That LA dream.

I recently watched La La Land after hearing so much about it. I wasn't sure what to expect, except I knew that people really loved it, there's some singing, a nod to old time movies, and something about LA.

On my way to Ethiopia, the movie came up on my movie selection list. Delighted, I clicked on it.  As I catapult myself at 500 miles per hour, moving farther and farther away from home, to a place that feels like you stepped back into time, the movie starts in a traffic jam.

Traffic jams and Los Angeles are as ubiquitous as crabs and Baltimore. Nice nod. I was fascinated that they closed an onramp to do this scene and wondered which freeway they were on (the 105 and the 110 - as a person familiar with the freeways, I was both fascinated and angry at the same time.) At first, the movie didn't really catch my attention aside from that scene, but my mind was distracted. Towards the middle, as the relationship between the characters began to build I started to pay attention. I ended up crying at several scenes (first off, I was emotional from some other life events) and leaving home for an extended period of time always makes me emotional regardless of how many times I do it. There's a scene where you really feel her pain when she discusses the defeat she feels during auditions and never having a yes. She then uses that defeat to give up and you can hear her as she says that. I resonated with it, having felt the same way. I can see why she got an Oscar for a role that seems so simple. She brought complexity to it in subtle ways and I appreciated her performance.

I also cried in the epilogue scene where the movie shows what could of been had the movie gone with happy scenes throughout the course of the entire journey with the characters. Then all of a sudden. they leave the happy colorful scenes to an abrupt stop into a white studio lot. It hits you that what you're watching isn't real and reality sets in. I watched the movie again after it was done.

Rusty as it might.

Having traversed several timezones in the past four weeks, Baltimore, needless to say feels strange and familiar. When I have anxiety I tend to fixate over one thing. Right now it's facial maintenance. I've recently realized that I have a bit of puffiness under my eyes and some little wrinkles creeping in. It's okay really, people still mistake me for early 20s.

It is suppose to be snowing but its just this wet winter mix. I don't like those very much, it's as if the weather cannot make a decision, and therefore we get lost in that indecision.

I would like to reflect on my three week trip with my brother and mom throughout Japan and Vietnam but I am not sure what to think of it. Having traveled so much it was nice to hear my brother's comments on Asia. He mentioned that it was weird blending in. Japan is such a nice country to travel through. I spent most of my time traveling sick. Which was strange since I rarely get sick while abroad, I suppose the stress got the best of me and made me ill.

Well I am excited to get back to biking and yoga. I feel more physically fit then I have ever been and it's a journey that's taken a while to get to. Sometimes I am in Baltimore and I feel like I am asking for more but I am not sure what I am asking for. I am here and have been since 2013 which is the longest time I've been anywhere. It is my home base.

How I feel.

My boyfriend makes fun of me because I do not absorb the world in details but rather I "feel" it. His imitation of me goes something like this: "I don't remember anything about it but I do know how it makes me feel."

And this is often how I recount past memories or stories. Aside from this, I am also a person who feels my way forward, and often trusting my gut or the journey to get there as part of the process. Right now, I do not feel my way forward. Perhaps this is a feeling of contentment at the moment, but I would like to have a feeling forward or some goal to attain.

These thoughts arise when I visit California and try to "explain" what I do succinctly to people, making me realize that I have no idea what I'm doing and feel that it is really no different than their life in California.

California is just so California to me and Maryland is just so different. I am constantly and consistently a fish out of water in Baltimore. As I ebb and flow in defining what and where home is I can officially state that I am confused. My heart is becoming more of my home and I am slowly but surely growing into a new sense of self that feels better than before.

At times I do not feel good. Baltimore makes me uncomfortable and I am without many of my previous pillars. At the same time it offers me a chance to grow and to become a different better person. I do not want to forget my youth and I also most importantly don't want to forget my cultural identity and how it shapes me. As my identity is being reshaped in a new environment, it would likely benefit from reflection and understanding combined with an openness of learning.

It also stands that perhaps being myself instead of hiding would be wise as well.

Loss and sunshine.

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.

This is it.

I've got nothing to lose.

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.

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.