Summer, it seems, is often my turning point.

2017.07

Every stretch of life seems to have its own flavour.

But it has been a long time since I lived a life like the one I'm living now; perhaps I could even say I never have.

It isn't actually all that rich or colourful. I go to bed at midnight and get up at eight, still shuttling between the same few points. Nanjing's weather is oppressively hot and muggy; walking along with a laptop bag that's no light load, I can feel beads of sweat rolling down one by one. The cicadas are especially loud, which I love, because only that fits how high summer looks in my memory. The canteen keeps swapping its dishes around among the same few; any two dishes come to seven or eight yuan, though I do come across one or two that taste pretty good.

So where's the difference? In the stillness of my heart. This time is serene and untangled. No chaotic deadlines, no annoying things I have to do anyway. I just walk forward quietly, unhurried.

I have to say, I haven't found this feeling in a long time: starting from zero, bit by bit, with no outside compulsion or ideology at all, and very happy. Happy about not knowing, happy about learning. I still find it incredible when we're all discussing the project. At first it was only an idea of mine in an elective class, which I could easily have chosen to drop and forget; now there's a place just for it, a time just for it, and several people discussing it and learning around it together.

Several different causes bear the final fruit. No stretch of time stands alone; they cross and tangle like roots, each inheriting from the others and yet putting out new shoots of its own. Unforgettable things from different times give rise to new loves; different flavours mix and ferment into new flavours, and this process, so close to brewing, makes you giddy with its fumes. On the saying "everything in the past has shaped the me of now", I now have more thoughts: on top of accepting and forgiving the unbearable pieces of the past, I should pay more attention to the good parts, and watch how, catalysed by chance and necessity, they take root and sprout.

Once again I feel how wonderful it is to have a few stretches of time in which to do a few things you want to do, even if every choice comes with some regret.

On breaks I watch Natsume's Book of Friends, whose fresh feeling is so close to the flavour of this time. Someone in it says: humans have human time, yokai have yokai time, beasts have beasts' time. Yes: everyone has their own time, their own route, but even the briefest brush in passing is never meaningless. Memories have flavours, of people, of the past, of each stretch of time. Even if there is an end, I only hope to protect this flavour well before I get there, so that I can arrive without regret, and afterwards still take it out of my treasured memories and savour it slowly.

This serene flavour: savour it well.

2012.07, "The Taste of This Serenity"

Life really is wonderful and strange. At some moments you feel that all the misfortune and pain in the world can't compare with yours; at others you feel there are so many beautiful things in the world that your heart is about to overflow.

Tomorrow I take the train home. I've made the trip back and forth several times, and it still feels exciting and nerve-racking. I stayed at school an extra month, yet this term feels as if it has lasted a year. Perhaps partly because of a long stretch that was hard to get through, but more because these six months have given me so much.

These last few days in Nanjing, the weather has been gloriously clear. The heat is terrible, but my favourite strong wind is back. In the afternoon I lean on the frame of the dormitory's French window, and the wind makes every piece of clothing on me (even short sleeves) flap and snap. In the distance the water ripples, its glints reflected on the glass; the closer I look, the more it resembles the decorative lighting in certain places at night. Just after dark, the crescent moon is thin but very bright, and leaning on the railing I can still see a few stars. Whenever there's a lovely scene like this, I always wish there were someone beside me, quiet and silent, to enjoy it with me.

But there are so many beautiful views; how could I find someone to share every one? Seen another way, with so many beautiful views, there will always be a few times I won't enjoy them alone. Thinking of it like that, I feel at ease. The wonder and beauty of this world is far, far too much; countless people over countless lifetimes might never get through it all! A little something missing in life: isn't that extraordinarily romantic too?

Which reminds me why I've never dared to write a story with a real plot. First, my experience is too thin to handle it. Second, I feel that writing a story is a kind of struggle: you pick up the pen and start from zero, and as you go you meet infinite possibilities, and the writer's task is to cut one single, definite path out of this "garden of forking paths", trying to fight the infinite, to fight possibility. How hard that is to control!

A few days ago I saw a photo from more than ten years ago; in its strangely shifted colours I could almost see the traces of time flowing across it. When did humans begin to understand the beauty of imperfection? That's a really interesting question. For an individual, understanding the beauty of imperfection means having in fact touched the ceiling of life; touch it once more, and you can grasp the limits of all things.

Natsume's Book of Friends is a good story, and it is steeped throughout in this view of facing "limits". In fact, of the better works I've seen so far about dealing with spirits and monsters, Shaman King and Onmyoji are both steeped in this view too. After all, life and death are a limit no living thing can escape, and humans and spirits each have their own limits as well. Perhaps I haven't got it quite right, but is this what Buddhism calls "karma"?

Let me end this idle talk on the night before I leave with the last summing-up line of Natsume's fourth season (whose final shot is also a photograph): "Unforgettable, precious days, every one of them."

2012.07, "Unforgettable, Precious Days, Every One of Them"