“Petrichor” is an autofiction about kinship, mental health, and Asian America, and Tim best describes it as ‘somber’; his last remark on Ishiguro was in like kind, so I feel good. With my roman à clef Cat Logic getting gutted again, I am trying to land on the right form for my reflections. One would hope that eventually, the sheer drop of vulnerability arrives at meaning.
Earlier, I let myself into the house with a Hong Kong milk tea from downstairs. We move today. The movers made small talk of Tianjin where I had once gone for a bike ride—with a landscape architect, on a minute getaway from school days, down long cobblestone streets like varicose veins running to the end of the line. Beijing seems to approach with child’s attraction, a lost friend to be taken by the hand. Elusive, if not diffident. As far as I can tell, our new friends want to be paid in cash, pizza, and Coke—American at heart.
Tim has gone ahead and set up my writing desk, a black-top from the ’40s, facing the wall in a spot of sun in the corner of the living room, by the reclaimed leather couch. Maybe it’s true, what they say: that we speak simply of furniture when we are speaking of furniture. Maybe the human furniture we move around for so long, for show and tell, is just a proxy, an analogy for finding the perfect unit, for the long haul.
Danielle Shi 