Layers of ugliness and masterpiece.
Whirlwind.
Category Archives: Phnom Penh
Stranger.
Throughout the thirteen hour plane ride to Taipei, I could not stop watching the woman in front of me. Between bouts of sleep and finding myself staring at the ceiling, I would notice faintly but strongly her presence in a plane full of people. Forty years old or sixty, it was difficult to gauge. Her high, gaunt cheekbones battled against full, tanned cheeks and her hair flecked with dove grey stranded elegantly through inky black. I never quite got a strong, clear look at her eyes or mouth, only glimpses through the space between the seat and the window as I sat behind.
Retreat.
A departure.
The lust to wander is back full force and I don’t quite know what to do with this familiar feeling. It’s a bit of a chicken or the egg situation: I purchased a ticket for a brief stint (hopefully filled to the brim with work and collaborative ideas) back to Phnom Penh and since then haven’t been able to take my mind off getting out. Did the desire to make my way across the world again force me to finally buy a ticket or was it purchasing my flight that’s got me all riled up to go?
Lack.
Jane Heng‘s “Baby Man Hand“
Yesterday I was awakened from a hazy sleep with a text from my landlord asking if I had a check ready for rent and I popped out of bed, immediately wrote one out, and handed it to her as she ran by with her dog, Pepper. Even though I felt a bit chagrined that I had forgotten to put the rent in the dropbox a day before, ran out with a sweatshirt hastily pulled over my slip and was caught sleeping in like a teenager- I was grateful.
Dream.
I dream a lot. I dream vividly and lucidly and remember clusters of them like they were pulled from a photo album or notes in a journal from last week. Sometimes my dream world becomes so rich and evocative that it comes close to a dangerous escape from reality, my pillow a ship to worlds unknown and the sheets wings of creamy high thread count to adventures that await.
Gaze.
I’m sitting in my dimly lit living room with M83 playing in the background, grapefruit La Croix in reach, snuggled into my new little body pillow covered in cats (thank you, Lisa) thinking about… marriage.
The thrum.
7:40pm
I imagine the heavy thrum I hear when inside an airplane being similar to that of what a baby experiences in the womb.
Xiao long bao.
Writing today from Gate B9 in Taipei, waiting for a plane to- you guessed it- Phnom Penh, Cambodia. I’ve spent the past few weeks back in Washington making sure life still exists there (it does, and it’s thriving) and making some connections for work which has been rather exciting.
Sorority.
It’s already been a month since I made my first trek to Phnom Penh and experienced this well-known yet no less easy twelve hour layover in the McDonald’s-less Incheon Airport in Korea. The last time I was here, only a mere hundred feet away from where I sit now as I finished another entry, I was crying my eyes out. It was after a long night of slamming Soju and Asahi with Yoshi and our new friend, Misato, hashing out all of our frustrations and navigating through feelings of our impending work trip. I had experienced a restless six hours in the airport hotel, I was feeling anxious and disoriented, not knowing what to expect as I went back to the country I had left so recently and simply exhausted physically and emotionally.
Instant gratification.
I’m sitting in my muggy office under fluorescent lights, coconut to my right, sketch pad to my left, and the Tonle Sap directly ahead. It’s a far cry from where I was only weeks ago working out of various hotel rooms with the air conditioning on full blast while wearing my satin pajamas, and even more different than the space where I worked in New York overlooking Central Park, the bustle of the city never dying below.
