The Natural Laws of Good Luck

“One of the funniest and most moving love stories to come around in a long time.”

—
Library Journal

“A poignant, witty look at cultural misunderstandings, the intimacies of marriage, and the deep bonds of human connection.”

—Gail Tsukiyama, author of
The Samurai
's
Garden

“A compelling read for anyone with an interest in the nuts and bolts of how to keep a marriage together.”

—
Times Union

“A delightful account of East meets West in a loving relationship, complete with inevitable culture clashes resulting from wildly different ethnicities, customs, and background experiences. This appealing, true tale of adaptation (an ongoing process required in any marriage but taken here to extremes) is infused with an unforced sweetness and offers heartfelt and authentic proof of what we do for love.”

—
Booklist

“Ellen Graf and her husband, Lu Zhong-hua, take the realm of marriage and spin it on an irresistible new axis. Quite simply the greatest love story I've ever read.”

—Aimee Liu, author of
Cloud Mountain

ABOUT THE BOOK

Ellen is forty-six, divorced, and having no luck with personal ads when her Chinese girlfriend comes up with a plan: she has a brother in China, Zhong-hua, who's lonely too. Maybe they'd like each other? Taking a leap of faith that most of us wouldn't dare, Ellen travels to China to meet him. Though they speak only a few words of each other's language, there's an unspoken connection between them and they decide to marry.

What follows is a remarkably touching and humorous story of two people from completely different worlds trying to make a marriage work. Settling in at Ellen's ramshackle farmhouse in upstate New York, they quickly discover the cultural chasm that lies between them. Ellen and her teenage daughter decide to adopt a policy of nonjudgment as Zhong-hua lobbies to sell their refrigerator (“Just three people, no need”), serves them giant sea slugs for dinner, and brusquely nudges Ellen aside without an “excuse me” (“Family no need these kind of words”).

Zhong-hua is not the type to offer his wife impromptu smiles or hugs, but in bed at night he holds her tightly like she's “something long lost and precious that might not live until morning.”
The Natural Laws of Good Luck
is an unusual and exquisitely written love story—one that will resonate with anyone who has ever contemplated with wonder the spaces that exist between us and those we care about.

ELLEN GRAF is a writer and sculptor. She has received the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, a Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation Grant, and she holds an MFA in creative writing from Bennington College.

 

 

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The

Natural Laws of

Good Luck

A Memoir of an

Unlikely Marriage

Ellen Graf

TRUMPETER

Boston & London · 2011

T
RUMPETER
B
OOKS

An imprint of Shambhala Publications, Inc.

Horticultural Hall

300 Massachusetts Avenue

Boston, Massachusetts 02115

trumpeterbooks.com

© 2009 by Ellen Graf

See
Credits
section for additional copyright information.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

The Library of Congress catalogues the hardcover edition of this book as follows:

Graf, Ellen.

The natural laws of good luck: a memoir of an unlikely marriage/Ellen Graf.—1st ed.

p.   cm.

eISBN 978-0-8348-2264-1

ISBN 978-1-59030-691-8

ISBN 978-1-59030-833-2

1. Graf, Ellen—Marriage. 2. Intercountry marriage—United States—Case studies. 3. Intercountry marriage—China—Case studies. 4. Women—United States—Biography. 5. Divorced women—United States—Biography. 6. Married people—United States—Biography. 7. Troy Region (N.Y.)—Biography. 8. China—Biography. 9. Chronically ill—Case studies. I. Title.

For my husband

Contents

Wanting

The Middle Flowering

A Sovereign Sense

Hustling

Driving and Drinking

Deconstruction

Marriage Is Sacred

Sweet Sweet

Da Jie

Nice, and Loving

Master Lu

The Power of Destruction

Washing the Dog

No Place of Death

The Peaches of Immortality

Cultural Navigation

The Keys to the Kingdom

The Year of the Dog

Whispering Sages

Where Magicians Live

The Thirteen Followers of Life

Acknowledgments

Credits

About the Author

E-mail Sign-Up

Wanting

I
T
'
S EASIER
to say where you are than what or who you are. I am on an old farm in upstate New York where lichen-covered stone walls hug the hummocks of a forest floor that once was treeless pasture. Seventeen generations of sheep farmers tended these walls to separate into four-acre parcels what was not in essence different—grass and sheep from grass and sheep. These artful divisions remain today, separating trees from trees.

Leaves ruffle the sound waves in the half mile to the highway, where the trucks rumble past a barn someone once leaned a ladder on to paint ragged and red: “No Zoning!” Box springs and old cars with no wheels are allowed in front yards. Junk is not a category. Horses, goats, llamas, and Highland cattle all qualify as livestock—also allowed. This is a hinterland of survivors. Bald eagles nest here above secret waterfalls where teenagers leap off cliffs into deep pools. There are deer, mink, bear, lynx, and packs of coyotes.

What I am is an artist who cannot follow instructions. One customer commissioned a sculpture of two lovers joined at one root, twisting from the earth and parting at the sky end, all arms extended in praise. I confused this request and made the lovers' feet large, each pair planted in a firm, wide stance on its own ground. Their arms embraced only each other, tight enough to hurt. The customer pointed out crossly that the end result was “the opposite
of what we talked about.” And so I have needed to scour the landscape for work to supplement my art.

Who we are, it seems to me, is in relation to others. I am a mother. Five children finished growing up in this old yellow farmhouse. The first four witnessed my slow progress toward solvency after an early divorce. They jostled under the low ceilings until the space was too small for them and their heads threatened to poke right up through the roof. Three showed their readiness to go by sparking stones with the lawn mower and chopping potatoes in half with the spade instead of carefully lifting them from the dirt. The fourth found the potatoes with her hands, sorted them by size, and left home more reluctantly. (The walls had barely stopped trembling when my fifth child arrived, tall and quiet, not exactly a baby and not exactly mine. I will tell it.)

These rustling leaves and bare bones of where, what, and who describe my situation as well as I understood it myself when I answered the personal ad in the
Want Ad Digest
placed by the “real good looking workaholic handyman looking for SBF or SWF.”

I wasn't thinking only about how this unknown person could make my life easier by knowing how to fix things that I didn't. I was thinking what a joy it would be to see the circling of a red-tailed hawk and call out “Look!” or just point, saying nothing. What a joy to be with someone when the late sun turned red in the pignut branches or when other astonishing things happened. Educated by now in the trickeries of my heart, I knew I would not thrive alone, even though I am a solitary person who likes empty surroundings and complete quiet. My energy would spin around and around inside crying “Look!” and I might become crazy. I hankered after an imaginary companion to whom I could say “Good morning” or “Excuse me” as we pushed past each other in the bathroom. I thought this daily brushing against flesh and blood might keep me in the middle space where life is lived.

I wrote long letters to my handyman, telling him about wilderness trips with my untalkative father, and the world above the tree
line, where nothing with fur and four legs could thrive and miniature alpine flowers trembled in the crevices of rocks. I told him about the time when I got lost for fifteen hours. Just as the forest rangers were calling for a helicopter, I appeared from a tunnel in the night woods, blood dribbling out of my nose. My father said simply, “Hi, kiddo.” But why would a stranger want to know all that? Why would anyone?

When he replied to my letter, the handyman was very formal and respectful. He made no comment on the nose story or other personal revelations. He said things like: “I work in construction. I like dancing, parties, am a great social drinker. Sometimes enjoy quiet times.” I didn't drink and disliked socializing. But no matter—I had an old house that needed a lot of help. In my fantasy, he had a sweet and burly personality, and he came over after work in his tight, dirty blue jeans. He was wily and strong and always smiling. He would swing me up over his head, I would bubble with laughter, and then we would fix stuff.

In the next letter, the handyman informed me that his old girlfriend had unexpectedly come back to town. He was very sorry, he had no idea this would happen, but there she was and what could he do? He said he had a buddy who sold used cars, was a real nice guy, and would like to be my pen pal. He enclosed the address. But I didn't want the used-car buddy; I wanted the handyman of my dreams. I had a good cry in the barn about someone I didn't know and had never even had coffee with while my two dogs looked on, the old wolf-crossed Socrates, who liked to lie on my feet disdaining to be touched, and his constant companion Loki, an oddball spaniel with curly hair, a stocky build, and a gaze of impatient optimism. As darkness fell, disdain and anticipation snored, and infinity advised. I picked the straw out of my hair. I threw the
Want Ad Digest
away for good.