her bedside in the hospital. That birthday was captured by a picture. I could not help feeling grateful when recalling these invaluable moments. Meanings have to be endowed to life for them to show, I figured. I am hopeful of a new and beautiful journey because many individuals were and are sacrificing for my life. I remember my mother’s response to my question on meaning of life, “Why live? For others.”

金戒指和玉挂

          也许是前几天提起，这两天一直在想着姥姥小时候给我的一个许诺：“等你长大了，我给你一个金戒指。”

          我一天天、一年年长大，接受教育、工作。生活一天天、一年年过去，始终没收到姥姥的金戒指。也许她会在某个纪念日给我？某个节日？某个场合？没有还是没有。

          我实在等不下去了，就买了一对玉佛、玉观音送给姥姥、姥爷各自挂在脖子上。他们戴着玉佛、玉观音十几年一直到去世。

          去年十月份听一位加拿大的土著画家讲他的画。他的女儿一直趴在他旁边的地上看电脑。画家很自豪他可以谋得生计养家糊口，感叹养一个孩子很贵。

          顺着这条线想下去，小时候长住姥姥家大概也花销不菲。我又喜欢带街坊邻居小孩来姥姥家玩，很大方地把姥姥的东西送给他们。姥姥则仰起脸对站在土炕上的我很是敬仰：“俺家闺女真仁义。”如此下来，也只有金戒指可以支持这种大方了。

Gold Ring and Jade Necklaces

          A promise Grandmother made in my childhood kept coming back to me recently, “I’ll give you a gold ring when you grow up.” I remembered it probably because I talked about grandma a few days ago.

           I went to school, and then got employed. But Grandma seemed to have forgotten the promise of a gold ring. I counted days and then years, wishing she could hand the ring to me. On an anniversary maybe? Or a festival or special occasion? Still there was no ring.

          My patience ran out. I bought necklaces with jade buddha and bodhisattva pendants for my grandparents instead. They kept the jade necklaces on for over a decade till they passed away.  

          I went to listen to a Canadian indigenous artist’s talk on his paintings last October. His daughter watched her tablet by his side on the floor while he lectured. The painter was content he could make a living with art, because life was costly, particularly kids.

         I followed the train of thought and recalled my long-term stays with my grandparents when I was young. Those stays must have been hard to afford. And I enjoyed inviting my friends over to my Grandma’s house and gifting them with Grandma’ belongings. Grandma would look up at me as I stood on the brick and dirt bed with deep admiration, “How generous my girl is!” Generosity that could only be supported by a gold ring then.  

The Ability to Appreciate Beauty

Cynthia Zhang

          The setting sun's light reflected off the snow that blanketed the quiet campus. Christmas was coming. Relieved of all burden, red-brick buildings and tall pine trees yawned under their white cloaks, ready to sleep. Everything was a wonder. Such beauty reminded me of North Dakota and Montana in the summer two years ago, when I was on my way to Washington State.

          The beauty of the nature in the two states was bountiful. Endless grassland stretched forever with yellow wild flowers all over. My car was floating on the flower clouds. My mind was wandering off the highway from time to time, occupied with nice small talk with silent black herds of cattle.  

           When I finally stopped my car, I found a flat tire instead. My misjudgment in the morning when I started the journey followed and haunted me eventually. I learned from construction workers on the road a small shop a litter over ten miles ahead might help me.

          The kind lady working in the shop dragged out a huge electric pump for me, but neither of us was able to pump air into the flat tire. All I could do was to replace the flat tire with my back-up tire in the car trunk. There were no tools in the trunk. I had never changed a tire before.

         The lady made a phone call then. A young man arrived in the shop a little over ten minutes later in a truck. He changed my tire skillfully. I took the opportunity to pat his dog on the head and chatted with the dog a little. The young man rejected my money, quickly collected his tools, and left with his dog in his dust covered truck.

          I followed the lady’s instructions and drove at two thirds of the usual speed on the back-up tire. After another forty or fifty miles, I finally found the repair shop as informed by the lady. Then I realized my cell was out of signal.

          The repair shop struck me as even more run down than the shop. Auto parts piled around in the yard. The inventory did not have a door. A middle-aged mechanic showed up when I almost lost my patience after shouting in the yard for service for quite a while. I stared at the mechanic, not knowing what his torn and dirty clothes meant. A drama maybe? When I saw his wife coming out of a room in similar attire, sweat rolled down my back.

          The couple began to look for suitable tire for my car when they learned about my situation. I started to work on my laptop with my back close a wall for self-defense. I tried to look calm while my mind was racing. What do they want? My life or my money? A tire costs about one to two hundred dollars. Plus labor? I decided to let it be. Whatever, it was my fate.

          No good fit was found for my car, the couple informed me after looking hard around. I felt more sweat on my back.

          The man grinned to reassure me he could fix my tire for the trip. I did not know if I had confidence in his ability but agreed to let him try. He glued up the broken tire, and beamed with a promise I could ride my car all the way to the west coast. I handed him a two-dollar tip to add to his ten-dollar charge.

          I was on my way again finally. My car did not make any fuss for over one hundred miles. I felt the hung sword over my head gone out of my car window. Whew!

          The beauty of the nature came back to me. My longing for a new home came back to me as well. Sweat rolled down my back again when I recalled my encounters with the shop lady, the young man with a truck, and the repair shop couple in the past half a day.

          In the several months before my mother passed away, I showed her many pictures. I meant to let her see what my life was like in the several years I was not able to visit her. Some pictures were taken on my way to many different destinations. Mother must have understood the untold stories behind these pictures of the beautiful nature.

欣赏美的能力

          节前的校园很安静，斜阳余光映在雪地上。红砖的教学楼和高耸的松树也似乎闲了下来，披着雪衣闭目养神。很美。这静谧的美让我又想起了两年前夏天途经北达科他州和蒙大拿州的情形。

          这两个州的自然风光让人难忘。大片大片的草地绵延着，黄色小花漫山遍野。我的车在花云中漫步。我时时想着要游弋出寂静的高速路与黑色的牛群聊聊天。

          当我停下车时却发现车胎瘪了，早上出发时的误判有了报应。好在前方不远处有工人在修路，得知前方十几英里处有个小商店也许可以帮我的忙。

          热心的女店主拖出偌大的电子打气机给我用。我们摆弄半天最终没能给车胎充上气，唯一的出路是用备胎。而我却既无工具更没换胎经验。

          女店主打了一个电话，十多分钟后一个小伙子开着卡车来到店里。他干净利索地帮我换上了备胎。我则拍着他的狗亲切地聊了两句。给他钱他拒绝了，极快地收拾好工具，带着他的狗开着他满是尘土的卡车走了。

          遵照女店主的嘱咐我以平时三分之二的速度开着装上备胎的车又走了四、五十英里，终于到了汽车维修站。这时我的手机信号也没有了。

          这个汽车维修站比那个小商店更破败。汽车零部件堆了一场院，仓库少了门。当我喊了半天终于见到一个中年修理工时，他身上满是洞的脏衣服让我起疑：这是拍电影吧？当他同样衣衫褴褛的妻子跟出来时，我背上开始冒汗。

          夫妇两人问清情况，开始找合适的车胎。我若无其事地开始在手提电脑上工作起来。背始终靠着一面墙以防万一，同时也等着报价的打击。车胎至少一二百，再加上人工费？哎，不是要命就是要钱吧。命该如此吧。

          夫妇两个忙了半天也没找到合适的胎。我背上的汗流得更快了。

          男店主笑呵呵地说他可以把我的车胎补好，车可以照开。我半信半疑，也只好由他。他用胶补好胎，保证我可以一直开到西海岸。他报价十元，我又给他两元小费。

          终于可以上路了。当我的车痛痛快快跑了一百多英里后，我一颗悬着的心终于放了下来。

          美景又回到了我的眼前，我对新家的向往也回来了。想想过去半天碰到的女店主、小伙子和夫妇俩，我背上的汗又流下来了。

          母亲去世前几个月我曾经把我的照片发给她，让她知道我未能看望她的几年生活是什么样的。这些照片中有一些是沿途的美景。这些美景照片背后的故事想来母亲也是可以想见的。