the many days of mural, part II

So, despite some doggie help, I have finally finished work on the mural. I can't believe it's done!


The painted Chinese characters is a proverb written by the upcoming baby's grandfather. Roughly translated it says,“In the pureness and innocence of childhood, true joy and happiness.”

This is my favorite part of the mural. The tree will be used as a growth chart, which is why the banner says, "Oh, how you've grown!" Originally it was going to include the baby's name but since that keeps changing, we decided to leave it out.


All in all the mural took about ten days to do. It may have been ten, ten-hour days, mind you. I think I might have lost some weight in the process. I definitely lost sleep as you can tell from my haggard appearance. Haggard, but happy!

the many days of mural

My good friends Luke and Ranida are about to have a baby. So as a baby gift, I offered to paint a mural for their nursery. Of course, I have never painted a mural before but I thought, "Hey, I'm a professional illustrator, right? How hard can it be?" With my confidence in overabundance, I assured them that I could get the wall done in a few days, maybe a week.

So I drew up some sketches and got the okay for this one:



And calmly began painting in the background.


Then the snags began. My oh-so-smart idea of projecting the image onto the wall failed miserably. The room was too shallow for the image to project accurately and I spent the day wrestling with it.



Finally, I just gave up and drew everything freehand. Which was quite time-consuming.


And of course my pencil marks were so messy, I had to outline in paint just to see what I had drawn.


It was quite a relief to actually start painting color. But to get to this stage took about twice the amount of time anticipated.


And at this point, I just hope I get the mural done before the baby gets here!



to be continued...

pumpkins

My friends have been really great in keeping my life full. Most recently, Jon and Loretta brought over some pumpkins to carve which was much fun.


Strangely, Jon decided to carve a Totoro pumpkin while I made mine into a Cylon. Totoro is a character from a sweet Japanese animation. A Cylon is an evil robot in Battlestar Galactica, a somewhat geeky sci-fi show. Somehow it seemed the pumpkins were carved by the wrong people. As Loretta put it, "It's as if we are in some kind of bizarro-land."

But that was until we lit them up. With the lights off and a the pumpkins glowing, we realized Jon's Totoro was quite menacing while my Cylon was rather cute.

you only lose what you cling to

Nine months ago, before Robert's illness became obviously terminal, I had been researching Buddhist quotes for my new novel. Without really considering the meaning, I wrote down the quote "you only lose what you cling to" as an offhand possibility. But as these last few months have progressed that quote seems to repeat in my head, becoming an anchor in an onslaught of emotional storms.

Caring for and watching someone you love die is a revelation. Only in Robert's death did I ever feel the emotions of life so purely and passionately. In that single moment, life and death balanced each other, becoming the same thing wrapped in one.

But that moment passed. Imperceptibly, Robert's death has begun to fade; and as his death diminishes in my life, the urge to cling to it beckons. Because to live in that moment of pure emotion, the moment where black and white become the same color, is to deny death. It allows me to feel that Robert is alive.

But to be in that moment of denying death, one must also deny life. To feel that Robert is alive, my own life must pay the price. And to do that, to squander my life in his name, would be the one thing he would not forgive me for.

So I have been letting go. Letting go of the memories, of the pure emotions, of the desperate times and flashes of beauty. And in this release, the meaning of the quote I wrote down long ago becomes clear to me. Clinging to Robert's death makes me feel as if I could lose his life. Letting it go makes me feel as if I can gain my own.

Robert Salvatore Mercer

Our dearly beloved Robert passed away on Monday, August 27, 2007 at the age of 35. Robert, with his great passion for life, accomplished many dreams. With a Bachelor in Architecture degree from Rhode Island School of Design and a Master of Architecture degree in Urban Design from Harvard University, he led a successful career including work with world-renowned architect Frank Gehry. He was a remarkable man who battled Ewings Sarcoma Cancer for over five years with strength, spirit, and determination. After being diagnosed, Robert and his wife founded Robert's Snow: for Cancer's Cure, which to date has raised more than $200,000 for cancer research.

Robert was blessed with wonderful parents, Anna Valente and Edward Mercer, a loving wife and soulmate Grace Lin, his sister Alison (husband Garry Butler), his brothers Tam and Greg, and an adoring grandmother Angela Rossi Valente. Robert will be lovingly remembered by his aunt Vicki and uncle Tony Valente, his cousins Michael (wife Lori Martins) and Lisa, the Lin family, as well as his many relatives and friends. We wish to celebrate Robert’s life; we welcome all those friends and loved ones who want to celebrate with us.

Visitation at:
Centre funéraire Côte-des-Neiges
4525 Côte-des-Neiges road, Montréal
(514) 342-8000
on Thursday, September 6, 2007 from 4 to 9 p.m. and on Friday, September 7, 2007 from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. followed by a religious ceremony in the chapel of the funeral home at 10:30 a.m.

In lieu of flowers, we would ask that you make a donation, in Robert’s name, towards Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Jimmy Fund
Attn: Lauren Nash 10 Brookline Place West, 6th Floor, Brookline, MA 02445-7226. Please make checks out to "Robert's Snow."

a real life Ling and Ting

Shortly, after posting about my new project, I received this wonderful e-mail. It reminded me why creating children's books is the best job ever. And it makes me want to paint Ling and Ting in striped sailor dresses.

Dear Ms. Grace Lin,

Our names are Jennifer MeiDe and Rebekah MeiRui. We are ten years old and we are home schooled. We were born in Hefei China, but now we live in the United States. We are identical twins.

We have several books by you. The first book our Mom and Dad bought was Dim Sum For Everyone! The book we liked the most is The Year Of The Dog. Both of us can't wait to get The Year Of The Rat because our Dad and we were all born in that year.

We like your books and know that your new book will be Ling and Ting. This new book is about Chinese American twins, just like us. We look the same, but we have many differences. Jennifer loves to draw paper dolls of people. Rebekah loves to draw animals and draw background scenes.

We each write stories, but we write different kinds of stories. We are taking an online writing course at Northwestern University. Both of us like origami, just like in your other book, Lissy’s Friends , but we each make different kinds of origami figures. When we were babies, Rebekah wore a red ribbon and Jennifer wore a yellow ribbon so that they could tell us apart. Both of us still like those different colors as our favorites today.

We do the same things, but we do them in different ways. If you have any questions about Chinese American twins, please e-mail us.

Becky
and
Jenny

Rebekah(on right) and Jenny (on left)

new project

Well, I'm thrilled to announce that my new pet project has officially been acquired! Yippee!

This project will be my first early reader--think along the lines of Frog and Toad, Amelia Bedelia. So not a picturebook, like Lissy's Friends and not a novel like Year of the Dog. A whole different beastie for an age group in between those two types. Very exciting!

Ling and Ting will be an early reader about twin Chinese-American girls (it also marks my first Asian book that does not feature my family members!). Why twins?

Well, originally, they were triplets. This book actually has been brewing for many years. Just like how Year of the Dog was an homage to the Betsy books, this early reader began as an homage to the Flicka, Dicka and Ricka books I used to read.
(I had to paint Ling & Ting in the same dotted dresses!)

But even though my vision was for identical girls, I felt a tad uncomfortable-- would I be encouraging that whole "All Asians look alike" stereotype? So I put the story away and let the idea sit and sit. For years.

And then in 2005, a group in Portland, ME put on a play of the Ugly Vegetables. There, I met the cutest Asian twin girls I've ever seen. As I watched them share cookies but eat them in completely different ways, a light went off in my head. Suddenly, I knew how the book should be written and that I needed to give the early reader another shot.

So I went home and scratched and rewrote and resketched, with a different outlook. The shift was subtle, but important--as it finally justified (to me) why the characters had to be identical.

Because, whereas the theme of many of my other books have been how even when people look different, there are many similiarities--the theme of this book is how when people look the same, there are many differences.

And that is the story behind the story of Ling and Ting! It's strange how books with the fewest and simplest words seem to take the longest to produce. In fact, I think this blog post might be longer than the actual manuscript!

what I'm reading now

Elaine tagged me with What Books Are You Reading?, which made me want to look up the most erudite books on Amazon and claim them as my bedside companions. Yes, I'm reading House of War and American Theocracy. Yes, yes, of course I am (haha, I haven't read an adult book in 5 years).


Okay, honestly, right now I have been brushing up on my Chinese folk and fairy tales with books like, Tales of a Chinese Grandmother, Chinese Fairy Tales and Fantasies and Tales from China because I am in the midst of trying to write my new novel. It's a novelization of a Chinese folktale with other folktales and myths woven through. It may or may not work as I'm taking lots and lots of artistic license and letting my westernized views influence the story. It's quite a bit more ambitious than my other books. But I'm giving it a shot, and as Samuel Beckett said (I read this on someone else's blog),"Try again. Fail again. Fail better." I'm going for the "fail better."


I'm also reading the Houndsley and Catina books, the Mr. and Mrs. Green books and the Zelda and Ivy books as research for... shhh! a new book that I'm not suppose to reveal yet. Hmm, maybe I shouldn't have said anything about my above novel either, but oh well. Interesting how the question, What are you reading? is answered by what I am writing!

coming to an end

My Hong Kong adventure is winding down and the end is within sight. I leave tommorrow after a whirl-wind last day of presentations, possible interview, workshop and dinner (my plane leaves at 1 AM!). This will probably be my last post actually in Hong Kong. It's been a wonderful time. I've made new friends, taken over 700 photos, gained weight and have a whole extra bag of stuff to bring back. All the signs of a grand adventure.

commute

Yesterday was my last day of school presentations at HKIS. So I decided to mark the occasion by cataloguing my commute from the hotel to the school. For the past week, I've gotten up in the morning and caught a taxi like this:

Once I get a cab, I hand the driver this piece of paper, which is the address of the school in Chinese. Most drivers don't speak English, so the written address is essential.

Then I am driven through the congested city,

pass the cemetary,

and into the countryside towards Repulse Bay.

On the way, this building always strikes me. It was recently renovated, the whole pastel part was just added. The hole is built to ensure good feng shui. Apparently when a building is against the mountain a hole allows the dragon to still come out. Poetic, isn't it? However, I also heard a story that the developer saw something like this in Disneyland and just copied it for his own building. I hope that the motivation for the hole is the former, not the latter. Then I can forgive that awful peach color.

Finally, I drive pass Repulse Bay,


and up the mountain,


where I reach the Hong Kong International School. For the past 6 days, arriving there has given me a strange sense of homecoming. I'm rather sad that I won't be doing the commute again.