Might as well face it

"Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen it ..."

I always loved that line. So much power and confidence. A calm declaration laced with pride. An intimation of secret channels, open only to the few, that bring the blissful touch of the Divine.

I enjoy the way it rolls out of my mouth when i say it. the double long "e" ... anyway. I sit and dream a lot, and usually i dream of the possible future, but also the possible past, the possible present. I set my daunting intellect against the legions of possibilities and intone to myself, mid dream: "Everything is proceeding ..."

I nod and make a face of inscrutable wisdom, don my dunce cap and stumble into the sunlight. A few friends might be thinking that all of the interesting things that have happened in the past few months here might be getting me down. But I am actually in the most perfect place, in a time of perfection. Everything is proceeding.

Allow me to elaborate on what "everything" actually is:

I arrived in China 8 years ago on August 25th, 2000. My current visa expires on the 25th of August, 2008. The number 8 ... well I like it and so do the Chinese. The Olympics end on the 25th of August. The Beijing Olympics were sought after in 2000, announced a year later.

So I am leaving to Portland and such, and just in case I couldn't get out of my house on my own, China has decided to help me out by tearing it down, sometime in the next two months.

When I first arrived in China, I was living out of a bag, writing random stuff about everything. Seems like I'll be leaving that way. I figured 2008 would be a crazy year, personally as well as in general. And it is. Obama, Tibet, earthquakes and volcanoes, floods and the dollar sinking ... I'll be headed to Portland basically when the shit hits the fan concerning Obama vs. McCain. The Celtics gonna take the title ... it seems to me to be a perfect circle, and of course my perspective is the only one that counts.

I knew all along that it (this first stint in China) would end like this. It only ends like this. In my daydreams of possibilities spanning time, i foresaw all of this. Still I stumble and shield my eyes. I find staring at my cats, plants or wandering butterflies helps.

(I am a child of the 80s and 90s .... my deep thoughts are gleaned from shallow puddles in the pitted asphalt -- and i dare to say that puddles reflect sunlight as well, my friends, as true as bell peals, cricket hums and reflections of stained glass in the holy water.)

What is actually happening is the observer and the actor are wrestling again.

I had dreams of rage last night, righteous and impotent. My friends say I have a pit of rage in my belly. I think its just fire. I am too dim to comprehend all of the layers of reality that make my belly burn.

I just know that everything is proceeding (as I have foreseen it), but if i were to constantly rely on that statement, well I might meet the same fate as the one who uttered it ...

THEREFORE:

Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen it, Inshallah.