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亲爱的小骗子,

你说好久没有看到我写的字。记得读大学时候我还是很喜欢写信的。后来上班之后的第一年,我好像主动抛弃了这种表达与沟通方式,因为当时有太多其他的表达方式在诱惑和吸引着我,我甚至在某种程度上把文字抒发这个习惯看作一种阻碍。现在想,自己那时候确是太狭隘,也太愚蠢了。这几个月,越来越强烈的愿望是自己可以重新和文字建立一种关系。这种感觉有点像是在一段感情中因为自己的幼稚与轻率丢失了对方原有的信任,成熟之后意识到自己当时犯下的错误,想要弥补。但即使对方接受了如今想要悔改的心意,关系都是要重新开始建立了。这是事实。我这几个月能明显感受到自己上初高中,甚至更早时候,学习写作时那种邯郸学步的感觉。我一方面是有点儿可惜的。但或许是我的心态太好,天性乐观,我又觉得这未尝不是件好事。因为这是个很新鲜的体验,就像是在尝试一件从未做过的事一样。但凡是没试过的,我好像都有一探究竟的好奇心。另外,现在的我,和当时高中笔耕不倦的我,毕竟是不同了。那时候我对于写作抱有的期望,以及单纯的兴趣,与当下的我所抱有的的态度,还是发生了很大转变。那时候的我把写作当成一个出口,表达。我只想要表达。一旦发现自己的表达是拙劣的,映射出一颗空白无物的心,我便感到羞愧、耻辱,于是当机立断地停下了笔。在很长的一段时间,将近四五年的时间里,我都保有着一种非常卑微的心去面对写作这件事情。我对于自己写出来的东西没有自信。尤其是和每天上课下课时候读到的那些大篇大篇的经典文献相比。但是现在回头看看那时候的自己,多可笑啊,又是很可爱的可笑。那时候的我会因为读了柏拉图,读了福柯,读了陀思妥耶夫斯基,觉得自己还是停笔吧。世界上不需要再产生更多的文学垃圾。

现在的我会怎么想呢?我会想,只要我写出来的字,在它该扮演的角色里无愧于心就好了。我渐渐地对文字又重新产生了一些想要探索的欲望,与随之而来的野心。这在当下已经渐渐拥有了勾勒生命长度的能力的我看来很正常,25岁,18岁,这些都只是90岁这条生命线上的一个刻度而已。但那时的我,连生命的长度是有限的这件事情都没有概念,那时候的我看来,一天、一年、一辈子,他们仿佛都是那样子,长长的,虚无缥缈,无穷无尽的时间。

所以那时候才会轻而易举地选择放弃吧。因为体会不到过程与阶梯状上升这些事实的存在。

这样看来,人真的很神奇。或许上述的一长串心路历程用一句“一个人,从小喜欢写作,但18岁时突然变得不是那么热衷。直到25岁,又重新发现写作的快乐”高度概括,但这个故事背后的每一个节点,在我心里的跌宕起伏,却又是那么细微、生动、真实地被我感受着,给我带来能够直接感受到的快乐,疑问,痛苦,释怀。人真的很有意思,不是吗?

今天是我的25岁零6个月12天。记得25岁生日时候,我开玩笑地和朋友说,我觉得我的人生还没开始呢。可现在,只是六个多月过去,我感到我的人生开始了,骗子。真的。很神奇吧?我觉得它开始了,并且是以一个我很心仪的面貌生长着。我能感到绿色的小芽抽出来,长成土地上绿茸茸的一片。我没有什么办法拔苗助长。骗子,我没有。我没有办法多给它浇些水,或是把头顶的阳光多分一些在它身上。我只能看着它,以它自己的速度,一点、一点地长成它该长成的样子。但是我很快乐。在有记忆以来,此时此刻的我,是最快乐的。

本想跟你讲最近看的电影和书。结果却是闲聊了这么多没什么用的话。希望你不要介意。也希望我能很快再给你写信,说些更有“干货”的话。

小姐妹

2020/06/20

My own story with BJ 

If people ask me where do I come from, I have no choice but to say, I am a Beijing local, being born and raised here, and spent most of my life in this city. At age 18, when I was about to leave this giant creature for college in London, I couldn’t be more excited to be able to escape from this place. Pollution, traffic jam, un-walkable roads, I have so many complains to this place where I call it home. It was not until age 24, when I came back and spent a year working in a Hutong alleyway, did I discover the other side of Beijing, and start to reconcile with my home city. 

My workplace is located in the city’s heart, hidden in an old Hutong called Fangjia, 700 meters in length and 7 meters in width. If viewing my active area as a human body, this Hutong is like the central spine, linking all routes and places together. In the morning, I walk on this spine till the right chest, that’s where my office is. If going a little bit further to where the stomach is, you could grab fresh fruits and snacks from a grocery shop. In the lunchtime, if you follow the direction where this figure’s left arm extends, you will arrive at a crossing where each road leads you to some tasty bistros. 

The Hutong residents you can see during the day are mostly elders. Being retired and stayed at home, they expand their territories to the Hutong’s public space. Stools, old armchairs and sofa circle out an outdoor chatting room, with bird cages hanging above the head. You wouldn’t believe there is still family raising duck in this metropolis full of glass-and-steel skyscrapers, and I was so excited to find a fig tree planted in front of a house’s gate. Everyday’s wandering in the Hutong was a treasure-hunting game for me. I gradually started to feel closer to this little alley way, as if I belonged here.

In an year, I witnessed the life circle of plants and tress, from blossom to withering.

Living in the Hutong, the strongest feeling I’ve gained is a sensitivity for the passing of time and season. This is gained from staying closer with nature, and staying away from the man-made structures which have already taken over the majority of space within the city. Once stepping out of the Hutong, the world immediately becomes noisy and fluorescent, and you are distracted right away, forgetting to notice the plants, trees, breeze, birds, or perhaps, there’s simply hardly any of these lovely creatures and things out there in a busy urban block. 

My experience prompts me to think what kind of urban fabric is the best for human living. Interacting with each other on a street level, or squeezing an entire life within a unit on the 20th floor of an apartment building? However, I am also aware that the pastoral fantasy may not be the best way to imagine Beijing’s future. So, what should it be? 

20200426

My mom’s existence, for me, represents the mundane, ordinary, unexciting moments of my life. They sometimes piss me off, yet they are necessary for my own existence. I cannot imagine losing this part of myself, nor could I bear the possibility of losing her. She breathes, she winks, she smiles, she frowns, she walks around in the house, she takes her glasses on when drawing a sketch, because she is getting older and thus starts getting farsightedness. Every time she tries to intervene the food I eat, the way I locate my body on a chair (squat rather than sit), the order I do the chores, I cannot hate hate hate those words more. Yet, every time I embrace her soft body, as soft as a baby, I feel as an aircraft landing one more time, after a long long fly.

Maybe, this contradictory relationship between me and my mother, and this conflicting emotion of me towards her, is a reflection of my own self. I cannot escape from the mundaneness of my life, yet I also consider everyday a new adventure, a unique happening in history that will never occur the second time. Yet they are just composed of 24 hours, di-da-di-da-di-da, see, another two-thirds has gone for today’s record.

What is the fine line between normal and extraordinary? I don’t know, I do not have the answer. I just know I love my mom, the same way as I adore today’s sunlight, today’s breeze, and today’s bore.

20200301

I remember last year, on this day, the same day, I day-dreamed on the morning subway, that lots and lots of cranes flying surrounded me, circled me as a warm and strong hug. We were beneath a mountain valley, with translucent moist floating in the air. The sky felt very near to us, as if it is touchable when rising an arm. I was immersed in a rarely-sensed and otherworldly calamity. In that very moment, I was convinced everything would become better or beyond what I wished in the end.

One year later, 1st of March again. As again being surprised by how fast time passes, I ask myself, what have happened in the last twelve months? What has changed and what keeps same. I remember I had lots of doubts in last year, to my self and to the world, to everything in the adulthood. To the way people behave, interact, connect, inter-influene. Yesterday when I watched the French film Le hérisson the second time, I was amazed by how the little girl and the Japanese gentleman reached out to dear Renée. They knocked her heart open through books, through reciting the lines from Anna Karenina. They built up the more-precious-than-any-relationship friendship and mutual affection with bricks of unconditional, unusual kindness, love, trust, and appreciation. I sensed an almost nostalgic feeling watching this part, since I used to be like that. Paying attention to little, tiny traces of mutual interest, and secretly sending out friendship signals through all kinds of ways: hand-written letters, little gifts, lots of smiles. And the only reason I did this when I was ‘little’ was simply ‘I like this person, I would like to know him/her’.

More and more rare does this world give me the chance to do this now. It seems more and more people in my current life are masked, shielded, under sort of self-protection, voluntarily or involuntarily, I wouldn’t be able to know. Or sometimes, they just disappear very fast without leaving a trace.

The little protagonist in Le hérisson has lots of questions, philosophical ones, about the meaning of life and death, the nature of human. She sets herself against the rest of her family, as they ‘know’ too much. They are too certain about things. They never ‘think’. They never doubt. Unlike Renée and the Japanese gentleman who both have scars in their deep hearts, memories of lost love buried in their past, and therefore they continue their lives with a reverence and respect to the unknown. In contrast, the little girl’s parents and elder sister try their best pretending a perfect state, yet this wellness is only on the surface, with inside already in erosion.

I have much less doubts now compared to one year ago. I feel more certain about many things. More confident about many things. I am not sure if this is a good or bad thing. Maybe it is just a temporary stage, after years-long floating I could finally land a bit and have a rest. Maybe only when one gets stronger she starts to miss the past vulnerability.

叶子的二零一九(一)

叶子的 二 零 一 九

1

二零一九年的第一天,叶子搬回了自己出生长大的城市。一个她生活了十八年,又离开了五年的,熟悉又陌生的“新”城市。

扑面而来的是寒冷。是温带大陆性气候在冬季时干燥刺骨的寒冷。叶子已经五年没有穿过厚重的外套了。她回到城里的第一件事,就是冲进商店买了一件像棉被一样的外套。有了这件外套,她好像可以开始在这座城市里活动了。

一月二月过得匆忙,局促。叶子被各种行程裹挟着。被突然从电话那头闪烁的信号变为每日朝夕相处的亲人裹挟着,被小汽车从一个家运送到另一个家。被新的工作裹挟着。第一天上班,叶子见到老板紧张地说话打绊,在一家冰冻三尺的四川菜馆度过第一个工作午休。她的舌头已经太久没有接触过油和辣椒混合着烹制出来的食物,这种不适感令她本能地想走掉。那时候的她不会相信,用不了几个月,她已经会在小面面馆和火锅店里大快朵颐了。

三月的北京开始有树木抽芽,叶子看到抽芽的树枝的一刹那,觉得自己可以继续活下去,或许还有一些还不错的事情在等着她。她不知道她喜欢还是不喜欢她的工作。但她本能地觉得,在判断自己是否喜欢之前,她要首先“征服”它。叶子正视自己的弱点,正视自己“不会”的事实。她可能确实是什么都不会吧。除了说话。除了游思。

办公室里的美国女孩是她唯一可以聊天的人。可能都脱离学生的身份不太久,可能都不太知道自己是谁,该去哪儿,做什么。叶子在这几个月经常被质疑本地人的身份。她不知道怎么解释。觉得这种质疑或许是合理的。叶子的一切好像都不太好,身体里的长长短短,粗粗细细的血管、筋骨,都扭着,捋不直。她从头到脚得难受。在他地时,她可以把一切都归结于想“家”。可此时此地她就在她的家,那她是想什么呢?

想…逃离她的家?

是的,叶子想逃离她的家。她觉得此时此刻自己身边的一切都是错的。只有她是对的。她要逃离这个错误的地方。

可是叶子没有任何逃离的资本、与话语权。

四月,叶子和父母大吵一架,她虚弱得像个囊肿,被轻轻松松地打败,毫无还手之地。她坐在地上,看着自己的双手,双脚,觉得自己什么都没有,什么都不会。她像个薄薄的壳,一捏就碎。碎了什么都不会流出来,空的,空的。

叶子很愤怒。她愤怒于父母态度的落差。她躺在深夜的床上嚎啕大哭。哭到最后,所有的感情都随着泪液流泻出去,大脑里重新注入空气。她开始清醒。

她意识到,自己最愤怒的,是自己。

是自己的愚蠢、自己的幼稚、自己的贪婪、自己的懒惰。

就像一场暴风雨留下了一片狼藉。哭够了的叶子在深夜里告诉自己,要开始往自己的身体里填上沙。让它有重量,让它不至于风吹就倒。

2

在夏天初露端倪的时候,空和鹿同时出现在叶子的生活里。空的出现令叶子在短时间内晕眩,迷惑。她不知道自己原来也会面临这种选择。她甚至想,在暑热消退时,向空表白,以结束这场意外。

但是一切欲言又止都在东京戛然而止。在东京。当飞了大半个地球的风出现在酒店房门外,当大个子的风在雨后的人形町微微醉地靠在叶子的身上,当清晨的风坐在叶子旁边大口大口地吞下鸡蛋三文治,当风的身体在每一个夜晚在叶子的身体里来回冲撞时,叶子清楚地意识到,她无法承受失去风的任何风险。风好像已经长在了自己的身体里,变成了自己的一部分呼吸与心跳。有一些东西,在这次短暂的雨季旅行中永远地被决定了。

鹿不是鹿的真名。是叶子给鹿起的小名。鹿第一次出现在叶子面前,叶子就被这个拥有修长四肢和小鹿一般狡黠的眼睛的女孩吸引了。鹿说话的时候会同时静悄悄地微笑,那一刹那炎热夏天的高温仿佛消退了些许。

鹿让叶子在心里轻轻地叹气。叶子在日记里写,我曾经以为自己会一辈子都是一颗无花果。可是今天看到鹿,我知道,我已经不再是了,也再也不会是。可是鹿是。鹿是世界上最好的女孩。

上班的时候,叶子偷偷打开对话框,看到鹿的信息:“你让我想到木心的诗句,白天是奴隶,晚上是王子。”

那一刹那,叶子觉得身体里的一些沉睡已久的勇气被唤醒了。

to be continued.