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Friday
on my way home from the gym, i decided to call my parents. at the tail end of a long and chatty convo, i found out that someone i knew had passed away.
what? i said, and really?
...that's so sad...
the death of a young woman is always tragic, but something about this one provoked more than mechanical sympathy.
actually, i began to cry, standing there in the brightly lit kitchen, stirring my dinner with one hand.
chinese dance troupe, looking back, was something of a gauntlet to me. for those who have always felt secure in themselves, it may be difficult to imagine the tight, unhappy ball of adolescent angst i was back in high school. thinking back on it exasperates me--i was mired in self-consciousness, holding myself back more effectively than anyone could've held me.
ultimately, petty teenage humiliations and all, i think it was worthwhile--i did eventually figure out that i love to dance. unfortunately, not having a convenient time machine whereby to inform my younger self and choosing to disbelieve my mother, i didn't know that at the time, and the vast majority of the hours i spent in tights and a leotard were miserable ones. i was starting at thirteen to dance with girls who'd started at the age of seven, i was physically and socially awkward, and if those odds weren't bad enough, the teacher disapproved of my parents' inability to donate sufficient hours or dollars to her art society.
i can't really blame her. she didn't charge the performance troupe for classes, after all, so donations were key. and i did put on weight after she'd told me expressly to lose it, so it's not too surprising that the costumes wouldn't fit. i suffered under her dignified displeasure, but anyone under the age of 18 could tell you that being disliked by your teacher is nothing compared to the scorn of your peers. -_-
almost ten years later, i can see why i found it so hard to make friends with the rest of the class. there is a little bit of bully in all of us, and it's difficult to respect someone who so clearly doesn't respect herself. with the advantage of greater maturity *ahem* and perspective, i don't blame those girls for not being nicer to me.
...at least, not MUCH. <_<
krystal, though...was different. she was undeniably the star of the troupe, pretty, slender, graceful, with superior technique and great artistry. as if this weren't enough to incite envy, she was also good at the piano, intelligent and diligent (she later went to harvard for her undergrad studies) and genuinely kind. when i first started dance and couldn't keep up with the choreography (it takes some time and training to develop that kind of physical memory), she took time out of her schedule to go through the moves with me, leading me through the steps while my mom sat by and videotaped.
naturally, all the other girls were rotten with jealousy and didn't so much pick on her as simply leave her out. she once confessed to her mother that out of the entire class i was the nicest to her (i have never seen the point of disguising envy as dislike, would wind up hating half the bloody world).
i could have said the same of her.
so there we were, the star of the class and the laggard, bound by our isolation and a shy amicability. and after all, we saw each other every weekend for a number of years--she even went to the prom at my high school freshman year, having been asked by the older brother of another girl in the dance troupe.
i remember that she looked very beautiful.
throughout our association i never once saw her behave in anything but a graceful, friendly fashion, never saw her attempt anything she did not succeed at. yet we worried about her vaguely, my mother and i. sometimes it was almost as if she were unhappy, or rather, there was a slight air of tragedy that hung about her.
this is not my attempt to play the prophet; we actually had a discussion once about it.
it's because she's always trying too hard, i said. she tries to be good for everyone.
maybe, my mother said thoughtfully.
and yet if you'd asked me before friday night where i thought she was, i would've told you, happily and successfully employed, perhaps engaged. it would be so easy to fall in love with someone like krystal, easier, perhaps, than it would've been to be her friend.
actually, she was wasting away of a deadly and rare form of cancer that escaped detection until it was too late.
according to report, there was hardly anything left of the beautiful girl i'd envied so fiercely when she died.
it was a while before i could stop repeating myself over the phone, but after all, it had been a number of years since i'd seen her, and we'd never been that close. i got over it, and got online, and after telling my brother the sad news, played WoW for the rest of the evening.
it's merely sometimes that when i think back of all the people i've envied in the past, the popular, the talented, the smart and good-looking--i feel like i've been repeated whacked by the two-by-four of irony. zach, candy, diana, now krystal--
it's just so sad, i kept repeating to my mom on the phone.
and,
you never know, i said, to my brother.
Saturday
LTB came up this weekend, and around noon i received a summons to rengstorff park in mountain view. it was classic bay area weather, the sunshine bright but not dazzling, a light breeze just sufficient to dry the sweat off your skin. i parked and called AJ.
just look for the big blue rope they strung up, she said, you'll find us.
indeed, i had no trouble picking them out, slacklining while AJ sat on a blanket beneath one of the supporting trees. arthur and jing were there, already resting their feet in the cool grass, and it wasn't long before i joined them in abandoning my socks and shoes.
i have never been very good at resisting pleasure or maintaining caution. i am a barefoot hedonist by nature.
the frisbee came out and i decided i could manage a few tosses, gimpy ankle be damned. after marcus showed up, a few tosses somehow became more than an hour of running over the grass, trying not to leap too high or stop too hard on the wrong foot, finally abandoning all caution in a race against schreiber to scoop the frisbee off the grass. i clutched it to my chest, laughing in triumph, squinting against the sun and discovering that i had managed for the first time in years to give myself a genuine grass stain.
i'm pretty shite as a frisbee thrower; i can have range or accuracy but rarely both. james spoiled me anyhow, with his ridiculous reach and willingness to run like a deer to snatch the most impossible passes. if anything i'm even worse on the catching end, and with my gimp ankle i was more reluctant to move than usual. but when one throw from marcus went far, far, wide, i was somehow running before i knew it.
it shot out to my left, then began to torque, slicing slowly even wider. i ran with half an eye on the frisbee and lept with half a mind on my foot, feeling something like total surprise when the disc smacked into my hands.
i flung them up in triumph, then had to catch my breath. marcus signalled his approval and went over to check up on AJ.
the weather was perfect and the catch was perfect and the people i cared about were lounging happily on the grass, in love, or at any rate, out of the cubicle. marcus and ben had made up, and my ankle didn't hurt. there might have been bombs in the middle east and genocide in africa and a recession in america, but in that moment, my own small world was full of peace and light.
in that moment, i felt sorry for everyone who wasn't me.
French 101:
Vivre
Je vis
Tu vis
Elle ne vit pas mais
Nous vivons
| | | Posted 3/10/2008 4:29 PM - 0 comments
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