cindy's world

When I returned to my desk at work on Monday morning, I pulled open a drawer to get a paperclip and saw a misplaced note covering everything in that drawer. My courtroom went through many relief clerks in the 2 weeks of my absence, so I don’t know who shifted this paper. Or maybe it shifted itself. The handwritten note reads:

I am bereft!
I was promised a Cindy-fix this morning! Oh, the agony of promises broken and expectations shattered.
But I am NOT defeated[,] I shall return, and CLAIM what is mine, opposing forces be damned!
Are you going on vacation too? (I saw [Mr. W] this morning.)
XXO
F. Tuck

Clipped to this note are some random scraps of notes and 2 poems I’d written on scratch paper 3 years ago when I was in major emotional turmoil. The second of these poems alluded to when I’d wished for death as a relief, and yet had been denied that escape. The lines read, “I have begged you thrice this year for relief/Threw up my hands and my life in defeat/And I am still here.” And it is relevant and fitting and yet ironic that these two things are joined together.

No doubt if a coworker who knows about Mr. W were to chance upon this note, he/she would’ve thought it from an admirer. Cindy having an affair? With some F. Tuck guy? No. The note is signed off with a joke nickname, short for Friar Tuck. Because Steve, the author of the note, had referred to himself as “Friar Tuck” a few times in his comments on this very blog. He had also commented a few times as “Stevie Wonder.”

Steve passed away two days before we left for China. He was a Spanish language interpreter in the building, who had become something of a personal friend. His dramatics are often funny and sardonic, his theatrical background and training coming through in his interpretations of heated family law testimonies. They were really reenactments of the parties’ bickering arguments in open court. He was also amazingly perceptive, clever, witty, and philosophical. Plus, he had good taste in men with his little crush on Mr. W.

Rumors of the situation of his death flew rampant in just a day. “Died tragically” was all the “official word” told us. We knew he took 3 days off work to mourn the death of his beloved Georgie, we knew the day he was due to return, he did not. We knew he’d passed away the night before his scheduled return. Beyond that, was speculation. His neighbors heard a gunshot, called the police, who kicked in the door and found his body, claimed one rumor. I went around saying it just doesn’t sound like Steve to have, much less use, a firearm. Another rumor claimed he’d slashed his own throat. Although this is slightly more believable than that he’d shot himself, it’s also not like Steve to leave such a mess. I pictured his immaculate home, and how traumatized he’d described himself regarding the death throes of a lobster he’d stabbed alive years ago.

We were unable to attend his funeral, which took place while we were in China. Many people from work went, and described the event as a “very classy” affair. Well, Steve would have it no other way. He was reportedly dressed in a tuxedo and white gloves in the open casket. That put both rumors to rest, although it brings up the likelihood that he’d slashed his wrists instead.

The judge’s secretary brought back a music CD that Steve’s parents had given out to funeral guests, a collection of love songs arranged and sung by Steve some time ago. I listened to it while doing some grocery shopping yesterday, and mourned the incredible talent lost. The album, entitled “Love in Our Key,” was Steve’s contribution to the gay community of slightly gender-altered love songs that he’d grown up on and sang constantly, “the songs we have loved so long and waited so long to hear in OUR key, no ‘transpositions,’ no apologies.” Such was explained in his CD jacket. Classics like Gerschwin’s “Someone to Watch Over Me” and Les Miserables‘s “I Dreamed a Dream”, sung in the male voice, about love for another man. The album is quite ingenius.

I couldn’t sleep until nearly 5 a.m. when the sun was already coloring the skies. I walked the halls earlier and imagined seeing him in the back corridor of a courtroom as I had so often seen before, seeing his beaming face as he cooes “Dahrrrrrrrling!” at me in greeting, rolling the Spanish “r”s in a way that I’ve never been able to do. I imagined him smiling at me over the top of his glasses and pointing at me up and down while humming in musical accompaniment to his approving gestures, and saying, “The outfit works for you!” The sight and sound of him are so clear in my head I can’t believe I won’t see it acted out in 3-D anymore. We were supposed to give him another ice cream commission to try out. I just wish he’d given things a chance to get better, and given himself a chance to heal.

In loving memory and commemoration:
Post #494 re watching Brokeback Mountain with him, and a dialogue in Comments with him. This one hits me a little roughly because I had told him, written right there in black and white, that I’d pull him out if he got too emotionally sunken, and I had failed to do just that. I had no idea he was going through stuff until it was too late. If only I hadn’t been so busily rushing somewhere every time I saw him recently…
Post #521 re the ice cream he made at my commission.
Post #525 in which he left nice comments.
Post #572 in which I referred to a funny thing he said. This is chilling as the joke he made was about slashing his wrists.
Post #580 in which he left nice comments.
Post #583 in which he left nice comments.
Post #584 re resolving an issue with Mr. W in which Steve left nice comments.
Post #597 in which he loaned me the movie “Iris.”
Post #599 in which I reviewed the movie “Iris.” He was disappointed in the way I didn’t enjoy Iris’s character the way he had worshipped her, altho he didn’t comment on this on the post.
Post #623 with a brief summary of Georgie’s situation.

In Beijing, the tour group went to visit an emperor Ming’s tomb. We didn’t go underground into the actual tombs as my mother had when she went on her China tour years ago, because the government no longer allows visits down there. Too many eery things happened to visitors. They’d get sick, they’d get into car accidents on their way back, people were seemingly possessed by evil spirits. One such thing happened to my parents’ friend’s wife. Within steps into the Ming tomb, she gagged and passed out. Her face was purple by the time they brought her out of there. For years after that, her health was failing to the point where doctors who could not figure out what was wrong with her told them to prepare for her death. She’d get freakishly cold sometimes sitting in a room and cower from chilled drafts that no one else felt, and she’d sometimes feel like she were being smothered and gasp for air. They finally had a Chinese spiritual doctor come visit her. After the examination, he said she is the reincarnation of a powerful general in Emperor Ming’s army, and the land-bound souls of about 1000 soldiers who’d died with the emperor or were buried as a sacrifice there recognized their general and followed her home, and he had to exorsize her. I’m not sure I believe that, but I do think there is a possibility that in a past life, she was sacrificed there at the tombs, especially if she was a famous powerful general, because it would have been an honor to follow your emperor into the next world. And maybe she was reliving the point of death. Anyway, she was healed perfectly after the Chinese spiritual doctor did his thing.

I’m glad I wasn’t told this story until this weekend when I visited my parents, cuz I would’ve been freaked out by what happened to me at the tombs. Like I said, we didn’t go underground into the tombs, but even then, the tourguide warned us that once we step onto tomb property, we were not to refer to her by her real name, we were to call her 007. Why? Because the restless spirits that reside there, once they could identify you by name, would come to you that night and give you horrid nightmares. I didn’t necessarily believe this superstition, but I turned to Mr. W and asked, “If you screw up and say my name, can I say yours?” He said, “Sure.” I said, “See you in my nightmares.” He told his friends John and Lidya, “You don’t wanna be a part of CINDY’S nightmares, she has some FREAKY dreams.” “So don’t say my name,” I cautioned as I walked up the steps into the holy place.

The grounds were pretty, and at one place, I asked John and Lidya (without using their names) if they’d like me to take their picture coming down some picturesque steps. They handed me and Mr. W their cameras, and we snapped away, after which John said, “Thanks [Mr. W]! Thanks Ci–” and I cut him off with “DON’T SAY IT!” Realizing what he’d done, John gasped and apologized, but it was too late.
“Thanks a lot, JOHN!” Mr. W laughed.
Our tourguide didn’t realize that Mr. W’s real name was said aloud and thought I’d stopped John on time, so she laughed and said to Mr. W, “You gotta thank Cindy! You should thank Cindy! He almost said your name!”
I pointed at her. “YOU just said my name TWICE!”
She froze. “Oh, I’m so sorry!”

Things got a little better after that. On the way out of the tombs, we stopped by some people selling wares and jewelry on blankets on the ground. One of the guys selling thought I was married because I was wearing the traditional jadeite bracelet (see previous post), and asked why I didn’t teach my husband Chinese. I said in Chinese, “If I taught him the language I couldn’t talk about him behind his back.” They laughed. Then he asked whether another older Asian couple in our tourgroup were my parents. I told him no. He said, “Really? Because you and his wife look a lot alike!” I didn’t know what to respond to that, so I just smiled. The woman’s husband, however, said, “Thank you!” I was flattered.

I’m happy to report, no one had nightmares that night.

On the way to the carved jade factory in Beijing, the tour guide showed us her jade bangle bracelet and explained that it was a gift from her mother when she (the tour guide) got married. Those bangles are traditional because as the story goes, back in the day, when a woman married into the man’s family, she moved away from her parents and rarely was able to travel the distance to visit them. The best quality jade, called jadeite, is referred to as a “living stone” because happiness causes us to secrete a certain hormone or natural skin oils that over time absorb into the jadeite and makes the stone shinier and more translucent. The mother would need only a glance at her daughter’s jadeite bracelet once every few years to see whether she’d been happy in her husband’s household. If the daughter’s bracelet remains cloudy and opaque, the mother could smack her son-in-law upside the head. That’s the story, I didn’t do research on the properties of this stone.

I found the story irresistable. So at the jade factory, I bargained on a fine piece of jadeite. It was a bangle, the type I’d never wanted to wear before because I thought it made a loud statement about me to the effect of “Hi, I’m fresh off the boat!” But there was just something about this piece — the surface had a silvery ripply sheen underneath that reminded me of fish scales, and the colors faded from light green to milky white to a rare pastel purple. It was amazing, it was jadeite, and it was A quality jadeite. Jadeite, we were told, ranged from AAA (best) to A, B, then C. B quality may be artificially enhanced by injection to remove some of the internal cracks; C quality may be dyed. The A range is natural, rare, and harder than standard jade. The opening ticket was $900 US dollars. I got it down to $650, and then $600.

I was happy, until I got to Shanghai toward the end of the trip and met up with my dad’s friends, and my mom’s grandma’s friend. Dad’s friends said I overpaid and it was worth less than $100; that I was the victim of a tourist “scam.” I explained I bought the piece in a government store and that it was guaranteed to be real, whereas on the streets, altho I could get it cheaper, I did not know my jade well enough to know I wasn’t being ripped off with a piece of glass. They said crooks reside both in and outside of the “official” stores. Oh well. The bracelet is supposed to appraise for $1100 in the States, so maybe I’ll check that out. They also laughed when I said it’s supposed to get more translucent over time. They said it’s impossible; a stone’s a stone, and the more translucent it is upon purchase, the more valuable, and mine was cloudy. But some of these guys were restaurant owners, and they didn’t even look closer at my bracelet than across a large round dinner table. I felt worse, though, when my grandmother’s friend, who owns a jewelry business, said I overpaid by about 15 times what I could’ve gotten it for if I were a local. My parents, however, comforted me saying it really was a beautiful piece with rare color variations, and even tho the cost was high, these people who said I was scammed wouldn’t necessarily be able to find me a piece like that, and since it’s cheaper than what I’d pay for it if it were purchased here, then as long as I’m happy and enjoy my purchase, it was all good. My mom also confirmed that it was absolutely true jadeite grows more translucent with daily wear. And I’d thought my parents would yell at me, too. They said they, like all tourists, were tricked into overpaying for everything also when they went on their China tours. “Why didn’t you warn me?!” I wailed. My mom said, “I DID warn you! I told you, ‘Don’t buy anything!’ ” Oh, like that told me anything.

Lidya bought a better quality (more expensive) jadeite bangle than me, and the day after climbing the Great Wall she woke up in the morning to see that there was a crack in the bracelet. She was upset about that, but wore the bracelet anyway. The last few days of the trip, she mistepped in a restaurant and went down hard on her right knee, cracking her knee cap on the hard floor. A x-ray in Shanghai revealed a fracture in her kneecap. She was out of commission for the next 2 days until we came home, casted from hip to ankle. Her perspective on that incident was, “Isn’t jade supposed to protect you?” Yes it is. You’re supposed to wear it on your left wrist because it’s closer to your heart that way, and purifies the blood that flows through your veins on its way back to the heart. It’s also supposed to protect you from harm. “Maybe the bracelet cracked because it gave its life early to protect me, maybe I’m supposed to have a compound fracture, or break my leg or something worse, and the jadeite broke in order to take some of the damage so that all I had happen was a kneecap fracture,” she mused. This woman is inspiring. I love that romantic, optimistic concept.

I guess if I’m going to write about random experiences in China, I should start at the beginning. Our flight there left really late Friday night, at 1:30a.m., which was really Saturday morning. I worked a full day on Friday, and all day I had a resigned-to-die feeling. I couldn’t picture myself in China, which made me think that maybe I wouldn’t make it. “If your plane’s gonna crash, see if you can get it crash on the way back so you’d still get to experience China,” a coworker joked. I told myself that I couldn’t see myself in China because I did so little research about modern China that I had no mental picture of it to place myself in, that this was always really Mr. W’s dream trip, and not mine, and I wasn’t looking forward to it the way he was.

As plane reading material, I brought along a book Grace had sent me a long time ago. Another book I’d been meaning to read but hadn’t gotten around to. Her Post-It note on the book said, “Hi Cindy — This is a recent book I’ve read. Quite a quick read. Interesting…enjoy. –G” It is Elizabeth Berg’s What We Keep. I cracked the book open soon into the flight. In the first few pages, a ticket stub emerged. “New Orleans Saints vs San Francisco 49ers. Louisiana Superdome. Sunday, October 20, 2002, 12:00 pm.” I know she’d visited New Orleans, she must’ve cheered for her 49ers there. Her 4 years attending UC Berkeley made her a fan. I imagined her using the ticket stub as a bookmark. I was using a wallet-sized photo of myself, which I had plenty of and a stack was within grabbing distance as I left for the airport. I’d always place the photo face-down near me when I read the book; I couldn’t explain away the appearance of vanity if anyone were to question me about it.

A few more blank and dedication pages down, and in shock, I read:

China
Decorates our table
Funny how the cracks don’t
Seem to show

You’re right next to me
But I need an airplane
I can feel the distance
Getting close
— from “China,” by Tori Amos

Yes, I realize the song, which I’d never heard before, is referring to chinaware, and not China, the country. But here indeed I was on an airplane, with Mr. W next to me, flying to China, so on a literal level, it applied to me precisely. I showed it to Mr. W. “She’s telling you she knows where you are and that everything will be all right,” he said. I liked that.

Here is how the book opened, the first chapter:
“Outside the airplane window the clouds are thick and rippled, unbroken as acres of land. They are suffused with peach-c0lored, early morning sun, gilded at the edges…”
2nd paragraph:
“Whenever I see a sight like these clouds, I think maybe everyone is wrong; maybe you can walk on air. Maybe we should just try. Everything could have changed without our noticing. Laws of Physics, I mean. Why not? I want it to be true that such miracles occur…” I went on to read in amazement a narrator who is so much like me, I wondered if Grace had thought so, too. I’d told Mr. W that the book was getting really interesting, and the character, when reminiscing about her childhood, keeps having thoughts that I’d had as a child, and that it was like reading about myself if I had lived some of Jordan‘s life. (The main character is almost exactly 10 yrs older than me, so that’d put her around Jordan’s childhood era. Especially the narrator’s insistance that she would not do to her kids what she felt was wrongfully done to her and her sister by their mother.)

I was kept too busy in China to read much more of the book, but I read it on the flight back, and dove into it voraciously in Las Vegas Thursday and Friday nights, until I finished devouring it at 3:30a.m. early Saturday morning. “Wow,” I thought, closing the book. I wanted to hug my mom. I wanted to re-read the book with the new perspective I’d gained at the end. And then, the inevitable — I wanted to talk to Grace and discuss the book with her.

The Tori Amos song was right about something else that I didn’t see coming. In the last night of the trip, the petty bickerings between me and Mr. W got so bad that it made me reel a little. I didn’t sleep well that night, and woke up the next morning feeling sick and stressed, which I’d told him about. Do we just not get along? Do we just naturally rub each other the wrong way? If something small became so big the night before, do we want to deal with that forever once the young love/lust is gone? Cuz that’s what we’re left with, right? He didn’t have anything to say about it, just got up and started packing without looking at me again. I sat sadly on my bed (we had separate beds the whole trip), watching him. Silence but for the sounds of zippers, boxes closing, clotheshangers clacking against each other. You’re right next to me, but I need an airplane, I can feel the distance, getting close… Finally, he asked, “Do you need this bag for anything?”, holding out a plastic bag. “No,” I said in a small voice, “But I could use a hug.” He crossed over the room and we held each other, my face smushed into his chest. He held my head to him with one hand, and said, “Whatever it is you’re feeling right now, I love you. You know that. And I think we can get through it.” I couldn’t talk as tears drained out of my eyes in surges. He took my silence as a negative thing and said, “You don’t think we can, huh?” I sniffled a little bit, trying to get myself under control, and then I pulled away, said, “I feel better now,” wiped my face, and got packed. Just like that, the clouds were gone. I didn’t feel alone anymore. He didn’t need an airplane to bridge our distance, only to get back home.

I’m back from the land of my ancestors, China! (This means that James, you can give me my bag o’ schtuff back. Sorry, you can’t keep it for your personal use. Unless you DID already use them, in which case, you can keep them.) There is so much to tell, that I don’t know where to begin. I guess I’ll do some preview photos and blog about current stuff since my return and then let the trip details come out anecdotally when the muse strikes.

I’m not back home yet, although I am back in the ‘States. My flight touched down at 5:25pm yesterday evening after being in the air 12 hours. Mr. W and I hailed a taxi to go back to my house, and when we were on the freeway, I received a call from my parents saying they were AT the airport waiting for us. I felt SOOOO bad. The taxi cost us $91 including tip, too. My parents are wonderful. Too wonderful. =) After my house, I drove us to my parents’ house, where we’d left Mr. W’s car when my parents dropped us off at the airport to go to China, we hung out with my parents, we gave them some souvenirs from China (expensive Emperor green tea and agate bracelet), and Mr. W and I up and drove to his parents’ house in Las Vegas, where I am now, to spend a few days with them for Mother’s Day. We figured we’d be jet-lagged anyway. We got here about 2:30am, and will be returning home on Saturday around noon to spend Mother’s Day weekend with my parents.

Here are some photo previews/evidence that I was indeed in China. (Rest mouse pointer over photos for captions.)

Day 1. This is on the tour bus shortly after arriving in Beijing. It’s a horrible photo of me, but in my defense, I wasn’t aware that I was being photographed. I’m not naturally pretty, ya know. Lidya and John (Mr. W’s friends who came with us on the trip) look really good, tho.

Day 2. The world-famous Tiennamen(sp?) Square. After the student protest incident with the tanks, I performed an interpretative dance routine about the issue at International Festival in high school, and never thought then I’d actually be standing there. Frowning.

Day 2. In the Imperial Palace, Beijing. I’m tugging on the giant door jamb that bars the ancient thousands-years-old doors closed.

Day 2. Outside a temple in Beijing. We were busy every day on this trip!

Day 2: Yes, I climbed the Great Wall. Twice. More on that later, if I remember. We also took a photo of a full moon at one of the Great Wall guard towers. How is that possible when it’s clearly daylight out, you ask? Well. More on that later, too. And if you’re lucky, I’ll post that photo.

Day 2: The 2008 Olympics will be held in Beijing, China. These are the 5 mascot characters, “The Friendlies,” for the 2008 Olympic Games. Each character takes on a color of the 5 Olympic Rings, and the 5 names are Beibei, Jingjing, Huanhuan, Yingying and Nini, which are repeated sounds in typical Chinese cutsie fashion. Altogether, the phrase in Mandarin “Beijing huan ying ni” translates to “Beijing welcomes you.” I thought it was ingenious marketing. You have to collect ’em all for the phrase to make sense. These little characters’ paraphernalia were sold everywhere.

Last night in Shanghai, which is also the last night in China. Beautiful skyline. The building with the balls is the TV Tower.

Thanks for commenting on my blog when I was away. It was great to see when I got back. I was thinking it’d be so sad that I posted these time-bombed entries and then I come back and see that no one has read them or visited my blog when I was gone.

I…

…am in CHINA…

…and YOU’RE NOT, nyah, nyanny nyah, nyah! 😀 Well, unless you’re a lurker Chinese person viewing my blog FROM China.

You guys miss me yet? I bet I miss you. I probably don’t even have internet access over there. I’ll be home soon-ish. (As you can tell, this post was written before I left.) Man, the lengths I go to, to entertain my reading public!