Four Treasures of the Sky

by Jenny Tinghui Zhang

They named me after a tragedy, I would complain to my grandmother. No, dear Daiyu, they named you after a poet.

The character for black 黑 is made up of mouth, fire, and earth. Mouth sits on top of earth. Earth’s tip bisects mouth. Underneath both, fire. But a mouth is pink. The earth is brown. Fire is light. When I first learned the character, I could not understand why these three things created black. If you do not know, Master Wang told me, you will never be able to write the word the way it was meant to be written. When the winking man left, he took the light with him, too. And I think I finally know why those three things came together to create black.

Her burden was being a girl. And if there is such a burden, then none of us are free from it, not even me.

I am beginning to realize that everyone has two faces to them: the face they show to the world and the one on the inside, that keeps all its secrets.

When you are remembered for being the face of tragedy, your face must always be reaching for the center of the earth, I think.

What does it mean to be a man? My experiences then told me everything: It was a matter of believing oneself invincible and strong, and owed everything.

I have felt many things, given them many names. This one I do not want to name. It is as if someone has tied a large stone to my heart, tied it so tight that the veins are full and swelling, and dropped the stone in the deepest part of the ocean. I want to fight, but I know it is pointless. I am not sinking because of the stone but because I am the stone.

Without meaning to, the character for fire 火 flashes before my eyes, orange and angry and licking. You cannot write fire without also including the character for person 人. Fire is a person trapped between two flames.

I have not written a perfect character in months. Perhaps I do not deserve to. In the list of things that I have lost, I add myself.

Remember what I taught you? In calligraphy, as in life, we do not retouch strokes. We must accept that what is done is done.

The inkstone asks for destruction before creation—you must first destroy yourself, grind yourself into a paste, before becoming a work of art.

My life was written for me from the moment the name was given to me. Or it was not. That is the true beauty. That is the intent. We can practice all we want, telling and retelling the same story, but the story that comes out of your mouth, from your brush, is one that only you can tell. So let it be. Let your story be yours, and my story be mine.