Like My Man From Hippo

A journey that started out six weeks ago with a flight to Vladivostok is now drawing to a conclusion, with a return home, to Beijing.  That was the travel agenda of a high school teacher, as yet unmarried off to the third world somewhere with a thousand-bucks in his pocket and two or three New York City School system pay checks to return to when he got home.   I’ve managed to turn this into a familial ritual.  I get to do so for just a little while, longer. 

I have months now, perhaps two months’ worth of entries I must load up.  I have managed to maintain this commitment, to render day after day but many, many hours of actual posting are await like a miles-long runway before me.  I was reading the Egyptian writer, Sonallah Ibrahim.  The introduction to “That Smell” suggested that he had been particularly influenced by Hemingway.  He worked to capture unrelenting truth, as he saw it and to do so sparingly without flash.  Hemingway wanted people to write every day.  “I’d like to write Mr. Hemingway?”  “Well.  What have you written today?”  That’s the baseline commitment, without which little else will ever come to pass.

I met an old friend in the airport.  She was traveling with her daughter, just like me.  Her daughter is going to school in California and studying psychology, just like my daughter wants to.  She quickly confirmed that she’d recently had a stroke.  Oh dear.  She said that she’d been under too much pressure.  She described a week, like I often have, running hard and traveling every day for week after week.  I am returning to Beijing considering the importance of maintaining good health.  My, oh, my.   I want to do more meditation, more stretching and take a break from indulgences.  This is what I said unto me.  Help me Lord, and give me strength, but like my man from Hippo, just not today.

Soon, it’s back to "John Birch.  A Life."  The biography my friend, my mentor, wrote is something I should probably be able to finish during this flight.  My daughter and I are in economy class, but wonderfully the middle seat is free and we’ll be comfortable.  Breathe deeply.  Try to balance out towards a sustainable arc.  Let’s focus now on making this final year as a quartet, the best it can be. 

Driving out to SFO this morning we had a good chat with the Uber driver.  He was fed up with Trump.  Who isn’t?   “The thing is I can’t find anyone who admits to having voted for the man.”  Yes, I suspect there aren't many there in SF.  I'll ask my cabbie in Beijing. 

Sunday 8/05/18