Somewhere along the way over the course of the past year I lost myself and stopped writing in my blog. There were circumstances that I won't describe here in detail (because you know, the internet), but to sum it up I wasn't myself and it wasn't my fault - although I felt that it was at times.
The other day I described to my friend a sense of loss of my childhood. I had felt it present in the past 5 years or so, but today I would have to say that it's no longer really there and I'm okay with that. Perhaps loss is a strange word to use, but more so a sense of detachment or transformation.
Baltimore is an interesting city. I've grown to slowly love it, and it's still growing on me. However, I've seen less and less these days, but my love grows stronger and stronger as my three major prongs of life continue to grow: work, relationships, and health. Now that I'm older, I value those three things and put a lot of energy into them. Now I feel that I am in a good place with all three and I hope to keep that momentum going and building along. I sure did not feel that way in the past year especially when a few of those pillars were crumbling and not helping me stand (or rather I was not helping them stand).
I say this a lot but I cried almost every week in the past year despite having fallen in love with someone. Isn't it strange how life can be - this ebb and flow of things? And still my heart finds a way to strengthen and I find a way to shine.
I'd like to set my intention for the now and to not give a timeline to it. I'm not going to force it, I'm not going to worry about whether I'm doing enough. Just going to set my intention when I'd like to and not get too overwhelmed with the time of things. I think I've pushed myself to strive for something in the past 5 years or so, and the adventure, as old as this story sounds, was really what was valuable. I'm at where I want to be but not exactly, and that's alright.
**
I was thinking about trying to find my perfect job. And today I realized that it doesn't exist and you have to make it and create it. Albeit an environment is something that you may want to search for, but it is also what you put into it. Today was a good day where I felt that I put in some work and my thoughts and the output was quiet supportive. So perhaps instead of fixating on this crazy idealism of a "perfect" job, I can actually try to make my job as close as possible to this as I can and also envision what this means to me.
24.2.16
7.7.15
13.12.14
Moving to the East Coast is a mouthful.
A move to the East Coast popped into my head when I was 22-ish sometime in 2009 or 2010 when I was sitting in my flourescent mosquito netted room in Vietnam. I never did open that window. I wanted to move here for several reasons but mostly to see and feel another part of the United States that I had not really given the time for - geographical barriers perhaps. Much of our nation's culture is rooted in the East Coast. It makes sense doesn't it - after all our "founding" happened on this side, Washington D.C. is here, and Matt Damon's from Boston. How about them apples?
The accents, the culture, how people acted, and felt and talked about things. I felt that this would inform my politics, education, and intellect. Everything that I had known was just still so little. Just as I had made my move to Vietnam - I wanted to feel it, I wanted to experience it. I may not seem like it, but deep down inside, I really don't give a crap about your perspective. Yes, I can be swayed perhaps temporarily. However, I will not believe what you say to me or really absorb it until I myself judge or go through the experience itself.
My curiosity lead me here, along with the departure of my childhood. I often feel that my childhood is something that has passed, and I certainly feel that I've entered another "era" of my life. Perhaps it was the process of falling in love for the first time and then leaving it behind. Perhaps it was just making a move to another city in a way that isn't quite the same as living in Vietnam for two years when I had yet really felt strong pain or heartbreak. Perhaps my heart broke in more ways than one. Whatever it was, it left me in what felt like another part of my life - so distant, literally and figuratively. I found myself in Baltimore.
Baltimore is an interesting city. Much of what we may know of it comes from media and shows such as "The Wire." Yet, so many things are filmed here, House of Cards, Veep, and so much more. Aside from tax cuts, there's something about Baltimore that is film worthy. From the beautiful homes of Baltimore, to the simultaneous small town and urban city feel that you get from walking from one town to the next.
Baltimore is like that place that you never think about. Sorta like - Ontario, California. No one ever thinks about Ontario, California, but hell I spent almost 15 of my most formative years of my life there. I am so very Ontario, Californian. I enjoy suburban convenience, I like my peace, I think cows are cute, farmers were my friends, and I enjoy small towns. I grew up in a neighborhood immersed by the working class. Moving to the East Coast and being in such a privileged institution, I am removed from the working class. Instead there's this constant juxtaposition I am facing. Here, I've placed myself in a different setting, removed from the local community. That is something that I have not been able to shake off since I've moved here.
I lived in Bolton Hill for a short three months. It's one of those strange places in Baltimore that you would never find yourself in, but I did. Nestled next to the Maryland Institute of College of Arts - I moved here temporarily and lived with a nice family. They were into theater, photography, you know the ivy-league/private school artsy kind. I mean to open their home to people - it was already "different" for this neighborhood. Bolton Hill is one of those places where people have fresh milk delivered to their door. People here also have cars but they will get their organic groceries delivered. People here have grand pianos in their windows and their homes are impeccably decorated with authentic vintage furniture. Not the goodwill kind but the kind passed down by generations. Bolton Hill is where Frank Underwood lives. There is only one cafe and one restaurant in Bolton Hill and no grocery stores. People here detest the "save-a-lot" a few blocks over. They have their own separate Halloween the weekend before the real one (which I am convinced has racist undertones). There is a man that literally vacuums the streets every week. I was constantly shifting here - as an Asian female I knew I was perceived as "non-threatening" to the people of Bolton Hill - I even started grating my cheese. This place bothered me, and I would never live here again.
I felt like writing this because I've had a mentally tiring week. There is something so fundamentally missing from the way people interact with each other - a connectedness to the work - humanity.
Tomorrow I have a whole day to myself. I'll see where it takes me.
The accents, the culture, how people acted, and felt and talked about things. I felt that this would inform my politics, education, and intellect. Everything that I had known was just still so little. Just as I had made my move to Vietnam - I wanted to feel it, I wanted to experience it. I may not seem like it, but deep down inside, I really don't give a crap about your perspective. Yes, I can be swayed perhaps temporarily. However, I will not believe what you say to me or really absorb it until I myself judge or go through the experience itself.
My curiosity lead me here, along with the departure of my childhood. I often feel that my childhood is something that has passed, and I certainly feel that I've entered another "era" of my life. Perhaps it was the process of falling in love for the first time and then leaving it behind. Perhaps it was just making a move to another city in a way that isn't quite the same as living in Vietnam for two years when I had yet really felt strong pain or heartbreak. Perhaps my heart broke in more ways than one. Whatever it was, it left me in what felt like another part of my life - so distant, literally and figuratively. I found myself in Baltimore.
Baltimore is an interesting city. Much of what we may know of it comes from media and shows such as "The Wire." Yet, so many things are filmed here, House of Cards, Veep, and so much more. Aside from tax cuts, there's something about Baltimore that is film worthy. From the beautiful homes of Baltimore, to the simultaneous small town and urban city feel that you get from walking from one town to the next.
Baltimore is like that place that you never think about. Sorta like - Ontario, California. No one ever thinks about Ontario, California, but hell I spent almost 15 of my most formative years of my life there. I am so very Ontario, Californian. I enjoy suburban convenience, I like my peace, I think cows are cute, farmers were my friends, and I enjoy small towns. I grew up in a neighborhood immersed by the working class. Moving to the East Coast and being in such a privileged institution, I am removed from the working class. Instead there's this constant juxtaposition I am facing. Here, I've placed myself in a different setting, removed from the local community. That is something that I have not been able to shake off since I've moved here.
I lived in Bolton Hill for a short three months. It's one of those strange places in Baltimore that you would never find yourself in, but I did. Nestled next to the Maryland Institute of College of Arts - I moved here temporarily and lived with a nice family. They were into theater, photography, you know the ivy-league/private school artsy kind. I mean to open their home to people - it was already "different" for this neighborhood. Bolton Hill is one of those places where people have fresh milk delivered to their door. People here also have cars but they will get their organic groceries delivered. People here have grand pianos in their windows and their homes are impeccably decorated with authentic vintage furniture. Not the goodwill kind but the kind passed down by generations. Bolton Hill is where Frank Underwood lives. There is only one cafe and one restaurant in Bolton Hill and no grocery stores. People here detest the "save-a-lot" a few blocks over. They have their own separate Halloween the weekend before the real one (which I am convinced has racist undertones). There is a man that literally vacuums the streets every week. I was constantly shifting here - as an Asian female I knew I was perceived as "non-threatening" to the people of Bolton Hill - I even started grating my cheese. This place bothered me, and I would never live here again.
I felt like writing this because I've had a mentally tiring week. There is something so fundamentally missing from the way people interact with each other - a connectedness to the work - humanity.
Tomorrow I have a whole day to myself. I'll see where it takes me.
29.11.14
Saturday thoughts.
Through my eyes, I can make you fall in love with any city. What a revelation I just had, and how much power this holds.
Of course, I must give credit to the good friends and folks I meet along the way that too help me fall in love with a city. Their eyes, their open-ness is what makes it magic and all I could really do is pass it on to the next.
One time I showed a boy around L.A. and simultaneously at that instant, he fell in love with the city and perhaps me too.
Of course, I must give credit to the good friends and folks I meet along the way that too help me fall in love with a city. Their eyes, their open-ness is what makes it magic and all I could really do is pass it on to the next.
One time I showed a boy around L.A. and simultaneously at that instant, he fell in love with the city and perhaps me too.
27.11.14
Strangers
Lately, I've been encountering people through the different random things that I buy off craigslist to furnish my new apartment. For the first time in my life, I have a place of my own and I've furnished everything in it on my own - more about this another time perhaps.
When encountering random people - there's a rush to it, for a moment you enter their lives and they enter yours and the possibilities of friendship is sorta fun. Even if it's just surface conversations with a random person you would never in your life speak to. When you graduate from college, you don't really meet people as frequent, as we get older, people sorta get into their own lives. They get their own apartments and stay indoors and watch netflix and don't talk to people.
Goodnight.
When encountering random people - there's a rush to it, for a moment you enter their lives and they enter yours and the possibilities of friendship is sorta fun. Even if it's just surface conversations with a random person you would never in your life speak to. When you graduate from college, you don't really meet people as frequent, as we get older, people sorta get into their own lives. They get their own apartments and stay indoors and watch netflix and don't talk to people.
Goodnight.
And then what?
We were driving into the dark freeways of Maryland or Virginia - I'm not sure which one since the states here are so close together - and so literally white marks were about the only thing that reached out to our eyelashes. The green trees at night absorb even more color. We were talking about our lives, as car rides usually succumb to, because it's a time where you can just stare at what is in front of you, listen to the light radio waves around you, and also feel that you are going somewhere. We were going somewhere. Our conversation shifted into about what we would accomplish in life. Getting a partner, getting a car, buying a house. And my friend had just bought a house - at our young age - which to many people would be the epitome of the so-called "American dream."
"...and then what?"
There was a pause in his speech as I stared off into the dark abyss that laid before us. The question and the abyss coincided perfectly at that moment. I had no answer nor did it seem that he wanted one. We were going somewhere, and I suppose that's all that really mattered.
"...and then what?"
There was a pause in his speech as I stared off into the dark abyss that laid before us. The question and the abyss coincided perfectly at that moment. I had no answer nor did it seem that he wanted one. We were going somewhere, and I suppose that's all that really mattered.
28.10.14
Everyone has a different spirit that guides them.
My journey is different from yours. What will make you whole is shaped differently from mine.
