10/02/2024
A Tree Moving in the Wind --to Lyn (a brief intro to My Life: excerpt coming soon in Chinese)
I met Lyn Hejinian at Naropa, Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, 1996, and we became lifelong friends since then.
It was my first time teaching at Naropa, for the third week of the summer workshops: translation and poetry. I remember the faculty roster: Ann Waldman，Jack Colum, Keith Abbot, Steven Taylor, Lyn Hejinian…
The day I arrived at Boulder, I received an inquiry: Lyn’s hotel room fell through for some reason. Would I be willing to share my room with her?
I was delighted. I’d been a fan of her work. Of all the language poetry, I love Lyn’s work the most. My Life shook my core the first time I read it. People told me it was difficult, dense, hard to enter, and easy to get lost in her dreamlike maze. For some reason, I could slip into her dreams at ease, and come out with delightful treasures, each time. I taught it in my poetry class in New School and Pratt. I told my students: read it only when you’re very tired, sleepy, hungry, even drunk, i.e., when your frontal lobe wasn’t functioning properly. Even better, have someone read it to you at bedtime, till you fall asleep, so that you can take My Life into your dreamland, then wait for the magic.
The students giggled, looked at each other in disbelief, then at me as if I were crazy. But they followed the assignment, because the poem they wrote after My Life was their best piece, always, as if they were touched by a muse, by Lyn.
I told her about this upon our first meeting. She laughed! Her voice was quiet, her eyes shining with intelligence. She had a kind face. One may not notice her right away. When she laughed, it became brilliant and beautiful. I felt an immediate connection with her, like fish swimming at the bottom of the river, no splashing or waves at surface, yet something was moving, deep down.
“You got it right, Ping,” she said. “I wrote My Life with my second brain. So of course it should be read this way. It’s the only way.”
I laughed with her, even though I had no idea what the “second brain” meant at that time. It sounded and felt right, in my gut: the second brain, the dream work, the spirit world, the subliminal consciousness…that is poetry. It led my life from a small island in the East China Sea to Beijing to NYC to Naropa to Lyn.
We had a blast teaching and playing at Naropa. Jack Colum took us to the Rocky Mountains. Young and cocky, I ran all the way to the snowcap, and got seriously sick after we came down. I threw up everything I ate that morning.
“Not fair,” I whined., “ why was I being punished?”
“Because we followed the mountain,” said Lyn. “And you tried to conquer the mountain.”
“Nobody can conquer the mountain, no one!” said Jack.
I laughed with them, and we became lifelong friends.
Our correspondence continued after that summer, through mail and email. Lyn loved her typewriter, even though she had started using her computer. She told me about her typing her stories in her bedroom as a child, then as a rebel in college. But in each letter, she talked about her morning Taichi with Master Wu, how much she loved it, how it calmed her and centered her. It was a constant flow, she wrote, yet she had never felt such stillness within. “It’s strange that taichi is supposed to be an marital art, and we’re supposed to move like a warrior, yet I feel like a tree moving in the wind.”
When she wished she wanted me to visit her house and her visiting my house, I invited her to Macalester College. She talked to my students with such grace, kindness and wisdom. My students remembered her after many years. She was the first visitor I invited. It opened the door to the 80 more visitors afterwards, during my 20 years of teaching at Mac.
My last correspondence with her was right before the Covid. She encouraged me to try the poetry professorship job at Stanford, said she’d write a letter on my behalf. Then I never heard from her again. I wasn’t worried at first. She was busy preparing her retirement from Berkely. I knew her history there, from being hired to tenured. Never easy. Academia is not easy for poets or artists, especially for those who create with our “second brains,” with our “guts,” as “warriors and rebels,” and “trees moving in the wind.”
I had just gone through the toughest period of my life in academia myself. Most people thought I’d be “dead.” But I had my ten years of training in traditional Chinese medicine, and my research focused on the brain, specifically on the enteric brain, our gut brain, aka the “second brain,” or the “third brain.” It consists of sheaths of neurons embedded in the walls of the long tube of our gut, measuring about nine meters end to end from the esophagus to the a**s, with over a hundred million neurons deciding who we are, how we feel and act… The more I learned about the gut brain, the easier and more confident I became sailing through the storms.
And I understand My Life more and more.
I knew she’d sail smoothly with her second brain, her taichi, her family.
Then I heard the news. Lyn has left this world. I would not believe it. I’ve been with her and her writing all these years, since 1996. I’ve been teaching My Life to hundreds, thousands of my students. Her poetry has touched each of them, including mine. She can’t leave us.
I started translating My Life, so that my Chinese students can enter the amazing world through her poetry. I told them to read it in their dreams, then try to write in dreams.
And they return with the most amazing poems, just like my American students.
When Overseas Magazine wants to publish excerpts of My Life in Chinese, and asks me to write a short piece to introduce Lyn to Chinese readers, I found her letters in my computer, dated since we met at Naropa. I was surprised. I remember our correspondences to each other, in physical letters. She liked to put her words on paper, then mailed them to me, along with her new books. I have her whole set of books she ever published, all signed to “Dear Ping.” What surprised me is that I don’t remember ever typing her letters on the computer, because I just don’t do that. But somehow her letters appeared digitally, in the cloud, forever. Did I do it subliminally, in my sleep? If I hadn’t typed them, would I still have found these letters, these memories? I have been moving around so much all my life, and I’ve lost lots of documents, papers, letters…before the digital age.
But I’m not surprised at all that Lyn’s words appear on my computer. It all seems so natural, so enteric, so “second brain.” All I can say is to repeat what she wrote in her last letter: Dearest Ping, I do love to practice taichi every dawn and dusk. I feel like “a tree moving in the wind.”
And tears would come to my eyes every time I read this line. She is not just a poet! She is poetry, swaying like a tree, this way and that, listening to the wind, playing with the wind, always laughing, free, joyful, wherever she is, on earth, in cosmos.
在风中行走的树
我第一次见到琳.赫锦年是1996，纳罗帕大学杰克·凯鲁亚克脱离躯体诗歌学院。我们一见面，即成君子之交。
那时我刚开始用英文发表诗歌。得到全美诗歌奖后，第一次受邀来纳罗帕大学教诗歌与翻译。诗歌学院的夏日培训班，一共四周，每个星期都云集了世界级诗歌大师，每周都有一个主题，我所在的第三周是诗歌与翻译，我看到赫锦年的名字也在里面，心里尤其喜悦。
我一下丹佛的飞机，上了学院的车子，还没坐稳，便告知赫锦年的房间落空了，而我的房间是套房，有两张床，我能否和她挤一两个晚上，等房间空出来了，马上让她搬出去。
我说那太好了！我一直就想认识赫锦年。语言诗歌派系里的诗人，我最喜爱的是她的作品，尤其是《我的生命》。人人告诉我，她的作品很沉重，很难进去，即使进去了，肯定会迷路，走不出来。但我却出入自由，每次进去，都能得到许多惊喜。每次教赫的作品时，我特别布置学生们必须在极度疲倦饥饿困乏悲伤烦恼愤怒的时刻去读《我的生命》，但最好的时机是入睡前，让人读给你听，直到《我的生命》带你进入梦的世界。也就是说，用下意识和梦境去读，才有用。学生们你看看我，我看看你，嘿嘿地乐，不敢相信这个中国老师会出这样的疯狂的作业。但他们每个人都认真地照办，因为他们交上来的作业，都完全超越他们的水平，都到达可以发表的水准，仿佛他们在梦中，被赫锦年的缪斯加持。
和琳见面时，我告诉她教授《我的生命》种种的神奇故事。她大笑，说：“对啊，那是我用第二大脑写的，当然该用第二大脑去阅读喽。”
她说话的声音温和，她的脸平易近人。她笑起来的时候，两眼炯炯有神，闪着智慧，她茂密的金发，在科罗拉多州巨石城的阳光下，火焰般地燃烧。
我跟着笑。当时还不懂什么是第二大脑，只觉得听起来对，感觉上对，直觉也对，精神和灵魂更对，如同诗歌，带我走出东海，穿越太平洋，来到纳罗帕，见到琳,一切合乎自然。
我们在纳罗帕结识了好几个诗人朋友，有俄国诗人伊利亚，他能背诵普希金的长诗，还有当地诗人杰克，他带我们上落基山著名的雪山。我仗着年轻力壮，一口气跑上山顶，结果下山后，大吐特吐，严重的高山反应。看上去柔弱的琳，年长的杰克和肥胖的伊利亚，反而无事。我很不服气。琳笑着说，我们顺其自然，慢慢地上山，你呢，要抗争自然，冲上山。杰克也笑着说：人与山斗，人必输。
我一边吐，一边跟着大笑。
分手后，我们一直保持联系。每封信里，她都细细地描述她的太极拳。她问为什么这绵绵不断的拳术，却最能让她的心安静下来，直到她的身变成风暴之眼，她的脚成为树根，深深地扎入土地。为什么属于武术的拳道，却让人觉得变成一棵树，在风里行走？这世上只有诗歌和太极才能让她进入这样的境界。为什么？这是为什么？
我当时因为身体不好，开始学习针灸自救，没想到一下子就迷上中医，专门研究大脑神经，尤其是第二大脑，就是腸神經系統(Enteric Nervous System，ENS)。它包含了圍繞在食道、胃、小腸、大腸內外的神經脈絡，粗估超過一億個神經細胞，數量甚至比脊髓還多。这些神经元，对我们的意识、潜意识、下意识、创造力和情感的支配，起着至关要紧的作用。
“因为你在用你的第二大脑打太极。” 我回答。
“王屏，你说的很对，”她回信。
我听得见她的笑声，劈劈啪啪地跳跃在打字机地键盘间。她虽有电脑，却仍然喜爱打字，尤其是写信给好朋友。她说，在打字机前坐下来，手指一碰到键盘，心扉便打开了，身体也回到了孩童时代，灵魂无忧无虑，干干净净，快乐无比。
她打太极时，也是那个境界吧。
新冠刚开始，她发给我一封长信，一切如常，写作，太极，爵士乐。她正在和柏克莱商谈荣誉退休的条件，她希望退休后可以早日开始做她最喜爱的事：写作，太极，听音乐，和她的丈夫拉瑞去墨西哥陪伴他们的孙子孙女。信的末端，她告诉我斯坦福大学正在征召诗歌教授，我应该去试试，她很愿意为我写推荐信。
我怔住了，她怎么知道我目前的处境？我所在的大学正竭尽全力要把我赶走，只是苦于我有终身教授的铁牌，学校除了每日给我穿小鞋，上下施压搅事，让我的日子痛苦难熬，也拿我没什么办法。现在双方就这么僵持着，看谁耗得过谁。我正在考虑是否要在这所大学浪费我的生命，在教授这颗树上吊死。我还有许多事情要完成，剩下的时日不多了。琳的信，为我打开无数的天窗。此处不要老娘，外面还有无限大的天地。终身教授这个光环，已成为我的锁链，该一刀斩断，获得自由，去做我最喜爱的事。
我写信告诉琳：我需要把自己所在学院的事处理完后，再考虑斯坦福。这次不成，以后还有机会。而且我正考虑是否会继续在学院里做下去。我已经把最宝贵的时间都给了教学，余下的生命该想想自己了。
然后我就再也没听到她的消息。开始我不着急。新冠期间，教学都在线上，感染的机会不多。况且她正在和柏克莱商谈退休，这是个艰难的过程。我知道琳从头到尾与柏克莱的故事，表面上光鲜荣耀，其实每一步都磕磕碰碰。琳的信件，没有细说详情，但我可以感觉到她的坎坷，她的心情。是她的写作，太极和拉瑞支撑着她的。愿她这次也能顺利过关。
然后我听到了琳去世的消息。我愣住了。她怎么可以离开我们，离开这个世界？她的生命应该是永恒的。那时我已经荣誉退休，永远离开了学院，同时在南京先锋书店开线上讲座，教授诗歌翻译。我让学生们翻译《我的生命》。我告诉他们：不要用上脑或下脑去阅读翻译这部作品，而是用你们的第二大脑，因为琳.赫锦年以她的梦、灵魂和五脏六腑去写这本书的，我们也只能在梦境和灵界与之交往。
我和琳只见过两次面，但我们对互相的理解和信任似乎源于前生，立于今生，流向来世。她给我的信，被我多年前输入电脑，虽然我根本不记得此举，甚至忘记我居然有还她的信件。在美国多次搬家，大部分的信件文件早已丢失，唯独琳的信都保存下来，而且自己居然不知道，直到我需要的时候，才突然出现。但我一点也不惊讶，一切合乎自然。
我也不悲伤。琳已获得真正的自由，在做她最喜爱的工作：太极，写作，和拉瑞、儿孙和朋友对话，用她的心肺、脾胃、肝胆，九曲回肠，这一亿多的神经元，这寸寸灌满柔情和智慧的第二大脑，正游荡宇宙，如太极，如 “在风中行走的树,”如生命，如诗歌，在宇宙里摇曳，无知无觉，无形无状，无求无欲，却绵绵不尽。
琳.赫锦年（1941-2024）：美国语言派诗人，柏克莱大学终身教授，出版35部诗集，翻译和诗歌理论。
