the sound of talking with your mouth shut

I’m having 3 teeth taken out tomorrow morning. Today, I wrote a whole email in Chinese.

I have a history of negligence regarding molars in my mouth. Despite loving food and eating I let my teeth go to the dentist crematorium. When I was about 6 or 7 I was gassed so I could have a lot of teeth taken out. The whole crew of dentists held me down so they could gas me. I can’t remember a lot of my childhood. I do remember that had a whole set of adult teeth by the time I was 8, about the same time I started to wear glasses. My teeth haven’t lasted that long and my eye sight deteriorates each year. But I guess in theory, things last longer when you take care of them. Same with people really.

I guess don’t mind being short sighted and having most of my teeth crowned with caps. But I guess, it’s what I’m used to. Maybe it’s so much that I appreciate what I still have, rather than what I don’t.

What I do mind is not knowing how to speak or write Chinese (Mandarin or Putounghua). And this, I have taken activity to rectify this of late and for the time to come. And so it’s quite pleasurable to have written a whole email in Chinese with help from my knowledge of Cantonese, my teach yourself afternoons and an online translator. I could have read it too. I have never known another language other than the ones I spoke while growing up and have never sought to learn another.

I think as people, we can get used to a lot. Normalcy can breed complacency and apathy that can lead to a stunting in personal growth. Maybe that’s what settling down means. I’m not sure. But it seems that there comes a point where we are tired of being single or dating or whatever and we want to stay with one person. You are lucky if you find that person you want to stay with sans no one else for the rest of your life but, it happens. So your accumalation of knowledge, wisdom and experience can now be applied to the one thing most people strive for- a stable, loving relationship. There are no more planets when one has found their world.

I once was lucky enough to find a world. Though it wasn’t one I belonged to. It had the climate of the English weather in one day, the four seasons. You can bring the umbrella with your tee shirt on but when the rain came, you weren’t sure you should put your umbrella up. And boy, did it come sideways, in the howling wind.

My point is this, that we are what we are because of, and we often are refined through a process of elimination, conscious or otherwise, to become what we continuously are. That once our sands run through clear through the many holes in time, we turn it over through the few holes we leave open. What we often do not leave open is our minds.

My personal point is this, after years of thinking one thing, I was offered another, and another and I saw them, and they were right for me. I chose to take them not because I haven’t turned over my sands, it’s because I turn them over and left not less holes, but different ones. This is right for me. Is the beginning of wisdom at the point where we admit that we know nothing? Or that we use our knowledge wisely? I think there is no answer.

My teeth being extracted leaves me yes with 3 less teeth but also with the knowledge that I can write an email in Chinese. Though maybe if I took care of my teeth, maybe I wouldn’t have been compelled to learn Chinese. Seemingly uncorrelated, but you see, everything is.

- J