Persistence Leads to Wu Wei

I was missing Charlotte, hadn't seen her on the web (her web, not this one) for several days, but I've been a little preoccupied with my own tangled webs, complicated projects and deadlines and difficult people and, I should say too, some extraordinary people.  We make a lot of fuss about teamwork, and when the right people come together, it can be wu wei.

So at the end of the tunnel, a clear sky, trade winds, no vog, head cold subsiding, new month calendar pages, and a debugged spreadsheet as delicate and perfect as a spider's who's off the drugs. And when a spreadsheet works, that's a wu wei. But it took hairpulling persistence and effort to get it to that point. Well, at least for me: word processors, page layout and image processing programs are my interest (and therefore, expertise). Excel is not.

Spider pointing to the moon. Or is the moon pointing to the spider?

And Charlotte is back, having apparently renovated her own little spreadsheet, spinning silk and now resting on it.  Could she feel as exhilarated as I do, finishing a difficult task?  Well, she gets to stay put and gaze at the moon, while I'm looking forward to a trip back East...to both coasts really.  I'll be in DC on election day, then return with a stop on the Oregon coast.  The vision of Cannon Beach, likely in the cold and damp rain (a nice change from Hawaii), has been keeping me inspired and moving forward.

Cannon Beach, Oregon

Looks a little like Guilin, but at the edge of the Pacific.  In a couple of weeks, I hope to have some nice photos of the area of my own to put up here.  Persistence pays off.

Monumental Capitols (Part 2)

Escaping the over-air-conditioned business conference rooms in our close-to-the-Capitol Hyatt, I took opportunities to thaw out (easily done in the high heat) and sample some area pleasures:

• briefly browsing the National Gallery where I contemplated the difference between Western and Chinese paintings; looking at a famous Rembrandt or Rubens is not a bad way to spend a coffee break.
• walking through the Georgetown University Law Center grounds and Chinatown (such as it is in Washington; Beijing doesn't really have a gweilo town, having dispensed with the foreign concessions some decades ago).
• taking the Metro from Union Station to the Pentagon Center mall (where I actually bought a copy of Mandarin Rosetta Stone software--I'm such a sucker for personable, good-looking salesmen at mall kiosks. I suppose this is a good location for Rosetta Stone, a lot of diplomats and lobbyists who might need to acquire a second language).
• dinner and drinks with a friend from China pilgrimage 2010 in the oldest Irish pub in Washington, dating all the way back to...1967. (I thought maybe Thomas Jefferson might have tossed back a shot of Jameson's there, but more likely a Kennedy.)

Leaving the Nation's Capitol in a cheap cab ride that allowed me to glimpse the Washington Monument and other familiar markers, I moved on for a long weekend in Portland, Oregon. I had a hotel reservation in a motel near my son's home, but somehow it seemed like I was supposed to stay here, a far cry from the Hyatt Capitol Hill, but still, what coincidence.

I haven't seen such retro signage and architecture since the Motel Vietnam, my one-time regular home-away-from-home in Central Florida, which has as much in common as not, with Oregon, as like and different as Washington and Beijing.

If you're open to it, you can be at home and happy no matter where you land. Especially if there are flowers, imbued as they are with memory, as well as fragrance and color. Maybe this was my Summer of Flowers (the Summer of Love long past). Here's a sampling from Beijing to Washington and Portland (not that we don't have a profusion of flowers all the time in Hawaii):

Peonies in Beijing

Hibiscus in Washington:

Roses, waning slightly, in the parking lot of my motel in Portland:

And just to round things out, lotus at Lu San Yuan Chinese Garden in Portland, sister city to Suzhou, China.

Monumental Capitals (Part 1)

I notice a lot of blogs I read have been a little stalled lately, perhaps it is the laziness of hot dog days, or just that summer is busy with travel and leisure. I feel stalled, but have compelled myself to share some observations about my recent travel.

My May China trip was certainly personal, but I mixed a little pleasure with business during a trip to Washington, D.C., a town I haven't visited in decades, and even then it was with grandparents or Girl Scouts. I vaguely remember cherry blossoms and a spitting camel at the Washington Zoo, or that may just be because of photos of me at four with Grammy and Pap. I have more valid memories of the Girl Scout trip, lead partly by my co-troop-leader mother, who made me call her "Mrs." and never paid any more attention to me and my troubles than any of the other Scouts, some of whom "sneaked a boy into their room." (I couldn't get away with that.) We visited our Congressman, and I sliced my big toe open (not in Congress). Mom made me drip blood in the bathroom. "Don't bleed on the hotel carpet!" she advised. "Bleed in the bathroom!"

I measured this recent trip against the recent walkabouts in Beijing. I was in D.C. during the budget debates and heat wave--but you'd never have known the dealing was going on just by walking around, although the heat was obvious and oppressive. I wanted to contrast the capitals, but found more in common than not. Yes, one party versus two, but really, which government gets more or less done. One is impotent, the other reckless; I leave it to you to determine which is which. It's kind of yin/yang.

It would appear that Congress has gotten the message.

The Great Hall of the People! Walk don't linger.

A constant police presence at the Capitol.

A constant police presence in Tiananmen. But this guy doesn't have the luxury of dougnuts in an air-conditioned squad car while on duty.

A bronze lion guards Capitol Hill.

A Yuan Dynasty stone lion guards something imperial.

Warriors for the people, justice for all!

Warriors for the people, but these guys don't have any shade trees.

I left Washington for a brief sojourn in Oregon before returning to the 50th State, which is just about as close to Beijing as it is Washington, at least judging by my air travel time.

More irony to follow in Part 2.