Intimacy

If you were to ask most people about their trip to China, I presume the typical response you would receive would discuss the various cities the person visited, the food they ate, and the miscommunications that occurred. One thing I have noticed about myself is that I do not experience the world in the typical manner of most people. My response would probably follow along the lines of:
I can’t remember being this content in a long time. Despite the fact that nothing around me is familiar, I do not feel out of place. I am not lacking or wanting. Nothing seems to be missing.

I see the world not through facts and events but through emotions and experiences. When others see the world, I feel it. This is portrayed through my blog entries which have never mentioned Inner Mongolia, Shidu, the Great Wall, the Summer Palace, or the famous Beijing Opera. This is the reason it took me a week and a lot of courage before I was able to publish my first entry. I fear “the eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase [for now] I am formulated, sprawling on a pin … I am pinned and wriggling on the wall” (T.S. Eliot). (from my favorite poem) My words, laden with emotion, expose me. They are intimate with me, and I fear such intimacy should not be shared.