It is a bitter morning in Beijing. I have asked for a second quilt and more water for tea. The face of Confucius painted on the bottom of the porcelain cup plays hide – and – seek through the tea leaves as I tip it to drink. He offers sage advice…    characters painted in the four directions on the inside surfaces of the cup. What it says is not unlike old Charlie Chan movies quoting “Kong Zi” in charmingly irrelevant, mundane ways,”Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart.” Have I read that on a calendar? Maybe more mundane than sage, after all.

I am sleeping in a small chamber in an ancient, drafty courtyard house down a narrow lane in the middle of a hutong… awaken only to make tea and then go back to sleep in the hard bed under warm Northern Chinese quilts. Sometimes I sleep with one eye open trying not to move at all. A ginger jar lamp with its brown silk shade still casts a soft yellow light… a tiny sunset in the drafty room. A conscious thought coils up through sleep to tell me to click off the tiny sunset with a dangling brass chain. Time must have passed, because the red lantern outside the door has been extinguished, and the shadow of the courtyard tree in the moonlight is falling across the bed. I awaken hours later.

It is my birthday.

A shower in the draft seeping under the door seems horribly shocking. A splash of freezing water on my face brings just a shudder instead. I throw on my rumpled airplane clothes over gooseflesh and walk through the warren of passages confused about how to get out onto the street for the ravenous hunt through the hutong’s winding alleys to find breakfast. I follow my nose to the smell of bread frying and acrid, burning charcoal. Everyone is pushing around a shanty veiled in steam billowing out of the windows. A woman behind says to push harder… otherwise, we will be there all day. I edge forward as much as I can. Soon, I’ve bought fried bread and a stone pot of yogurt.

Bicycle bells ringing behind me warn against veering right or left. Motorcycle carts cough by. I am cheerful to be carrying my little bag of bread and yogurt down the narrow alley. I sing “Happy Birthday” to me… smile a crooked smile… walk a crooked leg down a crooked street… duck behind the red silk quilt hanging to keep the cold from the courtyard… wander around until I find the room… duck under another red silk quilt shoulder to the stubborn door in a moment prolonged by clumsiness… key to antique lock… handcrafted wooden doors swollen to the jam by the damp of winter. The warmth of my body has left steamy fingerprints on the glass panes of the door. They fade even before I can wash my cold, red hands under hot water to warm them. I eat the “you tiao” and yogurt on the table of the unmade bed.

I am grateful for the provision of my daily bread.

I blow out no candles.