Ever since listening to the Artemis II astronauts (who touched down in San Diego, by the way!) speak of their unfathomable experience rounding the moon and gazing down at Earth from up there, I’ve been thinking a lot about space.

Would you go to space if you could? I think I’d like to see how small we are from up there.

From Andromeda 

What an unlikely thing, 
These trees and buildings and warmth
And sanctuary in emptiness,
And you and I,
Just a thin atmosphere away from 
Depleting, 
Instantaneous death. 
A nearly impossible feat, 
Life on a breathing planet.
Such slim chances that you and I 
Exist at all,
Let alone breathe this same air. 
From a galaxy away,
We are not even here yet—
Both many centuries past
And now, 
Existing at once. 
Perhaps we’re even living a previous life,
On two sides of the globe 
That can only be seen together
From all the way up there.
What magic 
To breathe at all, 
To cry, to smile, 
To simply look you in the eyes.

There are few things that make me feel as ecstatic and full as hosting friends. Choosing ingredients, the voluntary labor, the catch-up conversations as someone chops and I sauté and another friend sits on the chair they dragged up to the kitchen, sipping wine and filling us in on the changes in their life. The beginning small talk and then the necessary updates that make way for the honorary storytelling, the letting-in on secrets, the deep rib-shaking laughter and the conversations that gradually grow in depth, the pondering and passing of ideas that leaves a buzz and no room for anything other than the thoughts of the present moment. The first and last bites, and the friend that collects empty stained plates without a word spoken or an implication given. When I bring out something sweet and everyone’s faces light up, maybe a deck of cards comes out, too, but no matter what, the conversation never dies and it’s like we’re skipping from topic to topic like frogs on lily pads and then the night slows as we share honest feelings, and it ends with some sighs and some understanding and the sharing of thoughts. Then hugs are passed around before the goodbyes are finally said, and everyone goes to bed feeling full.

There is a joy so innate in that—in the gathering of people. Something so sacred. The kitchen becomes a workshop, the living room becomes a temple. The conversation feels divine, the laughter purposeful—the purpose is to produce the joy, share it and pass it around because that’s what you do with your community. You share what is needed.

There are certain roles people fill in each other’s lives that carry important weight. Some that come to mind are The Teacher, The Healer. I believe The Host is an important one as well. How can you gather, if not in a space? More often than not, one or two people initiate the planning of the gathering, and it would not happen without the host(s).

Hosting reminds me that friendships truly make the world go ‘round. It fosters the communal cycle of providing for each other—it is like a gift to those you love. And if done out of authenticity, it is one that comes simply from love and appreciation, without expecting something in return. You’re simply happy to be there with everyone. But when you form a community from love, there also exists the understanding that they will give back in their own ways. Your friend brings a snack. Your friend does the dishes. Your friend wipes down the table. Your friend gifts you the exact words you feel you needed to hear. Your friend makes you laugh so hard that tears form in your eyes. Your friend will host next time, just as happy as you were to provide the space for you all to gather.

When I come together with good friends and vibrant conversation inevitably ensues, there is no room for phones at the table, or on the floor, or wherever we are seated—we have no interest in reaching for them. I do not crave distraction because I enjoy the presence. The presence is the point.

I used to host all the time, but it’s been a while. And I’ve been reflecting on the gatherings I have been a part of recently, and how I have been reminded of the magic in them: the overlapping conversations that don’t fight but intertwine with each other and are cut by the occasional cackle of laughter, the natural dispersing of friends, the smells and the sounds of an active kitchen, the movement and flow that is so natural and poetic—like a current that moves between rooms, scoots over to make room, circles up and partners up and comes back together. I remember how much joy I experience from hosting my people, and I’d like to bring intention into doing so again.

Gatherings need space to exist. Why not be the host?

Thrumming with Life

A hawk circles above me, white-bottomed feathers fanning wide to ride the breeze gracefully, sweeping around and down and drawing spirals in the air. 
Does it circle me waiting for my time to be up, or does it smell the blood leaving my body from all the way up there?
Do they smell death in my blood, or do they sense in it the line of women who have come before me, bled freely, felt fierce pain I have not yet, pain that passed through their bodies that I cannot see but carry somewhere in mine?
Hand on my chest, the pulse beats within me, of women before me.
I set my crystals out in the sun so I can wear the vibration of life, hot and thrumming against my absorbent skin. Pour steaming water over tea leaves picked and dried from the ground by another woman whose soul I feel tied to in that way you can’t really explain in words, like that secret language we all share.
Vulnerable in the field, miles below the birds, I feel the touch of a kind of breeze that’s gentle and light, like a mother’s caress across my cheeks, between the bird’s wings and through the strands of my hair, with just a touch of cool that reminds me to stay alert. That brings me back here, now.
I lie and let my head tilt back, my hair the color of the bark falling in between lush blades of grass, green and brown blending, the complexion of the Earth.
The hawk in the distance screeches,
And my lower abdomen contracts in rhythm with its call, each twist and ache an incredible reminder of the passage of time, a reminder that the moon is full tonight, 
Of distance away from a girl I used to be and toward a woman I’ve heard a lot about but haven’t met yet, not entirely, and I wonder if she’s more like those women that came before me, or if I’m a mutation growing from them—for better or for worse, for openness or for habit, and I don’t know, but I know somewhere deep in my body that they also liked to let their hair become grass and their mind be carried by her gentle breeze from thought to thought like the clouds that keep passing over the sun to give me some moments of warmth and some of shaded chill, and to feel that comforting touch of breeze that winds imagination like a spider spins its web,
And that was all it took to be content.

As we transition into May, and spring feels like it’s peaking—like all around me is thrumming with life.

I found such a clear reflection of this time period in where we are now—on the threshold of new perspectives, looking to “make it new,” as our controversial friend and poet Ezra Pound rallied. Also, the modernists loved spring… and same.

Anyways, liminality to me is mysterious, it’s anticipatory, convoluted, powerful and murky and exciting, dawn and dusk, and I love poetic representations of it.

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Liminal

Reaching the top of the stairs, there is only thick museum glass in between the two of us and the expansive room beyond. Pushing against the swinging door, we step away from the echoing chatter of visitors sitting at tables below, clinking their silverware against plates, discussing gift store knick-knacks, and cross the threshold into a different world of silence. The ceramics and century-old pots before us stare back from behind thick glass, the light stepping of our shoes the only drop of sound in the sea of quiet. Their curves and shapes perfect, intentional, seductive, their colors vibrant against matching backgrounds and their surfaces laid bare on display pillars. A deep blue vase before me, large and plump with the tiniest neck reaching upwards, it's comical in its contradiction—its mouth not even wide enough for a single stem. 

On display in all its confidence, its out-of-proportioned body glistens in the light like the rounded belly of the lizard in my backyard, its bright blue stomach at contrast with the gray scales of the rest of its body. It sits on the edge of our back patio’s ledge, the small step to me a leap to its little form. The descending sun makes its way down to something ending, and hits the ledge perfectly—raised side of the patio shaded, lower step vibrant and bright with the kind of light the sun squeezes out in its last hours. Body split in half with equal sun and shade, the lizard breathes rapidly, blue stomach rising and dropping. Maybe it senses the ending of the day, the sun it likes to bathe in slipping away, but it's not conscious of its splash of color, of nature’s intentional mark on its creations that makes something vibrant and comical out of plain scales. 

Like the large-leafed plant unfurling itself under the shadowed reflection of latticed wood beams swooping tall over the gardens, some of its leaves matured and wide, three-feet long and open like palms up to the sun it only gets in chopped up fragments, while two baby ones in its green center barely begin to unfurl their fingers.

“April is the cruellest month,” T. S. Eliot said, “breeding lilas out of the dead land,” and I chuckle as I look out my window at the dry, dead grass that has become our front lawn. A dichotomy of spring, the air hovering above it thriving with warmth and the sky cobalt blue, and I think of memory and desire stirring in my gut—the buzz of spring that makes the yearning I crave and fall into, spilling down and down like swirling honey into bitter tea.

And what I know I feel in this space stepping between times, is that I want to stay up into that violet hour, long past the sky has darkened, and lose myself in the thoughts that come with the new sprouts, pushing up through packed dirt into the warming night air. 

To dive into one of the famous poems of liminality, read T.S. Eliot’s The Wasteland. If you haven’t read it before, I warn you, it’s a doozy. Quite long, dense, and abstract. But also he ate with that.

The other day, my friend said, “I know life is good when I start signing in the car, because it’s just for me.”

This made me ask myself, what other things do I do that are just for me?

Ordering appetizers.

Brewing tea in a teapot so I can pour myself mug after mug.

In the morning, taking the the time to froth my milk, then to add homemade lavender syrup to my coffee, so I can sip something special.

A book at the beach, because no one is reading it but me.

Talking to the lizard that bathes in the sun on the porch next to me, or the huge fig tree on my break at work, that seems to speak back to me through crackling somewhere within its bowing branches and tiny scuttling sounds audible just to me. To myself, when no one is home.

Dancing to music in my kitchen while I cook a meal after the sun has set, my house has gone still and shadows have taken over the corners because our lamps only cast so much light, with the glow of the sunset visible from the dining room window, I move my arms, my hips, my body knowing no one is watching. Eyes closed, even.

Matching my jewelry to my outfit. Garnish on my cocktail. Smiling in the car mirror.

Speaking with my books by writing in their margins—they answer me, in the white lines between the print, in the feelings unwritten but present.

Rolling down the window so I can breathe in deeply the smell of eucalyptus as I pass a grove of it, sharp and awakening. I inhale deep and slow, let it out fast so I can inhale again before it’s gone.

Eating breakfast in the sun.

Laying on grass where I can stretch out wide. Taking up as much space on my bed as I’d like.

Pouring love onto paper, or into type—a physical record of words spoken and life pondered, that with every manifestation of it, every reminder I am here, I assure myself my mark is worth being made.

Gifts to yourself are the most important ones you will give.

What do you do that’s just for you?

It’s a quaint afternoon. “Mystery of Love” begins to play, filling the quiet store during the middle of my shift, no one else here, just me and the warm light of the sun casting into the wood and stone space to light it up enough to feel like spring though it’s the middle of winter. And with the magical piano and twinkling melody, heart yearning yet full, I’m back in Spain—the fresh warm air of Costa Brava running its tendrils through my hair, lifting up strands to dance in the ocean air, hands sunk deep into the sand behind me, head tilted back to take in the sun. Then a dip in the Mediterranean Sea, feeling so distant and light, watching the sun rays dance in the dips and curves of the bopping waves at my waist—cold and awakening.

I remember my first afternoon in the small medieval town, walking down from the ruins of the castle through narrow streets, the sun casting low as it began to near closer to sleep, and how it spilled golden light over the buildings as we descended the steep decline past round brick structures reminiscent of old movies I’ve seen, and sand-colored houses with old wooden doors and small metal balconies, packed close together like family.

From the angle the sun shone, long shadows cast across the street as we made our way down, turn after turn, trying not to trip over the cobblestone streets and getting nearly lost in the maze of rounded corners and steep inclining and declining thin roads, wide enough for just one car. But what is so vivid in my memory is the silence. The afternoon silence that I later realized was because the few townspeople who lived here always gathered at this time in the town center circled by the three main restaurants to drink a beer, smoke a cigarette, and converse in Catalan. But before we got there, as we walked down the roads through the quiet town, it felt deserted. Almost in an eerie way, but mostly a peaceful one, like there was never anything to rush for in that place. Like the only movement was meandering, like they cherished living in peace. The buildings, old and brick and wooden with details likely the same as they were in the 16th century, seemed to blend into the hills and wide expanse of the coastal hillside, like they grew straight from the ground. Even the town square, when bustling in the early evening, was the only source of noise in the town.

Then days later, we went back to the city, and my family departed on their separate ways.
Feeling a little sense of yearning to walk the bustling streets again, I remember the way I felt small, like one little jagged piece of the city, though just there temporarily, walking the streets with forced confidence and too-long strides, gazing at the buildings around me that others traveling fast on the sidewalk to their destinations didn’t even glance up at.

The weather is fickle here, so my friend had said, and a couple nights later I stood in the living room of her apartment, just past midnight, still in a daze from the day, after slipping out of her room in the dark to use the bathroom. As I began to walk back I caught a glance past the wooden blinds and out the window, where the streetlights were reflecting off a newly formed puddle on her short balcony a story up from the street, and I realized that it was raining, though during the day we had been sweating from the heat.

Cracking open the sliding glass door, just a smidge, as quietly as I could to not disrupt her Sunday night sleep before work, I stuck my head out the patio door. The smell of wet concrete, one of my favorites in the world in the way it mixes the crisp scent of natural rain and artificial earthy musk slipped into my nose, a familiar creation pulled from the wet trees and dirt. It was so sweet and clean and dirty and perfect and it made me feel alive. My eyes scanned the tall buildings of the city that reflected back through the drizzle the same image of the one that I stood in, mirrored on each octagoned corner—a design characteristic of the whole city, built to create more air and light flow in the density. Cars occasionally sailed by, zooming across wet concrete, life still showing itself in the stretching hours between the night and morning. Rain in my nose, head leaned against the open balcony door, the sight and feeling of this place felt so different from what I knew, yet the scent of rain was the same.

On my walk this morning, I came across a baby Birds of Paradise plant. It was the smallest one I’ve ever seen, just a handful of leaf shoots and a singular bloom, reaching up to the sky with vigour. A little nod to last week’s conversation, it felt like a nice sign; like growth is ahead, and abundance, too.

One of my favorite books is a collection of poetry about nature, edited and introduced by poet Ada Limón. In her introduction, Limón shares her love for watching trees. She says,

“Watching them makes me feel at once more human and less human. I become aware that I am in my body, yes, but it is a body connected to these trees, and we are breathing together.”

My dad instilled in me a similar sentiment—he talked about and to trees in a way that characterized them as alive, because they are. Living, breathing creatures who we are connected to, and I love that Limón notes this making her feel “less human,” and may I add onto that, “and more nature.” I used to talk to trees with my dad, have conversations, give them voices, because unfortunately we don’t speak the same language. I still look at trees and see my dad in them; I wonder over their glossy red leaves and small sprouts on their branches, like new ideas, and I do feel connected to them, like they’re looking at me, too.

Limón says poems are like trees in this way, because they, too, let us breathe together. She says there is a place for us to breathe in each line break, caesura, and stanza. And that like trees, who need many to be planted to flourish, poetry must be created in abundance, too, to help us wonder at this universe we live in amongst the chaos we have brought into it.

She urges us to make a poem too, “to grow alongside ours […] so we may continue to flourish.”

And truly, I think that’s why I’ve come to write poetry. Because each time, it feels like giving thanks to this world we live in. It feels like giving a little back, like contributing to the flourishing of our souls. It reminds me that—like the title of this poetry book—I am here. And we are here.

Blow is my nature poem, one that tries to encapsulate with words a beautiful moment in which I felt this recognition.

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warm like January

in a way that makes me drawn 
to sit on the front porch step.
toes tickled by sunlight, 
emerging just over the line of shade,
curious,
the bright morning light 
illuminating fresh green grass,
high-reaching tree,
twittering birds who swoop low 
and crescendo above my front yard,
urging with passion,
sailing into the distance—
where the city stands tall, 
determined though small,
inviting, tuned into focus 
with air cleansed,
color on the buildings visible
and great open ocean sparkling blue
as the final backdrop—
and it’s winter,
i’m in a tank top, 
the air is already warmed but barely 10,
and it shouldn't normally 
be this sunny,
but it allows the animals to come out,
at least,
so i absorb this surprise,
skin yearning for as much as it can take
and wait for the praying mantis cases to hatch,
to emerge from their long sleep,
push through hardened foam
and crawl into the sunlight—
maybe it’s finally time.

Home is warm to me.

It means the same Joan Miró paintings I’ve been looking at since I was a child;

It means the 80s style geometric patterned couches and pillows in the living room;

It means standing under the wide, hard spray of the shower head behind glass shower doors that I was taught to always squeegee after I turn the water off;

It means waking up to the burnt, earthy smell of Peet’s beans, and partaking in the ritual of making coffee in the kitchen while my mom scrambles eggs and my brother hasn’t woken up yet. Pouring fragrant coffee beans into the space in the cap to measure them, spraying them with water, then the grinder whirs into the cup and I flip it upside down into the coffee press perfectly, it’s a little dance. I pour in boiling water, mixing the liquid and grounds, then plunge it a minute later; the eggs are sizzling now. My mom always keeps Chobani creamers stocked in the fridge—the kind my brother loves—and I froth them with almond milk in my brother’s fancy machine. I look forward to these cups of coffee, the process much smoother here than the way I make it in my home in San Diego. With these cups of coffee comes breakfast in the kitchen at the same old wooden table we’ve always had; it used to not fit all four of us when my brother was home from college, we’d have to pull up the extra chair to the corner, but now it’s just us three. We rarely set the large dining table anymore. We sit in this intimate corner, my mom catching up on the newspaper, and the heat is always turned up on these winter mornings so the bitter morning cold from the outside doesn’t penetrate through our old walls. Sometimes my mom will light a candle in the other room. She likes her candles; I think of her when I light them in my own home now too. Soft music whispers from the other room.

There, I can retreat to a relaxed, more innocent version of me. One who looks to her mother to pour the hot water and bring her the cup of tea to her place on the couch, to crawl under the blanket with her and touch her warm toes with her cold ones, causing her to squeal out with shock and joy.

Yes, what goes on in the home, the people, have changed overtime. But it feels like sinking into a warm bathtub when I return home—it does not matter what my schedule was like in the city I now live in, the way I left San Diego is not important when I step out of the car onto the sidewalk after my quick flight, greet the light blue house and the red pistache tree in front, now an adolescent and dropping its bright leaves over the grass and lavender bushes, pull my carry-on suitcase up the uneven concrete path. Stepping through the green front door is like sinking into bubbly bath water, the temperature just right to prickle and ignite my skin. No matter how different I am now, the clothing styles I have shifted through, the new layers in my hair, the books I bring to accompany me, the new memories living in my head, the different burdens I carry on my shoulders, I come home and feel, in a way, the same. I’ve wondered if this is scary, if it negates my growth, but it’s not that I revert to a different me—instead I think it’s just what familiar feels like, the comfort of a space that holds memories of being cared for. In returning to a loved childhood home, there’s a kind of falling into a familiar state of being, a slowing down if only by a pace or two.

I can be a certain me who relaxes and knows I will be taken care of, knows my mom has changed my sheets to clean fleece ones in preparation for my arrival, knows I don’t have to pack pajamas because my old t-shirts I’ve left behind will still be in their drawer, knows the Peet’s coffee will be waiting for me in its jar the next morning. I am lucky that I have a home like this, that my mom is here to maintain this magic for me—to keep that space like a time capsule, reliant and comfortable, despite the changes we have all gone through. Her love is a blessing. One less person occupies the house when I return home now, but my father is in the decorations, the old family room couch, his old rain jackets in the hall closet, the collection of DVDs in the TV stand drawer, the hand-written emergency contacts still taped to the inside of the kitchen cabinet, so he’s still here, too. Maybe one day my mom will move, but for now, I get to return to our little house and welcome the sinking back.

It wasn’t what I thought it would be; it’s a little weird. There were crumbs I thought may need to be their own poem, but I pieced them together with a little glue and I think they’re sticking pretty well.

If you’d like to read my poem about struggling with this poem (quite meta, I know), you can read it here:)

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feeling for my way

I used to get stuck in words like resin 
or earwax,
sickly sour smelling surroundings,
they would taunt me,
hold me,
I could never get enough, 
the suffocation I beg for.

a shimmering starlit sky,
twinkling gems seem out of reach
only trees and wide open space surrounding me,
arms outstretched,
i waft them toward me
desperately.

mouth open, 
moon on my tongue, 
stars stuck in my teeth 
like herbs leftover from dinner.

i move through life on a string,
drawn together like an endless song,
of moments i long to make sense of—
the jarring four p.m. sunset
and the dark weight of loss,
cold, bitter mornings, feet shoved in slippers;
or long summer evenings,
when the air is so thick with heat 
there is no room for words.
warm hand interlaced with mine and
sunset sun reflected off our brown glassy eyes,
our circle of friends formed around a dinner table,
steaming meals on each plate, 
no thought of the outside world penetrating 
our barrier of comfort,
shaking ribs with laughter.
learned intimacy, 
unlearning guilt,
stretching out my arms
to catch as much fresh air
as possible. 

i enjoy my afternoon hours, 
splendid and lush 
with abundant sun and silence.
feet grounded on patio steps,
or on a slick rock if i’m lucky,
my deep breaths draw in
earth and clarity.

I get a ten minute break at my part time job—as the law requires. I used to forget to take it almost every shift, lost in tasks and conversation with the coworker I overlapped with. Sometimes, I would almost choose not to, questioning if I really needed it. Yet I never regret taking it. Stepping outside, as I do every time without fail, it’s my moment to let the sun grace my face, and that’s healing, even when I feel like I don’t need it—how foolish of me to think so. But I forgive myself. It’s easy to get lost, but really, not as difficult as it seems daunting to find your way back.

Even if I have food to warm up in the break room, which may take up at least half of my alotted time, I make my way outside if only for a few minutes. I watched the seasons change, two shifts a week by two shifts a week—from the middle of last fall when I began my journey working in the museum, to the breaks spent in the low lighting of a winter sun setting early in the evening, to cloudy and gloomy days on the grass under the fig tree, shivering if I forgot to bring a jacket, to the gradual warmth of spring that I basked in during my breaks, willing summer to come, to the energetic and exploratory hot summer days when I had to wear sunscreen on my face just for that short ten minutes, spending it musing over my plans for the upcoming weekend, or week, because activities weave through every day of the week in summer, and finally, back to autumn—but after a year of change, a year of new experiences while attending this same building, weekly, taking my ten minute break (almost) every time.

This autumn feels electric—there has been a lot of vigor and tension, anticipation, an energy in the air that leaves a buzz even on a slow day off spent doing chores at home. It feels very dynamic, moving towards newness.

Each moment I am granted to move into the outdoor space, to assert my part in the outside environment around me, breathe in fresh air and touch the sun, I feel oddly in awe. Oddly, it comes off as, because there isn’t anything that actively happens—nothing that differs this moment from any other moment outside—yet each time I undergo the transition from inside to out, and unite with the fresh air again, I can’t help but observe such beauty and feel such peace.

The smell of native sage growing from the earth, the light breeze carrying cleansing air and the distant ringing of music, exclamations of children, chatter of visitors on a stroll, the sun keeps you just warm enough—balance. Birds caw, the many kinds of trees shake and chime with the colliding of their leaves in the cooling wind, you can not only feel it, but you can see it, the arrival of autumn in its Southern California form. It’s hard to be upset, in this little city sanctuary. It’s too full of family visits, dates, friend excursions, plans separate from the ordinary—breaks from a routine, lacing the air with a permanent excitement that doesn’t fully fade, even when the sun descends and the parking lots empty out, when the weather changes or tourist season ends. It keeps its charms—and it shows up time and time again for me.

I love how much music affects me. It has always done so, as long as I can remember. For some, the smell of something can take them back to a vivid memory—like the smell of freshly cut grass, cookies in the oven, an ex’s old perfume. Or the sight of a previously lived in home, or entering a church frequented as a child, or even driving through a place that holds vivid memories. But for me, it is music. I do not believe I could perfectly describe what I feels like when I hear a song that brings forth, with so much power, such a distinct memory or feeling. It’s not always one specific memory; sometimes it’s the mood of a certain season of a certain year in my past. Sometimes it’s what it felt like to be around someone. Sometimes it is indeed one moment in my memory, and the emotions that I experienced during it, that flood me in such a specific way that it is as if I am back in that moment in time, living it.

This can be so beautiful—one of my favorite examples is whenever I hear “Freakin’ Out On the Interstate” by Briston Maroney, and I am transported back to this one moment from my freshmen year of college and the feelings that come with it. I’m in the back left seat of a car, and my new friends, who I had only known for a few months so far, populate the rest of the seats. We are on the way to a pumpkin patch at this adorable farm in the valley of this new town I am to live in for the next four years—a valley that expands the space before the hills that line the ocean. Fall is steadily approaching and bringing with it the anticipation of crisp air and a new Halloween season, and the excitement is multiplied by the fact that I am newly in college, with recently-made friends, independence, and a future ahead of me, and none of it is daunting yet because all I see are the possibilities and exciting activities I get to partake in. We’re getting off the freeway and cruising down the road to the farm, past trees beginning to change and drop red leaves that crunch on the ground, my window is down, letting in crisp evening air, and this song is playing; I’m hearing it for the first time, and I’m feeling emotionally moved, and it is already the epitome of autumn, and I feel very happy.

Sometimes the flood of memories and feelings take my breath away, they are so specific and full. There was a time in my life when I thought this was sort of a curse. Curse is a strong word, but maybe an inconvience. But then again, heartbreak is an “inconvenience” in the way it forms a hole in your heart, makes it feel as if the world is falling out from under your feet, and completely undermines your abiltiy to function in your everyday life for a while (or sometimes a long while), but isn’t love so worth it? I have never disagreed with Tennyson’s “it is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all,” even in my darkest moments. And in the same way, sure it was difficult when I finally chose to listen to a song again that had wrenched my heart in two the first time I heard it in high school, and which I chose to not listen to again until a handful of months ago, and in choosing to do so again, evoked an incomprehensible sadness in me that I had not experienced in two years, and opened a gate to an understanding and a perspective in my own grief I had not explored yet and that I drowned in for a few weeks. Yes, this in a way was an inconvenience. But it opened a necessary path. And I choose now to see it as a gift that I am so affected by music.

The late poet John O’Donohue said:

“Music is what language would love to be if it could.”

And though I am a writer, reliant on language, with a pillar of my identity being the use of the written word to create art, I find this quote really special, beautful, and true. Despite how many words we have created to describe music, there truly would be no way to fully communicate what it is to be moved by the sounds of a song to someone who has never heard music before. I’m not sure why music does what it does to me, but I am thankful to experience it.

If you’d like to be a part of this shared memory, go outside in the afternoon, listen to this song, and look at a color-changing tree—if you have the time to do so.

I have a poem stuck in my throat. 
I cough out words, 
phrases at a time, 
like bits of food leftover from dinner. 

These pieces of sentences 
stare up at me from the page 
where I haphazardly spit them out, 
still covered in my saliva, 
different colors and textures, 
and I stare back, 
willing them to order themselves. 

I play around with them, 
rearranging, 
like a baby 
in a high chair with peas and carrots, 
but I seem to be unable to make sense of them. 
I revisit them, day after day—
they begin to mold on my untouched white document, 
turning green and growing fur while I struggle 
to put them together right. 

Sometimes I become scared 
that this poem is past its expiration date, 
though I have become attached 
to these words 
like the smell of garlic on my fingers. 

They may be odd looking, 
shaped funny, 
feel weird in the mouth—
maybe they’re a little moldy, 
but I still like them, 
though I still cannot make sense 
of the poem in them—
the synecdoche unclear. 
Some chunks fit together, 
others are missing a piece. 

It’s choking me, 
this poem, 
I know there is still some left in my throat, 
and I search for it, 
try to put down new words, 
try to force a cough, 
a sneeze, 
to spit up the rest, 
but the right words don’t come out then—
they come out on their own time, 
I’ve learned. 

So I revisit my page, 
maybe three times a week, 
maybe much fewer, 
to drop the crumbs that come out of me 
at moments unpredictable, 
at work, 
in my pajamas, 
on my couch,
in my partner’s arms, 
watching a group of friends, 
sharing an intimate moment, 
drinking in a scenery before me, 
and I never throw them away, 
never leave them to rot and compost; 
I keep feeding them, 
I nurture them, 
waiting for them to become 
something bigger. 

Shaking up the page every once in awhile, 
watching the ridges of new words 
fit with old ones perfectly, 
I feel it becoming. 
I let the poem piece itself together—
I drink tea, 
I swallow echinacea pills with water, 
I allow myself to rest, 
and soon enough 
I think it will find its way out of me. 
These crumbs are leading to something.

It seems I have a tendency to write poetry about poetry… and to think often of food.

12 and two months ago, I stared through the open front door of a new home, at a view of a distant city brushed softly by pastel pinks and oranges, from the middle of a room that was mostly empty. My body was nestled in the center of a gigantic brown bean bag, the human-shaped dent barely formed since I had plopped it on the floor of this space a couple days before—the only piece of furniture so far in the new and barren living room. No paintings on the walls yet, no worn leather chair, no heavy wooden apothecary table that takes two to move, no perfectly squishy facebook marketplace couch that would be slept on comfortably by guest after overnight guest. No mirror that would capture many outfit pictures, no pathos cascading next to it that would watch us grow as it did, too. The bathroom door had not yet been filled by sticky notes of hand-written affirmations from friends who love each other, the fridge not filled with photos and graduation announcements and assorted magnets and letters. The porch was already there, yes, the handful of stone steps that seat four comfortably, but it had not been sat on by all of us yet, by many more bottoms of people I did not know then, friends that would come and go, some that would stay forever. The porch didn’t know that it would be smoked on, ashed on, stood on, ran up, plopped down comfortably on, cried on, lounged on, stepped up hesitantly by new friends—it was not yet a safe space to witness and soak in countless mesmerizing pink, orange, red, blue San Diego sunsets and smell rare San Diego rains, or to soak in the sun on a crisp morning, white and illuminating, with a coffee or tea in hand. It had not witnessed hellos or goodbyes of ours, partners we hadn’t yet brought over, friends we were yet to meet but would become a piece of our puzzle.

No, though strangers had come before us in this house, on that day, it had not been lived in by us—did not know us. We did not know future us, either.

Two months prior, I stood on a wide concrete driveway in front of a two-story house I had learned like the back of my hand, and parts of that house, too, were empty—my room, all its contents, split between a truck and my car. I squeezed friends tight in my arms, one after another, who, after years in close proximity, had argued and fought and said unkind things about one another, had cooked together, made late night snack runs, cried in front of one another, stumbled back to this house drunk together and brought boys over while the others hid in the master bedroom. I squeezed goodbye friends who held me after the call that changed my life, who made meals for me when I could not fathom doing anything for myself, who didn’t have the words but tried in other ways. We studied late at night, became frustrated with each other, treated one another unfairly, showed so much love through the years, and after time that had flown by so fast, suddenly stared into the faces of new people. Saying my goodbyes after an assortment of memories I could not have predicted but had walked so eagerly into, I did not know the other house that waited for me, only two months separating these valuable moments, and the memories that I would make next in a life that would feel so new.

Nearly four years before that, I walked into an empty dorm room, daunting and all to myself, in a new building on a new campus in a new city; I had never lived anywhere but my childhood home. I stared at the uniform, bland furniture delegated to every other room like mine, and wondered what I would make of it. What new connections would step foot in here, what outfits I would try on in the tiny dresser mirror, what classes I would study for on the cheap desk, how many microwavable Trader Joe’s mac and cheeses I woud eat in this room, who I would fall in love with, what friends would hurt me, and I had no idea what two-story house I would call home in the coming years, and with whom, and what would come of that, and then after that was all over and I somehow finished it all and became a new person in what felt like the blink of an eye and the swoosh of a graduation gown, what would come then? What house would I call home, then? What place would I belong to? What would I remember when I looked back? And then—?

For a silly and authentic peek at my mid-college self, one of my old playlists:

Sometimes, I neglect her; sometimes, we dance a wonderful dance together, wispy imaginary hand grasped tightly by my fleshy one.

Sometimes I hesitate, try to set these gifts of wonder aside for later, so she takes off, and I must chase her through an imaginary meadow, stepping up onto air like stairs that carry me high, so I can run after her, reach out, barley grab her by the foot and assure her I’m ready. She’ll giggle, give in and float down with me, let me make the art.

I do not always agree with the moments she chooses to visit me. On days, I will beg for her on my knees. She will be absent, then. But long past the sunset, my room bathed in darkness and my body sinking into my mattress, covers pulled up to my chin and arranged just right, leftover thoughts cycling through my mind on the brink of sleep, there! She’ll appear, poke at me snuggled under my blankets, present me with a gift with palms spread open. I may groan as I force my eyes open, push back the covers in frustration, turn over to grab my phone, and jot the idea down—but I must, because if I don’t, she will have skipped away with it. Let me remind you, she’s on her own time.

On those days she is absent, though, I still choose to write without her. I know I will be stuck if I rely on her accompaniment.

My inspiration has a mind of her own, a schedule undisclosed, priorities she will never tell me—she slips in my door unbeknownst to me, shows up in moments I do not anticipate. If I let my ego take over, her actions may frustrate me. I could easily became angry if I am not thankful. But I choose to work with her nonetheless, and I thank her every time. Because when I decided to devote myself to my creativity, I also chose to shake hands with her. In all her ficklness, in all her beauty, in all her perfection.

Once I feel a crispness to the air that comes alive in September after being dormant for so long, an excitement takes over at the approach of fall. During the cold seasons, I sink into the cozy idea of a blanket wrapped around my body on the couch, a steaming mug in hand.

But it is when summer arrives, when I exit the cold season after months of wearing sweaters and staring at layers of clouds with only sporadic sun, when the days become sunnier and the warm nights tease the idea of walking with friends down the street in a tank top at 10 P.M., that I feel myself awaken. When the coast is warm enough to lay on the sand, my friends and I sit on the porch at night in shorts, we buy our first ice cream, we partake in our first ocean dip, I begin wearing sunglasses daily, we share talk of the pool days we’ll have and the blended drinks we’ll sip on. When I visit home and drive through the familiar winding forest road, hike through brush and redwood trees to reach the bitter-cold river.

That is when I feel most alive—preparing to bask in the sun, buying a new bottle of sunscreen, putting on the pair of shorts that have been untouched in my closet for months.

I have always been connected to the warm season; when I was little, summer was always my favorite. All I thought about were water gun fights and rocket pop popsicles and Fourth of July. I am a Leo, after all—I was born in the heat of August. I feel my soul awaken when summer rises, and the sun seems to brighten everything up. As people fill the streets, dot the beaches, populate the outside patios of restaurants, I come alive alongside them. It’s a pure connection, the time of the year when I align with the earth in a way that feels spiritual.

When I was young, no other time was exciting to me in that way. But as I have grown, I have come to learn to find the beauty in all things—happy and sad, exciting and heartbreaking—and it has gifted me a new perspective on the beauty of each season, too. The beauty of the sun, and of the rain.

I do especially love fall now, too. It isn’t soul-igniting in the way the beginning of summer is to me, but it is definitely a beautiful excitement, an encompassing appreciation of the comforts and change that fall brings. I light up at the thought of pumpkin-flavored Trader Joes snacks, of cuddling up in front of a fall movie, of Halloween decorations and crunching leaves on the way to the coffee shop where I’ll order a chai latte.

Summer, you bring me warm experiences, the exhilaration of splashing in water, and the anticipation of spontaneous plans. I will always be in love with you, and the sacred way you understand me. But like a healthy relationship, I do not always need to be around you. I can experience the beauty of other seasons, too. Today felt crisp, and I drank it in from my porch, my arms bristling with goosebumps in my t-shirt and flowy shorts. I’ll enjoy the slow fade into cozy comfort, now.

Summer, thanks for staying with me for awhile.

August to September

We are in limbo,
This warm city and I.
Seeping into the lingering caress of sun,
My muscles sagging with heat,
Heart buzzing from light conversation,
Ribs aching from full laughter. 
And at the same time,
Shivering when the anticipating brush of
A crisp evening breeze slices
Through the air,
Tickles my nose with the faint spice
Of dried grasses, of damp earth 
In the distance, beckoning
With an earth-toned smile,
I relax into the transition.

September Tenth 

Dirty outdoor couch where I sit,
Damp cold seeping through the fabric of my sweatpants.
Piercing, biting air of nighhttime crisp with despair,
It claws at the collar of my crewneck to reach inside me.

Paralysis, on that couch.
My heart filled to the brim—
The slew of passions spilling from my brain
Have nowhere to go. 

This what plagues me. 
I am a numb statue,
Heavy as lead.
Surprised I do not sink through
The couch and into the ground.
The detached touch of a hand does nothing for me.

It feels odd, to know now the hollow space 
Of a life snatched away,
Yet to retreat into a fabricated ignorance.
Understanding has not found me yet:
I flow through phases of existing in this story, 
An account of something that feels untrue.

Will it ever?
I cannot place moments afterwards when it did. 
I have forgotten most of that night, after all.
Long minutes of staying seated and staring, 
Feeling so much yet nothing at all.

Pacing,
Repeating,
Crying, 
Sitting
Without the knowledge of what to do next.
The resistance to hang up the phone 
Because how could I leave my mother alone?

What I do remember:
Sitting on the porch, 
The accumulated dew from the couch seeping into me,
Feeling cold yet burning inside;
The company of a friend who did not understand
On my left,
The ghost of a parent just gone
On my right. 
Tuning into the pitter-patter of strange summer rain,
The sky dark and the moon somewhere out there.
“It’s raining for him,” she observes next to me.
Like the earth was grieving with me. 
Watching a small green beetle climb up the edge of my car,
Fighting through water to reach the top, 
Struggling, 
Only to slip in the falling rain that carried it back to the bottom.
Up and down, 
Up and down.
Up again it went, and I continued to watch. 
Rooting for it each time.

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