The sky is a sorbet of bright white clouds and silky grey with strips of unripened blueberry through the tall, secret-telling windows of our new apartment. I hear only the whirr of the washer and dryer, every so often interrupted by the shriek of a seagull. I’ve spent the past few hours sorting through the boxes stacked high against the cool concrete walls. Piling up dust blanketed books and milk glass to haul to Goodwill, sifting through ancient Sharpie covered CDs scattered among ink filled day planners, and tossing stack upon stack of irrelevant business cards. While I’ve moved seventeen times in the past ten years, I somehow manage to hold on to some impressive memorabilia.
Category Archives: United States
Tide pool.
I spent the two days this past week on the Oregon Coast, in familiar yet missed salty air, hair whipped to and fro by the rambunctious wind. It has been years since last visiting those dunes, since witnessing the crush of the tide and feeling the emptiness and fullness of the Pacific.
She.
After singing lullabies to my niece as she drifted into sleep, after I set her tiny onesie-clad body down into the crib, after I waited for her cries to turn into whimpers into sniffles into silence- I wept. With happiness and wonder and fear and anger and disbelief. Today my visions may have been filled with pink, but I am seeing red.
Whirlwind.

Layers of ugliness and masterpiece.
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.
Vigorous.
What was it that made my brief walk home from my neighbourhood bar so unapologetically lavishly feminine and dauntless? An anomaly of exposure and tenacious durability.
Extravagantly.
There are days when it feels like everything has been flecked with rose gold and hazel and honey. They are rare and they’re when I feel my heart in my throat and even sleep deprived and synapses slow, everything feels delicious.
Less.
I feel everything so keenly and bluntly today. A grade A example of a seemingly bipolar being, sensing each moment pointedly and on each end of the spectrum. Some fill me with what feels like a hot cup of tea, filled with surprising lemon tartness and smooth honey and warmth and safety, making it difficult to breathe in a way where everything seems to skip a beat- some are ragged and painful and sharp around the edges, making it difficult to breathe and not in the lovely way where everything seems to skip a beat.
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.