A Long Time and Growing a Little at a Time

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Today I am waking up in front of something new. 

Last night, I remembered that I've been writing down things in this blog since January 2007. Years later, at a slow pace, the water still flows, we move with it without much choice, Our Destiny is Stone Golden. Seems like a long time when you put it that way. Things were practically analog back then. So much has happened to us all in those years: babies have been born to some, sometimes two. Books have been published, sometimes two. People have tried hard, struggled, accomplished, given up. Companies have grown beyond wildest dreams, we have traveled and journeyed, We've made friendships, sometimes bonding stronger than we could have imagined, we have grown roses and figs together, we have lost things incredibly important to us only to find we could take solace here with each other, our faces have changed, our bodies have changed, our minds have changed.

Right after I remembered how long this blog has been alive and waxed nostalgic about it, (this blog should be in the first grade by now) I thought of this:

 mom & brother kerbis

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My uncle Curt, my mother's brother, who lives in the house behind hers turned 90 in December. He is an expert at growing bonsai, a retirement hobby I think, is how it started. There are about 25 little trees in his backyard. He carefully prunes them with tiny shears and when it's Spring he calls me over to see the minute azaleas blooming or when it's fall he says, come look at the Japanese maple leaves-"how they've changed color! That's something right?" 
I grew up with these, like ancient worlds in miniature, created by a giant, and I could never help but touch the leaves, explore inside the branches, search along the small rolling expanse of moss where the roots tangle along and there are small mail-ordered ceramic houses with curling rooftops, imagining the Samurai at rest or the philosopher in his window:

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A Farewell To Secretary Shuyun At The Xietiao Villa In Xuanzhou

Since yesterday had to throw me and bolt,
Today has hurt my heart even more.
The autumn wild geese have a long wind for escort
As I face them from this villa, drinking my wine.
The bones of great writers are your brushes, in the School of Heaven,
And I am a Lesser Xie growing up by your side.
We both are exalted to distant thought,
Aspiring to the sky and the bright moon.
But since water still flows, though we cut it with our swords,
And sorrows return, though we drown them with wine,
Since the world can in no way answer our craving,
I will loosen my hair tomorrow and take to a fishing boat. 

-Li Po

Next week I say goodbye to Vanessa, an era will end, a new one will begin.