‘The train stopped. When a train stops in the open country between two stations it is impossible not to put one’s head out of the window and see what’s up,’ Mansfield wrote at the end of her life. This is the inevitability of life. The train, for reasons unknown to us, always stops between a past and a future, both making this now look as though it is nowhere. But it is this nowhereness that one has to make use of. One looks out the window: the rice paddies and alfalfa fields have long been the past, replaced by vineyards and almond groves. One has made it this far; perhaps this is enough of a reason to journey on.
Dear Friend, From this life I write to you in your life, Yiyun Li