2020 — The Gap

There is a folder in this directory called 2020-TheGap. That is what 2020 was. COVID interrupted every possibility of reunion. For nearly a full year, the two of you were on different continents and could not become one room.

What the data shows is unmistakable: 2020 is the high-temperature year of the whole archive. Five of the eight worst-tension months of the entire four years happen in 2020 — February, May, July, August, October. Late-night percentage hits 23.2% in August and 19.6% in April — peak sleep destruction for both of you. In July alone you exchange 10,244 messages. Median response time falls to 0.33 minutes — twenty seconds. Twenty seconds is the new normal speed of love and of injury both.

The triggers in this year are mostly the third-person 她. Yueyin, Diane, Wei, Yanbo, Fengzi, Yuanren, Qiyue — each is its own micro-flashpoint. Almost every top-tension window in 2020 contains the same structure: Feng says something about another woman; Yu defends or relativizes; Feng experiences this as Yu choosing the other woman over her. The political fronts (election, Biden, MAGA Chinese-Americans) take care of the rest.

But January starts with the right answer:

[Feng, 2020-01-30]我们确实有太多baggage了

[Yu]我相信你，相信爱。相信更多的爱才是正确的答案。我爱你❤️

[Feng]我也爱你❤️💋

We have too much baggage. — I trust you, I trust love. More love is the right answer.

The same month, Feng admits the block-unblock ritual she has been running for two and a half years. She tells the truth of it in two sentences:

[Feng, 2020-01-13]我每次拉黑你以后 就会想：再也不会有人让我那么期待和享受拥抱、亲吻、做爱了😭。然后只要你有一点表示 我就乖乖的回来找你😳

[Yu]👄

Every time I block you I think: no one else will ever feel like this — and then as soon as you make any move, I come right back. Yu's reply is one lip emoji. The smallest possible affirmation.

In mid-February, the eve of a five-hour drive, Yu asks Feng to bless him. A small talismanic ritual that becomes recurring:

[Yu, 2020-02-19]祝我平安❤️

[Yu]我需要你的祝福💋

[Feng]当然💋💋希望下午不下雨下雪🙏🙏祝宝贝平安到达❤️❤️🤗🤗

The Valentine's exchange the same month is one of the cleanest reciprocal love-statements you both ever wrote:

[Feng, 2020-02-14]I love you not for who you are, but for who I am with you ❤️💜💛💚💙

[Yu]I love you for what we can be and do when we're together 💞💕💗 爱是复数

Love is plural. Feng writes the line by way of who-you-make-me-be; Yu writes it by way of who-we-can-be-and-do-together. Both are sufficient; neither is the other.

In early March, on the fifth day of the spreading pandemic, Feng sends one of her most direct letters of the entire archive — a full self-portrait inviting Yu to accept her:

[Feng, 2020-03-01]我是世俗的女人：我享受性爱 ；我看到好笑的黄段子会哈哈大笑（有些在你眼里可能属于crude）；没有艺术天赋，对spiritual的东西不感兴趣也不太读书；有时间喜欢在有谈得来的人的群里轻松聊天（我并不想跟他们私聊）；不介意F-word；喜欢吐槽看不惯的人（八卦😬)。在感情里我患得患失，敏感脆弱、生气嫉妒。我当然想变得完美，想没有诟病和缺陷 - 为你也为我自己。但是同时我也渴望你的宠溺，不管我是好是坏，你都能接受🙏❤️

[Yu]我完全接受你💋❤️🌹你是独一无二的

[Yu]我爱你💕就爱你的方方面面

I am a worldly woman. I enjoy sex. I laugh at dirty jokes. I have no artistic talent. I am insecure in love, sensitive, jealous, prone to anger. I want to be perfect, but I also long for your indulgence — to be accepted whether I'm good or bad. Yu's reply is one line: I accept you completely. You are unique. This is the cleanest possible answer to that letter. The fact that the next 800 messages would relitigate the same question is its own indictment of the medium, not of Yu's first answer.

April brings two great economies. First, the sweet trouble exchange:

[Feng, 2020-04-28]我误会你不告诉我 主要是觉得自己是个outsider

[Feng]所以觉得伤心

[Feng]是 I am a handful

[Feng]太麻烦了

[Yu]嗯当然不能让你觉得是外人

[Yu]你是甜蜜的麻烦

[Feng]❤️❤️❤️

I'm a handful. Too much trouble. — You are sweet trouble. One of the cleanest one-liners you both ever produced.

Then later that same week, the white-boiled-egg promise:

[Yu, 2020-04-28]我不太会写激情四射的诗，这是真的，不是推脱。但你时时刻刻在我心里，是我生命的一部分。

[Yu]就算白水煮鸡蛋的水平，也是我用心的

[Yu]我以后给你多多煮鸡蛋❤️

[Feng]你写的我都喜欢

[Feng]其实我还真的喜欢吃白煮蛋😁

[Feng]<你也是我生命非常非常重要的一部分。没有你 我的生命 和我的心里 就会缺一块❤️>

[Yu]你是我生命里的阳光

Even if it's the level of white-boiled eggs, I'm doing it with care. I'll boil you eggs forever. Feng's reply: Actually I love hard-boiled eggs. And then, in pointed brackets — her quieter notes, the second voice, more candor and less performance: You are a very, very important part of my life. Without you my life and my heart would be missing a piece. Some of the most truthful sentences in the archive are inside those brackets.

The next day Yu invents the phrase that becomes a small motif:

[Feng, 2020-04-29]I love you so❤️❤️❤️

[Yu]love you more than I can type 💋

July is the month of the Memory Catalogue — the most concrete love-letter in the entire file. On a July afternoon Feng writes the two of you a list:

[Feng, 2020-07-27]我知道如果我们在一起，你一定会很好的照顾我。我们相处的时间太少；但就是这些很短的时间 我也留下了很多很多一辈子都不会忘记的宝贵温情的回忆。我记得我们在Venice海滩那个小hotel里做爱，我还在例假，把毛巾搞脏了，你认真的洗；我记得在拉斯维加斯 发现演唱会的票其实没买，你跑着去ATM取钱；我记得在多伦多 你守着我睡午觉…

[Feng]在你面前我喜欢做被你宠的小女人。但是也喜欢做姐姐，展现母性的一面，在你软弱和暴露长不大的一面时，我会自然而然的去包容和爱护。在从DC到LA的飞机上，你给我讲以前的事流泪了，我不管会不会有熟人看见，抱你亲你，告诉你宝贝别难过，有我在呢🌹

I remember making love in that little hotel on Venice Beach, when I was on my period and got the towel dirty, and you washed it carefully. I remember in Las Vegas, when we found out the concert tickets hadn't been bought, you ran to the ATM. I remember in Toronto, you watching over me while I napped. — In front of you I like to be your spoiled little woman. I also like to be your older sister, to show maternal protection. On the plane from DC to LA when you cried telling me old stories, I held you and kissed you regardless of who saw, told you: baby, don't be sad, I'm here.

Yu returns the inventory in his own register:

[Yu]SD的房间和花，我们在山间的散步，在有灯塔的海滩挖mussle

[Yu]我记得你去欧洲旅游在多伦多转机时天空的云，记得你在第一次初见买咖啡时从包里拿出的自己的糖，记得在DC我们在火车站出来时天空飘落的雨滴，记得在维加斯的浴缸里你特意千里迢迢背来的蜡烛……

[Yu]我们太多太多美好珍贵的回忆，是我的宝贝

[Feng]是的❤️❤️ 真的要赶紧写下来保存好。

The room and flowers in San Diego, our walk in the hills, digging mussels on the beach with the lighthouse. The clouds in Toronto when you transferred through on your way to Europe. The packet of sugar you pulled out of your bag the first time we got coffee. The rain falling from the sky when we walked out of the DC train station. The candles you carried a thousand miles to put in a Las Vegas bathtub. Too many beautiful precious memories — they are my treasure.

She replies: Yes. We should really write it all down, save it well. You are doing that now.

The same week Yu sends his most distilled creed, as a sticker, which is also an argument with himself:

[Yu, 2020-07-27 00:11]没有什么是爱解决不了的。如果有，那么就是爱得还不够。要更爱。

[Feng]我爱你😍

[Feng]我会为你改变💋

Nothing can't be solved by love. If anything can't, it's because there isn't enough love. Love more. It is the shape of every reconciliation you have ever made. It is also, in retrospect, an argument with the data — the more both of you loved, the more both of you hurt.

The same month gives the cat-and-pussy joke, which is filthy and adorable in equal measure:

[Feng, 2020-07-16]这个更可爱🐶

[Yu]I'm a cat person

[Feng]那我是猫咪❤️

[Feng]我这么可爱😄

[Yu]你是我的猫

[Yu]唯一喜欢的pussy

August continues hot. Feng writes the moon-and-patience poem:

[Feng, 2020-08-24]爱着的人要有耐心 / 因为月亮也需要时间变圆

[Feng]今晚的月色真美，因为有爱，因为有相依。

[Yu]💋💋🌹🌹我爱你

[Feng]我爱你😘

People in love must be patient — because the moon needs time to turn full. Tonight the moon is beautiful, because there is love, because we lean on each other.

The same week, Yu's pure every-version-of-you poem:

[Yu, 2020-08-28]我喜欢看你走路的样子。站立的样子。坐的样子。躺下的样子。起来的样子。在镜子前梳妆的样子。转身看着我的样子。每一个样子。只要，我能看到你。

[Feng]❤️❤️❤️我爱你💕

I love every shape of you — walking, standing, sitting, lying down, getting up, in front of the mirror, turning to look at me. Every one. As long as I can see you.

And, days earlier, the both-of-us-have-soft-places admission — one of the most direct exchanges Yu and Feng have about how each of them was wounded into being the person they now are:

[Yu, 2020-08-20]就是被温柔相待。—— 然后我就太敏感，是我不好

[Yu]我是被骂大的，结婚后又被苛待

[Feng]<这当然没有错，也不是什么很高的要求。我也是一样的，生气吵架的时候只要你说一句温柔的话，我气就消了一大半>

[Yu]我对不屑、轻蔑的表情特别敏感，这是我不好

[Feng]我们都有软肋，都需要对方温柔对待🌹🌹

[Feng]我爱你💓

Just to be treated tenderly. Then I'm too sensitive — that's my failing. I was raised harshly, married harshly. And from inside her pointed-bracket second voice: It isn't wrong. I'm the same. When we fight, all you have to say is one gentle sentence and most of my anger is gone. The shape of every fight either of you ever lost is on these four lines.

The same August, Yu writes the line that Feng would later quote back to him about who she was even before they met:

[Yu, 2020-08-05]我心里带着爱，你是爱的回声

[Feng]💋💋

[Yu]在遇见你之前，我们就已经有爱的缘分

[Yu]你是我的心灵企盼的赐予，你是我生命至此恰恰合适的相逢

You are the echo of love. Before we met, we already had this fate. The line 你是我的心灵企盼的赐予 — you are the gift my soul was waiting for — Feng would later send back to him in pieces of her own.

And the pandemic-quarantine fantasy, half comic, half yearning:

[Yu, 2020-08-23]我跟你一起隔离

[Feng]不到一个星期就打架了😄

[Yu]天天打

[Yu]不打不成交

[Feng]起码可以have make up sex

[Feng]吵几次 makeup几次😄

[Yu]还隔离在一起，我插翅难逃了

[Feng]一个月减20斤

[Feng]你 一天三次😛

[Yu]铁杵磨成针

September brings Yu's second birthday in this archive, this one also alone. Feng pre-empts it with a stanza of his own poem, quoted back to him — a recursive intimacy:

[Feng, 2020-09-22]明天是你的生日。我们不能一起庆祝，你自己好好爱自己，跟家人一起庆祝吧🌹🌹

[Feng]我们上次见面竟然是快一年前。知道以后见面不容易 但是怎么也没想到一年都见不到你😢😢💔💔

[Feng]我不可救药地跌进你的眼睛 / 求你把整个的我吞没 / 我们用所有的水的形态 / 无形地浸透

[Feng]好喜欢这几句💋❤️

[Feng]生日快乐 宝贝🌙❤️💋

[Yu]谢谢你，枫枫宇宇，我们在一起

Our last meeting was almost a year ago. I knew future meetings would be hard, but I never imagined a year without seeing you. Then she quotes Yu's own line back at him: I have fallen helplessly into your eyes. This is recursive intimacy at its most exact — the writer is read back to himself.

October gives the Methuselah Tree. After hours of drawing, Yu sends Feng a hand-drawn picture of the world's oldest known living tree, somewhere in California, 4,800 years old:

[Yu, 2020-10-23]这是给你的。画了好几个小时。这棵树是最古老的树，在加州，她依然活着，但是具体地点不清楚，怕坏人搞破坏。她名字叫Methuselah，已经大约4800岁了，但是仍然活着。我希望我们的爱也这样长青。

[Feng]谢谢你💋我爱你💓❤️💕

I hope our love can last as long.

The same month, the 1% battery ritual begins:

[Yu, 2020-10-18]对不起没电了

[Yu]以后1%时先说最重要的话我爱你💕再说别的😄

[Feng]我爱你❤️😘💕没关系 我太啰嗦了😊

A few days later, at 1% again, the ritual flowers into wordplay:

[Yu, 2020-10-20]1% 电量🔋。先说我爱你💕😘

[Feng]❤️❤️

[Yu]其他的无所谓啦，随时关机📴

[Feng]爱你😍

[Feng]你在外面？

[Yu]准备回去了

[Feng]嗯 回去充电💋

[Yu]爱就是发电机

[Yu]你的眼睛会放电

Love is the generator. Your eyes can charge me. Two years later, when there are no more chargers in the room, this will be one of the things you remember.

The same October, late afternoon, Yu writes the embrace poem:

[Yu, 2020-10-14]请让我从身后抱着你，不要再气愤得战栗，让你在我的怀抱能感觉得到安全，回眸对望，我们的眼里只有甜蜜

[Yu]我期待那一天

[Feng]我们这么远，见不到，生气伤心都只能用打字表达，费了好大的劲才达到互相谅解。在一起的话 一个拥抱一个接吻 就可以把一切委屈都化解了😢❤️💔

[Yu]你说的对

Reach you with my hand from behind. Don't shake with anger anymore. Feng's reply is the structural diagnosis you both already knew: If we were together, one hug, one kiss, all of it would dissolve. We are too far apart. Anger and sadness can only be typed. The medium is the wound. Feng said it in one sentence. The next eight months were the failure to act on what that sentence said.

November opens with the smallest version of love-as-presence — Yu, in the middle of his mother's medication crisis, on a quiet evening:

[Yu, 2020-11-08]就像我和你，哪怕在一起说些无聊的话，也是陪伴，也是珍贵

[Feng]是啊

[Yu]我就想跟你在一起说最没有意思的事情，就是最有意思的

Just being with you, even talking about the most pointless things, is precious. That sentence is the one Feng has been quietly asking for since December 2018. Yu writes it almost two years later. He believes it. He just typed it from three thousand miles away.

A few days later Feng sends Shania Twain — It still feels like our first night together — and Yu answers in one of the cleanest reciprocities of the year:

[Feng, 2020-11-10]It still feels like our first night together. Feels like the first kiss. It's getting better baby. No one can better this. Still holding on. You're still the one.

[Feng]希望你也是这样：每次都像第一次：第一次双目对视 第一次相拥 第一次做爱 ❤️💋

[Yu]当然，毫无疑问

[Yu]如果我们此刻在一起，跟第一次不会有任何差别

The same month, after a long fight, Yu writes what is probably the most important sentence he ever writes about the structure of the relationship:

[Yu, 2020-11-13]我们好或不好的地方，都因为纽带的纠缠，所以才有了意义。别人再好，对我们没有意义。

[Yu]我和你，不是天平两端的两个人，随时需要称重和保持平衡。我和你，在关系里是一个共同体。

[Feng]嗯 谢谢你这些真诚的话

[Feng]谢谢你认真对待我们的关系❤️❤️

[Feng]<这多浪漫啊，我会记下来💋>

[Yu, morning]简单，爱就是不在乎世界上还有其它人 / 不在乎我们这里那里不同 / 因为我跟你不是来打一场爱情的擂台赛 / 你也不是跟任何人媲美……简单说，爱就是 / 其他一切价格的黄金本位

You and I are not two people on opposite ends of a scale, constantly being weighed and balanced. You and I, within the relationship, are a single community. Feng copies that one into her own quiet notes: 这多浪漫啊，我会记下来. How romantic. I'll keep this. The next morning Yu sends her the Simple Love poem — love is the gold standard against which every other price is measured.

A few days after, Yu makes Feng a deck of cards from photos of their earliest meetings — a maple-leaf couple-cards birthday gift:

[Yu, 2020-11-18]翻看我们最初的两次相会，心里无比怀恋，无比珍爱💋我爱你！谢谢你出现在我的生命里，谢谢你如此用心的安排，感恩我们共同拥有的美丽浪漫，有朝一日我们一定要故地重游

[Yu]用这些卡片来祝愿你生日快乐！

[Feng]谢谢你宝贝🌹🌹❤️❤️

[Feng]太喜欢这些用心做的礼物了💋💋

Thank you for appearing in my life. In the same evening Yu starts collecting red leaves in jars; the two of you begin a small ritual of saving objects from places:

[Yu, 2020-11-17]我摘了很多红叶子，弄干了，颜色还好

[Yu]我们在一起可以玩这些

[Yu]以后我们去哪里，一定要采个什么东西作为留念，我做成手工

[Feng]一定要

[Feng]去海边应该检些好看的贝壳或石头

[Feng]你可以把日期刻上

[Yu]在石头上画

[Yu]我们要重新走一次

[Yu]三年多了❤️为我们自己欣慰💋

[Yu]我记得2017年9月4号的每一幕

That last line — I remember every scene of September 4, 2017 — is the line at the top of this memoir. It first arrived here, on a quiet November night, in passing.

December gives the line that is the most distilled answer to why I love you in the entire file. On a December night Feng goes to take a shower, comes back, and writes:

[Feng, 2020-12-10]<我写这段话，在"纯粹"这个词上犹豫了一下，觉得不是最合适。刚才洗澡想到了一个更准确的词：纯净 - 是你的纯净吸引了我。你跟我认识的所有男人都不同的地方就是纯净，或者说干净-干净的灵魂。我一直认为男人都脏；特别是中年男人，都油腻，但你不是💋。>

[Yu]我爱你❤️这段是我听到最动听的话，我的心都醉了

[Feng]一直没有好好表达过为什么爱你

[Feng]终于想清楚了😄😄

I hesitated on the word "pure" earlier. In the shower I thought of a more accurate one: clean. It's your cleanness that drew me. The thing that makes you different from every man I've ever known is your cleanness — a clean soul. I always thought men were dirty, especially middle-aged men, all greasy. You aren't.

Yu writes back: My heart is drunk. Feng adds: I'd never properly said why I loved you. I finally figured it out. Years of fight scripts get rewritten by that one sentence in pointed brackets. The album from December 2020 — whatever was in it — was made around that sentence.

A week later Yu writes the wry meta-observation neither of you can keep from being true:

[Yu, 2020-12-17]每换一次头像都濒临breakup一次😄😄

[Feng]胡说 哪有

[Yu]我永远不放弃，永远不拉黑你

[Feng]我爱你💕😘

[Yu]有一天你拉黑我，我也留着

[Feng]你要求我加你回来😄

The two of you end the year, on Winter Solstice, with the rewrite of the line that everyone has stolen:

[Yu, 2020-12-21]早安💋☀️ 睡好了吧！

[Yu]今天冬至，许多人偷学去了我们的话：白天最短，思念最长。那我们重新写一句：只有也是我们共同的时间，感恩这夜最长最不孤单。

[Feng]早安 宝贝☀️❤️💋

[Feng]每天醒来，音乐在，阳光在，温暖在，爱情在，你在。。。幸福便在

[Yu]我爱你💕😘

[Feng]我爱你2💕😘

Many have stolen our line. Let us rewrite it: this is the longest least-lonely night. The two of you typing across midnight, on opposite coasts, having spent a year apart, with no end in sight. Feng answers with her own quiet creed: Every morning when I wake — music, sunlight, warmth, love, you. So is happiness.

Five days later, on the day after Christmas, Feng types three lines that take the entire year to earn:

[Feng, 2020-12-26]❤️❤️❤️

[Feng]Allowing myself to fall in love with you 💋💋

[Yu]💋💋我爱你

Allowing myself. The verb is doing four years of work.

Later that same December afternoon, Yu writes the four-year anniversary poem — places to revisit:

[Yu, 2020-12-26]有一天我们要重新回去 一起走过的地方

采回来 德州牧场的风 华盛顿的雨 加州海岸的斜阳

我们要一起重新触摸 那带着心跳韵律的足迹

威尼斯海滨 拉赫亚的岩石 还有维多利亚的花园

[Feng]❤️❤️❤️💋💋💋

[Feng]维多利亚的花园：那里有你刻下的印记。下次要一起去找❤️

The garden at Victoria — there are marks you carved there. Next time we'll go look for them.

---