Every morning in Beijing I rose early for my daily pilgrimage to Starbucks, at the Lido Hotel, several blocks away from our cell block. Jackie came along so that she too wouldn't have to get lost searching for me when I got lost. Mind you, it was pretty much a straight shot, but one either of us could easily bungle.
Mornings were lovely, brisk. We meandered through a park along the way and found ourselves entranced by gangs and gangs of old people, frolicking before the day's pollution could set into the skyline. One group beyond a grassy hillock exercised to ear-splitting Chinese aerobics music. Another on a pavilion practiced Tai Chi, another played badminton or hackey sac. One tall, narrow man, eschewing group activity, practiced walking backwards along the dipping, curving sidewalks woven through the trees, where others were installing caged birds on poles, brought from home. It stunned me to see so many people, let alone old people, outside, playing.
Personalities, quirks, oddments began to surface, as we sat and watched them for awhile. One stocky fellow in a natty red beret lofted his hackey sac around, pretending not to show off. Two white-headed ladies hit a shuttlecock badly back and forth, unperturbed by their lack of coordination. Another guy seemed to be a teaser, provoking people to laugh. I scoped out a gracile, silver-templed man smiling quietly among the hackey-sackers, elegant in dark blue wool sweater and slacks--then spied what must his lovely equivalent off dance stepping with a different co-ed group. I thought if those two didn't belong together, they should.
Watching them, I remembered every social dynamic of playing at the park when I was a child, as clearly as the smell of blades of grass. When I first came across concepts of friend, of pecking orders, of strangers turning into playmates, alliances won and lost, of hard lessons. The feeling of buoyancy at the transition from rising to falling, of laughter bursting from our swings in near collision and dissipating into the blue sky, of freefall down slides, of vapor trails watched and smelled from the ground up. The stomach-sickening activities of bullies, the fear no one would like me. Or arriving to find no one to play with.
It was all there in the older set, who became less and less old the longer I watched and more like all creatures who just set out into a young morning and eventually find their way into a day.
Most mesmerizing of all were the flowing movements of a Tai Chi Master, asocial, moving amongst the pavilion crowd, busy and noisy with its jumble of activity. His stance was so deep, he stayed so low pivoting, that I looked to see if his legs were shaking, straining. His face was serene, impassive. My mind began to flow in silent synchrony; soon I let go of the effort of wondering and became part of his undulating sweeping motions. I was a child again, sitting in the car at the train tracks, being swept away sideways with the train, though I knew I must still be sitting there on a park bench in Beijing, warming my hands with coffee.
Mornings were lovely, brisk. We meandered through a park along the way and found ourselves entranced by gangs and gangs of old people, frolicking before the day's pollution could set into the skyline. One group beyond a grassy hillock exercised to ear-splitting Chinese aerobics music. Another on a pavilion practiced Tai Chi, another played badminton or hackey sac. One tall, narrow man, eschewing group activity, practiced walking backwards along the dipping, curving sidewalks woven through the trees, where others were installing caged birds on poles, brought from home. It stunned me to see so many people, let alone old people, outside, playing.
Personalities, quirks, oddments began to surface, as we sat and watched them for awhile. One stocky fellow in a natty red beret lofted his hackey sac around, pretending not to show off. Two white-headed ladies hit a shuttlecock badly back and forth, unperturbed by their lack of coordination. Another guy seemed to be a teaser, provoking people to laugh. I scoped out a gracile, silver-templed man smiling quietly among the hackey-sackers, elegant in dark blue wool sweater and slacks--then spied what must his lovely equivalent off dance stepping with a different co-ed group. I thought if those two didn't belong together, they should.
Watching them, I remembered every social dynamic of playing at the park when I was a child, as clearly as the smell of blades of grass. When I first came across concepts of friend, of pecking orders, of strangers turning into playmates, alliances won and lost, of hard lessons. The feeling of buoyancy at the transition from rising to falling, of laughter bursting from our swings in near collision and dissipating into the blue sky, of freefall down slides, of vapor trails watched and smelled from the ground up. The stomach-sickening activities of bullies, the fear no one would like me. Or arriving to find no one to play with.
It was all there in the older set, who became less and less old the longer I watched and more like all creatures who just set out into a young morning and eventually find their way into a day.
Most mesmerizing of all were the flowing movements of a Tai Chi Master, asocial, moving amongst the pavilion crowd, busy and noisy with its jumble of activity. His stance was so deep, he stayed so low pivoting, that I looked to see if his legs were shaking, straining. His face was serene, impassive. My mind began to flow in silent synchrony; soon I let go of the effort of wondering and became part of his undulating sweeping motions. I was a child again, sitting in the car at the train tracks, being swept away sideways with the train, though I knew I must still be sitting there on a park bench in Beijing, warming my hands with coffee.
posted by Gayle at 3:24 PM
2 Comments:
Hey, I just noticed you and I are neighbors on the WordSD site!
Hi neighbor!
ed decker.
yay! Gotta smoke? Flask of whiskey? The E sitting next to D thing, ya never know who's gonna haunt you from the alphabet: In grammar school my desk (Early) was always behind Chuckie (Dutcher). In first grade he popped our teacher's ample bottom with a pin he teased out of the bulletin board next to us. In 2nd grade he chewed tobacco. To get rid of the spit he jibbed out into the aisle and aimed his black spew into the inside of his sneaker, when teach wasn't looking. If he missed he just smeared it around the tile floor and under his desk. That was the beginning of my fondness for neighborly miscreants. Hi back, neighbor!
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