Brain Twist

Today, sitting in my doctor's office, I was reading Russell's The Problems of Philosophy. My doctor is Chinese and the office is in Chinatown. The predominant language in the office is Mandarin. Now I study Mandarin, so occasionally I'll catch a phrase, word or familiar sound. Imagine reading about the nature of reality (in English) while being submerged in a sea of language that you only peripherally understand. I am just beginning to grasp that everything might only exist in our minds as sense data when they call the woman next to me. She is asleep so I lightly nudge her. She gets up but forgets her file. I pick it up and hand it to her saying" Ni de..." (meaning "Yours..."). She takes it and says "Xie xie ni" (thank you). I go back to reading about that damn table.

Grey Matter

Yesterday I went to see Van Gogh and the Colors of Night at MOMA. He does this beautiful consideration of vision without sun, under moonlight and the in between stages of sunset and moon rise. I had forgotten what a colorist he is with greys. Later I went to my Mandarin class and began to develop a wonderful, itchy case of Chinese Head.
The state of brain amidst the wordless eloquence and the musical/visual language has an underwater richness and a similar lack of gravity.