Word of Caution: This post is a bit more personal than most of my other ones.
Just yesterday, I was telling a friend that I don’t often get nostalgic or sentimental.
–Well, if it wasn’t for the moon.
In the past two weeks it’s been getting really warm here in California. Tonight, it feels like a typical summer night in May or June in Beijing. Out of coincidence, I discovered my old uniform t-shirt from my middle school. Upon invitation from the cool breeze outside, I went for a jog.
The air smells like baked grass seeds after a day of intense sunshine, I find this a universal “smell of summer”. Five years ago, it smelled just like this.
To be precise, the baked-grass smell plus the faint fragrance of roses around the playground in my middle school in Beijing. That was in May and June 2015, the two months before I left abroad, the two months when I voluntarily stayed at school for evening study sessions every day.
We would jog on the 400m track every evening during the 8:00–8:30pm study break. One time as we passed the south-west corner of the playground, I saw the full moon rise above the trees, floating beside the golden clock on the red brick teaching building. I remember, right there, right then, I thought of these lines：
去年元夜时 ，花市灯如昼。
Last year at the Lantern Festival,
On the flower fair, lanterns bright as day.
月上柳稍头，人约黄昏后。
As the moon rises above the willow,
There we met in dusk’s faded glow.
— 欧阳修 《生查子》<To the Tune of Shēng Zhā Zǐ> , by OuYang Xiu
As mentioned in the post <Frost on the Ground>, the Lantern Festival is on the 15th of the first month in Lunar Calendar, or the first full moon of the year.
In ancient times, this is the only day when unmarried young people — women especially — are implicitly allowed to step out of their houses to join the celebration of releasing lanterns for good fortune (or attending a clandestine rendezvous under the full moon). If that is not enough deprivation of individual freedom, the young people back then had no say on their marriages and mostly end up marrying a total stranger chosen by their parents. Even without family feuds, most young couples would still find themselves in a Romeo & Juliette scenario and few ends up happily ever after.
I am very sorry, but there is a second half to this poem.
今年元夜时，月与灯依旧。
This year at the Lantern Festival,
The moon and lanterns remain here still.
不见去年人，泪满春衫袖。
Where we met last year, I stand alone;
My tears flood, my sleeves soaked.
— 欧阳修 《生查子》<To the Tune of Shēng Zhā Zǐ> , by OuYang Xiu
It is not full moon today. Here I stand on this grass field. I can smell baked-grass-seed, this smell of California spring/summer that you must have grown so familiar with. Here I stand under this starry night, under this sky that has watched you stand here alone in the past four years.
人有悲欢离合，月有阴晴圆缺。
Men may sorrow, rejoice, part, reunion;
Moon may brighten, dim, wax, and wane;
Ever changing, never as planned.
— 苏轼 《水调歌头》<To the Tune of Shuǐ Diào Gē Tóu , by Su Shi
I suppose it is as it is.
