It's always easier to say good-bye when you know it's just a prelude to hello.
Times have changed since a certain author was executed for murdering his publisher. They say that when the author was on the scaffold he said good-bye to the minister and to the reporters, and then he saw some publishers sitting in the front row below, and to them he did not say good-bye. He said instead, "I'll see you again."
Saying Good-bye to the God of Disease (2) Thousands of willow branches in a spring wind. Six hundred million of China, land of the gods, and exemplary like the emperors Shun and Yao. A scarlet rain of peach blossoms turned into waves and emerald mountains into bridges. Summits touch the sky. We dig with silver shovels and iron arms shake the earth and the Three Rivers. God of plagues, where are you going? We burn paper boats and bright candles to light his way to heaven.
There's nothing here to say good-bye to. There's no dancing girl. No mischievous smile. She's gone, off with her sisters, broken free, escaped. And if she were here now, she would say, "Go.
I like to drop in on people who picked on me in high school or whatever, just out of the blue, and chat with them to see how they think of me now that I'm a big star. Usually they're a lot nicer. After about half an hour, I excuse myself to go to the bathroom, and leave a few DVDs or pictures there. Then when I come out, I say good-bye and leave. Then I call the cops.
You can even get used to having a hole in your life where someone used to live. A hole where you thought they'd live for always, except that one day they just step sideways, without looking back or saying good-bye, and vanish forever.
Saying Good-bye to the God of Disease (1) Mauve waters and green mountains are nothing when the great ancient doctor Hua To could not defeat a tiny worm. A thousand villages collapsed, were choked with weeds, men were lost arrows. Ghosts sang in the doorway of a few desolate houses. Yet now in a day we leap around the earth or explore a thousand Milky Ways. And if the cowherd who lives on a star asks about the god of plagues, tell him, happy or sad, the god is gone, washed away in the waters. July 1, 1958
Then he exploded. "No!" he said. That familiar injunction. I'd heard it so many times. "No. I cannot take this steel. It would not be correct." He opened his knife drawer. "It goes here," he said, "until you return."(That's how you leave: by never saying good-bye.)And I learned that: to return. I came back the following year and the year after that. I hope to return every year (after all, I may never have the chance to learn so much), until I have no one to return to. (301)
I guess that's what saying good-bye is always like--like jumping off an edge. The worst part is making the choice to do it. Once you're in the air, there's nothing you can do but let go.
Life was a series of greetings and farewells, one was always saying good-bye to something, to someone.
Before I went to the Mess I made the excuse I wanted to get something out of my aeroplane, and climbed into the cockpit; I did this, however, to be able to say good-bye to the old dear; and I really felt dreadfully sorry to part with her. I get very attached to aeroplanes, and I am one of those people who think that they aren't so inanimate as we are told they are.
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