waipo’s hands (learning to love my grandmother)外婆的手
scenes from my trip home to dongguan - dec 2024
work in progress
project notes
我从来不知道外婆的手从她记事起就一直肿胀着。一双劳动者的手，一双caretaker的手。
这几年我和她的距离从江苏到广东变成中国到美国，从封控到covid travel bans再到解封之后的跨国送药和集体遗忘。她并不了解我的改变，心与心之间的距离在沉默和不解中越来越远。除了“亲人”这似乎绕不开的羁绊外，我并不知道该如何爱她，该如何看待她对我不完美的爱。
过去一年半，我回国了三次，她也从江苏搬到了广东。我终于开始了解她的生活 — 她关于鬼怪和逝者的梦，她对她妈妈的思念，她拇指上的印记，她头发上的两个旋，她皮肤干燥的纹路。我甚至和她在小区里几个朋友打成一片，见证她在七十多年的辛苦劳累后，第一次能有了自己的chosen family。
我也开始读懂她的口是心非。她总说自己是“老妖怪”，嫌弃我跟着她拍个不停，却也开始主动拉我去录她唱的山歌、骄傲地告诉朋友们我多爱陪着她。当我问她一些口述史的问题时，她总是回答不上来— “反正就是很苦，谁还记得？”或者觉得自己的生活没什么值得被了解的。“我的人生是失败的，”她云淡风轻的一句话让我心里一阵刺痛。
where language falls short, the body remembers. 手是她记忆的载体 — 在和面、做饭、洗碗的时候，那些触觉和气味总会触发她的回忆 — 关于童年卖豆腐和鞋垫谋生计，关于她的太太揉面摊饼的功夫，关于饥饿和病痛。每次回家，我都能看见自己在慢慢疗愈从组织/行动和不断的失去中中习得的reactive desire to excavate and salvage memory. bearing witness需要仔细聆听和耐心等待。
i once read that “to love someone is to attend a thousand births of the person they’re becoming.” maybe my grandmother will never understand my rebirths — my queerness, my organizing, and everything that feels so foundational to the constantly transforming being that i am. im learning to breathe alongside remnants of my past lives that inhabit her clumsy love and care for me.
ive also learned to accept that much of her life is not meant for me to access. i shouldn’t parasite the wounds she had long tucked away for my own world building, to dwell on the quiet funerals of the exoskeletons she’d shedded and buried.
but i can still choose to love her through the contradictions of it all, to witness her life by preserving and seeding, imperfectly, the bits and pieces we do get to share. it feels like tending to a garden together, her hands next to mine. 在我眼里这一切都值得记录。