I can access blogs again!

Hello again. I had planned to post updates more often last month, but the internet is blocked in many many different places, and the blocks are playing "pop-a-weasel" with the proxies that we use to get around it all. I just downloaded a new one yesterday, we'll see how long this one works!

It's the day after Moon Festival and the streets and market were quiet this morning; people all moving slowly after a night of feasting under the full moon. There are still countless moon cakes filling the shelves, and it is strange to see them without hordes of shoppers sifting through them all so possessively, trying to find the box that will earn them the most guangxi from the recipient.

National Day came and went too. October 1 marked the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Peoples Republic of China. Beijing apparently went all out with pomp and spectacle while simultaneously tightening it's icy grip on internet and security in the rest of the country to assure control of the news cycle. In the days before National Day, a man peddled slowly down the main avenue of Wuchang with a crookety wooden wheelbarrow piled high with Chinese flags and each tiny shop along the way paid their due and proceeded to mount the ol' red and yellow in whatever way they saw fit: some dangling from twine, some placed in old buckets and then balanced precariously on the doorframe, some just punched into drywall. The cities were told to limit their own celebrations to give Beijing its deserved attention, so as far as I know, Wuhan had a fireworks display along the river and that was all. My students slept in and went shopping. I did too.

And now I'm sitting in the sun of my window seat, drinking coffee and trying to ignore the sounds of a neighbor practicing his recorder and the car horns blaring 20 floors below. Red beans and rice are simmering on the stove and cornbread is warming in the oven for lunch. I bought several art books a few days ago and have been practicing pencil sketches, so the coffee table is strewn with crumpled up papers of mediocre attempts at perspective or shading. My Book is open next to them and soon I will spend some time outlining upcoming Studies for the semester.

I always hear married couples use the line that they can't imagine life without each other. Then parents say that they can't remember what they did with their time before they had children. I always imagined that I'd someday say the same things. I've been thinking today though as I look around at my peaceful apartment and think of my future, that I won't be able to accurately say either. I am 25 and single, which isn't a big deal at all...but I can and must imagine my life without someone else being there. Now hopefully, if I get a husband someday I'll be able to say all the lovely cliched things about how much being together changed my life and allll that..but right now, yes, I CAN imagine my life without whoever he is. It's a good life. I have really fun daydreams of my future, and if no husband comes along to change the plans (which...lets face it, I'm still hoping that the plans DO get changed by someone!), they'll still come true and my life will still be really cool.

And similarly, in these quiet moments with my blog and my coffee and cooking things from scratch and my Book and my silly drawings, I KNOW how I am spending my time before children. I'm trying to revel in it, to enjoy it to its fullest while this chapter is here...because someday when I have kids screaming around me and only have time for Zatarans boxed (or microwaveable) red beans and rice and I don't get to sit and drink coffee because it's time for soccer practice or whatever...I will hopefully know then that I've had my time to myself and that I didn't take it for granted.

I don't know who instilled it in me, probably my mom, but I'm really grateful that someone taught me to not take things for granted. When I bounce up the stairs, I sometimes remember to take a moment and be thankful...right then and there...for knees that don't pop or creak yet and muscles that don't ache from stairs. So I feel that someday, when my knees and muscles don't work quite so well, I'll know that I enjoyed them while I had them. Right now, I can tell that allergy season is on its way, so I try to take deep deep breathes of air and to actively enjoy being able to breathe without difficulty, because once the leaves start falling then colds and allergies will likely come, and I'll miss breathing with ease. And maybe someday, my time will no longer be so much my own, and this chapter of life so luxuriously filled with time and peace and reflection will be passed, and I'm hoping to say that I appreciated it to its fullest.

So yeah, to close this post up: take deep gulps of air, climb some stairs, stretch, draw, read, drink coffee in the sun, cook, blog...do whatever you do...and enjoy.