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Published: January 20th 2011
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Dear Friend,
I am home again. It is snowing. It is not the silent snow of depth or the kind of snow that has fallen during the night muffling the world outside. It is the snow that includes you in its floating. Gentle snow flakes land on my upturned hand. I wait. It is not as exciting as ‘the first snow’ but it envelopes me, just the same. I see the crystallized formation of the flakes as I once did when they rested on my duffle coat as a child. I remember looking in awe at them then as I do now, many years later.
I am tired. So many practical things achieved, so many still to do. My neighbour woke me with her return home at 1.30am, scolding her puppy and screaming at it in the gennel. The poor thing had already been left alone for over 12 hours. The puppy cried and yelped and scratched at the door for over two hours. It was past 3am when she had noisy sex with her boyfriend; which I heard through the wall. She is called Fani.
This morning, my landlord was summoned to the police station where I
was organizing my residency permit. He had forgotten a number on my contract. When he arrived I was telling all of the police to stop smoking, that their health was bad and that they were dying. My landlord quickly handed around the cigarettes to the already smoking men to appease the situation but they just laughed. The air was thick with smoke. I removed his cigarette from his hands and put it in his pocket. They don’t know what they are doing or they don’t care.
Thoughtless habit.
After all was settled, we had the same disagreement as ever about me wanting to walk home and him wanting me to get on his bike. The wind sneaked through the sides of my boots, the snow gently fell, I dipped my head. He likes me on the back of the bike. Today, I found I liked it too because I could think less, feel the weather more and arrive quicker. He is not only my landlord, He is my friend and Chinese family. I have known him nearly two years. Yesterday, when I returned from Beijing, he made the bed with me because he had to remove things from
the room left by his son, who lived in the house whilst I was away. I did not want him to help me.
After the police station visit, I went to pi shi jie (skin market street) and sought out a flowering plum blossom that will yield happiness for three months – I have been promised this. I chose a deep red flowering double tree. Double Happiness.
The small trees (or hacked bushes) look like lovers holding hands whilst leaning in towards each other. The tiny plum blossom buds are holding tight against the cold. I checked it was real, checked the roots, the stability, the look, the feel. I was happy and paid through the nose. A thing is worth what you think it’s worth - always. I wish I could bring it home for ever.
He is right when he says ‘Stories and objects share something, a patina’ I know what he means by patina. I think my most favourite thing in Beijing is the tree that I found at the Summer Palace. It leans with the stroke of many hands. It feels like a perfectly highly polished banister in an elaborate stately home but it
is only bare polished living tree bark - wood in its most original and truest sense.
The beautiful tree is not like a loved piece of furniture that glows with a French-polished patina. It is deeply loved and been honoured over time by the polishing of souls stroking hands over and over and over it or by holding or gently touching it. It has become a living story over months and years and decades of time stroking. It has the patina created by the wishes of people. What stories could this tree tell us? I, myself, spoke to it.
Of course, not every Patina shines.
If we could stroke something every day for good fortune, what would it be? Our child? A crystal? A sea bean? The bark of a tree? A God? A thing that holds a story?
The first thing I did when I returned to my Suzhou home was to hang the age old crystal chandelier nuggets that were given to me by the old provost and, as you know, I’ve carried them around for over 15 years, remembering the words he said when he handed them over. The patina over the crystals
is thickly layered but invisible to the eye. The sea bean lies smooth as a pebble on the sill. It is smooth because it lived in my pocket for two years and I reached for it a thousand times. The solid silver bracelet I bought myself over 15 years ago in the hope of bestowing good fortune is still on my wrist. It was fingered by Lina last week and she tried to put a story to it. She added to its patina and story. And now the loving plum blossom trees sit by the bed.
Jeanette Winterson once said that we should not have things that do not hold stories. Stories fall out of my pockets and bags.
I’m fortunate to be able to mull over the small meaningful things that I drag around the world alongside the new buds of winter and spring.
I long to read the book that you have mentioned to me. I have already fallen into the few words that you have sent. I hope that we can continue to have the gift of word giving to each other for many years. Your words have always intelligently complimented my rudimentary way
of seeing, my immediate way of seeing. Your words make me turn my head to see again the things that I have touched upon but not fully opened. Sometimes, we both agree that there are no answers. But that is an answer in itself. You have often been my teacher.
I wish you could have stroked the Chinese tree. You could have added a tiny, tiny flake of your skin to its age old patina, adding your own story to the thousands already embedded in it.
The snow is settling. I want to sleep but sleeping in the day is for the old, the ill, the lazy and for lovers.
Until May, when we’ll meet again, keep writing to me.
Tracey
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carolyn coleman
non-member comment
dear friend
oh the sea bean i still have mine, ties like these hold forever and memories bind stronger with love your friends tom and carolyn