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

Chapter 8 Be quiet, my heart (2)
In his book, Bendrix dismisses any miracles that prove God's existence as mere unpleasant "coincidences."But in real life, there is such a thing.This book is Grahm Greene's prophecy for his relationship.

The deeply Catholic Greene chose to confess to his God for such a price, and God granted.

have a good story
One of my hobbies is listening to stories.But who doesn't love to hear a story?

Acheng is very good at telling stories. I have read his "Venice Diary" many times, and then I went by myself, and I think Venice is not as interesting as his book.

Acheng often talks about "Yangzhou Jiaofang Ji" in the book, which is a storybook that records the anecdotes of Yangzhou City in the Qing Dynasty. It is very interesting and suitable for all ages.So I guess there is always a great relationship between a person's reading habits and his own personality.

I read his novel "The King of Chess" a long time ago, and what I saw was the tone of the storyteller in the teahouse when I was a child.

I have a friend who studies history. I thought that those who study history have a lot of allusions to tell. He was all jokes and he didn't pay attention, so I never found many "stories" from him of the kind that interested me.When he wrote his dissertation on Wang Mang, he once told me that Wang Mang was a gentle, conscientious and frugal person who believed in "Zhou Li" all his life, but in the end he was burdened by the gap between ideals and reality.

If I quote the story "Dong Xian is a God" in "Zi Bu Yu", saying that after Wang Mang's death, he was punished and sent to Yinshan Mountain to suffer from snake bites, but Dong Xian became the god of sunshine and rain, and was tortured in the ancestral hall under Zhongnan Mountain. Consecration, he must show a helpless look to me.

This friend always said: "You don't talk about strange power and confusion." In this way, Yuan Mei is definitely not a gentleman.Yuan Mei's collection of ghost stories is all about things that a gentleman should not say, so he simply named it "Zibuyu". .

I like "Zi Bu Yu" because there are many humorous things in it rather than weird things, and it doesn't hide a big truth behind it like "Liao Zhai".For example, one of my favorite stories is "Cai Shusheng", the second chapter in the book.

The story says that there is a haunted house outside the city of Hangzhou, and people dare not approach it.A scholar surnamed Cai didn't listen to dissuasion but bought and lived here.After buying it, the family members refused to move in, so Cai Shusheng lit a candle and sat inside to read a book.In the middle of the night, a woman came with a red silk around her neck. After bowing to Cai Shusheng, she hung the red silk on the beam and stretched her neck to hang it up.Cai Shusheng looked fearless, so the woman hung up another rope and called Cai Shusheng to go.Cai Shusheng stood on tiptoe and stretched his neck over.

At this time, the whole story became very interesting. The woman said: "You made a mistake." Cai laughed and said: "You made a mistake to make today, and I don't make a mistake." Translated into vernacular, the woman said: "You (if you accompany me) If I hang myself together) life will be over." Cai Shusheng replied with a smile: "I have no hope in my life, that's why I have today." Finally the woman laughed, bowed to the scholar and left.Since then, the house has never been haunted again, and Cai Shusheng has also passed the examination. Some people say that he is Fangbo Cai Binghou.

The beauty of this story is that a heroic female ghost meets a free and easy scholar.This scholar has a thorough understanding of official career and life, and he has the style of a knight, and he is willing to sacrifice his life to entertain beautiful women.And the beautiful female ghost meets a like-minded person overnight, and her long-cherished wish is fulfilled, and she leaves happily.It can be called a happy ending.

There is a good story that I want to tell others.How I love this moment in my life when I don't want anything and concentrate on it.

choose silence
I heard the news today that the first snow fell in the Alps.

And my connection to that continent is almost subtle.Perhaps because of Taurus, there is always a special feeling for Europa.Sometimes, I also miss the smell of piano wood in the small town of Innsbruck.

No matter which alley you look up from, you can see the shadow of the Alps.

I just remember that at that time, I was very fat and dull, and I didn't see the long and shadowy belt of fate.

Perhaps, in the near future, you can revisit the old place.Remember to remind yourself to stop by to meet a very old old friend.Remember to bring him white roses and marzipan.He is also a pilot and loves the desert, just like the little prince.Ah, and speaking of the little prince, I almost watched the sunset alone today.

But in the end I held back.I also found "The Little Prince" on the bookshelf, but I held back and didn't read it.

Reading "The Little Prince" is often very sad, as sad as watching 45 sunsets alone.Especially when it was getting dark again, no one came out of the distant night to tell me the news and bring comfort to my heart.So, I had to do my best to be a limp-haired, unanswerable, sad-faced kid.Stubbornly and hopelessly looking up at the starry sky, waiting for the fragrance of roses from the cold night wind.

Also found Saint-Exupery's "Night Flight" on the bookshelf.The translation is average, but there is still a unique, little prince-like sensibility for this world between the lines.Pilot Fabian steered the plane smoothly into the night like a ship returning to port. "Now, like a night watchman, he discovers in the middle of the night that night also reveals the secrets of man: these calls, these lights, this restlessness. This ordinary star in the dark: this is a lonely house. A star goes out ..."

I was wondering if I should find Bill Evans' Turn Off the Stars.But I feel that Jazz piano is really not something I understand very well.So, do nothing.Choose silence.The boundary between day and night, the hustle and bustle of silence.There is no twilight bird, just cold.I only recently learned that "Night Flight" is "Midnight Flying", which is the fragrance that countless girls are looking for after reading Yi Shu's novels.So I feel that this world is really boring, as if all the wonderful things come from the same small planet.

Vol De Nuit.
I still prefer the name "Night Flight".

Because of simplicity.

Because of the name of the rose, it doesn't matter.

"The soul returns to heaven, and the stars return to their places." Someone wrote in Saint Exupery's eulogy.But in fact, the earth is also a star in the universe.We're just traveling around.If you haven't left, you can't go back.Open the window and find Orion.I don’t know if these stars are still the guidebook for night pilots, whether they can still read the faces of their lovers, the poems in the evening newspaper that the future can’t finish reading, or the vague revelation of fate about the future?

But I know that the universe is actually empty and barren, and I know that our cries do not respond.Those stars, bright and cold, we are there, like thieves "locked in a house full of treasures and can no longer escape".Although infinitely rich but doomed to die.It’s just that we are still attracted to them because of their brightness, because of their remoteness, because of their perfect solitude, so without hesitation “…we fly up to them, and then people can’t come down anymore, they stay there and gnaw on the stars.” ..."

I threw the chicken bones I gnawed at dinner into the yard, and the cats would come to eat them at night.

Then close the windows and draw down the curtains.

Who eats my chicken bones.Who gave me roses.

I am tired.

I closed my eyes and extinguished all the lights in the entire galaxy like this.

Good night and goodbye.
look into the distance
The Chinese language is really wonderful. It describes being very obsessed with something or something, called "indulgence".The story of Mike Ondaatje always makes me feel this way.He uses simple words to weave a seemingly simple net, then catches you and drags you to the depths of the story.Even if you climbed ashore later, those story-soaked clothes were wet and it would take years to dry.

In the face of the charm of Mike Ondaatje's writing, being unable to break free and unwilling to break free are actually the same thing.

However, "Looking from afar" seems to be a new net with different patterns from the past.

After reading "Looking from afar", the initial feeling was probably doubts.

Why, Cooper's story ended abruptly?Why in the second part, after the acquaintance of Anna and Raphael was too much, in the third part, a new story of Lucien Segura started?
From such a rough point of view, this book seems to be pieced together by two independent stories, and readers may still be vaguely expecting when they see the last page, the author will let the story go back to the beginning, just like drawing a huge but Full circle.But Mike Ondaatje didn't do that.The story ends with the drowning of Lucien Segura on the lake as the end of the book.Readers who have lost their hopes cannot help but ask: Why?Is he unwilling or unable?Could it be that Mike Ondaatje has gone too far and finally can't turn back?
And Mike Ondaatje, who created these questions, just like the reclusive Lucien Segura in the book, sat in the dark without saying a word.It seems to use such silence to say: there are many unanswered questions in the world, isn't the face of life just like this?
Mike Ondaatje's narratives always leave a lot of blank space. He is good at discovering poetic details, but he never fills the imaginary space with detailed descriptions.This is also like a net, "dense" may not be more useful, but "sparse" can leave the most important essence.He would rather let readers ponder because of questions, and then get their own answers.And "Looking Away," a novel divided into three parts, leaves doubts unquestionably the greatest of all his works.

But perhaps, the final answer is also the original question, why is this book named "Divisadero" after a street in San Francisco?
Who is "watching" through countless times and spaces?
In my opinion, looking at each other like mirror images are the two families in the book.Although one of them is located in California, USA, and the other is located in the countryside of Demeu in the south of France, there is still nearly a century between them, but their composition is very similar: a silent and withdrawn father, a mother who hardly exists, and a pair of complicated relationships. Daughter, an adopted son with an unruly personality.

Anna and Claire could only be close to their father when he was tired and lethargic, lying in his arms.Lucien is also the father of two daughters who, wanting to get close to him, have to learn to read his silences, and only by reading Flamarion's astronomical works can they barely establish a relationship with each other.

Anna, who was in love, wanted to paint the table and the cabin blue for Cooper. "This blue is a gift for Cooper." Many years later, Raphael was invited by Anna to walk into Lucien's villa in Demuu, saw a blue table in the kitchen of the villa, and believed that it was the house. The only thing of value.At the beginning of the novel, Anna gave Cooper the five-color flag, and their colors will continue to appear in Lucien’s stories, from Marie Neger’s yellow dress, the bright red blood of the wound, the verdant oak forest, and the white mucus of diphtheria .

Anna stuck the shard of glass close to her father's shoulder, which cut off the intimacy between them and doomed her and Cooper to wander.Marie Naige pulled out the broken glass from Lucien's eye. Lucien lost his left eye and embarked on the road of literary creation in self-enclosure.

Like Cooper, Raphael has a disguised looseness, knows everything in the country like the back of his hand, and regards everything as an external object.One is a thief and the other is a gambler.They both try to hide other sides of themselves from Anna, trying to keep the stranger at arm's length.But the stubborn Anna still fell in love with Cooper, and then with simple luggage, traveled more than half of the world, and then fell in love with Cooper's reflection.

The brother-sister relationship between "Lentil" Marie Naige and Lucien is reminiscent of the teenage years of Anna, Claire and Cooper.And the wanderings of Romon and "Lentil" Marie Neger, isn't it an elopement story that didn't happen between Anna and Cooper? "There must be people like us in the world, says Anna, who are hurt by love - that seems the most natural thing to do."

Their stories refract each other, tender tugs intertwined with the sharp edges of shards of glass.Can't stay away and can't get closer, but in fact, they are already blood of each other.

"Every piece of memory is a piece of the puzzle." The person in the book grabs the piece that he is least willing to let go, looking for his own answer, regardless of the fact that the piece has hurt him bloody.Their stubbornness and persistence make this story full of sadness.American writer Cornell Wollrich once elaborated the theme of his novel in this way: No this is not a love story, but it is a story about love. About those who give in into it, and the price they pay. Wrote wandering and loneliness as a footnote to love The same is true for "Looking Away".

This is a story about love. Love never ends, but our lives are limited, so we can only use our own stories as fragments to piece together the whole picture of love.

Therefore, erasing the boundaries of time and space, Lucien's story is the story of Anna and Claire's father, so that we can understand why his silence and eccentricity are, and what kind of affection he has for his daughter.The encounter between Anna and Claire is the story of Lucien's daughters.We can roughly see how they will hit the emotional rocks between the sisters head-on after the father leaves.

Raphael is where the two stories finally connect: he is Lucien's half-adopted son who later becomes Anna's lover.When Raphael hung Anna's photo on the wall of the villa, side by side with Lucien Segura's photo, it was as if he had completed his mission: to link the stories of the two families together, to serve as the basis for the two families. Each story finds its own beginning and ending.Raphael is a mirror, or a calm water surface. Through him, the two families look at each other from a distance, becoming each other's symmetrical reflections, and ultimately the cause and effect of each other.

So at the end of the book, Mike Ondaatje writes: Birds fly low across the lake in the coming night, trying to get close to their own reflection.

We each immersed ourselves in drawing countless life trajectories, thinking that no one in the world could understand.But in fact, these trajectories eventually overlap because of the same arc, forming a complete circle.This arc is probably the so-called fate.And fate is the distance between us who are blind but not close.

If this is the case, since Lucien was relieved to think of the past happy times when he saw his pregnant daughter bathing under the garden nozzle, Anna's father should also be able to treat Anna in the later lonely years. Feel the same relief, if only for a moment, in the endless thoughts of your life.This assumption will bring much comfort to those readers who are concerned about Anna, Claire and Cooper.

"Looking Away" told me that Mike Ondaatje is not a person who hesitates to speak. The reason why he uses descriptions concisely and expresses emotions with restraint is because there are too many parts that cannot be described without explicit words.

So he buried himself in the story, because only another story can provide an answer to a story.

Miki
Someone told me that Shanghai makes people feel lonely.I still don't quite understand this.

In my mind, Shanghai is nothing compared to London.Speak Chinese, eat Chinese food, read Chinese books, and when the Internet is underdeveloped, there are D-version discs with various subtitles. What is there to complain about in life?At midnight when you are bored, you can go to the 24-hour convenience store on the corner to buy tea eggs and Coke.

In London, the taste and gentlemanly demeanor in the fashion magazines are easy to give birth to violent tendencies in me.When I lived in London, what impressed me the most was not the literary days spent in museums and art galleries, but the middle of the night when I was chasing papers in front of the window, smelling the smell of marijuana and Indian fragrance coming from downstairs, I thought about it countless times. Throw the computer in your hand downstairs.

Occasionally, I go to Chinatown to eat Chinese food on weekends when I have free time. I am so tired that I fall asleep on the bus. When I wake up, I don’t know where I am. I only see a rainbow hanging in the middle of the street.

And London is nothing compared to Paris in midsummer.When Paris is lonely, it always makes people think of the radiant and unavoidable death for no reason.Everything is so beautiful, good wine, coffee, beautiful women with long legs, picturesque scenery.A person can walk along the Champs-Elysées Avenue to Tumi, but sorrow flows out of his body, so painful without knowing why, like a person who is about to bleed to death and cannot find the wound on his body.

This flower of evil described by Baudelaire has rotting bones buried under its smiling face.

This strange impression probably comes from a Parisian girl in the same class. She has chestnut curly hair and a pale and delicate face. She always walks around the restaurant in white socks without shoes. ".She always asks me to borrow all kinds of small things: paper towels, matches, cigarettes... One Sunday afternoon, I heard her knock on the door of every room and ask in English with a strong French flavor: Do you have a lighter?But when they met in the classroom, they pretended not to remember anything.I asked other girls what was going on with her, and they said that she really didn't remember, she was probably taking some kind of drug because of academic pressure or creative needs, and wandered around when she was unconscious and uninspired.On the bus to school on Monday, she fell asleep in the corner with a huge folder, her small face hidden in the shadows, with dark smoky makeup.The bus shook slightly, and she suddenly smiled in her sleep, a lock of hair fell down, covering half of her cheek.

(End of this chapter)