take a little picture put it in my pocket

I want to remember things.

I want to take a little picture of everything. I want to carry the picture around in my pocket so I can take it out and look at it and remember.

I want a picture that captures an entire evening spent with a dorm room full of boys wandering around the room that serves as my apartment as they go about the laborious task of making Tibetan meat dumplings. One kneads dough until his arms become visibly sore, two dash out to reappear with the largest thermos of butter tea they can carry, one vanishes into the kitchen to grind meat for an hour periodically peeking around the corner with bloody knife in hand and sideways baseball cap, two sit and make conversation and do what they can to appear to be part of the process, another washes bowls, another finds some good music to listen to. The dumplings finished, the light dim, the stomachs bulging, the butter tea thermos dry: a snapshot of eight boys around a table straining to understand their foreign teacher.

I want a picture of the cigarette burned backseat of the bus where two ten year old Chinese girls sit giggling and translating every English word they know to the neighboring foreigner. Then the small girl with short hair and high heels reaches into her bag and pulls out a camera to take pictures of the foreigner so as not to miss such a unique opportunity: a snapshot of a moment with a stranger.

I want a picture of my Tibetan friend's face when the creepy old butter smelling grandfather picked up our dented, stained thermos of sweet tea the second time and poured our drinks before hobbling back to his busted wooden seat to resume his career of watching us. A snapshot capturing the exact instant before a face as black as death burst into the uncontrollable laughter reflecting the giggles which I had desperately been trying to stuff back into my mouth and labeled with the rebuke "don't smile so loudly or he will come back!"

I want a picture of the monk with his foot propped up on a pillow and wrapped in gauze as he beams proudly knowing that the entire monastery is now at his beck and call. An old man paces back and forth, cleaning things, filling cups with revoltingly bland tea, humming. A monk leaning on burgundy pillows amidst burgundy sheets and a cool breeze blowing through the cracks in the wall. A foreign teacher and a student and a bag full of food and medicine squat in various positions on the rough floor. A snapshot of unusual friendship and a quasi king with a broken leg.

I want a picture of the straight bangs and long curly hair framing the dimpled face of a Chinese student who uses 'ok' to mean 'I think so too' as she knocks on my door to hand me a crocheted handbag made by her mother and shipped in from mainland complete with large pink flowers. A snapshot of hospitality at its most endearing.

I want a picture of my small Tibetan friend as she haggles for a cheaper price for the cushions as I stand conspicuously silent and shy off to the side and the stacks of bedding sway from the intensity of the argument. It would necessarily contain the shops full of miscellaneous junk watching us battle the stumble drag of the awkwardly shaped cushions to the back of the taxi, and the lid of the green tea bottle which promises us a free one to our disproportional excitement. A snapshot of a relationship cemented by home improvement projects.

I want a picture of my student as he sweats through his midterm exam after not having come to a single day of class the entire semester yet. The bench groaning as he shifts his weight in a struggle to remember things he's never really been taught. My own surprise and relief as he manages somehow to pass and his expression of confusion and something entirely different as he hears a teacher beg him, in his own language, to come to class because she is so proud of him. Something it's obvious he's never heard before. A snapshot of the exact moment when a boy decides he's going to change his life.

I want a picture able to capture the intonation of Mr. Wu as he teaches about parking tickets to a glassy eyed class of freshmen in a Mr. Rodgers meets Eeore spoken English to the unending amusement of the foreign teacher observing him. The dust swirls on the chalkboard around his childish drawing of a police officer and the pale yellow curtains turning the gray room a shade of dingy never before imagined. And his expression of utter joy and slight surprise upon recieving a slip of paper containing a list of praises she had written during the observation. A snapshot of gaps bridged.

I want to take a little picture which has every cup of tea, every minute of every conversation, every expression, every molding bench, every crumbling wall, every sweetly scented bush with small flowers, every sunrise, every crystal clear night, every soupy oily bowl of squirming noodles, every sticky grain of rice, every mildly revolting bus seat, every tiny oddly pink hued bird, every gift, every person, every wrinkle on every face, every line of dirt under every fingernail, every glimpse of every life of joy and pain, struggle and success, mundane and miraculous...

and I want to put it in my pocket.

and I want to remember.