Missed Connection [flash fiction]

I saw you across the platform of the subway station. You were wearing bright blue knee-length tube socks, a loose black sheath dress, and impossibly high black ankle boots, one booted foot tapping out a rhythm over the other leg. I was standing on the opposite platform, watching you, looking at your femininity obscuring the masculinity of your birth. Your eye shadow was a vibrant blue over your eyelids and trailed silver sparkles to your temples. You were stunning.

You sat on the wooden bench writing in a little notebook, oblivious to the crowd shifting around you, blissfully ignorant of the argument down the other end of the platform. I don’t know if it was the way the strange yellow station lights sought you out in the crowd or if it was because of your own special glow, but you were a radiant of light in an ugly setting. You looked like you had fallen in love that night, a smile playing around the corners of your mouth as your pen flew across the pages of the your notebook. You were enclosed in a glow of soft vulnerability and impenetrable strength that only a deep abiding love could provide.

As you set pen to paper, that slender instrument gliding gracefully across the page, I watched the beauty of your face, the almost smile tugging on the corners of your lips, your eyes glowing with growing intensity as your scribbles flew faster. Were you remembering a beautiful encounter, or were you mourning a loss? Because as I stepped onto my train, I saw a single tear fall from your eye onto the page of your notebook. I watched you resolutely close your notebook on that wet stain, inevitably smudging your writing, and hugged the notebook tightly to your bosom. You stared blankly into the tracks. I wondered what had crossed your mind in that moment, what terrible memory had been conjured up to cause the entirety of your person to snap closed in an instant.

You stood up and walked to the platform’s edge as the train was announced over the loudspeakers. You looked up and our eyes met for a split moment as my train pulled away from the station. In that instant, I saw the depths of your pain in your pools of deep hazel, and it pierced my heart to the very core, leaving me gasping for breath as my hand clutched to my chest. I lurched away from the window as I swiveled around, and my eyes searched frantically around me at the faces of the other passengers in a desperate need to confirm what I had seen. But nobody paid me any attention.

As I took a step towards the communications button that would connect me to the conductor, a deafening shriek of brakes from the station we had just left reverberated through the tunnel. Too late. I was unable to save you.

Later, I would read about the tragedy in the news and I would remember that moment of your beauty falling to pieces.

What did you lose?

The space between shadows [poem]

There is a place
within the folds of the universe,
across the whispers of Ages,
the space between shadows
that cradle the being and the non

There is a time
in the moments of a rainbow,
between the stroke of midnight
and the beginning of it all,
through the veil of Millenia
when Obscurity meets Clarity

There is a feeling
of lurking, of pinpricks
on the back of the neck,
of the taste of darkness
weighing heavy on the tongue
with the sticky sweet cloy of light

Where Yesterday meets Tomorrow
in the space between the shadows
of the Now

The creatures in the in-between
dance and glide and
swim through dreams of
chance meetings of Life and Death,
of raw encounters of the fleshly kind,
nightmare creatures of
Lost Hopes and Perfect Dreams

There is a place
in the space between shadows
at the beginning of a long journey
and the end of a lifetime,
a heartbeat and a universe away

Is the silent edge to nowhere and infinity
balanced along a single delicate thread,
where reality is made, and destroyed,
and re-created. If,
by some chance encounter (or fate),
You find your Self on this path,
what will you do?


{Note: This poem was published in Vol. 2, Iss. 3 of Rigorous, an online journal written an edited by people of color.} 

Artwork by LillTommy - DeviantArt

http://space-between.deviantart.com/art/Staircase-to-a-better-future-141018609

The End of the World Again [poem]

Note: This poem was published in Rigorous, an online journal edited and written by people of color, in Volume 1, Issue 2.


I have not come here to compare notes
but to sit together in the stillness
at the end of the world.

Yesterday I asked you if you remember
that time we went to see the dinosaur
at that museum we both liked
And you said to me,

“You mean the museum you like, and don’t you mean
  the whale? It was the whale.”

I nodded in agreement but I know it was the
Dinosaur, the biggest creature that ever
walked the Earth, now extinct,
made of petrified bones,
plaster and fiberglass, held together
by bits of steel and ingenuity,

Much like the world we live in, lived in,
made of the real and the fake,
the truth and that posing as truth.
A small army of billions built it
with love and hope and bits of genius
engineering, steel and grit,
sweat and tears, all the cliches that

We fall back on in times of
upheaval and profound change. And yet
the people keep on keeping on, forging a way
forward, moving out of the sticky
mud mess that we got ourselves into
in the first place.

They always make it out, patching up wherever
possible, with tape and glue,
perseverance, pluck and mettle,
And with the brilliance and smarts that creates
order from chaos, a fascinating interplay
of conflicting functions,

The kinds of minds and heart that is hard to come by
Nowadays.

We look at the bubble that holds the world,
sit and watch as the bubble is slowly collapsing
in, consuming itself, we sit
detached and waiting.

How are you feeling about all of this, you
With your big ideas and your glib tongue,
You with your poetry that is a witness to magnitude.
Your profundity bringing focus to the epic
that is, was?, the life of the world

Though the world was an accident,
its peoples an afterthought, formed
in the crevices of the gray matter that
may have been the drunken mind of an All-being
but could just as well have been a fluke,
an odd fish in the salt sea of nonsense.

What do you think is the legacy of this life,
your wisdom in these moments of death
and possible rebirth?
Like that time we were at that party and
they were all harping on about that book,
pretentious opinions falling off lips
like water down a fall, rushing to the
bottom, sinking to the muddy deep, and you said something,
A riposte that would have shut it all down

If not for that explosion at the same moment
that had them running to the windows
to gape at the ruins of a truck and minivan,
Spectators of lives in ruination.

You didn’t say you wanted better, only
that you wanted more.
What did you mean?

No, don’t tell me.
I do not want to know.
I want to find out for myself
if there is a future.
I have not come to compare notes, or to listen
to you after all this time, I just
want to sit next to you, in silence, and
to hear the end, and wait for a new beginning
to come out of the ashes of the end of the world,
again.

An Art to Holding On [poetry]

Note: This poem was published in Rigorous, an online journal edited and written by people of color, in Volume 1, Issue 2.


I took a picture of the city
and the city disappeared
Memories fading into the rudimentary
colors of a four by six;
Framed and caged in a one-dimension
imitation of a genuine city
halfway around the world.

That last bite of coq au vin
Sticking to the tip of the tongue
Like a faded memory of desperate lust,
That last glimpse of the Nile
a vision of awe and wonder and
reminiscent of bittersweet dreams,
That last trek up the five hundred
and fifty-one steps of St. Peter’s
Basilica, sweaty regret giving way
to the profound sadness of loss and leaving.

What I wouldn’t give to hold onto
the truths I had acquired, the beauty
I had witnessed, the desperate feeling
of falling in love
with a strange city in a strange land;
That desire, that wish, to belong
to a place not one's own.

I recorded the music of the city
and the music faded into the air,
Lyric voices lost to the sounds of silence
and replaced by the cacophony
of home, forever lost in
the distortion of memory.

I try to view my own city
through the eyes of a visitor,
But all I see is the leaning
Tower of Pisa, the striking point
of the Eiffel Tower, the sparkling
Waters of the Mediterranean,
The pink sands of the Bahamas beaches.

Why is it that we long for the places
we don’t inhabit, that we lust
for the cities, the countries
that don't contain us;
A desire to be other than here and
dream the memories of foreign delights
tugging at our hearts and souls.

There is an art to holding onto beauty,
whether the beauty is
perceived or genuine,
and an art to letting it go, and we are
far more desperately practiced in
the holding on.

Traces of me [fiction]

Give it time, he said, as if time was spare change in the pocket to give or throw away, as if time—Amorphous! Elusive!—were mine to give. Yesterday (or was it last year?) my heart was torn from my body and thrown into the road and I watched as it lay dying, the face of my son, my only child, my life, staring up at me through the pools of blood on the pavement. I no longer recognize the smiling faces of the people in the photographs; my husband, who was once so vibrant, transformed in the misery and agony of loss. I look in the mirror and I no longer recognize the stranger gazing back at me with my own eyes. Sometimes life is almost normal—we dine together, sometimes he cooks and sometimes I do, we watch T.V. and go to bed—though the warmth is gone. Sometimes I come home to an empty house and I order Chinese, husband stumbling home past midnight, eyes red from silent tears. This solid life of uncertainty.

It has been two Springs, two Summers, two Autumns, and one long Winter, seven seasons of lost time, and I have received little in return. I stand outside in the fresh blanket of snow, staring up at my house flanked by the bright homes of my neighbors, decorated in the happy glowing colors of the holidays. The ghostly house with the lone lit upstairs window where my husband is undoubtedly sitting alone in a sadness I cannot handle, for I can barely handle my own, the weight of it crushing my bones, is a dark blotch on the merrily-lit street. I feel myself shrinking into nothing.

Tomorrow I will tell him that time has run out and I have no more of it left to give, though in truth, time was never an issue to begin with. I have accepted that job overseas. I am leaving next week. I doubt the news will be a surprise—it may even be a relief. I tramp up the driveway to the front door, shivering in the cold, leaving dark boot-prints that will be filled in a matter of minutes by the freshly falling snow, erasing any traces of me.

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane - a book review

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I received an advanced reading e-book copy of this book from Jellybooks.com. I have always wanted to read Lisa See but I just had not gotten around to it. When I got this opportunity to read an advanced reading copy, I jumped on it.

This book centers around an Akha (Chinese ethnic minority) girl, Li-Yan, who gives birth to a daughter at a very young age out of wedlock. Because of the beliefs of her culture she was forced to give up her daughter, who was adopted by an American family. It is about Li-Yan's growth, her inner conflicts between her ethnic upbringing and her exposure to a modern and changing China, how she finds balance between the two worlds, and how she reconciles the events of her past. The book seamlessly interweaves the story of Li-Yan and that of her daughter, and how their destinies are tied together by the culture of Pu-Erh tea.

This was a deeply immersive book; I had a difficult time putting it down. Lisa See does an amazing job setting up the plot and the setting, and developing the characters. The history and culture was well-researched, placing the reader right in the middle of all the growth and changes in the characters, the times, and the country. She writes beautiful prose that really draws the reader into the details of the world and the culture.

I learned so much about tea, the culture surrounding it, the history, and the effects of the growing demand for it on China. I drink tea and I am gifted teas from family and friends, but I never knew how multi-faceted tea culture was. This book made me want to learn more about tea and how to determine the quality of the teas in my modest collection.

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane comes out on March 21, 2017 and it will make a fine addition to any bookshelf. I will definitely be reading more of Lisa See.

View all my reviews

Thoughts on the 2016 election and a Trump presidency

I have gone through many emotions in quick succession throughout the Presidential election night the days following: disbelief, fear, bewilderment, disappointment, anger. I felt as many of my friends and fellow citizens felt when it was clear that Donald Trump was the President-Elect of the United States of America: anger and disgust that this great nation can see fit to put someone so disgusting and intolerable in the position of the most powerful person in the world. I blamed the blind Republicans, the right-wing neo-conservatives, the tea-partiers, the under-educated illiberal rednecks, the racist and prejudiced selfish white folk for getting duped by a lying, bigoted, intolerant orange buffoon. I was angry and saddened by the state that our nation had come to. And while I did not seriously consider moving out of the United States, I did do a quick run-through in my head of family I have in Canada. I was grateful that I lived in a state like New York and that I will likely be protected from the worst of the acts of hatred that will be faced by women, minorities, immigrants, and members of the LGBTQ community in much of the country in the coming days, weeks, and years. And I was glad that, as an immigration attorney, I will be playing a vital role in combating whatever ill-conceived policies that will come out of the White House in the next four years.

But I have also had the next few days to think and reflect on how we got here in the first place. Why did more than half country choose someone like Trump over someone like Hillary Clinton, who not only had the experience and the resume for the position of President, she was also compassionate and broad-minded, neither of which describes Donald Trump? Where did we go wrong? I have read many articles and I have watched many videos about the election, and I have come to realize that people like me have been willfully blind to the direction the country has been moving in. While the face of the country has been becoming increasingly more liberal and progressive, there has been a growing tension in the forgotten places of the U.S.

We talk about climate change, the evils of fossil fuels, human rights, LGBTQ rights, women’s rights, the rights of immigrants, Black Lives Matter, &etc., while underneath all of this is the growing tension of the people who have felt left behind and forgotten — the people in places that have lost manufacturing jobs and jobs that have been diminishing because of the growth of the clean energy industry; the people who feel threatened because their more conservative values are scorned by what they view as the liberal elite whose agendas have been championed above their own; the people who are shamed and denigrated for being “uneducated” because of their beliefs and values and who live in areas of the country that have not seen much help from the establishment despite the platitudes and promises of their representatives. These are people who saw in Trump someone who was anti-establishment, non-incumbent, someone who will turn the country on its head and perhaps force change that may make their lives a little bit better.

Half the country has been feeling disenfranchised, marginalized, ignored, and denigrated. They have felt that their voices and their needs have been suppressed and that we liberals have been pushing our beliefs, ideals, and agendas to the detriment of the millions of them. It has become a we versus them, them versus us, and the election of Donald Trump is the end result of that perceived struggle. They have felt pushed into a corner of fear and anxiety. When people feel safe and secure, they become more liberal; when they feel threatened, they become more conservative.

I think that many of us hinged our hopes on the belief that, in the end, Trump would not, could not, win the Presidency, despite the mounting disbelief that he had made it this far against all odds and predictions. We believed that there was no way he could ultimately win. If we believed that Trump could not win, we didn’t need to think about why Trump was able to get this far in the first place. We didn’t need to ask the difficult questions about why people supported him once we brushed over the superficial beliefs that Trump’s supporters were merely the biggest bigots, misogynists, and haters in the country. We didn’t have to consider the voices of the people trying to get us to hear them and to pay attention to their needs and their problems. We just had to believe that everything will be just as we wanted them to be, in the status quo, and that is what Hillary represented, despite all arguments to the contrary. Hillary represented to half the country the epitome of incumbent-ship and nepotism, with her long and involved history in politics. It didn’t matter that she had the experience and the knowledge, in fact that is what made her undesirable, because electing her would have meant more of the same unfulfilled promises and more of the same platitudes and excuses.

By electing Trump, half the country was saying to the other half, HERE WE ARE. WE WILL NO LONGER BE IGNORED. WE ARE CITIZENS TOO AND DESERVE YOUR RESPECT. And now we must pay attention and realize that we have been as ignorant and bigoted as we had been damning the other half for being. We must now come together and try to find common ground again. We will never agree on everything, but we can try to come as close as possible. Right now we are at extremes. Let us try to meet somewhere in the middle. I am willing to try, are you?

I’m not saying that everything is going to be okay. I’m not saying that we will not face daunting problems in the next four years. And I’m certainly not saying that things will go back to normal. What I’m saying is that we must pay attention and try to understand where half the country is coming from. We must try to understand why some of us feel trampled on, and we must reach out a hand and help them up, dust off their shoulders and tell them that we are listening, that we will move forward together. There will be hard times ahead of us, and there will be bigoted and hateful people who take Trump’s election as a mandate to show their colors and to act violent towards those they deem inferior. These things are already happening. But these are not the majority of the Trump supporters, most of whom share same values about humanity and community that we do. We will not tolerate the racists, misogynists, xenophobes, homophobes, white supremacists, angry religious fundamentalists, and white terrorists in our midst, but we will tolerate and work with those who are willing to put aside the differences to create a better tomorrow for all of us, for our children and our children's children. Our job now is to take to each other’s hands and move forward together to build a better understanding and a better future. Together.

Here is what we can do now: 

Protest, get angry, just don’t get violent. Show your dismay and disappointment, let your representatives know that you are angry and upset. Let it all out. Shout and pump your fists, march in a protest and solidarity, congregate, but don’t get violent. Violence doesn’t solve the problems. 

Protect and support the vulnerable groups: minorities, immigrants, women, LGBTQ — there will be many hateful things coming out in the coming weeks by people who will take Trump’s election as permission to act violently and to spew hatred. So step up and don’t let the bullies get away with their hateful acts. 

Donate your time and/or money to organizations that fight for and protect the rights of the most vulnerable members of our society. These organizations will need our support more than ever in the wake of a Trump Presidency and Republican-controlled government that has made it a priority to pull back support for affordable healthcare, LGBTQ rights and protections, environmental controls, and support for sexual assault victims. You want to make a difference in a Trump America? Volunteer.

Get involved in local government. Learn who your elected officials are and put pressure on them to get your interests and your values heard and protected. Vote in every single election, local, state and federal. Educate yourself about the issues and the candidates’ platforms and views. Check your incumbent representative’s history in government, see what promises s/he has made and check that they have followed through; make sure they represent your values. Join a group of activists and fight for your values and beliefs. GO OUT AND VOTE IN EVERY ELECTION. 

Review Trump's first 100 days plan. Some of the things he proposes will greatly impact and/or damage our government, our freedom, our livelihood, the country and the world. Write/call your local officials, representatives, senators. Get involved in a local activist group. Vote in the next few elections. 

Reach out to a conservative or Republican and start a conversation. Exchange views and ideas. Start a dialogue. You'll find that we're not so different after all. And the differences that are there, we can live with (mostly). 

Links to all the articles and videos I referenced above and/or read and watched (in no particular order): 

- Area Liberal No Longer Recognizes Fanciful, Wildly Inaccurate Mental Picture of Country He Lives In, THE ONION;
http://www.theonion.com/article/area-liberal-no-longer-recognizes-fanciful-wildly--54670 

- What I learned after 100,000 miles on the road talking to Trump supporters; Chris Arnade, The Guardian;
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/nov/03/trump-supporters-us-elections?utm_source=nextdraft&utm_medium=email 

- Trump: Tribune of Poor, White People; Rod Dreher, The American Conservative;
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/trump-us-politics-poor-whites/ 

- Stop Shaming Trump Supporters; Michael Lerner, The New York Times;
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/opinion/election-night-2016/stop-shaming-trump-supporters?smid=fb-share 

- We just saw what voters do when they feel screwed. Here’s the economic theory of why they do it; James Allworth, Quartz;
http://qz.com/832522/election-2016-we-just-saw-what-voters-do-when-they-feel-screwed-heres-the-economic-theory-of-why-they-do-it/?utm_source=qzfb 

- Unconscious Reactions Separate Liberals and Conservatives; Emily Laber-Warren, Scientific American Mind;
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/calling-truce-political-wars/ 

- Messy Truth: Van Jones visits Trump voters in their homes for an honest conversation;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJPTod08oCk 

- It's Going to Be Okay; Tim Urban, Wait But Why;
http://waitbutwhy.com/2016/11/its-going-to-be-okay.html 

- ‘Go back to Asia!’: Trump supporter grabs woman–police arrive and handcuff the victim; Nathan Wellman; 
http://usuncut.com/news/go-back-asia-trump-supporter-grabs-woman-police-arrive-handcuff-victim/

- Students at Fresh Meadows high school condemned for alleged Trump-inspired harassment on city bus; Suzanne Monteverdi, QNS;
http://qns.com/story/2016/11/10/students-fresh-meadows-high-school-condemned-alleged-trump-inspired-harassment-city-bus/ 

- Day 1 in Trump's America; Sean O'Kane, Medium;
https://medium.com/@seanokane/day-1-in-trumps-america-9e4d58381001#.de8i0mk82 

- VIDEO: Royal Oak school kids chant "Build the wall" while Latino classmates cry; Alysa Offman, Detroit Metro Times;
http://www.metrotimes.com/Blogs/archives/2016/11/09/video-royal-oak-school-kids-chant-build-the-wall-while-latino-classmates-cry 

- Police Investigate Attacks on Muslim Students at Two Universities; Niraj Chokshi, The New York Times;
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/11/11/us/police-investigate-attacks-on-muslim-students-at-universities.html?_r=0&referer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F 

- Artist Marie-Shirine Yener made a comic for bystanders who witness anti-Muslim harassment; Sarah Harvard;
https://mic.com/articles/153212/artist-marie-shirine-yener-made-a-comic-for-bystanders-who-witness-anti-muslim-harassment#.hKyYAfMtz 

- A List of Pro-Women, Pro-Immigrant, Pro-Earth, Anti-Bigotry Organizations That Need Your Support; Joanna Rothkopf; Jezebel; 
http://jezebel.com/a-list-of-pro-women-pro-immigrant-pro-earth-anti-big-1788752078 

- Progressive Organizations That Need Your Support, Now More Than Ever, in Trump's America; Emilia Petrarca; W Magazine; 
http://www.wmagazine.com/story/progressive-organizations-that-need-your-support-now-more-than-ever-in-trumps-america 

- Find Your Elected Officials; Common Cause;
http://act.commoncause.org/site/PageServer?pagename=sunlight_advocacy_list_page 

- How to Contact Your Elected Officials; USA.gov;
https://www.usa.gov/elected-officials 

- State Election Dates & Deadlines; U.S. Vote Foundation; 
https://www.usvotefoundation.org/vote/state-elections/state-election-dates-deadlines.htm

- My Time to Vote; http://elections.mytimetovote.com/dates/default.html 

- Here Is What Donald Trump Wants To Do In His First 100 Days; Amita Kelly, Barbara Sprunt;
http://www.npr.org/2016/11/09/501451368/here-is-what-donald-trump-wants-to-do-in-his-first-100-days 

- Donald Trump’s Victory Could Mean Disaster for the Planet; Justin Worland; Time; 
http://time.com/4564224/donald-trump-climate-change/?xid=newsletter-brief

- In the Heart of Trump Country; Larissa MacFarquhar; The New Yorker;
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/10/in-the-heart-of-trump-country 

- An American Tragedy; David Remnick; The New Yorker;
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/an-american-tragedy-donald-trump 

- Vigils and protests swell across U.S. in wake of Trump victory; Matea Gold, Kari Lydersen and Fenit Nirappil; The Washington Post;
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-white-house-win-promises-to-reshape-us-political-landscape/2016/11/09/62baa5e4-a66a-11e6-ba59-a7d93165c6d4_story.html 

- Why are so many first-generation Chinese immigrants supporting Donald Trump?; Kaiser Kuo; SupChina;
http://supchina.com/2016/11/03/many-first-generation-chinese-immigrants-supporting-donald-trump/ 

- Stephen Colbert Signs Off on the 2016 Presidential Election; 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXhFGO8R7aU&sns=fb

- Seth Meyers Shares Remarks on Donald Trump's Presidency; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEskg0Z-NAQ