Một phần trăm trước khi tuyệt vọng/One percent prior to despair

Tôi viết bài này bằng tiếng Việt sau đó tự dịch ra tiếng Anh. Thỉnh thoảng tôi làm ngược lại – viết bằng tiếng Anh rồi dịch sang tiếng Việt. Quá trình này luôn thử thách vì sự khác biệt giữa hai ngôn ngữ, nhưng nó mê hoặc tôi vì tôi yêu cả hai ngôn ngữ.

Một phần trăm trước khi tuyệt vọng

những tối như tối nay tôi không thể ở trong căn phòng mình, phải tìm cớ ra ngoài.
em gái viết bảo đau đầu. ghét khoảng thời gian này trong ngày. có cảm giác muốn chết.
tôi cũng có cảm giác ấy. độ bốn đến sáu giờ chiều. những ngày này, trời mau buông tối.
một người nói, bạn đừng đến thành phố của tôi những ngày này, nỗi niềm tê tái của bầu trời khiến người ta u buồn.
tôi muốn nói, thành phố của bạn có não nề bằng thành phố của tôi?
tôi luôn rảo bước nhanh, đôi lúc thoáng sợ những người xung quanh mình.
những ánh nhìn có màu xám, nặng trĩu, như thực tại giữa tôi và họ. khoảng cách giữa chúng tôi.
trái tim của chúng tôi dường như không có nét gì giống nhau.
tôi thủy chung cùng một ai đó, tình cảm dành riêng cho anh, không muốn nhìn ai khác, không muốn nghĩ về ai khác.
nhưng không yêu anh.
không thoải mái trải lòng cùng anh. cũng không thật tin anh.
từ khi mới thở, vốn không thể tin tưởng người khác hoàn toàn, nhiều lắm đâu chừng chín chín phần trăm.
vì một phần trăm đó, chưa bao giờ tôi yêu được một người.
vừa thoáng phải lòng đã thấy mình phản bội.
vì một phần trăm.
tôi gặp một người bạn, cười nói và ăn tối.
trước khi gọi món đã hình dung ra mùi vị của món ấy trong vòm miệng.
bất giác chỉ muốn nhắm mắt lại
quên đi tất cả những điều này.
có thể, sau sáu giờ tối,
khi bóng đêm tràn khắp,
tôi sẽ vui lên một chút.
góp nhặt một chút hạnh phúc, một chút hy vọng,
không cần những gì quá lớn lao,
đưa tôi từ giây này sang giây tiếp theo bình an.
vì một chút những thứ không rõ tên,
vì một phần trăm chưa thể nào trao gửi,
tôi đã cứu mình khỏi rất nhiều lần
trước những bánh xe di chuyển quá nhanh.
trước mỗi ngày trôi qua quá nhanh.
chỉ có cơn tuyệt vọng của tôi,
thật chậm

____________________________________________________________

I wrote this piece in Vietnamese then translated to English myself. Sometimes I do it the other way around – write in English then translate to Vietnamese. This process is always challenging because of the differences between both languages, yet it mesmerizes me since I love them both.

One percent prior to despair

during nights like tonight I cannot stay at my place, must find an excuse to go out.
little sister wrote about her headache. hated this time of the day. felt like she wanted to die.
I have that feeling too. around four to six p.m. these days, the night comes quickly.
one friend said, ‘do not come to my city these days, the grieving sadness of the sky makes people depressed.
I wanted to say, ‘would your city be more melancholic than mine?’
I always pick up my walking steps, sometimes slightly scared of the people around.
the glances colored grey, oppressed, like the reality between them and me. the distance between us.
our hearts do not seem to bear any resemblance.
I am loyal to someone, devote my admiration to only him, do not want to look at anybody else, do not want to think of anyone else.
yet do not love him.
do not feel comfortable unfolding my heart to him. do not really trust him.
since my first breath, I cannot fully trust others, perhaps as much as ninety-percent.
due to the remaining one percent, never have I ever been able to love a person.
the first glimpse of love already comes with the guilt of betrayal.
because of one percent.
I meet a friend, laugh, talk, and have dinner.
before ordering food I already imagine its flavor in my mouth.
suddenly just want to close my eyes
forget about all of this.
perhaps, after six p.m.,
when darkness emerges,
I will be slightly more cheerful.
collect some happiness, some hope,
no need for anything extravagant,
bringing me from one moment to the next safely.
because of a little of the unnamed things,
because of one percent that has not been given,
I have many times saved myself from
the wheels that move so fast.
the every day that passes by so fast.
only my despair,
so slow

For a moment

finally she found the courage to be how she wanted her to be

and though there is a difference between self-awareness and selfishness,

she stopped caring about name-calling, labeling, or any similar irrelevance

for a moment, as long as what it takes for a wind to pass by,

it felt so much better to breathe to live to think to smile

perhaps it’s not right or wrong – well. she does not know

but that moment felt exactly like how it should

if she had thought for herself cared for herself

no matter how you or someone else close to her thinks about what happened,

perhaps she eventually turned her mind towards happiness

and like a flower that is dying in the night

she brought onto herself a new spark of sunshine

that gave her a strange desire to live.

[Summer Read] Bringing Home The Birkin by Michael Tonello

I was both pleased and a bit sad to finish Bringing Home The Birkin by Michael Tonello this evening. Pleased because it was another highly entertaining book in my summer reading list. Sad because I wanted to read more.

Bringing Home The Birkin is the real story of how Michael traveled around the world (US, Europe, South America, and a bit of Asia) to find the Birkins for his eBay customers who are obsessed with the famous bags from the House of Hermes. The Hermes Berkin is so famous and desirable mainly for three reasons: top quality (leather & croc), price ($8,000 to $80,000 give or take), and rarity. Rarity was perhaps the key to the story due to the notorious one to two-year waiting list for the Berkin. Rich and famous would not guarantee you a Birkin. Michael, however, found a secret formula to bring home the Birkin for his customers, so he went everywhere – from the largest flagship Hermes store in Paris (24 Faubourg Saint Honore) to the tiny Hermes store in Capri, Italy.

Originally from Massachusetts, Michael decided to move to Barcelona after a make-up gig because (1) he was so much in love with the city and (2) someone promised him a job there. (1) has not changed. As for (2), after signing a five-year lease on his new Barcelona apartment, Michael found out to his amazement and frustration that the job was not gonna happen. Only then had he discovered eBay so that he could sell off some of the items in his closet, including a Hermes pashmina scarf that would change his life forever.

I really love the book because, as much as the Birkin is the main catch of the story, Bringing Home The Birkin is essentially about the human psychology and behavioral economics. We know that a crocodile bag is expensive, but the price of a Hermes croc bag would not be so high if customers did not drool for it. Regardless of how rare the material is, if there were no significant demand, Hermes would simply be unable to charge thousands of dollars for a bag. As if it was not difficult enough for customers to find a Birkin, Hermes made sure it was more the case by different techniques including keeping a waiting list with high-profile customers, putting “Reserved” sign on the only display bag, and limiting the number of Birkins sold to each customer in every purchase. Hermes’ strategy and customers’ perception worked so well together they proved one thing: in luxury fashion, the intrinsic value of an item is much lower than the value perceived by its customers. Hermes customers made the connection not only between rarity and value but also between rarity and social status. Michael Tonello knew it only too well he went on a journey that led to the most awesomely ridiculous relationships along the line of his eBay business.

Yet, even the most outrageously beautiful dream does not last forever. The last chapter was about Michael waking up from his orange-coated dream. It was quite personal and not as glamorous as the previous chapters, but absolutely my favorite. I almost felt the pain in his words, and he could have made it even more dramatic, but he chose not to. It was simply not his style. When I read his book, I could almost picture him sitting right there telling me the stories. Once he started, I could not stop listening, and once he stopped I wish he would have moved on. Nonetheless, a good reader must have some patience. I’ll be waiting for the next Michael Tonello book. Meanwhile, if you have a sparkling interest in fashion especially in handbags, luxury fashion, and particularly Hermes, I highly recommend this book. And if you ever want to bring home a Birkin, this is a website of “Sarah”, one of Michael’s customers who turned out to be another reseller: Createurs Deluxe. You could access some excerpts from the book here.

The Unit by Ninni Holmqvist

I carried the book The Unit by Ninni Holmqvist with me in the subway, in the bus, then finally sat down and finished it. I had to do it in one day otherwise I wouldn’t go to sleep.

Basically, this book is about a reserve bank unit where dispensable individuals – those who are not really wanted or connected to society in different ways – spend the rest of their lives (women recruited at age 50, men at 60) participating in different biological and psychological experiments and donating their organs. Once the individuals settle in at the unit, they cannot get out. To be exact, their motivations to escape will be skillfully eliminated. Dorrit, a 50-year-old woman, went into the unit expecting to live that life. Then she fell in love, and things started to change course.

The idea of an underground research center/lab that performs experiments on human beings is not new, yet the novel feels fresh and the writing is lively. A major part of it has to be due to the excellent translation by Marlaine Delargy. Holmqvist is particularly good at description. Her meticulous details on a simple movement of the character can make you visualize it like in a movie. The reserve bank unit which was depicted so well I really wanted to see it in a movie adaptation. Overall, there is no significant climax in this story. Nonetheless, I was engaged in the little details. I generally found such types of stories amusing. Why? Though life-changing, ground-breaking events can make a story much more attractive, some writers (e.g Raymond Carver, Haruki Murakami) can skillfully present a completely uneventful story to draw the readers into the details. Well. Aren’t most of us live to remember the ordinary moments?

The Unit, like other dyspotian novels, does not have a happy ending. Dystopian novels are those about dystopia, a type of society in which people suffer from misery/pain/unhappiness. (The other extreme is utopia, the ideal society in which people are fully happy.) Nevertheless, I find The Unit a light read. The topic is quite disturbing yes, but with a few awkward places here in there in the writing, the book does not seem as heavy as it could have been.

Besides, in a way dyspotia is essentially our society under a fictitious, more negative light. Some readers may find it too disturbing and heavy, some might think it’s somewhat reflective of our own flawed collective. How readers feel about The Unit, like any other book, also depends on the types of books they usually read, their perspectives on human conditions, and definitely their personalities. They tie together in a tight knot.

I won’t give too many details here so you could enjoy it thoroughly. You could watch a video based on the book here and find it on Amazon.

As for a number rating if we must — I would give The Unit a 7.5 out of 10.

On Time

On Time

Are you confused when I talk to her in our language, yet
it is completely out of context you just laugh it off because you
have no idea?

Are you confused when I do not look into your eyes and let out
a weary, wicked smile and you think I just daydream but
the night is already here?

Are you confused when your phone keeps ringing as if
somebody has been frustrated to hear your voice even
just for one minute, I just leave you there?

Are you confused when the things I used to do
for you are slowly disappearing, and your passionate questions
just hang unanswered in the air?

Are you confused when the apartment looks exactly
the same, clean and a little neater perhaps, but you can no longer
smell the aroma of my hair?

Are you confused when they ask you why we broke up,
why someone like me would leave someone like you,
and you really do not know what to share?

My dear, I was even more confused than that. I was
not myself with you any more, but when I really saw
you – I made up my mind and could not be late
for another minute.

Unhealed (2008)

When we saw each other, our eyes
were locked, not into each other
but into the memories we shared.

When we were together in a crowd,
nobody knew about us. Just you and me.
Separately.

I was content with our
secret closeness. Yet to a woman,
Love cannot be unsaid.

My greed of belonging
pushed us apart. In a breath, we tore away
our past.

I should be happy with our
silent goodbye. Each night is just
another night. Without expecting you.

Each morning is
beautiful weather. birds singing. everyone smiling.
everything I did not have.

And how painful, the loneliness
of the footsteps with no more rush
to run towards somebody.

If there’s nothing new about thinking of you
what is it
that makes me think of you, not so much,
but for so long?

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I wrote this poem as a submission for Piecework, Bentley University’s literary magazine in 2008.

Vẫn không phải tình yêu

Bỗng chợt nhận ra, vẫn không phải tình yêu
Đưa trái tim về sự an nhiên của nó
Quen rồi nên không còn lạnh nữa

Cái tôi cần, người có, nhưng tôi không thể yêu.
Cái tôi sợ, người khác, nhưng tôi không thể tin.

Đêm còn thao thức
người đã phai phôi
tôi đã thôi chờ đợi.

Full Moon

Full Moon

I have fallen in love with you.

Before the end of my day, I try not to think of you, but you always come back.
There were nights when I did not think about you,
but you were always there, sleeping peacefully, somewhere behind the clouds.
Then I would not know how to react
when you came, full moon.

All I could do
was to devour your beauty
knowing that you’ll soon fade away
back into my darkened heart.

Perhaps, this is my chance
to understand you
to make you smile
to trust someone with my entire life
to not feel the danger of being someone’s mistake
Perhaps I just need to love you.

I cannot just love you.
I want you to love me too.
I want you to to feel the unfathomable happiness that I feel when I think of you
I want you to feel the pride that I feel when you amaze me being who you are
I want you to feel the calmness that I feel when you rescue my faith while others have failed me
I want you to feel the life that I feel when I know I am no longer lonely
I want you to feel love and the beautiful things it brings.

I do not want you to feel the pain inflicted on me when you are not close to me
I do not want you to feel the jealousy when someone else has a chance with you
I do not want you to feel the sadness when I realize I might never reach the moon
I do not want you to feel the fear of losing whom you want the most someday
I do not want you to feel the other side of love
it feels like the sky of those nights without you:
dark, empty, ready to fall.

But my dear, if you cannot feel the same for me,
I do not want you to love me.
I want you to find the one for you, and you both can go through something like this together, for the rest of your life.
And every time I look into the sky, no matter how it gets, I will always remember you.
So beautiful, discreet, full of hope, my only full moon.

I can only be so grateful for the new life I have
after knowing you
after knowing I have fallen in love with you
and never want to get out of it.

(Monday, Dec 15, 2008)

Thơ về Sài Gòn

Hôm nay tự nhiên đọc được bài thơ này trên Tuổi Trẻ Online. Đơn giản, nhưng rất Sài Gòn – nắng, bụi, mưa, đông đúc, và những hàng ăn đêm…

Sài Gòn

Sài Gòn nắng đến độ
Em phủ kín khẩu trang
Ta chỉ còn biết yêu đôi mắt

Sài Gòn mưa đến độ
Ta chưa kịp xòe ô
Em đã về nhà ai ướt áo

Sài Gòn bụi đến độ
Ta lạc mất mùi nhau
Sau một chiều kẹt xe vô cớ

Sài Gòn đông đến độ
Có quá nhiều dáng người
Ta sửng sốt… là em

Sài Gòn rộng đến độ
Mười năm ta xa nhau
Chưa một lần gặp em tình cờ trên phố

Sài Gòn vui đến độ
Ta không còn đủ buồn
Để đi hết những quán đêm

NGÔ LIÊM KHOAN

[ee cummings] i carry your heart with me (i carry it in

“]

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in [ee cummings

On Top of A Grassy Hill

Lying awake with an empty mind
Tomorrow is here without the sunshine.
I watch a beautiful star falling,
can’t catch it under the sky.

Licking frozen drops of morning dew
I long for someone to share my portion.
All I could hear was fading crickets’ songs
Breaking through every trembling wind.

There was a dream I encountered
that no longer returns to me:
I was a star flying by a grassy hill
where lay someone who seemed quite lonely.

An untitled poem

In Vietnamese:

Ở một thành phố xa xôi,
có một cuộc sống khác đang đợi tôi.

Tôi nghe và nói một ngôn ngữ khác,
gặp những khuôn mặt đã biết khác.

Như thể tôi có hai con tim trong lồng ngực mình
Như thể mỗi lần trở lại mới là lần đầu tiên.

Ở mỗi nơi tôi đến và đi
dường như chẳng có gì thay đổi hết
dường như thành phố đã quên đi sự có mặt và vắng mặt
dường như tôi đã sống một cái chết tạm thời.

Tôi biết làm gì đây
nếu một ngày,
không còn một thành phố ở nơi khác
cho tôi tìm đến nữa?

In English:

In a city far far away,
another life is waiting for me.

I hear and speak another language,
see other known faces.

As if I had two hearts inside my chest
As if every return were the first time.

At every place I’ve come and left
it seems nothing has changed
it seems the city has forgotten appearances and absences
it seems I have lived a temporary death

What would I do,
if one day,
there were no other city at another place
for me to arrive at?

Bentley, Summer 08

Falcone stairs at Bentley College, on a cool summer day…

A short music session

I still have not known the name of the lady. As one of the janitors working at the college, she is also one of my usual listeners whenever I play the piano in that silent room. The old songs that I have loved for years are most often complimented. Perhaps we have the greatest affection for what we loved in the past whether or not we still think of them now.

Most of the songs I played today were somehow very popular in Spanish and she was singing along. I could feel the passion in her voice, the warm sunshine on my back from the large windows, and the painfully familiar comfort that I thought I had lost.

Thirty minutes. Then I left. My fingers thanked me for the session and demanded us do it more often. Well, it is not easy to make it a habit when I only come there to either relax or satisfy my sudden enthusiasm to play. 

Adaptation

 Adaptation is majorly a change of habits. A person’s comfort zone may include the people inside that zone, so when she moves to a new place without these people, her comfort zone is gone not only geographically but also psychologically. Soon she realizes that moving from 28-33 C degrees to 28-33 F degrees is not only a change of weather or time zone. She has to get used to the lack of old things and abundance of new things.

“Make yourself comfortable.”

You often hear that whenever you arrive at a new place – new country, new school, new company, new acquaintances, etc. That’s just a cliché though, because comfort is built with effective communications, which takes time.

Since effective communications is a human skill, some people might get right on it. Some might never get it. 

_____________________________________________________________________

Sometimes it seems as if the winter still lingers around, yet the sky is so blue and clear it is undeniable that Spring is already here.   

Miki

spring07.boston.miki.

Miki,

This semester is coming to an end as the weather is turning colder day by day. I’ve been busier recently to go out and take as much time as I need to make myself comfortable in the city. If I couldn’t spend the weekend the way I used to, would I ever get to see you again?

I wanted to write about you for my short story creative writing class. Instead, I just used your name and made up a story about someone else. Miki.

Do you know why I’m so obsessed with the name Miki?

Miki is the name of the main character in a cartoon book I read a long time ago. In that story, Miki is a girl who has the super-power to interact with the trees and plants and flowers in nature. She can extract her soul from her body to talk with the tree’s soul, and her soul is one of a grown-up rather than of a young girl.

Young men fell in love with her mysteriousness, graceful and playful charm, and sexy passion for nature. Just when each man started to fall seriously in love with her, her father and she moved away from the city. They actually moved a lot.

Two of those men met her again after years and found out that she was still that young girl they had known. Miki’s body does not grow up. Since the young men already grew up yet Miki remained a teenage girl, they could not bring themselves to confront her and tell her about their love. All of them just had to move on with their lives, keeping memories inside their hearts.

I loved that story so much. I did not know I would fall for a Miki, long after reading the story, in my life.

The differences: You will grow up and grow old. You already have a significant other. You are attached to him, smile at him, give him hopes, love him like any other young woman loving her man. You probably cannot talk to the trees, because if you had been able to, they would have told you that a stranger was hopelessly falling for you. But, unlike my cartoon-character Miki, you are real. You were real. Your name is not Miki, though, right? If it is…..

I met you in Boston. Then in Cambridge. The second time I saw you with him, I really wanted to come up to you. But I was with somebody else too, and social constraints kept me from doing so. When you left the place, I almost wanted to shout at myself for losing you again. You with those eyes, that smile, that face.

My Miki, please appear in front of me again. I won’t bother your life because I don’t want to mess up with mine any more than what it already is. I just need to know you are still around, somewhere, smiling.

I miss you so much Miki.

“I heart you”

There is a phrase that my American friends normally put on Facebook or AIM profiles:

“I heart you.”

At first, it sound strange to my ears, the use of “heart” as a verb. I was not sure if it meant “I miss you” or “I love you” or “I like you”. I try to use it myself and figure out that it could be a mixture of all three.

It’s briefer than “I have you in my heart”, and less cliché because it seems newer. It seems like something that young people would like to say online to each other.

While “I love you” is used excessively and carelessly in the American culture, saying it is such a significant thing to Asians that whenever it is said, it actually means a lot. It would not be just a quick “Bye. Love you.” I am not judging the American culture; I really appreciate how it has made it much easier for people here to express love. Just that as an Asian female, I am still struggling with conservatism and the unspoken rule of keeping love to yourself until the other party says it first. I find it difficult from time to time whenever I develop an interest in someone without being able to tell him. Yet, also from time to time, I realized that it was not exactly love, but a poor replica of love. I was glad I had not said the thing.

Nonetheless, I never know whether or not I will regret, so I still think I should tell him I love him.

Nonetheless, because I am so used to not saying “I love you”, I doubt whether what I am feeling is love.

The habit of silence tells me that it is not love, that I am just confusing myself.

The deep desire to tell him that I am unexplanably falling for him, on the other hand, burns me. I can hear his silence in the bowl of noise and catch his eyes among the streams of reckless eye contacts. When we lingered at each other’s eyes for more than three seconds, I felt like the world slowed its fast motion down to give us just enough time to run to each other and say the three words. We did not. We cut the eye contact and the world resumed.

I think I desire to let him know even more than I desire him.

Mess

I will wait for you
after the sun leaves.

You, the wish of a better tomorrow, has already been here.
What else could I be looking for?

The other dream has come to me, I tasted seduction
with a weary hesitation.

They no longer knew how to love.

All these times, what they have said to me is
“Open up.”

The world inside me called out for a strike when
I felt a cut.

Love is not sweet,
isn’t it, Tara?

Before the sun leaves, please rush
to get home to me
so I can love you.

Pain

autumn
the wind came by,and I forgot to ask
if it’d seen you.
rain
on the other side of the crowd you ran, your face
became so strange.
late night affairs
shitfaces everywhere, she almost poured her wine on the grass
I saw you getting horny at her laughters.
people’ assumptions
they look at any couple, and immediately
“they must’ve fucked each other”
the truth matter is
you never know
what actually happens
in this life’s show
everything hides beside a mirror
yet all you can see
is your own horror.
or, the truth matter is,
I’m about to get over you
before the snow
right before the snow

Lời Vĩnh Biệt

 

Ta hái đi một nhành cây thạch thảo

Em nhớ cho mùa thu đã chết rồi

Chúng ta sẽ không tao phùng được nữa

Mộng trùng lai không có ở trên đời

Hương thời gian mùi thạch thảo bốc hơi

Và nhớ nhé ta đợi chờ em đó…

 

   - Apollinaire (Bùi Giáng dịch)