Threeish years now. Yes I am still counting...but I want to share my thoughts here now instead of in little muddled snippets on Twitter. So I’m back and learning to start over and leave the thoughts and anger I have about starting over behind as I start over.
I was reading some of my “diary” of unpublished thoughts on here and I love that I captured my ideas in that moment, so much sadness (more so a lost overwhelmed feeling than purely sadness) not yet really washed away but also lots of great ideas and from there I honor the old me and from there I start over.
Wednesday, February 19, 2020
Wednesday, May 17, 2017
For You
For you.
I am walking into the senior home. It’s a lot smaller than I would have expected. I see a picture proudly displayed at the entrance of the president of the country visiting the center. Am I relieved that this is a nice place after all? Am I scared because the picture looks, oh, so old? As my aunt, uncle and I get to the elevator, I see the small container of hand sanitizer and a cautionary sign, and even though we just walked in, I pump some into my hands.
“Hi Grandpa.” I whisper when I speak in the room. There are nurses coming in and out. They look unforgiving. We have come at an odd hour, there are baths and medications that need to be given, and we are just in their way. I stick my hand out, so foreign, I am trying too hard, I know. But you don’t squeeze back so I squeeze for the both of us. I am too scared to tell you to hold on… So, I don’t know why, but I start to sing the silly rhyme you sang to me and my sisters.
***Play the bamboo clapper, keep looking straight.
Kwa, da kwa, da, kwa, da kwa.***
I remember walking back from the hills. It was really the upwards sloping
sidewalk that our house was on, but what did I know. I was too young
to tell you to slow down. I remember your brisk pace, your
slippers thwap,thwak, brushing on the sidewalk. My sisters could keep up though,
and you had warned me it was going to be a long walk. But I did not listen
because I wanted to come with; but here I was, lagging far behind everyone
else. I didn’t think we brought enough water. Suddenly, my sister pointed out the car
parked just up the street. Doesn’t that look like our car, she asked? I didn’t know how
I could see it from that distance, but I saw my grandmother’s curly poufy head of hair peeking
out from behind the passenger seat. It is, it is we all shouted realizing it at the same time
breaking into a run towards the car. My mom had come to save us from this heat.
Then we all went the 7-Eleven to reward ourselves with coffee icees.
***Up there you’ll see a tofu shop.
Kwa, da kwa, da, kwa, da kwa.***
I keep singing. It’s awkward now. My voice is shaking and the nurses are unforgiving. I had not seen you in 10 years. And now, I was finally here. But, I didn’t come just for you. I came for me. For a program, and because it was also in Taiwan I got to see you too as a happy coincidence. I would later wish for the chance to go back, maybe just for you, but I also wouldn’t know when I would get that chance.
As I am here, watching you, I notice your eyes are sealed shut by your eye boogers, have you been crying too?, you breathe in and out, rattling your little frame. I remember when I had just heard you had fallen pretty badly. My mom was rushing to book a ticket home, feeling guilty, scared, tired, angry. But I felt...._________ I was worried, and sad but I wasn’t so shaken. It was upsetting, but my world didn’t stop. I would later spend a long time berating myself for being so heartless. As if my own curses, could force me to feel. A lot has changed in the last 10 years. As I’ve grown up and my Chinese has gotten better, I know what the hell happened in this family. But I have just accepted it, I don't really care who is right or who is wrong. Actually, I am always right. In the last 10 years, Grandpa, you missed it, I was so numb to this family.
***The big boss makes tofu so well.
Kwa, da kwa, da, kwa, da kwa.***
You found an old dirty teddy bear on one of your walks. Though it was thrown
out, you still brought it home. You washed it with care, the yellow and brown
was no match for your patience. When it was nice and white again,
you gave it to me. I thought it was the best thing in the world. And I kept it for a very long time.
***It’s tender; it’s soft; and it’s so good.
Kwa, da kwa, da, kwa, da kwa.***
Our family is crazy. No one talks. My uncle, my mom’s sister’s husband, who has no blood ties to us and could choose to have nothing to do with this all but he loves my aunt too much and who is perhaps the only grownup in the mix, immediately takes the medicine from the drawers next to your bed and starts to apply it carefully and then slowly massages your muscles. I just stood there and watched, because I didn’t know what I could do to help. I would later hate myself for not helping and looking so much like an outsider.
I can’t help the tears that well up in my eyes. As you lie there, I look at the scars on your thin legs. I can’t even tell that you used to take long walks every morning. But your feet, they are perfect. Except for a few untrimmed toenails, they are smooth and uncalloused. I would later make a note to help you trim them, but I would also later forget to. Your hands are wrapped in mesh mitts to stop you from scratching the rashes that develop from sweating and not moving in your hospital gown, sometimes you scratch your arms. And I take those moments to hold your hand and I am pretending that as you scratch, you squeeze back too. Your teeth are yellowing. Your belly is gone. And your brain? I think it's still here, right? We cried together didn’t we? And you sometimes nod or reply when I say something. And you can hear me singing?
***The children eat ‘til they laugh, hee hee.
Kwa, da kwa, da, kwa, da kwa.***
We egged you on to kiss Grandma. Kiss. Kiss. Kiss, we panted.
You made a big show of it, stretching your arms out and up and then around Grandma who
was looking at you with poker face with a twinkle of amusement. The blue
zippered sports jacket you always wore tightened around your belly
as your arms moved in. And then you planted a big one. Right on the lips!
My sisters and I laughed and clapped in delight. I can’t remember
what was funnier, being able to boss you around or the kiss.
***The adults eat so plump, toot ,toot.
Kwa, da kwa, da, kwa, da. Kwa!***
I remembered when you called. My sisters and I would pass the phone around like a hot potato, or signal to one another to hurry up to grab the phone. When it got to me, and we always passed the phone around in age order so I knew I had a little time to prepare what I was going to say, Nervously, I’d pick up the phone and say
“Hi Grandpa.”
“Ah, Liu Lei Won” you would say in your thick accent. I always wondered if we were speaking the same language. Sometimes, we would say the same word, but I couldn’t understand it when it came out of your mouth. Even my name, Liu Li Wen, was different. I would later learn that your accent was from your province and mine was called “ABC.” And both pronunciations were both “right.” I never had much to say. I didn’t really want to speak to you. I hated when it was my turn on the phone. That’s why we passed the phone around so eagerly, The sooner it was my sister’s turn on the phone, The sooner my turn was over. Over the years, there were a lot less phone calls. I never gave it much thought, because I knew how expensive it was to call long distance, right? That was it. What a relief. I would later wonder, but for who?
But now I’m at your bedside and because I don't have anything to remember you by, I am frantically trying to recall the few memories from a long time ago. I cry, more so because I can’t seem to remember enough of you, and not because I haven’t seen you. I don’t really make sense, I know. I am trying to cram my lifetime of memories in this short moment, to prove to you I remember, you have always been a part of my memories. I am trying to hold on to it all. To make up for how I couldn’t care less and what I didn’t feel all these years. It was worse when I realized that for 21 years I only had a handful of things to remember.
I start to remember that time you magic’d your wallet from thin air at the store. That time we went to Central Park and you all made fun of me for how I ran. That time you made the flakiest bing I ever tasted. And that time we went to… And that time… Later I would go home and look frantically for all your beautiful drawings, your etchings of our house and the chickens we had outside. I would not find them. I have none of your skills, none of your charm, your athleticism, nothing, Grandpa. But you are still here, right in front of me. When will I stop bouncing between my memories and my regrets and enjoy the time I have with you? What will that mean for me and you, Grandpa? Later, I would realize that I am trying to bring what I know now to what happened. I wish I could redo all those moments and mold time together; in a way I could control everything in the past. Maybe things would be different. Maybe it wouldn’t be so. Silent.
*********************************************************************************
***Play the bamboo clapper, keep looking straight.
Kwa, da kwa, da, kwa, da kwa.***
I can hear your strong voice. Sing a little louder I want
to say. But all I hear is my words that have turned to groans
echoing against the steel bed, rattling empty in my stomach. And
I am afraid you cannot understand me. So I try again.
“Kwa, da kwa, da, k…” I am too tired to go on. I can feel
my breath growing tired. It has become something I feel; it is something like being
aware of another life right beside you, only to realize you are watching
your own life.
And you continue to sing, and talk to me.
I cannot understand it all, and some of it I do not know if you are talking to me.
But I will listen, to the rolling of your tongue when
there shouldn’t be, on the words I do know,
To your attempt to start over.
***Up there you’ll see a tofu shop.
Kwa, da kwa, da, kwa, da kwa.***
I remember the first time I was on the plane ride to America.
The food was terrible. But nothing like your Grandmother’s cooking. Shh.
Definitely no match for me. I wondered why how my daughter did this
every time . But then again, she hardly came back so it probably wasn’t
too bad. We all went to the White House on that trip.
It was my first time seeing it, I didn’t even know what it looked like in the books.
But, this was my daughter’s house now.
***The big boss makes tofu so well.
Kwa, da kwa, da, kwa, da kwa.***
I can feel you massaging my feet. I can hear my daughter, your aunt, telling
you exactly how to do it according to the articles she read online
this week. I feel bad, your hands are now dirty.
I can feel my breath growing silent. Your hands are cold
and I can feel the dip and rise in your fingers, toe after toe
and then always coming back to the big toe and heels.
You have stopped crying this time I noticed. But
your voice still shakes.
I know you are trying too hard, I don’t mind.
***It’s tender; it’s soft; and it’s so good.
Kwa, da kwa, da, kwa, da kwa.***
“One , two, threeeeeeeee.” We all laughed.
I put my other foam slipper on my foot loosely and
on three, flicked it soaring and flipping over the room.
You and your sisters ran over to see how far it went. This
one went farther than the other, someone reports! My turn, my turn
everyone starts to yell and they all run from the other side of the room, and tumble and climb into my lap. We all love this silly game; I remember how much you all
loved how I am full of silly games.
***The children eat ‘til they laugh, hee hee.
Kwa, da kwa, da, kwa, da kwa.***
+1, is the number to America. I still could memorize your number
but I still needed to remind myself to dial +1 first, or I’d
hear that other family again. I chuckle, I’ve actually gotten to know them
quite well over the years. Their youngest daughter is starting
school now. The parents asked me if I had any
recommendations for summer programs for their son? And I
gladly gave them my son’s information. I should call them soon to
wish them a Happy New Year too.
I dial +1, and your house number. I want to first hear the updates
of my own grandchildren. The phone rings three times, then I hear
someone answer. Hello? They say in English. Hello,
I reply in English too, one of the words I know.
Whoever it is on the phone says, Oh, Grandpa, please wait.
I hear a little bit of shuffling in the background as I try to figure out
which one of the siblings that was? Finally, a voice gets
on a phone, a little tired and quiet and says “Ba ba?”
It’s my daughter and I chat with her for a while, she seems distant and distracted
but I know better than to ask. Soon she puts you and your siblings
on the phone. You all seem a bit distracted and you all don’t say much.
The phone call ends sooner than I know.
***The adults eat so plump, toot ,toot.
Kwa, da kwa, da, kwa, da. Kwa!***
Liu Lei Won, don’t cry. Don’t cry.
I know things are different now. But we don’t need to cry.
Let me see your face. There it is, you still have the same crooked smile I
see in the pictures your mom sent. And look, I still have the bald
spot I like to comb that you would play with. I dont have the ability to think too much
about the future. Maybe we don't have to hold on to the past.
Maybe we can both start over. I would like us both to be here.
I’d like to hear:
Hi Grandpa.
I am walking into the senior home. It’s a lot smaller than I would have expected. I see a picture proudly displayed at the entrance of the president of the country visiting the center. Am I relieved that this is a nice place after all? Am I scared because the picture looks, oh, so old? As my aunt, uncle and I get to the elevator, I see the small container of hand sanitizer and a cautionary sign, and even though we just walked in, I pump some into my hands.
“Hi Grandpa.” I whisper when I speak in the room. There are nurses coming in and out. They look unforgiving. We have come at an odd hour, there are baths and medications that need to be given, and we are just in their way. I stick my hand out, so foreign, I am trying too hard, I know. But you don’t squeeze back so I squeeze for the both of us. I am too scared to tell you to hold on… So, I don’t know why, but I start to sing the silly rhyme you sang to me and my sisters.
***Play the bamboo clapper, keep looking straight.
Kwa, da kwa, da, kwa, da kwa.***
I remember walking back from the hills. It was really the upwards sloping
sidewalk that our house was on, but what did I know. I was too young
to tell you to slow down. I remember your brisk pace, your
slippers thwap,thwak, brushing on the sidewalk. My sisters could keep up though,
and you had warned me it was going to be a long walk. But I did not listen
because I wanted to come with; but here I was, lagging far behind everyone
else. I didn’t think we brought enough water. Suddenly, my sister pointed out the car
parked just up the street. Doesn’t that look like our car, she asked? I didn’t know how
I could see it from that distance, but I saw my grandmother’s curly poufy head of hair peeking
out from behind the passenger seat. It is, it is we all shouted realizing it at the same time
breaking into a run towards the car. My mom had come to save us from this heat.
Then we all went the 7-Eleven to reward ourselves with coffee icees.
***Up there you’ll see a tofu shop.
Kwa, da kwa, da, kwa, da kwa.***
I keep singing. It’s awkward now. My voice is shaking and the nurses are unforgiving. I had not seen you in 10 years. And now, I was finally here. But, I didn’t come just for you. I came for me. For a program, and because it was also in Taiwan I got to see you too as a happy coincidence. I would later wish for the chance to go back, maybe just for you, but I also wouldn’t know when I would get that chance.
As I am here, watching you, I notice your eyes are sealed shut by your eye boogers, have you been crying too?, you breathe in and out, rattling your little frame. I remember when I had just heard you had fallen pretty badly. My mom was rushing to book a ticket home, feeling guilty, scared, tired, angry. But I felt...._________ I was worried, and sad but I wasn’t so shaken. It was upsetting, but my world didn’t stop. I would later spend a long time berating myself for being so heartless. As if my own curses, could force me to feel. A lot has changed in the last 10 years. As I’ve grown up and my Chinese has gotten better, I know what the hell happened in this family. But I have just accepted it, I don't really care who is right or who is wrong. Actually, I am always right. In the last 10 years, Grandpa, you missed it, I was so numb to this family.
***The big boss makes tofu so well.
Kwa, da kwa, da, kwa, da kwa.***
You found an old dirty teddy bear on one of your walks. Though it was thrown
out, you still brought it home. You washed it with care, the yellow and brown
was no match for your patience. When it was nice and white again,
you gave it to me. I thought it was the best thing in the world. And I kept it for a very long time.
***It’s tender; it’s soft; and it’s so good.
Kwa, da kwa, da, kwa, da kwa.***
Our family is crazy. No one talks. My uncle, my mom’s sister’s husband, who has no blood ties to us and could choose to have nothing to do with this all but he loves my aunt too much and who is perhaps the only grownup in the mix, immediately takes the medicine from the drawers next to your bed and starts to apply it carefully and then slowly massages your muscles. I just stood there and watched, because I didn’t know what I could do to help. I would later hate myself for not helping and looking so much like an outsider.
I can’t help the tears that well up in my eyes. As you lie there, I look at the scars on your thin legs. I can’t even tell that you used to take long walks every morning. But your feet, they are perfect. Except for a few untrimmed toenails, they are smooth and uncalloused. I would later make a note to help you trim them, but I would also later forget to. Your hands are wrapped in mesh mitts to stop you from scratching the rashes that develop from sweating and not moving in your hospital gown, sometimes you scratch your arms. And I take those moments to hold your hand and I am pretending that as you scratch, you squeeze back too. Your teeth are yellowing. Your belly is gone. And your brain? I think it's still here, right? We cried together didn’t we? And you sometimes nod or reply when I say something. And you can hear me singing?
***The children eat ‘til they laugh, hee hee.
Kwa, da kwa, da, kwa, da kwa.***
We egged you on to kiss Grandma. Kiss. Kiss. Kiss, we panted.
You made a big show of it, stretching your arms out and up and then around Grandma who
was looking at you with poker face with a twinkle of amusement. The blue
zippered sports jacket you always wore tightened around your belly
as your arms moved in. And then you planted a big one. Right on the lips!
My sisters and I laughed and clapped in delight. I can’t remember
what was funnier, being able to boss you around or the kiss.
***The adults eat so plump, toot ,toot.
Kwa, da kwa, da, kwa, da. Kwa!***
I remembered when you called. My sisters and I would pass the phone around like a hot potato, or signal to one another to hurry up to grab the phone. When it got to me, and we always passed the phone around in age order so I knew I had a little time to prepare what I was going to say, Nervously, I’d pick up the phone and say
“Hi Grandpa.”
“Ah, Liu Lei Won” you would say in your thick accent. I always wondered if we were speaking the same language. Sometimes, we would say the same word, but I couldn’t understand it when it came out of your mouth. Even my name, Liu Li Wen, was different. I would later learn that your accent was from your province and mine was called “ABC.” And both pronunciations were both “right.” I never had much to say. I didn’t really want to speak to you. I hated when it was my turn on the phone. That’s why we passed the phone around so eagerly, The sooner it was my sister’s turn on the phone, The sooner my turn was over. Over the years, there were a lot less phone calls. I never gave it much thought, because I knew how expensive it was to call long distance, right? That was it. What a relief. I would later wonder, but for who?
But now I’m at your bedside and because I don't have anything to remember you by, I am frantically trying to recall the few memories from a long time ago. I cry, more so because I can’t seem to remember enough of you, and not because I haven’t seen you. I don’t really make sense, I know. I am trying to cram my lifetime of memories in this short moment, to prove to you I remember, you have always been a part of my memories. I am trying to hold on to it all. To make up for how I couldn’t care less and what I didn’t feel all these years. It was worse when I realized that for 21 years I only had a handful of things to remember.
I start to remember that time you magic’d your wallet from thin air at the store. That time we went to Central Park and you all made fun of me for how I ran. That time you made the flakiest bing I ever tasted. And that time we went to… And that time… Later I would go home and look frantically for all your beautiful drawings, your etchings of our house and the chickens we had outside. I would not find them. I have none of your skills, none of your charm, your athleticism, nothing, Grandpa. But you are still here, right in front of me. When will I stop bouncing between my memories and my regrets and enjoy the time I have with you? What will that mean for me and you, Grandpa? Later, I would realize that I am trying to bring what I know now to what happened. I wish I could redo all those moments and mold time together; in a way I could control everything in the past. Maybe things would be different. Maybe it wouldn’t be so. Silent.
*********************************************************************************
***Play the bamboo clapper, keep looking straight.
Kwa, da kwa, da, kwa, da kwa.***
I can hear your strong voice. Sing a little louder I want
to say. But all I hear is my words that have turned to groans
echoing against the steel bed, rattling empty in my stomach. And
I am afraid you cannot understand me. So I try again.
“Kwa, da kwa, da, k…” I am too tired to go on. I can feel
my breath growing tired. It has become something I feel; it is something like being
aware of another life right beside you, only to realize you are watching
your own life.
And you continue to sing, and talk to me.
I cannot understand it all, and some of it I do not know if you are talking to me.
But I will listen, to the rolling of your tongue when
there shouldn’t be, on the words I do know,
To your attempt to start over.
***Up there you’ll see a tofu shop.
Kwa, da kwa, da, kwa, da kwa.***
I remember the first time I was on the plane ride to America.
The food was terrible. But nothing like your Grandmother’s cooking. Shh.
Definitely no match for me. I wondered why how my daughter did this
every time . But then again, she hardly came back so it probably wasn’t
too bad. We all went to the White House on that trip.
It was my first time seeing it, I didn’t even know what it looked like in the books.
But, this was my daughter’s house now.
***The big boss makes tofu so well.
Kwa, da kwa, da, kwa, da kwa.***
I can feel you massaging my feet. I can hear my daughter, your aunt, telling
you exactly how to do it according to the articles she read online
this week. I feel bad, your hands are now dirty.
I can feel my breath growing silent. Your hands are cold
and I can feel the dip and rise in your fingers, toe after toe
and then always coming back to the big toe and heels.
You have stopped crying this time I noticed. But
your voice still shakes.
I know you are trying too hard, I don’t mind.
***It’s tender; it’s soft; and it’s so good.
Kwa, da kwa, da, kwa, da kwa.***
“One , two, threeeeeeeee.” We all laughed.
I put my other foam slipper on my foot loosely and
on three, flicked it soaring and flipping over the room.
You and your sisters ran over to see how far it went. This
one went farther than the other, someone reports! My turn, my turn
everyone starts to yell and they all run from the other side of the room, and tumble and climb into my lap. We all love this silly game; I remember how much you all
loved how I am full of silly games.
***The children eat ‘til they laugh, hee hee.
Kwa, da kwa, da, kwa, da kwa.***
+1, is the number to America. I still could memorize your number
but I still needed to remind myself to dial +1 first, or I’d
hear that other family again. I chuckle, I’ve actually gotten to know them
quite well over the years. Their youngest daughter is starting
school now. The parents asked me if I had any
recommendations for summer programs for their son? And I
gladly gave them my son’s information. I should call them soon to
wish them a Happy New Year too.
I dial +1, and your house number. I want to first hear the updates
of my own grandchildren. The phone rings three times, then I hear
someone answer. Hello? They say in English. Hello,
I reply in English too, one of the words I know.
Whoever it is on the phone says, Oh, Grandpa, please wait.
I hear a little bit of shuffling in the background as I try to figure out
which one of the siblings that was? Finally, a voice gets
on a phone, a little tired and quiet and says “Ba ba?”
It’s my daughter and I chat with her for a while, she seems distant and distracted
but I know better than to ask. Soon she puts you and your siblings
on the phone. You all seem a bit distracted and you all don’t say much.
The phone call ends sooner than I know.
***The adults eat so plump, toot ,toot.
Kwa, da kwa, da, kwa, da. Kwa!***
Liu Lei Won, don’t cry. Don’t cry.
I know things are different now. But we don’t need to cry.
Let me see your face. There it is, you still have the same crooked smile I
see in the pictures your mom sent. And look, I still have the bald
spot I like to comb that you would play with. I dont have the ability to think too much
about the future. Maybe we don't have to hold on to the past.
Maybe we can both start over. I would like us both to be here.
I’d like to hear:
Hi Grandpa.
Monday, March 27, 2017
Monday's for Me.
 |
| "cant forget this gem" was literally what I titled this picture in my old computer. Yikes 😅😉😏😂 #noshame #selfies |
Friday, March 24, 2017
Monday, March 6, 2017
Saturday, March 4, 2017
Launching Brutally Honest: A Campaign for Goodness
https://twitter.com/Brutall09975505
Monday, January 9, 2017
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