Nineteen
To write, from one language to another, is like migration. The journey is long and arduous. I think, reason and seek solutions with the same mind, I clear a path that’s been overgrown with bushes and weeds, to walk to the open sea, I see one dimension, a different language reveals another. These planes overlap each other like musicians playing chamber music together. Language cannot be translated, it’s loaded with culture and experience. A bilingual feels the beauty of both, can truly get close, still failing to align with the soul. I’ve tried to be my own translator, only ending up in writing something new. To write in a second language I nurture my other mind; another immigrant, curious, awkward; always messy I stutter and stumble over words. Now I see flowers, I hear songbirds, someone says 早晨, I see the sun also rises, early, on top of the hour.