Spring, for me, is ephemeral. Spring is a rush of ecstatic feelings that won’t last - but I wish it would stay forever. Spring was before high school, before worrying about colleges, before all pain. Spring is an infant-like, innate happiness.

Spring means putting on headphones, traveling to my favorite french concession coffee shop in downtown Shanghai, and immersing myself in 70s Japanese jazz while sipping perfectly brewed coffee.

The song - カーリーとキャロル - from Shigeo Sekito’s album (the world ii) perfectly epitomizes such feelings. Every time I listen to the exquisitely constructed melody with woodwind instruments, I am dragged through space and time, to my hometown, to where I was born, and to where I grew up. A few years ago, this song brought me pleasure. Now, this song brings me much more than simple pleasure; it brings me a feeling of home and a desire for my family to reunite again.

The other day, as I was contemplating adding more parts to this series, I saw a book on the shelves of our local bookstore called Stories From the Tenants Downstairs by Sidik Fofana. I was stunned because it was such an amazing novel. The characters felt alive, everything felt real. From the well-captured vernacular English to the amazing descriptions of characters' gestures, pain, happiness, growth... An amazing book.

Coincidentally, this series was supposed to be like that, too -- excluding the community aspect while focusing on individual households. Slowly, it seems like the characters are just disconnected. I'll wait for some inspiration before continuing the series, perhaps inspiration I will receive after finishing Fofana's novel.

UPDATE April 17:
Still haven't finished the novel - I kinda got lost in some character relationships.

I visited Mrs. Romero in her quiet little house on a hill by the southern coast of Maine. The salty stench of seaweed hung heavily in the air while I slowly trudged towards her discolored house. I stood in front of her door and pressed the rusty doorbell. “Bzzzzz,” the bell led out a loud whirring sound. As I waited for her to open the door, the gusts of winter ocean breeze gashed my face like countless bee stings. I pulled up my red scarf and rubbed my hands impatiently. After what felt like a whole hour, I heard loud footsteps from striding to the door. “Oh, there you are,” she said as she unbolted her door locks one by one, “I’ve been waiting for you.”

“I’ll take care of it,” he held his phone up close to his mouth and whispered angrily.

It was a sunny day in Hudson, Ohio. The window in front of the church near Main reflected waves of rainbows. Red, yellow, orange, green, blue, purp – no, indigo.

He paced from the top of the stairs to the bottom, fidgeting his left hand while occasionally pushing his glasses up with his index finger.

After a solid minute of walking up and down, talking, sighing, grunting, holding his already-busy left hand into a fist and squeezing it like crushing an apple, he hung up the phone.

He walked fast to his Jeep Wrangler parked in the back of the church and rushed to his small, threadbare house in the middle of northeast Ohio.

“Michael! Quick, help me out!” a woman yelled at the sound of a car pulling into the driveway.

“Coming,” he muttered to himself.

Pulling his keys out of his pocket, he unlocked the door and the second door. He threw his keys and his blazer onto the couch and walked into the bedroom where the woman’s voice was coming from.

“Hey,” he said in a deep, lowered voice.

The woman turned around, “you?”

“Who are y—-”

"How am I supposed to learn all these things I want to learn if I can't afford to feed myself?"

There are so many things about this that are messed up and sad, and it's the reality for so many people around the world. I don't understand why some people can act without consideration for others; so many people are suffering.