photos — life sentences

I originally planned to write about the complexity of mourning a parent that’s still alive — the roiling rage, the layered grief. But I find myself still coming to terms with and working through my feelings.

So, instead, I’d like to share a favorite piece of fiction I’ve written. A decade ago, I found myself really touched by the love story of Frobisher and Sixsmith in Cloud Atlas and so I weaved them into my writing. It eventually turned into the beginning of a longer story but this little piece is still my favorite.

As I reckon with the reality and consequences of forgiveness in my life now, I think back on how I viewed forgiveness more than ten years ago. Mired in loss but still, I think, seated in hope.

I am well versed in the way the earth's atmosphere causes a star to shimmer. I am not usually amused by such things, but there are nights when the ancient lights seem to blaze unbelievably bright. It takes my breath away. These are the nights I think of you.

Sometimes I graze my hands over the morning dew on tiny, trembling blades of grass. I know it's impossible, but I almost feel you reaching back.

There are days when I look up at the sky and squint toward the raging sun, wondering if I'll see you in the fragments of yellow and pink that stay behind even after I've looked away.

And I remember things I don't think I am supposed to.  

In 1829, you had sharp wrists and messy hair. I ran my fingertips across sharp bends and through every strand of auburn I could. There are nights when you wisp through my dreams, bring up morphed and faded versions of you that I don't quite remember when I wake. But your hair and your wrists, I always remember.  

Forgiveness.

The word comes up from somewhere deep, almost claws its way out like some sort of rabid animal. It's not like when I see you, when I feel you. It makes me sick. I wake up with the taste of it on my mouth, pumping through my veins.

Time has ingrained it in me. And I have mulled this over for so long, why the word makes my scalp prickle and my skin crawl. I think I have finally figured it out.

But this realization weighs heavy in my bones. So heavy I push away the thought when it scampers around the edges of my mind, on nights I think of you. On nights I dream of your wrists and hair, wake up with the dank feel of forgiveness on my teeth -- I push this realization away.

Because I have you in fragments of pink and yellow, your wrists and your hair playing through my mind. I have dark nights and cold mornings where you stand out, stark and bright. I have you in these ways.

But… I do not have the strength to forgive.

"Find me beneath the Corsican stars," your voice beamed through my dreams last night. "Yours eternally."

I pictured your wrists gliding along thinning paper, charcoal and sore. Your messy hair disheveled and moody.

I am now so afraid I will never have the strength to forgive.

(found monet in april, and other photos)

(a list of good things)

Happy Birthday, Ate!

It was my sister’s birthday in April ♡

Podcasts

Code Switch: Taylor Swift and The Unbearable Whiteness of Girlhood — I’ve given TTPD a few listens and have had many conversations about T.Swift and her work. This podcast expresses much of my opinion. (NPR, also available on Spotify)

Pop Culture Happy Hour - Listening to this reminded me of how nice it is to discuss the larger themes of media with other folks, even when you don’t agree on all aspects. I may be reading too many comment threads on the internet. Why did I need this podcast to remind me people can still be considerate with their opinions? (NPR also available on Spotify)

Movies & TV

April wasn’t a huge month in cine-mah for me, but here’s a nudge to watch Past Lives and Severance if you haven’t already. With Celine Song and Severance Season 2 in the news, I’m remembering how much I loved them both when I first watched them.

Music

Albums that have kept me company this month:

Cowboy Carter - Beyonce (yes AOTY)
Eternal Sunshine - Ariana Grande (particularly i wish i hated you & imperfect for you, so good)
Found Heaven - Conan Gray (the chorus of Alley Rose is a standout)
Preacher’s Daughter - Ethel Cain
- This is a very heavy listen and not an album I plan to regularly come back to, but it was such an experience listening through it. It’s a concept album following the life of a girl from a religious town in the South. I recommend doing a quick google search on the themes of the album if you really want to dive into it. It’s been a long time since I was pulled into the atmosphere of an album like this one.

Fave Creator:

Jen Bianca (tiktok / youtube) — I found her on TikTok and followed her over to YouTube, where I became an even bigger fan of her longer form vlogs. Hobbies, books, sinking into the happiness of a slow life. She has a great newsletter that actually inspired me to post monthly as well (substack).

Thank you for reading. I hope spring is treating you well.

At the end of my third year in college, I wrote:

I feel like there’s always a point in every year where I need to step away from toxic people and bad habits, and maybe lie on my living room floor and stare up at the ceiling having a heart wrenching existential crisis with Mogwai playing in the background (because yes that’s exactly what I’ve been doing for the past half hour).

My third year is coming to a close and I’m swept over with feelings of you should have done this, you should not have done that, why didn’t you do those things, why didn’t you go out with those people, why did you skip those readings… why have you let yourself become so mediocre?

Mediocrity used to be my greatest fear. The thought of being average at anything I loved made me sick to my stomach, because if you’re going to do something you might as well do it right. But at the end of every semester I have these, “Why are you so mediocre?” talks with myself as I break down over finals. Perhaps it’s a vicious cycle, perhaps I am mediocre, perhaps this is my way of pushing myself, perhaps I just get unhinged during finals. Perhaps I’m just unhinged all the time and finals gives me a reason to really go at myself.

I’m not too sure what I’m trying to say. I’m kinda just really achy and I’ve moved my futon to the living room to study and there are papers and books and notes everywhere, but all I’ve been doing is staring at my ceiling contemplating the merits of mediocrity.

Sometimes I forget how much finals week messes with my head, until it comes around again every semester. And I find myself laying on my living room floor, twirling my fingers through my hair, listening to quiet instrumentals and wishing I’d done more readings and wishing I didn’t have to google “Opposite of mediocre” to remember what it is.

Though it’s been 10 years, I still find myself contemplating the merits of mediocrity. Still twirling my fingers through my hair, listening to quiet instrumentals. Though it all comes with less of a panic. Less of the dull ache. It feels more like I’m sifting my fingers through sand and finding my way closer to an answer. Slow, deliberate.

I was 20, completely broke, and careening toward full-on anxiety attacks most days. Depressed that my dream city and school weren’t all I imagined they would be. Heartbroken that there wasn’t much left in my hometown to love either. Terrified at the thought of being mediocre.

What I realize now, after 10 years, is that I was not afraid of mediocrity. I was afraid my life was small. I spent much of my childhood and adolescence escaping my own life by getting lost in books. Devoured heartbreaking prose until I could feel the ache in my own bones, let myself be swept away on adventures, found out what love meant through different eyes. I found worlds bigger than mine by reading them, until I could finally run away from home, from my small life. Fully convinced the Big Life was waiting for me somewhere else.

Away from home, I was confronted with the reality of a life I made small. I fell hard into the academics of Cal, maybe buying into the idea that I didn’t belong there, and realized I had to fight for my spot at school and at large. I convinced myself I didn’t belong, that my little life didn’t have a place amongst the ambition of everyone else. Ambition big enough to smother mine.

A little life. I’ve been flipping the words around in my head for weeks, palming them, twisting and pulling, and hoping to figure out why they mean something so different now.

In the ten years since I wrote that entry, I’ve re-examined and deconstructed my idea of mediocrity, disabused myself from hustle culture, and learned the beauty of a little life. Allowed myself to be comfortable in my own ambition, figured out how to stop clenching my teeth, and learned to let go.

It’s been more than two years since I sat down and wrote anything for this site. I couldn’t tell you why I took such a long time away. I couldn’t really tell you why I’ve taken all the other posts down either, why it was so easy to shelve away the part of me that was most important for so long. The part of me that voraciously tore through books on hot summer days while on break, that wrote through journals and stories and head canons. I once wrote that words were the only thing that’s always been there for me; how I may not survive without them. And now, I can’t quite tell you why they fell out of my life so fully.

It was a slow undoing, I think. Like leaving from your hometown. One day you’re aching to go back and the next you forget to be wistful, forget it was something you loved.

Truthfully, words fell out of my life after mom died, along with so many other parts of me that seemed so intrinsic. People I knew, things I loved, places I ached for. They all fell away, sometimes quietly and other times with thunder. I suppose the last two years have been the process of putting it all back together. Not in an attempt to bring it all back but to remember what I loved about it all in the first place, like visiting home. Digging your heels into the familiar places and realizing nothing ever keeps the same face.

If so many of the past seven years have been a slow undoing, the last two years have felt like a reprisal. An intrepid becoming. It’s felt like coming home.

That’s all to say: welcome back. To you and to me.

This is a newsletter-ish post I’ll be publishing every month. Writing, pictures, book recommendations, music you should listen to, stories you should hear. All things I’d like to share from my little life to yours.

(2024 so far, pictured)

(a list of good things)

Books:

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro — A tightly written, subtle, heart breaking story that cracks open slowly but is so expertly written you feel like you know more about these characters than they can know about themselves. It’s soft sci-fi, or whatever the hell is opposite of Hard SciFi. It’s human and it’s tender and it’s an amazing read.

Podcasts

The Retrievals — A group of women who visit a Yale fertility clinic experience excrutiating pain during their egg retrieval procedure and this podcast uncovers the truth. It’s an expansive commentary on how we view women’s pain, particularly when the weight of motherhood is on the line. Everyone should listen. (Podcast)
Dear Alana, — Alana Chen loved God and also loved women. Through interviews with the people in her life and excerpts from her journals, we get a very intimate and incredibly important discussion of how religious trauma affects the queer community. It’s equal parts amazing and devastating to hear Alana through her own words, and how she wanted so much to just love and be loved. (Podcast | AlanaFaithChen.org)

Movies

Dune Part 2 - Enough people have heard me fawn over this movie. So - just watch it. In IMAX.
Arrival — After you watch Dune, rent Arrival and watch that too. It’s my favorite movie from the same director and the reason he’s my favorite. It’s quiet, atmospheric, and deeply human. Denis Villaneuve is the best sci-fi director of this generation. Argue with your mother.
The French Dispatch — Yes, I went on a Wes Anderson binge in March. Yes, of course I would be a fan of Wes Anderson. Yes this is my recent favorite from him.

Music

Albums that have kept me company this month:

Asphalt Meadows - Death Cab for Cutie
22 - Hyukoh
Love and Compromise - Mahalia
Woodland - The Paper Kites

Fave Creator in March:

Rose (@mtcha.milky)— She makes short little day-in-the-life tiktoks that mostly consist of her typing, making coffee, and driving to work. Watching them makes me want to be productive. She’s great.

Thanks for reading. Wishing you a warm start to your spring season.