Her mirror

Visitors always complained about the mirror in her bathroom.

“I didn’t know I had such bad skin until I looked at myself in that mirror!” one guest said.

“Whenever I visit your house I’m reminded of how ugly I am,” said another.

The mirror was situated between two high quality fluorescent bulbs, the kind of lighting that doesn’t let a single flaw go un-illuminated. This mirror was where she spent hours searching and striving for perfection, the way a priest spends his whole life pursuing God. It was the kind of mirror for people who had forgotten what self-esteem was, for people who valued beauty more than anything.

I only clean when I have a problem. If you come to my apartment and it’s entirely clean, I’ve crawling away from a big problem. When I’m happy, I couldn’t care less. If you see my clothes everywhere, dirty dishes piled up and populated with insects, and papers in piles of no real order, I’ll probably say, “Oh well, let’s get out of this place. Who wants to stay here anyway when the world’s so beautiful?”

Memory

"For most of our lives, we don't think that what we're doing is important. It seems like ninety-nine percent of the time we're thinking about things we've already done, in the past, or our to-do lists, our hopes, our dreams, the future. We're too busy with thoughts to focus completely on the present. We only focus when something really important is happening.
"Do you know how memory works? We can only make memories well when we're focusing on that moment. That's why we misplace our keys, or leave the stove on. They're things in our daily routine. We never think about them consciously. It's not important. We remember important things, because we recognize them as important at the time.

"When a bear is chasing you through the woods, trying to tear your head off, that's something you remember for the rest of your life. Why? Because you're fully in the moment. You have to be. And then later, because you were so intensely focused, you can remember everything about that event: the exact shade of brown of the bear's fur, how many teeth he was showing you, how long the strands of saliva dangling from his teeth were, the crunch of the leaves under your hiking boots, the scrape of his claws against the earth, the smell of the pine trees, the crisp autumn mountain air, your sweat.

"Now, being attacked by a bear isn't the only way to create a memory. You can make new memories at any time. If you focus on being in that moment, concentrate on taking everything into your mind through all of your senses, leaving nothing behind, licking the entire plate clean, you can make a memory that will last you for the rest of your life.
"We can't be sure what will happen to us. Maybe we'll get in a fight next week, break up, move on, and never see each other again. Maybe we'll stay together, get married, grow old, and love each other til the day we day. Maybe somewhere in between. We can't see what circumstances the future will give us. But what we do in this very moment can change our futures. We can control the future by creating the past, by making a memory that will last until we die.
"Let's make a memory together. Focus. Concentrate. Feel the sand under your toes, soft, but also grainy and hard. The wind blowing that strand of hair across your face. You pushing it back away. That child's laugh. The gentle crashing of the waves. The burning sunset. The salty air. Our hands, warm, together.
"We can make this last forever. In this moment, I love you more than anything in the world. I might not feel the same way ever again. But in my memory, the memory I make right now, I'll be loving you this powerfully, and since I'll have this memory forever, I'll love you forever."

From the last chapter of Siddhartha

"Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, be fortified by it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it. I suspected this when I was still a youth and it was this that drove me away from teachers. There is one thought I have had, Govinda, which you will again think is a jest or folly: that is, in every truth the opposite is equally true. For example, a truth can only be expressed and enveloped in words if it is one-sided. Everything that is thought and expressed in words is one-sided, only half the truth; it all lacks totality, completeness, unity. When the Illustrious Buddha taught about the world, he had to divide it into Samsara and Nirvana, into illusion and truth, into suffering and salvation. One cannot do otherwise, there is no other method for those who teach. But the world itself, being in and around us, is never one-sided. Never is a man or a deed wholly Samsara or Nirvana; never is a man wholly a saint or a sinner. This only seems so because we suffer the illusion that time is something real."

"The world, Govinda, is not imperfect or slowly evolving along a long path to perfection. No, it is perfect at every moment; every sin already carries grace within it, all small children are potential old men, all sucklings have death within them, all dying people--eternal life. It is not possible for one person to see how far another is on the way; the Buddha exists in the robber and the dice player; the robber exists in the Brahmin. During deep meditation it is possible to dispel time, to see simultaneously all the past, present, and future, and then everything is good, everything is perfect, everything is Brahman. Therefore, it seems to me that everything that exists is good--death as well as life, sin as well as holiness, wisdom as well as folly. Everything is necessary, everything needs only my agreement, my assent, my loving understanding; then all is well with me and nothing can harm me."

Long quotes, but still small compared to how much is said.

I've read this book three times now. Currently I've been reading the Bible, thinking about God, and trying to figure out how to live my life. So the most recent time reading this book has been the most powerful and insightful for me.


In reading the Bible, I see many contradictory stories or ideas. But these passages from Siddhartha explain those away: words cannot fully encapsulate wisdom, and certainly cannot contain God. I've frequently been tripped up on words in the Bible. God is greater than anyone can imagine. Religions seem to be invented by men to contain God, to define him, to transmit His words to us. But like wisdom, the word of God (which might be what we call the elusive "wisdom") cannot be told simply through words.

Religion is too one-sided, like the words Siddhartha mentions. I met a student who was writing about how Creationism and Evolution don't have to be separate ends of an argument; they can co-exist and even complement each other. In general, men telling each other who is right and who is wrong about God is inherently foolish. Who can say that they really, completely know God except God himself.

My friend recently laughed at a book he was reading because the author wrote that he had never believed in God more than when he was in a North Korean work camp. My friend laughed and said, "Yeah, when he saw his friend getting beaten to death with a pipe, it made him believe in God." It does sound ridiculous, and I almost conceded the point to him. God is supposed to be all-powerful and all-good; how do things like that happen?

Churches make strong distinctions between sinners and saints, the work of God and the work of the devil. If you do x it means you've sinned, but if you do y, then you've done God's work.

But isn't everything God's work? Isn't even Satan God's work? In these passages from Siddhartha, we can see that everything is connected and everything is good. Of course, "good" is just a word. We could just as soon say "everything is bad" or "nothing is good" or "nothing is bad" and they would all be true. A limitless God is something that we can't comprehend, so why do we have to try to define Him, or Her, or It? Let's just live, ask questions, and think. And love.

Coffee Bean observations (from July 4)

This cafe is nice; I like it. The music is the kind of music that should be in all cafes. Some, like Caffe Bene, play rap music, pop music, shiny, catchy music designed to get your attention just like all the flashing neon signs in this city. Coffee Bean's music is soft, light, and flowing. Like a river, you know it's there, you can hear it, you can see it, but it doesn't rob you of your attention; you can still think. It's much better to think in front of a river than in front of a neon sign.
The place is clean too. Shiny stone floors, shiny, soft, black leather chairs. The wood tabletops shine too. It's not stuffy, smells cool and fresh. The smoking area is nearby, and a faint cigarette smell wafts in at times, not intruding, but hinting, and it reminds me of my grandmother's house.
There are three other people in the room. I wonder if they have any idea if I'm writing about them. Two of them are a couple. They're sitting in the leather chairs by the windows like everyone else in the room; the hard wood, wicker, and metal chairs in the center of the room are empty, like a desert in the middle of an oasis. The man is wearing a kind of Che Guevara hat and thick black-rimmed glasses. He looks out the window a lot, presumably thinking. His girlfriend has short hair, isn't dressed too fancy, but still talks on her phone too much. When she talks to him, he smiles and listens, but she talks much more than him. She's very skinny. Thin arms jut out of her billowy yellow T-shirt and thin legs prop her up behind billowy blue pants that hang like curtains. She's pretty and stylish. They just left.

Now it's just me and an artist girl sitting at the table in front of me, facing me. We made eye contact for a moment when I first sat down and I couldn't tell if she was a girl or a man with long hair. She's not girlishly pretty. But now that I look at her she's prettier than that glimpse revealed. Longish hair, half tied, falling around her face, unkempt. She's wearing a shirt that looks like a man's shirt, a gray button-down, a bit too big for her. She had two books on the table before, the top one was about Andy Warhol. She didn't look at them, she was always looking at her phone instead. She has an iPhone, like everyone else. Now that she is standing up, I see she's wearing a bright red skirt and sport shoes and bouncing as she walks. Her entire body is very different from the top half I saw of her over the table. Her art books are in one of her two army green bags.

TPR cheating dream (from June 28)

I'm somewhere watching CCTV. I'm not sure what's going on exactly, but some crime is on the tape, and I know where it is.
At The Princeton Review (where I work), the other teachers know that I've seen the CCTV tape and know about the crime; they are guilty of what I've seen. I've also seen other forms of dishonesty, such as giving children answers for their tests. I don't say or do anything, but they know that I know.
Eventually Audrey (my boss), followed by many other teachers, all wearing the black TPR polos we all have, burst into my room without saying anything, looking sternly at me. My face flushes. I'm afraid. Then a fat, ugly, mean teacher says "We're here to have the students take the tests again." Now that they know their dishonesty had been revealed, and for fear that I might tell someone, they are going to have the students take the test again to get an honest result. The students fill the desks of my classroom after this is announced.
They tell me I can go, that they will take care of the test, but obviously I want to stay, to keep them honest; how will I know they just won't cheat again? I'm being shuffled out of the classroom as they hand out the tests, and I know that it's wrong and I should stay, but they're herding me out like a sheep.
I say "You can't treat me like a--" but before I can say "child", the fat teacher, with a stony face says "uh-huh, ok" as if I'm a whining toddler whose words are insignificant. She shuts the door in my face.
I walk away from the classroom and into the labyrinthine academy. The halls turn in many different directions and there are classrooms everywhere. I try to glance in at a few of them. My youngest brother Cian is in one class. I see him answering a question, then writing something, then leaning over his desk, with his eyes tied to his teacher's face with a string. He doesn't see me. He's a good student, I'm proud of him.

July 5 - Jobs dream

I'm on the phone with someone from Mexico was introduced to me by my friend. I've never met him, he just got my phone number and is calling me about an English teaching job. On the phone, he is very strange and not welcoming. It's like he's playing with me. He won't give me any real details about the job, although my friend has told me it's lucrative and a good job. Finally, he says, as the last part of the interview, I'm to tell him the definition of a word. Then he says, dramatically, "The word is...hhhrfffghf." I hold my ear closer to the phone and say "Can you say the word again? I couldn't hear you." He says the same muffled sound, clearly not a word. I hang up.
He calls back and I answer, telling him that I couldn't hear him and the phone must have not been working. He is a little bit angry and tells me that I must tell him the definition of that word, or more precisely, I must make up a definition for this word that doesn't exist. That's the real challenge: not a test of vocabulary, but of creativity.
I ask him to use it in a sentence and he tells me: "The 1988 vintage had a certain hhgfhhghf that pleased him."
Quickly, with reflexes and panic honed in classrooms, I start walking faster, pacing, with the phone still held to my ear, and I start speaking very quickly, looking down at the ground: "a distinctly oaky  flavor caused by long periods in the casket, and an acidity that reminds one of an attack of rabid badgers on the tongue."
I want to say more, but nothing is coming to mind, so I just stop speaking, although I'm still pacing and my heart is still beating; the creative engine is still heated up but has no more fuel.
He's silent on the phone for a while. Then he says he'll email me.

Then I'm in China. I'm with my sister and her friend who has worked there and I ask my sister's friend about how to get private lesson gigs here. I've applied for a coaching job in China, despite only having coached a low level middle school team in America. I check my email; I read a cryptic message from the Mexican, which confused me, until I read the subject: "You're accepted". I also have an email from the Chinese team, which has a brief English message among the Chinese that tells me I'm accepted as well.

We're on a bus going to our destination in China. I'm with the two girls and a lot of other people we're talking to. It's a sunny day. I'm thinking about my options and how I'm not sure if I should take one of these two jobs, or just go back home; I've been away from home for so long. My sister tells me to just take one of them, of course, why would you even think about it. I say aloud something that I don't really believe: "Teaching in Mexico or coaching in China: pretty good to have those kind of options!" Everyone else on the bus, all travelers, many American, smile at me.

Then we're at a huge bus stop. The glass dome over it seems to go into the sky for a mile. We ask the small information desk how to get to our hostel. They don't speak English. They point and things on our map and draw arrows, but we're still not sure where to go and we're smiling and they're smiling because everyone is frustrated but is trying to find the humor in the situation. Finally we leave and my sister says goodbye in Korean, mixing the two languages up.

As we're leaving the tourist information building, there's a huge, wide street, at least 10 lanes across. One tiny, green, one person car backfires and then the wheels fall off. My sister says "Oh my God!" and then the front part falls off. Then we can see the driver who is leaning back against his seat with his arms at his side and mouth open, looking dead already. The car trips over itself, flinging the bottom of the car, with the driver, onto the front part that had fallen off. It's gruesome and improbable. People run to help him. The man stands up, not dead, but now a tangled mess of human: one arm and shoulder bent behind his back in an unnatural way.

I run towards a wall and start throwing up. Not even my sister or her friend feel the same urge.