**Part 1 of artist/scholar Linda Lai’s multi-episode narrative poem on living across two centuries, a contemplation on time and space as experienced… written over a cup of hot chocolate – English version. 2018年元旦日，黎肖嫻用了一個小時呷著一杯和暖的巧克力。這樣，兩個世紀的心情、不同的時空對策忽然安好坐落在一個思維地表之上，連線起來。**原作者中文版按此**
\nI’ve Crossed the Threshold of the Millennium (1) | Linda Chiu-han LAI
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I’ve crossed the threshold, from
\nthe 20th to 21st century, not realizing I did when I did.
\nHastily grabbed video fragments pale and blue –
\nthat’s all that I’ve got marking millennium festivities.
\nI resided midway up the hill in Central back then
\nYet for reasons forgotten I was drifting in Kwai Fong
\non that very evening, the eve of 2000.
\nRed button pressed:
\nTwo kids swaying their butts swinging the pulse,
\nSeveral young women stamping mechanistic-rhythmically
\ntheir bare shoulders marshalling
\nthem throwing arms-up in the air left and right, right and left.
\nCamera panned, resting on two cops in casual wear
\n— and how did I know? I just did.
\nObserving or safe-guarding, dins and drones splashed all over up and down and north south east west
\nA solid sign blinking “2000” above the centre-stage
\nNaming the event, rescuing it from anonymity.
January 1, 2018, on the northeastern edge of an oval island floating on the Atlantic alongside its Macaronesian siblings…
\nOn the table top of a sidewalk café it landed — the sudden arrival of the hazy flickers of “31st of December 1999 HK” …
\nThe turn of the century already knew it all: anticipating loose disparate intentions to add up to
\nAnti-festivities in the autumn of 2014 –
\nFull spectacle, full surveillance
\nAll played out day and night on major thoroughfares.
I crossed the threshold. Born in the 20th century, now
\nLiving the Twenty-first: two centuries one same world (?)
\n“Every epoch… not only dreams the one to follow but, in thus dreaming, precipitates its awakening.” — Walter Benjamin
\nDreaming is a bridge that blurs
\nthe separation of anticipation from retrospection.
“Nothing changes in people from one generation to another except the way of seeing and being seen.
\nThe streets change, the way of being driven in the streets change, the buildings change, the comforts in the houses change, but the people from one generation in another do not change.” – Gertrude Stein
I crossed the threshold dividing two centuries.
\n1987. 1988. 1989. Those days…
\nI spent a whole night writing my mind to have it
\nDispatched in post early Monday morning,
\nFrom the Chicago suburb to UC Berkeley.
\nAs chance permitted, mail delivered Wednesday or Thursday and then –
\nAs Friday arrived my nerves strained, me awaiting the postman’s delivery — but
\nNews from Berkeley often only made it Saturday noon or more often
\nSleazily arrived Monday morning.
\nMy brewing thoughts streamed densely and intensely towards Berkeley,
\nFrom where a different aura blew back in my direction –
\nA different state of mind, light as smoke, broad-stroked, or finely procedural, or dashing off into infinite skies.
\nA dozen of US dollars spent every Saturday night –
\nto piece together which lines connected with what dots and if the dots met.
\nThen Monday crawled back and
\nmy next letter was barely ready. 1987, 1988, 1989.
\nToo used to talking into the empty space spanning
\nacross the Midwest and the coast on the West;
\nOur ties crafted in soliloquy – shooting words
\nthat scheduled no meeting.
\n1990 the final trial – both back in Hong Kong.
\nMonologue is easy. Dialogue, how very weighty.
No more letter writing and waiting since then.
\nAm waiting at CX Lounge. Boarding in 10 minutes.
\n-Bon voyage.
\nJust landed.
\n-Enjoy your trip.
\nHotel room is nice.
\n-Great. 🙂
\nHeavy traffic at Frankfurt. Plane needs defrosting.
\n-Hope problem gets solved soon.
\nAt Waterstone. Great philosophy session.
\n-Enjoy.
Populating my daily landscape are
\nHuman beings 20 to 30 years my junior.
\nMany of them rocked through June-Fourth ‘89
\nIn their parents’ warm embrace.
\nThen came those who only heard of it.
\nLater on, they claimed only to recall as a kid
\nthe two flags of the city hoisted side by side after 1997.
\nLater still, they knew only the flag of the Bauhinia.
\nAs for now, most of them know about 1997 by hearsays.
\nI draw a long horizontal line on the globe with my intense gaze after which I follow
\nLike a long haul flight crossing the continents in half a day.
\nAs for my young friends, there is only the here and the now…
\nThere is only this point, that point, and those other points.
\nI look out through the plane’s window onto the expansive space
\nand what do I see?
\nDistance? Orientation? Direction? – all a matter of belief.
\nAs for my young friends, they only need to look down and concentrate –
\nRunning their fingers to cross the miles by the thousands.
\nWindows. Sure. But no inside or outside.
Indeed I crossed the threshold marking the millennium.
\n1992-1996. New York spread out in front of me. Step on.
\nRoaming through streets and avenues
\nLooking for a spot, an activity, something…
\nto entrench my fleeting presence.
\nStraight south from 125th Street Manhattan to 6th Street East Village through Broadway and
\nFurther south to the Chinatown I walked and walked.
\nThere was little cloistering or sitting down.
\nI walked to empty myself
\nThe more I walked the more I craved to be empty
\nIn order to be filled.
\nRoaming, strolling, drifting –
\nforms of knowledge, clutches of faith.
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1996-2008. Moving 5 times between 6 addresses.
\nI have acquired the enchantment of Century 21:
\nIn a square-meter work-space I command an ever-expanding unknown space.
\nEmptiness swells around me as I breathe freely.
\nTaking time to empty my mind.
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Brown blue fish tail narrow strips. Hum. Hum. Minute motion direction heart pounding skin vibrating. A piece of chocolate spent still not a word not a single word utters not a single utterable language. Leadership peanuts collective craving oily slippery woody-fishy flavour the aroma of rice in a cup that churns out coffee for strengthening for waving a pen racing through pages. Dream words nightmarish utterances i-i ya-ya i-yi-a-ya become songs or novels or poetry or ballads nothing settles in frame in order but a hiss of smoggy steamy smoke pure words, phrases, structures, naked utterances bare articulations. Curses break down revealing olive humour.Hypothesis. Speculations. Vaulting. Chippi chippi drizzling rain writing stories of the past-to-be. Old days present days all to be excavated for a trace of the city’s origins. Water and waves come washing me. Me. I. Drowned. Immersed. Drowned. Submerged. Contrasted. Constructed.
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(… to be continued…)
\n1 January 2018, 4:00-5:00 pm, Las Palmas, Canary Islands, Spain. (London time-zone)
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Related post: Chinese version of the poem: 我跨過了兩個世紀的門檻 （一）http://floatingprojectscollective.net/coffee-fantasia/living-across-2-centuries01/
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