Ah this blog. I have been neglecting it. I feel like my brain and inspiration are getting sucked into a giant vacuum, thus the blog has suffered. My students are numerous but great. Sweet, eager to learn, but so many names and faces. New names, new faces, new words, new sounds. Culture shock does not have to come in the form of strange food, strange customs, strange living arrangements – instead it has come in the form of a classroom, which is an entirely different world that exists all over the world and I admit my utter ignorance of such a place. I will talk in depth about the classroom soon, when I have the words.
I have been having severe sleeping trouble. This can be attributed to stress, overdose of good strong green and jasmine tea and my inability to stop thinking, ever. Yet, it is more than that. A long-distance relationship. Somehow those words do brutal injustice to what is the struggle and difficulty of living, separated by land, water and time, from the person you feel most connected. How can it be described, knowing that other piece of yourself hurts and you cannot sit by their side? How can you communicate sympathy and support with words typed inside a text box or said across an echo-ey phone line?
Chinese is a difficult language but there are teachers and books and rules. The language of love across rivers, mountains, oceans, wind, and time is harder. It is more illusive. When you cannot communicate it breaks the heart and the body cannot rest because everything feels out of place.
When I write, I try to speak to a group. To find words and connections that make sense to a larger crowd than just myself. This experience however, is only my own. Being away from Josh, from someone whom I have learned and grown with in the past year, is more difficult for me then being in China and teaching, though I have never done either.
So this blog today is a gift. A 'silent' admission to you, Joshua Daniel Wiens. I will see you when you get here and hopefully I will sleep a couple nights before then.
1 comment:
I hear ya. When Aaron and I were long distance, there were some days where I felt like maybe there was a giant electromagnet that was pulling me West towards him, and that if I ever lost my concentration on the here-and-now, it would pull me right through the walls of the building and leave Diedre-shaped holes.
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