when words fail

8/24/09 - Making Bread with Grandpa.

If you want to learn anything, ask us, Grandpa told me one day at lunch.
If we know how to do it, we’ll tell you. If we don’t, we’ll figure it out.

My grandparents are the most curious and driven octogenarians I know. I find it striking that they have only become more eager to discover the world as time passes. Every few days, grandpa would share a newspaper clipping with me, and almost everyday, he and grandma would have an English phrase they wish to discuss.

Is it alright, Grandma described a time when a friend had invited her to breakfast in English,is it alright that I said: Thanks- she struggled a bit with the recollection then slowly, carefully, she continued, but my dear waits for breakfast with me.

It was not a response I had expected; it was much more elegant. I smiled and put my arm around her, just as grandpa decided to share his English phrase of the day,

We cannot escape each other, he declared.
Divorce is not an option.

What? I looked up, confused. Where did you learn that?

He didn’t respond right away. Instead, he explained what the sentence meant and asked if the translation was right.

Are you trying to tell me something?
Grandma pretended to be angry, but her mischievous eyes gave her away. The two of them looked at each other and suddenly burst out laughing. An old woman and an old man; a young girl and a young boy. These days with my grandparents, I see splits and parallels of time.

But divorce is not an option, that’s a good thing right? grandpa said innocently, Anyway, I didn’t say it. Clinton was the one who said it.

And you remember it just like that? I marveled at his memory.

Oh, and I remember all the details of what you’ve told me too, he smiled.
It runs in the family, you see.

***

Grandpa instructed me as I rolled the dough for his new bread recipe, Whatever we do, we should ask ourselves if the method is ideal. We can always improve, always find a better way.

When I grow old, I want to be like my grandparents.

You don’t have to be waiting in any line!, grandpa randomly announced in English (he had been tracking Obama’s statements on the healthcare reform).

8/18/09 - Sand Dunes Sandwich.

I rented this motorcycle that barely had any power, Marc told me, and I tried to ride it across a field of sand dunes. It was the funniest thing.

We were at the milonga, waiting for our gathering to warm up, when he started telling me about his South America travels. Riding the air bike, Marc jerked his right fist a few times, imagining a full throttle. He was ready to burst forth, he even had me convinced.

Only, the bike threw us off.

I fell, he laughed, arms flailing,
and I just kept falling. Later, I met a guy who wanted a ride. I said why not. So the two of us - two grown men - were on this thing, and it wouldn’t take us anywhere. We bounced all over the place. We had no idea where we were. You should have seen it! I laughed so much, I almost pissed in
my pants.

His mirth was infectious. I couldn’t help laughing with him.
That’s really nice, you know, I told him.
Some people get angry when they’re lost.

He was quiet for a moment, then he said,
I learned that sometimes, you have to get lost to find your way.

***

It’s not easy, starting a business for the first time, in a place I’m only beginning to know. It’s not easy, when I am still negotiating all the differences in my life. There are so many of them.

I’m conflicting emotions all over the place: I’m bright-eyed, I’m doubtful. I’m ecstatic, I’m frustrated. I’m full of hope, I’m frightened. Some days, I feel right on the path. Other days, I feel far from where I intended to be, and it’s on those days that I keep replaying my conversation with Marc.

I think about the sand dunes, and the two guys on their bike. I can’t help it, an optimism takes over me. I remember then, that whatever it is, it’s all mine. All mine, this grand adventure.

***

I prayed for you last night, my grandma said.

She had asked for a blessing:
that no matter how dark or difficult my present path becomes,
I would always feel myself ascending towards daylight .

***

At the last Lo de Picherna at Mt. Vernon.
Cerveza? Marc asked, as always.

Of course! I replied, It’s our tradition.

He laughed, Yes, you know it really is a tradition. I knew there was going ot be all this alcohol tonight, still I brought two beers.

After everyone left, we took our time cleaning up, putting away the chairs and tables one last time. When we were finally done, we could hardly keep our eyes open. No matter, we still insisted on dancing. In the after-hours, we had the church-turned-dance-space to ourselves. We had the high ceiling, the wooden floor, tango, cerveza, and a few leftover sandwiches.

***

Dearest Marc,

I know those were finger sandwiches that we had, but what I remember is so much bigger, and so much more colorful. That’s why I made my lunch full-size plus a slice of pineapple to do you justice. (Well yes, I was also very hungry, but minor point.)

Happy birthday again.

Come!!! :) , you wrote.
I wish I could have. Does this count?

8/10/09 - Mistakes.

Early morning, the sky clear blue.
The sun’s rays stole through openings between vendors’ roofs. I followed my mother from one stand to another, striving to avoid mopeds traveling under no rules, and striving, at the same time, to tease out the market’s separate rules. There’s a different way of talking here, a different pace, and different price tags even, depending on your ties.

Barely 7AM, the street already wide awake.
Being in midst of all this life, it’s easy to forget the days of typhoon we’d just weathered. Here, only the cost of goods still bore our disaster’s mark; a head of cabbage had easily blown up five times its usual worth.

It’s always trying after a typhoon, my mother said. We face the challenge of preserving our quality against rising prices. Times like these test how we make the best of our situations.

***

Rewind: Photo I

Gabe studied a photo of the Italian Market and shook his head.

I’m not really sure what’s going on here, too much is happening.

But that’s the nature of a market place! the student argued.

Yes, it’s chaos. But you are organizing it. What makes a photographer stand out is what you do with a situation.

Rewind some more: Photo I, Day 1

In the introduction of our course, Gabe prepared us for our first crit. He motioned towards the white wall we were facing.

All your first attempts at photography will be here, it will be, he chuckled goodnaturedly and winked, a wall of mistakes.

***

My wall of mistakes:

I was assigned to make omelets for the rice accompanying the borscht we were serving. It was a special type of omelet that my mother wanted - a swirling one. I failed miserably at the task.

At first, the pan was not hot enough, so the eggs stuck; then the pan was too hot, so the eggs over-crisped. I did not swirl it fast enough, or I swirled it unevenly. I made the omelet too thin and it broke; I made it too thick and it delayed the cooking time, ruining the texture. A few times, I didn’t let the omelet set properly before moving it out of the pan, and at the last minute, it tore apart.

When finally, I began to have minor success, I had trouble taking the omelet out and placing it on the rice: sometimes covering only partially, sometimes too much bunching at the sides.

Am I stupid?
I felt the heat from the stove, but even more so, the heat from myself. I was frying in my own embarrassment. My sense of timing and my ability to assess mistakes were further warped by all that eagerness to make right. Much of my fault had been impatience, yet dumbed by anxiety, I could not slow down. Instead, I reached for redemption with yet more speed. That naturally only pushed me farther away.

***

You will learn, Damian said to me the last time we danced at the milonga, With more experience, you’ll learn to let go of your mistakes when they happen on the dance floor, and keep dancing. You won’t do a little twist with your shoulders or make a face, you will just keep going.

Grace, I understand as facing mistakes in real-time unflinching, unparalyzed.

The next time I see you, he continued, You will dress like a tanguera, talk like a tanguera, act like a tanguera.

***

For lunch, I brought a plate of my failed omelets home. I devoured those mistakes, to demonstrate this is how things work here - not the other way around.

8/4/09 - Roses of Roasted Pork Tenderloin.
Xiao Mi Fen’s demonstration.

By 6AM
I was up and working out.

7AM
I was pushing my way through the crowded market, with bags of meat
and vegetables.

10:00AM
Done with my portion of the kitchen prep, I took a short break to finalize my studio’s brochure design.

11:30AM
The restaurant opens (read: the curtain opens).

Every Tuesday now is my apprentice day at the Bitbit Cafe. I am starting with dishwashing, basic cutting and plating. The photo is one of our chefs’ demonstration for me.

***

From “The Grand Design”, The Elements of Typographic Style:

Literary style, says Walter Benjamin, “is the power to move freely in the length and breadth of linguistic thinking without slipping into banality.” Typographic style, in this large and intelligent sense of the word, does not mean any particular style - my style or your style, or Neoclassical or Baroque style - but the power to move freely through the whole domain of typography, and to function at every step in a way that is graceful and vital instead of banal. It means typography that can walk familiar ground without sliding into platitudes, typography that responds to new conditions with innovative solutions, typography that does not vex the reader with its own originality in a self-conscious search for praise.

In the next 23 months of my stay in Taiwan, I plan to build the culinary skills and knowledge that will free my movements, and take me to the beginning of style.

***

Soon after graduation, I began to think about the division of time. In school, time was always divided for us: two semesters in a year, every year you move onto something else, and every few years, you move up to a whole new level. Clear breaks mark the boundaries between one partition and another. They give us a chance to reflect, to recharge, or change directions if we so desire.

Do you ever feel like you’ve lost your sense of time?
I asked a friend who had graduated a year ahead of me.

He nodded,
When you are working 9 to 5, every day seems to go by slowly because it’s so much the same. You feel as though the days will never end. But then, a year goes by, and you are caught by surprise because you hardly noticed its passing.

It happens, but I don’t want it to happen to me. I want to feel time brushing against me and know as every particle passes, that I have used it to the fullest. I give myself two years in Taiwan because that limitation puts my days in context. What is a day out of two years? What is any subdivision - a week, a month, three months, six months, twelve months and so on - when you measure them in that light? Limitation gives weight to time.

***
Rewind:

Damian was leading me to turn around him. The Molinete, the windmill wheel in tango. Think of the last step, he said as I turned. Focus on how you want to end.

Kathy, my screenwriting instructor constantly told our class that we should write our script with its ending in mind. Know that last scene, then write towards it.

I am seeing it, the spectacular finale:
Style, the power to move freely through the whole domain
These two years, if I use them well, will bring me closer
in culinary arts and more.

7/25/09 - Potstickers.
Another present from grandma, homemade, frozen and mailed.

The traditional way to prepare potstickers is this: oil the pan first, then lightly brown one side before pouring in water to steam. When the liquid has fully evaporated, turn up the fire again to crisp both sides.

I was working the method when my mother walked into the apartment, finding me in midst of grease and smoke.

Do you mind if I show you another way? she asked,
This works fine, but I know a better alternative.

She washed the pan for us to start anew.
Always ask yourself if the things you are doing make sense. When you cook, think scientifically. You should know why you are taking each step.

Instead of frying one side initially, she began with steaming. Only when the dumplings are entirely cooked through, did she pour in the oil to finalize with browning. Eliminating that first step reduced both grease and time. The prelude was really not needed at all.

It was a small adjustment, but the fact of the matter is that it didn’t even cross my mind. When I’m around my mother, I am reminded to keep questioning my established ways, and to keep moving forward with intelligence.

***

Wine 101 at the Pinot Boutique in Olde City, Philadelphia.

A large part of the anxiety surrounding wine is its rituals and vocabulary, which can often be alienating,
the instructor opened his seminar with the statement.
But once you understand the purpose of what people do, you can break through that anxiety.

In the narrow room, we sat on couches and around tables, each with two glasses before us. All eyes were on the man as he continued, We are going to hold off liking and disliking for the time being. It’s fine to have preferences, but that’s not what tonight is about. Once you pin down those judgments, it’s hard to open yourself to learning.

The point here is to ask why, and only do things when there is a reason. This is what will distinguish you as an insider.

***

I have been revisiting passages from The Entrepreneurial Mindset:

In conventional planning, success means delivering numbers that are close to what you thought you would deliver. In discovery-driven planning, success means generating the maximum amount of useful learning for the minimum expenditure. You primary challenge is to maximize the conversion of assumption to knowledge at the minimum possible cost.
(pg. 232)

Plan to learn, it read.

I do.

***

For an extra kick, grandma puts a bit of scallops in her pork dumplings.

7/23/09 - Grandma’s Zongzi

I sat with my father and my sister at lunch, unwrapping the zongzi grandma had mailed to us. Inside each, she had stuffed the perfectly cooked sticky rice with meat, shitake mushroom, dried shrimp and duck egg yolks. Our apartment was quickly saturated with the aroma of steamed bamboo leaves and their savory fillings.

There are some childhood favorites I never grew out of. This, is one of them. And still like a child, I’m convinced that zongzi is only properly made when my grandmother makes it.

The other day, my father said as we ate,
when I was walking out of the building, a little girl ran towards me and sped right past. At the bottom of the stairs, I noticed a little boy waving goodbye to her. He kept waving after her, though she didn’t turn once to look back at him.

He waited till she disappeared out of sight, before jogging ahead. He didn’t go too far though. Something made him stop and he turned in my direction. When our eyes met, he smiled as if we were old friends.

I thought he might have mistakened me for someobody else.
But then, he started walking back towards me, and as I kept moving forward, he began to follow me.

“What’s the matter?” I asked him.

Shyly, he told me he was frightened by the possibility of stray dogs.

“But,” I paused, “Didn’t you just walk this way to take your friend home?”

He nodded.
“She’s scared of the dogs too, so I walked her home, but now,” he said very seriously, “I need a companion back.”

Amused, I let him trail along.

We walked a while before he suddenly screamed, “Watch out!” and burried his face in my back. I looked around but didn’t see anything.

“Oh,” he said sheepishly when I told him so,
“It might have been a mouse then.”

The little hero, My father laughed as he concluded the story, 
If only the girl knew how much courage it took him. 

(I just realized my mother had blogged the exact same story, but she must have heard it at a different time, and we certainly have our different styles.)

***

It’s been a week since I’ve moved back to Taiwan. Living here is a whole different story from vacationing here. There are alot of things I am not familiar with. Happily, there’s excitement in the new and every day I am finding more ground.

Two days ago, I found an apartment nearby and signed the lease that very night. Yesterday, I opened a bank account and also got a new phone.

For every contract I sign, I need to put down my Chinese name, which I haven’t used for the longest time. I write slowly, stroke by stroke, trying to make all three characters even on the line. So far, my efforts have all sadly resembled a third grader’s attempt to copy words beyond her understanding.

***

What’s your Chinese name? You asked.
As soon as I told you, you asked if I could draw the characters for you.

I laughed, secretly hoping the laughter can carry us over to the next conversation. My Chinese name, oddly enough, is almost a stranger to me. I didn’t use it, no one called me by it, and up until now, the signature had not been needed.

But you insisted, handing me a handbound notebook,
giving me its first page.

Here? My name?

Your Chinese name, you said again, and I saw that you were serious.

I gave you my best. One day, I would write these three characters in the matter-of-fact way people write their own names. But for now, this was as good as it gets.  

Your eyes shone nevertheless. You wanted to know the proper order of every stroke. I watched with surprise as you began to practice my name in the space below. That surprise quickly turned into alarm as you became better and better at the replication. I had to stop you before you put
me to shame.

Drawing, you called the act.
I find your choice strangely moving.

Tell me, did you foresee that I would be across the world weeks later, signing my first contracts, seeing our moment in every stroke I draw?

***

Nowadays, I carry a signature stamp with me - as all Taiwanese do - to seal the agreements I make. My clothes, I hang dry. The older people whom I know through my parents, I call aunts and uncles out of respect. The tap water here, I should not drink before boiling or filtering. Although, I have forgotten this more than a few times.

7/16/09 - Interesting Pauses. 
Niny & Gary’s Dinner Part III: Krissy’s Gorgeous Dessert.
Entry finally completed after a week…

The only goodbyes I acknowledge are the ones we cannot dictate. Natural divergences that happen without ceremony. Often escaping notice, often defying control.

They happen when two people finally fall out of each other’s planes, and it’s hard to pinpoint exactly when or why. No singular cause, the reasons are many, though none of them matter by now.

Because of this, I find goodbye a fluffy word that neither prescribes nor describes. And because of this, as long as we still have a trace of care for one another (whatever the nature of this care, good or bad), every parting marks only an interesting pause.

As Paul Gardner said, 
A painting is never finished - it simply stops in interesting places.

***

Niny and I were picking blueberries a few days before the big dinner. She suddenly turned to me and said, You’ll always have a home if you come back to Philadelphia.

Then as soon as she said it, she corrected herself, 
Not if, but when you come back to Philadelphia.

***

Marc had a mysterious smile on his face as we danced.

What? I asked.

Nothing, he kept smiling.
It’s just fun teaching you.

***

I went to say goodnight.

But we haven’t danced yet, Krissy said as she gave me a hug.

Tango’s first movement is an embrace.

When the song ended, I was surprise to see Krissy’s eyes glistening in the dark concert hall. My throat tightened.

***

Sometimes when Dasha spotted me on the side while she danced, she would wink as if we shared a little secret. A gesture fleeting, but unforgettable.

***

The morning of my last day in Philly, TJ sat down next to me on the couch and held out his hand. I linked my fingers with his.

Hi, he said, I’m TJ. Are you here for ITA training too? 

Just like the first time we met four years ago.

***

This is my favorite place, Sarah told me.

Then you would have to share it with me,
I replied, meaning it is now my favorite place too.

I am already sharing.

The beautiful night was cool. In the park, swings flew towards the moon. Bits of mirrors on the mosaic wall fragmented street lights. Uneven pavements, stone walls, roadside Japanese maple. The city was ours.

What a perfect time to leave,
she said as we sat on the grass, trying to find planets far away.

***

On the way home from brunch, Emilia and I sat side by side on the subway.

I think I’m getting off at 34th for work, she told me.

I still planned on going to 40th.
Dropping off at different stops, that’s a good way to part.

It’s more poetic this way and anyway, this is not a goodbye.

Just a parting, a pause, I said.

A dash, she continued, Separating but suggesting continuity. Plus, the shape of the dash is like our train with its forward motion.

We laughed at the conversation so typically ours. I put my head on her shoulder. The train was approaching her station now.
She leaned down and kissed my face.
I love you babe, she whispered and got off the train.

I watched her leave, then put on my aviators for the rest of my ride through the tunnels.

***

Lucky I’m in love with my best friend 
Lucky to have been where I have been 
Lucky to be coming home again 
Lucky we’re in love in every way 
Lucky to have stayed where we have stayed 
Lucky to be coming home someday …

TJ’s beautiful voice came through the earphones. 
I just want to explain, he said, 
that it’s only half of the duet because I want you to sing with me.

***

Brandon sat on my bed, flipping and reflipping through the book I had made. He stopped at a photo that merged black and white with color.

I see this, he said, but I more than see this.

He has always more than seen me.

On an ordinary day
The extraordinary way
You take what I can give and you treasure it
On an ordinary day
The extraordinary way
You turn to me and say, I believe in this

That makes me lucky
God I’m lucky, so much luckier than I ever thought I’d be
‘Cause what I have
Is the value that you see in these things

— Conjure One (Extraordinary Way)

***

While having tapas in the Mission, Andrew told me,
Whatever happens, you make sure that there is still affection, because see, affection is not a zero-sum game. You can move apart in life but remain fond of each other. I don’t think there is that one person who will save my life - that’s just silly. But hey, if the stars are ever aligned for us again, I know we’ll be great.

***

The way you held my face and said, I can’t wait to see you again.

***

What I had learnt from rolfing, Brian told me during our last session,
is that we are not as fragile as we think.

No, we really are not as fragile as we think.
Still, I hope our stars realign. Soon.

Until then, until then.

7/16/09 - Lobster from the Liminal Days.

A conversation overheard:

What does it mean? 
I don’t know. 
You didn’t ask any questions?
What is there to ask?
Does it mean that-
I don’t know what anything means.

***

On my last day in Philly, I had brunch with Emilia at Cafe Lift. While we waited for our frittata to come, I told her that I was glad to have a week in SF before finally going home.

It’s good to have that in-between place, I told her.
It will give me the time to think, regroup and move forward.

She nodded, In anthropology they call that transitional place “liminality”.
You know, like dusk, like dawn.

Like sunrise, like sunset, phases that belong neither to the day nor the night. Liminality stems from the Latin word limen, meaning threshold. It marks a time filled with nostalgia for happenings passed, but also a time gradually brightened by anticipation for what is to come.

As a page is closing, another one turns.
In this heightened reality, neither here nor there, the heart has a way of opening up to ambiguity and uncertainty. There is little else we can do on these shifting grounds, but to accept change as the world’s order. Giving in to the flow of time, I do not think of resignation; rather, release.

***

My flight for Taipei leaves in 8 hours. 
I am laughing a little, marveling at how monumental, but also weightless the fact is. I miss Philly terribly, yet the shock of exiting is gone. Leaving is leaving, no matter where the next destination. A week ago I had already left. What then, is today but a progression of morning’s arrival?

We may be dazed, but at dawn we are not startled by the sun’s first rays.

***

Two nights ago when I was in San Jose visiting family, my aunt threw a feast of lobster, steak and pina coladas. I was thrilled when she gave me the last lobster to bring home. Since Andrew didn’t have a cracker in his apartment, we took a hammer to it and shared the amazingly fresh midnight snack over his kitchen counter.

7/12/09 - My Hilarious Goods.
All glamorous on Rachel’s porch.

Early Sunday morning, Rachel picked me up at the Rockridge subway station. From there, the two of us went straight to a farmer’s market nearby. Within the first few minutes, we had already made our rounds and bought a bacon-salad pizza, a goat cheese tamale with Swiss chard, an almond croissant, and some other pastries.

That, however, was only the beginning.

We quickly lost track of time, frolicking around the market, tasting slices of plums and peaches vendors put out. We bought everything that struck our fancy. No shopping lists, no agenda.

Every once in a while, we would vaguely remember that we wanted to make dinner with the ingredients at hand. Does this combination make sense? We would wonder half-heartedly before brushing the thought aside. How can food so fresh ever fail?

***

On a whim, I started collecting all the funny-looking vegetables I could find. Mostly, the squashes drew my attention, but there was also a heirloom tomato that somehow managed to twist all around itself.

I brought my prize to the cashier, who frowned and asked me if I wanted to go back for a better one.

Actually, I told her, I am buying it because it looks weird.

She stared at me, eyebrows lifted. Confusion briefly passed over her face. But the wise woman asked no more questions. With a slight shrug, she took my money.

***

What do you think? Rachel asked me, waving a handful of rosemary.

Hmmm?
I was aware she had been talking but I heard nothing of what she said.

Should we…? 
She was asking something about the herbs
… or it might have been about our salad.

I looked at her blankly. She asked again. And again I missed what she said. Finally, shaking my head I laughed, Sorry I’m really overwhelmed right now.

I know. I can see that!

The environment possessed me.
I walked, mind emptied of thoughts,
hypnotized by motions and colors vibrant.

***

Eventually (or, miraculously), Rachel and I made our exit. We had so much food, our biceps could barely handle the weight. Still, we gravitated towards the chicken potpie stand on our way out.

Rachel blamed me for the disappearance of all self-control.
Usually I come here with someone who restrains me,
and not encourages me!

Happily sore. Happily blamed.

7/5/09 - Taking notice. 
(Niny & Gary’s dinner Part II)

While waiting for dinner to start, Gary took a few of us out to pick blueberries. Having already collected a boxful the day before, I decided to trail along with my camera.

From the top of a ladder, through the net, I zoomed in on my friends’ ecstatic faces glowing with the setting sun. They laughed, popping berries into their mouths more often than saving them in containers. It’s astonishing, how something so simple can bring about this happiness.

When it was about time, Gary called out to the group,
One more minute to go!

I heard Krissy give a little shriek from the corner, and saw that she was frantically reaching for every berry in sight. Amused, I switched to video and followed her around until at last, she was satisfied. She stood for a moment, studying the treasures in her hands and then, she looked up at me.

A smile - such a smile - blossomed on her face.
My hands shook as I fumbled to switch back to photo mode. By the time I figured it out, she had already looked away.

Smile for me again, I called to her.

And there, there it is.

***

That night, while watching everyone dance, Dasha sat down beside me.

You know, She started, when we are listening to the same music, it’s hard to explain to each other, what we hear. But when we dance, I can feel how you listen to the music.

Later, she would correct my memory.
It’s: I can hear how you listen to the music.

But it’s more to feel! I said.

Or, Kristin joined in the discussion,
or is it about noticing what it feels, tastes, smells, looks, sounds like? It will always be there, whatever it is, until you notice whatever it is and then, you are transformed and cannot go back.

***

Not long ago, I sat with Gabriella on the rooftop of Vango Skybar. We looked up at the patch of sky above and saw lights from skyscrapers surrounding. That night, we had only city stars made on earth.

So what’s new? I asked her.
She smiled, Oh every day is new.

Our conversation flowed from topic to topic before she picked up the thought again, I realized that not every day has to be a big, dramatic adventure. That’s not what it’s about. Our lives are not novels.

The key, she continued, is to notice the little things.

And so it is.

This passage, from Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, is dedicated to all of my friends who delight in life’s details. I hope we never stop taking notice of what truly matters.

… “Flora and fauna reports,” I used to call the long, winding letters from my grandmother. “The forsynthia is starting and this morning  I saw my first robin… The roses are holding even in this heat… The sumac has turned and that little maple down by the mailbox…. My Christmas cactus is getting ready….”

I followed my grandmother’s life like a long home movie: a shot of this and a shot of that, spliced together with no pattern that I could ever see. “Dad’s cough is getting worse… The little Shetland looks like she’ll drop her foal early… Joanne is back in the hospital at Anna… We named the new boxer Trixie and she likes to sleep in my cactus bed - can you imagine?”

I could imagine. Her letters made that easy. Life through grandma’s eyes was a series of small miracles: the wild tiger lilies under the cottonwoods in June; the quick lizard scooting under the gray river rock she admired for its satiny finish. Her letters clocked the seasons of the year and her life. She lived until she was eighty, and the letters came until the very end. When she died, it was as suddenly as her Christmas cactus: here today, gone tomorrow. She left behind her letters and her husband of sixty-two years. Her husband, my grandfather Daddy Howard, an elegant rascal with a gambler’s smile and a loser’s luck, had made and lost several fortunes, the last of them permanently. He drank them away, gambled them away, tossed them away the way she threw crumbs to her birds. He squandered life’s big chances the way she savored the small ones. “That man,” my mother would say.

My grandmother lived with that man in tiled Spanish houses, in trailers, in a tiny cabin halfway up a mountain, in a railroad flat, and, finally in a house made out of ticky-tacky where they all looked just the same. “I don’t know how she stands it,” my mother would say, furious with my grandfather for some new misadventure. She meant she didn’t know why.

The truth is, we all knew how she stood it. She stood it by standing knee-deep in the flow of life and paying close attention.

My grandmother was gone before I learned the lesson her letters were teaching: survival lies in sanity, and sanity lies in paying attention. Yes, her letters said, Dad’s cough is getting worse, we have lost the house, there is no money and no work, but the tiger lilies are blooming, the lizard has found that spot of sun, the roses are holding despite the heat.

My grandmother knew what a painful life had taught her: success or failure, the truth of a life really has little to do with its quality. The quality of life is in proportion, always, to the capacity for delight. The capacity for delight is the gift of paying attention.

***

Andrew’s apartment in the Mission overlooks a row of little shops: cafe, bookstore, florist, bakery, fruit stand. I love the tall ceiling and his narrow, old-fashioned bathtub.

It’s surprisingly chilly here in San Francisco. I brewed a mug of warm Turkish coffee and helped myself to the girl scout cookies on the kitchen counter. Feeling guilty, I texted him about the theft, to which he gladly replied that he didn’t mind - the cookies were very, very old.

Moral of the story:
Don’t steal your friend’s cookies and get out to see the city now.