Practice being alone: ​​when I started to love myself

Chapter 1 I finally started to be myself (1)
Little universe

Monica, who lives in Hong Kong, is a friend of a friend. She never had a chat with her before. Later, she returned to Shanghai and gave me a bowl she made as a gift. It has a dark blue glaze and a turmeric edge.She said it was just right for a bowl of noodles.I thank you for accepting it and smile tacitly.

If a person lives alone for a long time, he will master many standards. For example, no matter how big a pot is used to make noodles, it will be exactly one bowl when poured out.

"You are living the life of my dreams." People who don't know the truth have said so on my Weibo and Instagram.

I don't have a plan for my life, and I don't count what I got, so I don't know what it's like to dream.

Until the onset of insomnia, which comes at the same time as rare but recurring dreams.What I dreamed of was "dream" itself.Tried several medicines to no avail, but by accident, I found that I slept the most soundly during the journey.Especially for international long-distance flights where business people mostly go to non-travel hot spots, I can always fall asleep before the plane leaves the runway due to the change of time zone and I escape the time limit.The guest trip is also easy to sleep. When I woke up in the auditorium of the Dallas Concert Hall, a certain pianist was playing Schumann's "Fantasia", and I was surprised that I hadn't slept so peacefully for a long time.Also, the concert halls in Dallas are so cold.

There is a German word called Fernweh, which cannot be translated into the corresponding Chinese word, which means that one is eager to go to a distant place, and has a nostalgic and painful attachment to a strange place that has never been.So I just travel around.

Of course, I went to Inuyama Castle for the full bloom of cherry blossoms, but I met a pearl-colored tsubaki in the corner of the parking lot. Although it was written as "Sodegakure", I always felt that she was more like Toshiro Kawase in "A Flower a Day" The "Sara double tree" mentioned in ".Others were taking pictures of the falling cherry blossoms. I squatted in the twilight and looked at this toon. When I got up, I realized that the mountain was not a mountain.

There is an island in the Fiji Islands called SAWUSAWU, and the bay over there produces pearls.After returning from night diving, I took off my mask and was about to climb up the boardwalk on the pier. However, I was exhausted, my feet slipped and I choked on saliva. When I dived to clean my mouth and nose, I found a giant shell under the water.In the dim light of the flashlight, within its shell lies a universe of purple vagaries.She looked at me without saying a word, and I went back to the shore in a daze for a moment, without mentioning it to others.

If you think about it, there are still details that haven't been written down.Fragments that are not forgotten but not remembered anymore.

What defines us is these silent but shining moments, beyond those irrepressible passions.But García Márquez once said: "All the brilliance once possessed in life will eventually need to be repaid by loneliness."

In the southern sea of ​​Thailand in early spring, I swam through caves lined with stalactites hanging upside down. After the waves faded, it was dark, and the sound of paddling echoed in the emptiness. After swimming tens of meters, it suddenly became clear that there was a shoal inside and cliffs on all sides.I lay on my back in the water, the tide was coming in, and my memory was brought back, only to remember that I had been to this cave seven years ago.

It has been seven years since I officially started traveling.Turning back time, no matter whether I made other choices when I hesitated, I think I will eventually go in the same direction.It's not about the mystery of luck, it's about the simpler answer: character.It is a chaotic and stubborn beast in the secret room. It is born blind and ignorant, but it is naturally obsessed with its own heart.

I fell in love that year, and later wrote this travel note, putting together my own feelings and fabricated plots.After several years of missing news, we can talk like ordinary friends. He said that someone happened to talk to him about this book, and the moment he found himself becoming a character in the book, he felt that time had passed as long as thousands of years.

I may not love him better if I do it all over again.We blame a person, more or less with the hope that the other person will wake up and correct.If I never blame, it doesn't mean I never forgive, but there really is no right or wrong to measure.Abandonment is mutual.

After graduation, I ran into a classmate in high school. He talked about the boys on the basketball team with him, my name written all over the inside of the wristband, and the desk covered by textbooks.He worked hard and wanted to win every game I watched.In this way, I became the most passionate secret of a teenager, but I didn't know it.

Later he grew into an ordinary adult, working, frustrated, gambling, in debt, and breaking up with his first love girlfriend.Nothing to do with me.

This is probably the connection between me and this world.

I also thought that the concern of someone waiting would be the happiness I wanted, but gradually I realized that it was just my unrealistic imagination.It's like a wonderful person, you think you are in love with her, but the mountains are high and the water is long, you don't need to meet her to establish your love.If it is too close, the expression becomes a demand, and watching is similar to imprisonment.

Sometimes I feel that the relationship is irreconcilable, and sometimes I feel that no matter how many decades pass, there is not much difference.But generally speaking, I think the temporary shortcoming caused by the pursuit of perfection is better than the long-term unhappiness caused by tolerance.Use youth to do all the happy things, travel, read, go shopping, chat with friends.

With this white jade cup, why bother with the green tile basin.

"Do you often travel alone, do you feel lonely?" This is also a question that often appears in the comments.

According to the zodiac sign, I am a full-fledged earth sign, stubborn and stupid, along the way, no matter what I do, I will grit my teeth and frown silently and do my best.So in my youth, my hair was grayed by homework, and my youth was grayed by the illusion provided by a stranger.Now that I have traveled all over thousands of rivers and mountains, I can finally concentrate on it and only dye my head full of frost for the years.

In today's world, what is most lacking is focus.In Yanxia, ​​eating a scoop of ice cream without saying a word is no easier than traveling around the whole world.So it is not easier to concentrate on getting along with yourself than to embrace the whole universe.

Enjoy solitude but not feel lonely, often dislike life but always be sincere to life.

Solitude is a good experience because it is pure.But how can I describe it to you?
There are so many famous Song Ci poems that hurt the spring and autumn, but my favorite is Jiang Kui's sentence: Huainan is bright and the moon is cold and the mountains are cold.

Isn't Su Dongpo who wrote "Cold Food Post" alone?But he had glory and glory, was famous all over the world, and his dry pen was also magnificent.So everyone knows that he is fond of meat, but they don't know that he once said: There is a taste in the world is happiness.And Jiang Kui and his characters, as well as the whole life, don't need to ponder, they are loneliness itself.

Reading Jiang Kui's words, and reading his words again, is like waking up in the auditorium of the Dallas Concert Hall that day and understanding most of the skills about loneliness.

You come to know that the world is not that big, instead it is defined by your perception, the candy we ate when we were three is the same as the diamond we bought when we were 30, they bring The gleam of joy is the same, because your heart is the same.So, too many answers are not in the outside world, but in you.Diving in your solitude, there will be a bright day.

I remember coming out of the cave and leaving by boat. When I turned around, I found that the rock beside the cave looked like the side of a Buddha.He lowered his eyes and narrowed his eyes, but said nothing.

Then, in this narrow and vast universe, in this numerous and lonely world, each of us travels around.

the freedom you want
The first time I traveled alone was more than 10 years ago. My mother was afraid that I would lose my pocket money, so I sewed a stack of 50-pound cash and credit cards into the front of the coat.It was only when I arrived at the airport that I vaguely remembered that there was a limit on the amount of cash I could carry. When passing through customs, I kept subconsciously touching the slight square protrusion on my chest.If it looks from the surveillance camera, it must seem that he is constantly stroking his heart gently.

Later, I did whatever I wanted, and went more and more remote.

My favorite is the seemingly endless international flight. The dreams of the passengers are floating in the cabin. They speak different languages ​​and have different colors, but they have the same temperature, no more, no less, 14 degrees lower than the body temperature, no more, no less, the most accurate It is reassuring, so I can always fall asleep from the moment of takeoff to the announcement of landing.

In midsummer, I look for cities surrounded by cold air, because I like to wear a long coat and snow falls on my shoulders when I go out, especially the feeling of time passing by.Seasons change, people and things change.We can get through this life without much effort.

I went to the tropics in winter, and it was so hot that I could only sweat. The flowers were very bright, but they were all tasteless.Everyone is busy looking for shade, and has no time to think about more things. The complicated world needs to be solved quickly, or they simply pretend to be confused with each other and live their lives with respect.

When the people I know welcome the dawn, I like to feel the breath of the mountains quietly in the night.The mountains and mountains are hidden in the bottomless dark place. I am a blind doctor who feels the pulse.

Those people who can't stop and always travel far, could they have been a bird in their previous life?

But if you can choose the zodiac sign, I think I should be a box jellyfish. In just a few months of life, I drift around with a blue light. Because I don’t have a hard skeleton, I don’t have a so-called established view on the world, and I tend to feel disgusted.This ever-swelling boredom develops into a complex state of mind, eager to shoot and kill any creature that intrudes into its domain at will.

So I'm always looking for unfamiliar, wider waters, hoping to find a brief peace in the strangeness.

Unpacked luggage is piled up in the corner of the room, and the novels I carry are full of joys and sorrows, and the flight to a strange city is about to take off.Traveling allows me to travel on the edge of daily life, avoiding the numbness and embarrassment caused by immutability.

That night I caught the last flight from Europe back to Asia, and found that all the seats next to me had been dismantled. Behind the curtain was a well-equipped stretcher, and the nurses changed the drips on time.The sky outside the porthole was gradually getting brighter. I, a stranger, and the solemn nurse accompanied this old man who had traveled far away for many years to complete the last journey home.

I went back to Venice again. Artists with heavy wigs and heavy make-up were bustling on the pier, and they wore fine clothes of fine materials. When someone approached, they raised the masks in their hands.Pointed and narrow, pale face, no shadow in the sun.The graceful, lozenge-shaped eyes are a hollow mass of black.The shadow of death, under the wings of the doves, covers the sky and the sun.The sunshine in Apennines in August is as cold as ice.

I struggled to wake up, the morning sun outside the window finally pierced through the clouds, and the golden light made me dizzy for a moment, but I clearly knew my decision, resigned from the stable white-collar position of a foreign company, and lived aimlessly.

I have since stopped asking myself what the meaning of life is, as I always know where I am going at the last moment. What a beautiful thing it is to "yearn for", and "get" cannot be compared with it at all.I have gone through too many detours, but there are so many things to worry about in life, it is really nothing.

Years in the mountains
There are too many decisions to be made in August, as if the only way to breathe is to leave Shanghai. Planning to retire before the age of 35 is not much harder than you think, but it's not that easy either.Because every choice has trade-offs, and every abandoned choice is a path that seems to have more possibilities buried.

Standing at the fork in the road again, I turned off the light in my heart and went to the mountains.

The busyness of the past two and a half years breaks down into slow motion before my eyes, and then fades away.The moment I fell asleep on the mountain road, I only remembered that there was a huge snow-white whale in the sky, and it was shouting something loudly.Probably it got lost too.

We focus on nothing else, thinking that we can come out of the darkness to the light.

The room facing the valley has a spacious kitchen and terrace, pine forests and wooden houses, and it has a Nordic atmosphere.Although it is only a temporary stay, I am already imagining the return of the heavy snow season.Red clay small stove, cooking tea instead of wine.Leave those chores out on the mountain.Sit down, for a long time, and write a story about hiding and finding.

Before the sun rises in the morning, the air smells of the Nordic coniferous forest.

Facing the green mountains everywhere, I really feel that I have Tao Yuanming's mind.Walking in the mountains, the summer insects are still active without any fatigue.The stables never fail to disappoint.They look down at my eyes, as if saying: You are just here.

Unexpectedly, in this way, autumn ushered in.

"Winter is loneliness, summer is parting, spring is the bridge between the two, but autumn permeates all seasons."

At night, there is a band performance by the pool, and fireworks are lit in the sky.I don't know if it's a coincidence, but whenever I change my heart, there will always be fireworks, such as the Bristol port in the summer of 2004.Looking back nearly ten years later, I found that my wish at that moment had been fulfilled unconsciously.Make another wish, to live according to your own wishes, and live in peace with your true self.

After the fireworks went out, we went to the restaurant at the foot of the mountain to look for local cold beer, and the young chef cooked another bowl of salted edamame.

The temperature becomes cooler at night, and the dark green breath of the mountains stretches endlessly.When our eyes got used to the darkness, we looked up. The sky was full of stars, and we walked slowly under the Milky Way, but couldn’t help but look up again and again, as if we were afraid that such a beautiful starry sky would suddenly disappear.

I have only seen such a magnificent starry sky on the Masai Mara Grassland and the Mongolian Gobi.And those journeys, how long memories are they?

A meteor suddenly passed over the shoulder and disappeared over the mountain.

The stars move.Are you okay at this moment, are you living the life you want?

truck color

If you were dropped into this restaurant, it would be hard to believe it was China.Except for the waiters, there is no Chinese face.The best-selling pasta is delivered to the open-air restaurant through the waiting wall.

I don't like this scene very much, it feels like being thrown into some strange European city again.So, I cautiously sipped my glass of orange juice.

Mr. Jacobs got up and offered me the comfortable seat in the shade.

He is now a volunteer for a non-profit organization.Before that, he had worked as a legal adviser in Germany, which must have been a well-paid job.

When asked why he gave up his job, he said: I can answer this question very clearly, because I have thought about it for a long time.The answer is: I don't want to exist just as a bystander.

It turned out that Jacob had drawn up a contract for a company to buy trucks.One day after completing all the legal terms, Jacob suddenly remembered that this company should have bought the trucks they wanted, and he really wanted to know what color those trucks were, would they be red?Are they pretty?However, his career does not require him to know this at all.

And so Jacob resigned.

"I'm almost forty, and I don't dare to think about it in my life soon." He spread his hands and said.

In my dream at night, I dreamed of the boy I liked in college.He watched, I was standing on the balcony railing ready to jump from a very high floor.

The wind howled through my hair.

Not sure what color the truck waiting for me down there is.

Alone with me, no stranger

Before I quit my job, I used to look down from the window before I got off work. In the night, the traffic flows into a red river on time.Although the eyes of the neon lights are tired, they will not sleep all night.The lights of the 24-hour convenience store on the corner are always bright as new, like a series of urban romances in this city that started gracefully and ended peacefully.

After visiting so many places, I think Shanghai is probably the most suitable city for me.

As a person with ascending Gemini blood type AB, he is destined to be unable to stop.In Shanghai, I worked two jobs, a white-collar worker in a foreign company and a writer, and I also worked part-time as a jewelry designer for a store opened by a friend.

Words used to be my comfort. For me, no matter how lonely or far away, as long as I have a pen and a piece of paper, I can feel safe.They are the link between me and you, leading me to the untrodden wilderness of your heart.I will suddenly miss those days of writing books, put down the curtains, drink only water, and write day and night regardless of morning and evening.They waited anxiously for me to describe their fate in the pages of the book. They met by chance, moved inexplicably, and traveled through thousands of mountains and rivers between dejection and sadness.

Now I don't quite understand how I got here.

It just feels like I've been taking a crash course.Work, interpersonal, emotional.

Even buying a brightly colored car, like a man in a mid-life crisis.On the way back to the residence after get off work, one after another red light, if you are too tired, you will think half your life has passed in a trance.In fact, it is just beginning.

Only then will you cry.But at that time, probably crying is useless.

There have been many opportunities in our lives to be different from what we are now, but we have all missed them.Even, willingly missed it.Late that night, someone asked me: Are you willing to make a decision?You don't need to answer me now, you can think about it slowly.

It turns out that there are still people who are willing to wait for me. This is already an achievement worth showing off in this life.

a kind of silence

At the end of social dinners, fashion events, and lengthy work meetings, I just hope to have a quiet moment in this non-stop city.

So my biggest hobby is copying the Heart Sutra. There is no deep meaning behind it, but it is so time-consuming and quiet that it does not make any sound.

I spend my time choosing brushes, one by one, carefully looking at the straightness of the barrel, the length of the tip, the selection of materials and the position of the force-bearing position to be considered a good hand.Later, I found that the most comfortable to use was a long-pointed wolf brush I bought when I was traveling in the small town of Toyohashi. After writing baldness, I asked a friend in Japan to buy it again. I learned that the master who made this brush had retired to the mountains.

This is probably the so-called fate of one period and one meeting.

One day, a little friend Peng Ruiqiu, a designer in London, said: Tao, send me some words you wrote.

Ball and I met on the Internet, chatting about cats and the weather in London.One day she began to seal the dried debris of her life in gum, making them into brooches and pinning them on white shirts.When I went to London to see her, she gave me a match brooch, and even the sparks that were too late to extinguish were still there.

(End of this chapter)