I came upon a poem once by Hồ Xuân Hương (a Vietnamese poet in the 19th century) who wrote about a Vietnamese dessert. To make this dough-y sweet, one had to boil it. In the process of boiling, the dough would rise and fall in the water. The white dough contained a sweet bean paste on the inside. The poem had haiku lines and one stuck: “Seven risings and three sinkings.”
The poet was not so much describing the process of making a sweet as she was talking about women in her time: Their alabaster skin, their virtues beneath their skin, their rise, and their fall. Their fate is not unlike the fate of many.
I think of this often: Sink three times. Rise seven. Have I failed in New York? Does not having a job mean failure? I don’t believe so. In the grand scheme of things, you sink sometimes. Then you rise.
I have written down a plan involving three cities: New York City, Seattle, DC. There will be a time when a decision has to be made to remain in this city or to leave. So these days are filled with a kind of specialness. I am calm and clear-headed. I can’t tell the future. But I hope and I rise.
photo by ultrapop design under creative commons license http://flickr.com/photos/ultrapop/2318791107/
Posts
