Last night I spent a while cutting up a heavy yellow melon called “kandy” that was some kind of hybrid between a honeydew and a cantaloupe and something else. I was trying not to waste too much melon while I cut off the tough skin. It was sweet and somehow acidic, like pineapple. Later that night I had strange dreams with lots of responsibility. I can only attribute those dreams to the kandy melon. I woke up with a splitting headache and the urge to clean out my closet. I sold some clothes at a bougie secondhand store except they “had to pass today” on two dresses. Tonight, I hope my sister is having a great time at her high school dance. She said they were playing “Dynamite” by Taio Cruz and it’s funny to me how things are still the same in a lot of ways. Tomorrow, maybe I’ll have the same thoughts as today. That nothing can surprise me lately. Huh, more cynical and sad than usual, and then there is a surprising breeze that rattles my blinds. [Here in Los Angeles autumn is just an afterthought. And then suddenly its a mild winter.] But back to tomorrow. Maybe P and I will walk a mile to the farmer’s market. Maybe, if we wake up on time and everything else runs on time. Time promises us a lot. It’s hard to believe that promise: that things will change, or that they won’t, or that things will be better, or they won’t, or that time will heal everything and wipe out everything and someday mean nothing to nobody. The more I stay an adult the more I feel the cyclical pull of the generations and their patterns. The universe and its patterns. Do I sense myself joining the wheel? Will I become someone foreign to me? On the day after tomorrow temperatures are supposed to drop. Elsewhere, everything will be ending. I think I’ll feel the same, but I am frustrated at the idea. I am distrustful of time even though it is the most constant thing. Or is it change? Or is it evil? For a moment I think hard about the idea of ubiquitous evil. My florescent lightbulb flickers in the hallway next to the kitchen and I hear a maniacal dog barking outside in the warm night and feel my thighs and there are a number of bug bites and then consider opening the fridge to eat more of that melon. I think I’ll do that. The cold will chill my upper right teeth, like they did the day before.
Tag Archives: time
End of 2023: Bookshelf of Hours
Happy end of the year! I hope you found 2023 fruitful and fun. It was an interesting year that left me optimistic for 2024.
I think I had a good year! It flew by. It was kind of a year of putting my head down and working hard on the tasks in front of me. Nothing wrong with that, I suppose! All work and no play doesn’t make me a dull boy. But also: there was play! Some days, I felt so so lucky. Lots of great adventures and some very fun hours. Lots to be found in the small spaces of the weeks and days. Lots of unexpected laughs! And little life-affirming conversations and interactions. My interior life was fulfilling and lovely.
Do you have goals for 2024? I haven’t really thought about resolutions this year. I think they come to me over the course of January. Some years I need a fresh start more than others. Like many, I wonder if a new routine can heal me. Probably?! Like everything, that remains to be seen.
I am excited to write more in 2024. Rereading some of my old work has inspired me to reach back into that corner of my brain. 2023 left me feeling stuck in one style of poem. I wrote this while looking at the ocean:
I shelved a version
and took out another:
the book of _____
on the shelf of _____.
I am looking forward to 2024 and feel good about it! Staying optimistic at this juncture. (Maybe, for once, I am looking forward more than I am looking back and reflecting.) I hope you have a nice new year! May 2024 be filled with good luck for all of us!
End of July 2023: No More Time to Not Do Anything Anymore
Did you hear all the talk of aliens? I feel like one today, swimming in empty space. Last week, I was unmoored from something that gave me hope and stability and happiness. Sometimes life feels like a vacuum! But I took some time to think about it. I think a vacuum can stretch feelings and I know myself better in the end. One day of panic can lead to a week of self-assuredness. One day of bad luck can lead to a lifetime of gratefulness.
I am eating beans and rice and am looking out at a river. A different landscape from the image above, which is of the desert at Joshua Tree. It’s a lush summer here in Washington. It’s fig and blackberry and Italian soda season. It’s sunny and beautiful and I’m feeling melancholy for what promises to be my last Seattle summer for a while. I feel that I should keep this brief… the lake calls. Walking the new paved path by my house calls. Even rollerblading calls. Reading Maud Martha ever so slowly by the orange sunlight sneaking though the blinds in my room… still calls. Being behind on everything calls. Immense stillness calls.
Here’s a question: DOES ANYONE EVER KNOW WHAT THEY WANT? I don’t think I’ve ever had a satisfying answer to the question “what do you want?” I think I want everything and nothing. I think the answer changes minute by minute. And I am so selfish. The answer is usually “I want to feel like X” or “I want to stop feeling like this.” How easy things would be if I could control my feelings and emotions. For better or worse, they are like the weather: predictable to a certain degree, disruptive to a certain degree, sometimes exactly what I need. As Bernadette Mayer wrote, “nothing outside can cure you but everything’s outside.”
I’ve been leaning on friends lately. I am so grateful for you (you know who you are)! You make my life so much better and happier and fulfilling! I hope I do the same for you. I hope you enjoy summer. I hope you have time to feel good feelings! The bad ones will pass. At least, as far as we know, they always have!
End of December 2022: Time and Time Again
It’s the last day of the year and time has never felt more vivid. Happy New Year’s Eve!
How was this year for you? Some have said that 2022 has felt like a continuation of 2020 (AKA the Lost Year, AKA a year that didn’t happen). I don’t think this sentiment rings true for me, though the pandemic and its effects are still widely felt. I’ve found that the people around me have had a renewed commitment to living a certain way this past year. I’m not really sure how to describe it more precisely, but there is a different energy. [I am trying not to use the words “vibe” or “vibes” but it turns out that this is very hard?]
I time-travelled recently when I was traveling home from a trip. I left Singapore at 8:00 AM local time and arrived in Seattle at 8:30 PM local time in the same day, but had travelled for 31 hours in between. OK, maybe time zones don’t count as time travel. But I was contemplating the year during those hours spent in limbo between time zones. I felt time stretching around me while the hours were simultaneously condensing. Though I guess I was so tired I would have believed a lot of things.
Yesterday, I ate breakfast with Anne, one of my oldest and best friends, and we talked about resolutions. They are so hard to set and keep for some reason! I think there is some science about why they do not work. But there is definitely still value to goal-setting. At this point in life I am still just trying to figure out how to do it better. So no resolutions to write about at the moment. Sorry.
Tangential sidenote: Something else that makes me very aware of the passage of time is the Vanity Fair Billie Eilish interview that comes out every year. Change probably just feels more palpable for young people, especially for someone who is in the spotlight and thus feels pressure to keep reinventing. I love reflecting (hence this entire blog) but I don’t necessarily like reliving the past. Nor do I like watching videos of myself or hearing my own voice. But that’s probably a different thing.
I wish everyone reading this a great 2023! I have a feeling it will be a great year with many challenges and new revelations. This blog will be continuing into the new year (because I forgot to turn off auto-renew for WordPress yet again) so stay tuned. Or don’t! Change your whole life! Or don’t 🙂
End of October 2022: Polishing
“The gem cannot be polished without friction nor man without trials.” ~ Confucius
“I polish up real nice” ~ Taylor Swift
This month has felt so slow and so comprehensive. Do you feel that way as well? October encompasses so much. The days have clipped themselves dramatically. Books refuse to be finished. My plants are reaching upward in a move of radicality. I turned 23. The world turned to reflect a slightly different angle.
I had a conversation with friends where I told them “I love love.” I think about that a lot lately. To feel feelings for feelings. To love love. Maybe we only feel feelings for feelings. Maybe that’s pessimistic. I think I am a pessimistic person. But at least its optimistic to love love. I do love love.
There are many ways to proceed in front of us as we head into November. The next month is full of trials and opportunities. The way forward is cold, but also sweet. Always space to be constantly polishing ourselves, then turning our rough sides over. Showing them to others and sighing. Not feeling embarrassed because who has time for that! A good showing. Putting our best selves in the running race. So to speak!
End-of-Month | webzine and blog 