Solitaire

August 29, 2007
5:30 AM – the storm fading
Chengdu, China

Beds in China are box springs. They are hard and flat, and acquaint the sleeper with all the hard angles of his or her body, all the bony edges that push through the skin when one turns in the restless heat. These box springs are softened with thin cotton pads that make the difference between floor and rest. Like futons, they feel strangely healthy – there is none of the languorous temptation to loll about once the sun rises or the alarm rings. They feel at once ascetic and medicinal, if not comforting. In the south China heat, bedclothes are simple – a sheet on the bottom, and a thin duvet on top. Ours are blue and yellow; we sleep above sky and below sun.

At 4 AM I pulled away from dreams of noise – bits of words and characters and indecipherable chatter swimming in my ears and nose, strangers lurking and watching and tracking, forbidding, judging, all the frustration of another day without real speech or interaction flooding my night in a fevery stew of dim anxiety. I lay breathing, practicing restfulness, allowing my mind to relax as one does with one’s shoulders when we discover they are tense. After several attempts at easing back into dark sleep, I listened quietly to the soft rhythmic breath of my husband as he twitched through dreams of his own, and then turned onto my back.

A brief flash shook my eyes open. I was unsure whether I had seen a light through closed lids, or whether I was lingering closer to sleep that I’d realized, my brain discharging all the sounds and colors of an active subconscious. Moments later, a low growl rumbled above me, and I waited, breathless, to be sure it was thunder. Another flash raced across the room, this time illuminating the walls in clear detail, and again a long, slow, roll made its way across the sky outside. I remembered that I had laundry hanging on the tiny balcony off the kitchen, and so quietly I slipped from under the quilt and pulled a robe from the hook on the wall.

By the time I got to the kitchen, the skies had opened and rain was pouring down in great warm hordes. The balcony is shielded in part by long, leafy vines with green berries – the porch was dry but the air was sodden and I set about pulling the clothes down to bring inside.

Once that was done, I realized that I had strayed too far from sleep for the time being and so made a cup of peppermint tea and opened the windows in the kitchen. On quiet feet, I then moved through the darkened living room and unlatched the glass doors leading to the front balcony. Through the screens and vines I listened to the rain hammer the leaves and bushes and walks below. The air was warm and damp and strangely odorless. The sound was enormous.

I returned to the living room and turned on a small light and sat at the table with my cup of tea. Reading sounded too removed – I was enjoying the privacy and fullness of the predawn and didn’t want to leave it behind for some other thought or fiction. Also, I find myself wanting to spare what few books we have. Our access to English texts is limited to the internet, and I may really need an unread book a few months down the road. Instead, I pulled a deck of cards from the cabinet and set to shuffling. The cards were opened but unused, and so had the stiff, slippery feel that makes them loud and unruly until a few games and dirty fingers have broken them in. A tiny breeze wafted in from the porch, and the rain rattled on a nearby roof like on a tin shed or a barn.

Without thinking much about it, I laid out a solitaire game that my father taught me when I was a on the boat a thousand lifetimes ago. I smiled at the counting out of downturned piles and remembered that, even as a little girl I enjoyed the receding count of numbers – “One, two, three, four, five, six. One, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four. One, two, three. One, two. One.” I played a game and lost. Then I laid out a pyramid game that my grandmother had taught me. I won and had 7 cards left over – I was dimly aware of that score being a personal best, and had a strange desire to tell her I’d done it, despite her having passed away a few years ago. Drinking my tea and listening to the rain and feeling the humid air and the click-clack and slide of the new cards in my hands, I suddenly felt strangely close to her. I remembered family trips to Minnesota, when we swam in murky, warm lakes that smelled of freshwater fish and thick green algae and mud. There were always screen doors and porches and late-night card games for the adults. I remembered sitting on the porch with her and Grampie in Indiana, the same rain sounds and rain smells and the thick whirr of insects as were around me now.

I imagined a Chinese woman sitting alone in her robe, listening to these same things and feeling a sense of down-homeness to it all, in this strange in-between hour. I smiled at finding a moment of familiarity in an otherwise very foreign place.

Now the storm is receding, and I am left with the solid patter of a steady rain, and a rich chorus of cicadas and other singing insects. I return to bed.

~ by knifemaker on August 29, 2007.