The boundaries of reality are the area of play…

To be able to love and be loved deeply, without unnecessary suffering and needless attachment, that is the gift that has been given to me, as I slowly come to the end of a long dark tunnel.

I have been undergoing another intense spiritual search, and wanted to share some passages from G.I. Gurdjieff’s early talks:

Currently reading : Views from the Real World: Early Talks Moscow Essentuki Tiflis Berlin London Paris NY Chicago as Recollecte (Arkana) By G. I. Gurdjieff Release date: 19 July, 1991

Begin the Search, Essentuki, About 1918

If a man knows how to be sincere with himself - not sincere as the word is usually understood, but mercilessly sincere - then, to the question “What are you?” he will not expect a comforting reply. So now, without waiting for you to come nearer to experiencing for yourselves what I am speaking about, I suggest that, in order to understand better what I mean, each of you should now ask himself the question “What am I?” I am certain that 95% of you will be puzzled by this question and will answer with another one:”What do you mean?”

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I always believed it was the artist in me who ensorcelled. I believed it was my esoteric house, the colors, the lights, my costumes, my work. I always stood within the great active-artist shell, timorous and unconscious of my power. What has Dr. Allendy done? Discarded the artist, handled and loved the core of me, without background, without my creation. I have even been concerned over his unattachment to the artist - I have been surprised to be so seized, so dépouillée of artifice, of my webs, my charms, my elixirs. And tonight, alone, waiting for visitors, I look upon this newborn core, and I think of the gifts made to it by Hugh, Allendy, Henry, and June.But my love for Henry is a deep echo, a deep prolongation of self in me that is eternally double-faced. I am a double personality. There is my deep, devotional love for Henry, but already it can be easily mutated into another love. I sense the termination of it, as I sense, too, that Henry’s love for me will end when he is strong enough to do without me.

Then I come home in high spirits and Hugh throws me on the bed, frenzied with jealousy, and fucks me deliriously, tearing my dress to bite my shoulders. And I act pleasure, struck with the tragedy of moods which no longer fit together. Hugh’s passion has come too late. I want to be in Henry’s arms - closeness - or in Allendy’s - the unknown. And I had always wanted my dress torn.

When I talked about her to Allendy, he said, “You want to debauch her” - but he was leveling at me the obtuse accusation made against psychoanalysts: that they make people’s instincts run wild. He (Allendy) knows that the process of running wild is only a phase in the liberation, that the re-creation consolidates the being on a new level of idealism and sincerity.

I knew it was the deep disarming of my eccentricity, an eccentricity which I wore like a mask-garment to startle, to intimidate, render uneasy and strange those who frightened me.

I do not feel any wrong about sleeping with Henry in Hugh’s bed - nor would I feel any wrong in giving myself to Allendy on the same bed. I have no morality. I know the world is horrified - not I.

There is a divergence of time, a dislocation of rhythm between the wisdom of the mind and the impetus of instincts and the inevitability of their fulfillment. I am at peace with man, all the men who have hurt me by their weakness. My father, Eduardo, Hugo, John, and even, to a certain extent, Henry (if Henry were strong, June would be in New York now) have more than atoned to me, and more love has been given me than denied me. I am at peace with myself, and my understanding tells me the suffering I endured through the abandonment of my Father and Eduardo’s homosexuality and John’s puritanism did not come from them, but from my own inner composition of being, which refused to understand the natural causes of these weaknesses and refused not to suffer.

I am inflamed by Élie Faure’s proclamation (in The Dance over fire and Water):”It is the imagination of man that provokes his adventures, and love takes here the first place.Morality reproves passion, curiosity, experience, the three bloody stages which mount toward creation.”

I tried to stretch my tolerance and understanding to their limit. I said to myself, I have often give to Henry when I should have given to Hugh merely because it gave me a greater joy to give it to Henry at the moment.

Last night Henry and I got married. By that, I mean a particular ceremony which binds two persons until they get a divorce!

Henry at that moment moved me so deeply, reached such a secret recess of my being, that all former surrenders seemed but half gifts; and that night, in his arms, I almost wept because of that absolute breaking up of myself, this absolute dissolution of myself into him.

Why this obsession in me to interpenetrate with people? Why can I not live more on the surface, accept Allendy without that minute struggle to understand all? Everything Henry does is comprehensible to me. Comprehension and love are inextricably interwoven for me. For me, understanding is love. That is why I doubt I will ever have an expérience de passage, a one-night stand.

It does not frighten me that Henry’s sensuality will inevitably make him faithless. That is only an excursion, an incident, a phase. I have no fear, even though I may suffer from jealousy, because I know he belongs to me, and do I not also deceive him? Don’t I see that my feeling for Allendy is only un petit détour? That I belong to Henry as I have never belonged to anyone, by vital, fiery, and creative and intellectual ties?

I began to live again. Even losing at the casino could not hurt me. And that feeling, that divine feeling of liberation from the one love, on which I can never count, the feeling of security in multiplicity.

I realize I don’t believe anymore in the ideal of faithfulness. It is immature.

I say proudly, “My Father and I are lovers…”

What makes me able to give Henry the leniency and the liberty and the indifference he needs are my own infidelities.

I want to live alone in unknown hotel rooms.
Lose my identity.
My memory.
My home and husband and lovers.

Then I sat at the typewriter, saying to myself: Write, your weakling; write, you madwoman, write your misery out, write your guts, spill out what is choking you, shout obscenely. What is rebellion - a negative form of living. Crucify your Father. And it is the cursed woman in me who causes the madness, the woman with her lover, her devotion, her shackles. Oh, to be free, to be masculine and purely artist. To care only about the art.

I make it appear that I am suffering from the poverty of love. The fact that I am deceiving, betraying, never occurs to me. I am only aware of the other’s treachery. I am cast in to a mold of receiving pain - can’t escape it. Yet I can give pain. I need only reveal everything to Hugh, to my Father, and to Henry. Yet I am not tempted to do this.

In the middle of the dinner I smile to remember Henry’s caresses. All my happiness is in his hands. I am entirely dependent on him. It is terrifying, beautiful, and tragic.

Nature arranging my destiny as man’s woman, not child’s woman. Nature shaping my body for passion alone, for the love of man. This child, which meant a simple, primitive connection with the earth, this child, a prolongation of myself, now cast off so that I would live out my destiny as the mistress, my life as a woman.

How I let things die their slow seasonal deaths and cannot hasten any act of destruction.

I haven’t been this excited about theater in a long time, even though I’m somewhat of a theater addict.

Resolutely contemporary, subversive, challenging, intelligent, explicit (nudity, simulation of homosexual acts, no graphic violence), Shopping and Fucking, a French adaptation of the British Mark Ravenhill masterpiece will literally blow you mind away. The acting is superb and on the edge (the girl had absolutely exquisite tits, not that it should factor in your decision to see this piece), and the emotional charge will stay with you long after the performance.

The show is running until Sunday, hurry and go see them with friends, family, dates, pets, lovers and mistresses. Tickets are at 12 euros (reduced price), the façade of the theater alone is worth the price. Support the theater!!!!! We have a friend on the cast and it will really mean a lot to the crew that the piece gets seen!

Manu, tu devrais absolument y aller et amener un maximum de monde!!!! C’est 10 fois mieux que le cinéma!

People are fighting over pebbles as if they are diamonds. Am I a pebble or a diamond?

Just read over Dead China Doll’s entries from 2005. They are still hanging on my blog homepage. I thought reading them would help get them off my page… (what’s the deal? ) I just want to tell you, since you seem to have closed off all other venues, that you are f**king amazing! Truly! And open up your comment section and stop competing with me in MySpace anti-sociability, goddamit!

There’s a time for meditation and a time for action. I am so relieved that my time for meditation has finally arrived.  I soooooo deserve this, the calm between the storms. Fortification is much needed for future battles.

Hi is there anyone out there? One chance to tell me about your childhood, and nobody is participating? If I don’t know anything about your childhood say, a week from now, I will ignore you on MySpace because a person without a past is usually a criminal in disguise, in my opinion. OK, at least you can comment on why you don’t feel like participating???

I replied to Sa’s childhood survey in the bulletin boards. I usually don’t participate in these things and only read them sporadically, but there’s something about our childhoods that haunts us in unfathomable ways.

(I’d be interested to read other responses to this…repost if you’re up to it).

Mark the things that you have:

[X]A mom

[X]A dad

[ ]Stepmom

[x]Stepdad

[ ]A younger brother

[ ]A younger sister

[ ]An older brother

[ ]An older sister

[x]Grandfather

[x]Grandmother

[x]Cousin[s]

[ ]Half-brother

[ ]Half-sister

[ ]Stepbrother

[x]Stepsister

[x]Brother-in-law

[x]Sister-in-law

[x]Niece

[x] Nephew

1. Are you a child of the 70s, 80s, or 90s?

the 70’s

2. Where were you born?

Shanghai, in the heart of the French Concession

4. Did you enjoy your childhood?

Yes!

5. When you were a kid, what did you want to be?

Writer/Circus performer/vagabond

6. What do you want to be now?

Artist/writer

7. Were you a fun little kid?

I hope.  Although I was all headache to my mom. She claims that I’ve reduced her longevity by 10 years.

8. What was your first best friend’s name?

Probably my cousin that you can see next to my crib in my pics section. His name: Oni. Then a series of girlfriends.

9. Are they still your friends?

Yes, it just gets deeper and more fascinating. I try to see them every year when I go to China.

10. Can you name all the schools you ever attended?

Wuyi (boarding kindergarden, Beijing)

Yuquan primary (Beijing)

12th middle school (boarding school, Beijing)

Princes Hill Secondary College (Melbourne, Australia)

New Brunswick Language Center (Melbourne, Australia)

Back to Princes Hill

Desoto High School (Dallas, TX)

Cy-Fair High School (Houston, TX)

Rice University (Houston, TX)

Sorbonne (Paris, France)

Sorbonne Nouvelle (Paris, France)

Paris VIII (Paris, France)

Ecole nationale supérieure Louis Lumière (suburb of Paris)

I’m so done with schooling, really!

11. Were you closer to your mom or dad as a kid?

My dad. We were made the same. We owe so much to each other. Now I feel that he lives through me.

12. what was your first CD or record?

I listened to classical music in my mom’s womb.

13. How old is a good age to have kids?

Sa’s response: when you’re settled and no longer selfish.

Mine: some hormonal act of craziness that may strike me at any moment. For the moment, I’m on very long-term birth control (protected until the middle of 2009, I’d better check the exact date!!!)

14. Are you scared of anything?

Being misunderstood or not understood.

Not giving my best.

15. What was your favorite class in elementary school?

Chinese, maths, science and geography. I was last in my class until suddenly, I became the first, and things have stayed that way, until my interests shifted again.

16. Did you buy school lunch or bring your own?

We had canteens and the food was quite good.

17. Broken any bones or had any freaky accidents as a kid?

Many times. Broke my jaw open and had to have it stitched back together. Couldn’t eat for a whole month. Still have the scar to show for. I probably have left more scars on other kids though, as I enjoyed picking fights with others.

Another time, I was standing on the streets in my neighborhood in Beijing, minding my own business, and this guy rode his bike past my foot and didn’t notice a thing. I was so shocked and speechless that I only felt the pain minutes later. People are so wrapped in their little problems they have no awareness and sensitivities these days.

18. Were you a mean kid?

Yes, I was a bully and prone to random acts of cruelty. That stopped when I turned 14.

19. Favorite board game of all time?

Go

20. Did you play house or pretend to be a super hero?

I played with Lego and dirt and had ant kingdoms. I also pretended to be Alexander the Great. Does that count as a super hero?

21.Seriously, are you still a kid at heart?

I refuse to grow up. I leave that up to the adults.

Now repost with the name “Childhood Survey” and see what your friends’ answers are to these same questions

and I am free-falling, not even aware where the trip had begun. Friends say that love hurts, but I only started hurting when I stopped loving. It hurt so much that I decided it was easier to let the love be. Did I not mention that when I get back, it will be a new beginning? And did you not tell me to refrain from hasty promises? From too much anticipation? From confusing dress rehearsals with the real thing? I understood the wisdom of your words, just as I understood the convulsive beauty of excruciating follies past and future.

Pain moves in and out of my body, as if I were watching a braid of hair slowly unraveling, one piece at a time… Next time, next time, next time, this time…