the heights and the depths

“It is, I think, that we are all so alone in what lies deepest in our souls, so unable to find the words, and perhaps the courage to speak with unlocked hearts, that we don't know at all that it is the same with others.”

[corruscates]

when i was home, mummy said, one of these days you should go with me to the temple, to go visit ah ma. she'll be very proud of you.

will she?

I think of her looking down at me, even now as I'm typing this. hovering above in moments of pride and in moments of shame. I've grown up and carved out a life for myself on the other side of the world, and feel lucky to have what I have and to be who I am but – how do I explain this loss that I will never get over? this perpetual grief that cannot be made legible? the aloneness?

[corruscates]

the beginning of the end of long summer days

[corruscates]

No, all ambition has the reek of disease about it, the relentless smell of the self—except for that terrible, blissful feeling at the heart of creation itself, when all thought of your name is obliterated and all you want is the poem, to be the means wherein something of reality, perhaps even something of eternity, realizes itself.

My Bright Abyss

[corruscates]

flew back to SF last sunday, my first time on a plane in more than a year. I spent the flight alternating between reading and looking out the window, and when a flight attendant came by to offer me water, she commented on how beautiful the landscape was. she must see this all the time, but I loved that she still thought so. and when the plane circled San Francisco, waiting to land, I happened to look outside and saw this view of the bridge, rising from the water, with the fog rolling by. I felt at home.

[corruscates]

“My Wyoming was all wind in the grass and mountains off in the distance and nobody to say, You don’t belong here. It was like stepping off this world, the way I dreamed of it.”

Jack, Marilynne Robinson

[corruscates]

feeling the ache of homesickness, which always, eventually, inevitably happens when you leave me in this country for long enough, especially when you confront me with decisions I don’t quite know how to weigh up. the comfort of home feels especially far away this year, the first year since I moved here that I won’t make that 16-hour transpacific flight-

the mountains and the trees provide some comfort: excuse me, I have work to do

[corruscates]

It rained dramatically yesterday as we were driving, the kind of torrential rain I love that reminds me of home, what DarkSky called an “interesting storm”. I wish I got a video of it, but I was driving and D was asleep in the passenger seat. The rain fell so hard and fast that I wasn’t sure the windshield wipers would keep up; trucks driving in the other direction sprayed sheets of water across the glass as they passed, causing the car to tremble. I wanted to pull over and step out into the rain and be soaked, dripping, but I kept driving, and now we’ve arrived in Livingston, MT, where the rain has cleared the air of smoke and we can see mountains out the window.

[corruscates]

fled two fires, headed east soon-

[corruscates]

I remember being a child and staring into the depths of the oceans, transfixed by how blue it was and its seeming infiniteness. to think that there was so much of it, and that it could stretch across the earth: it stood then for the vastness of everything to be seen and learnt and discovered. now whenever I look at the ocean I think of ah ma, who never in her life boarded a plane, whose ashes we sowed into the sea more than seven years ago. I imagine her having crossed the pacific, I imagine her with me -- certainly wishful thinking, yet I’ve always longed to be near the water, to hear the waves crash against rocks and sand, unconcerned, to watch the sun draw its light down below the horizon

[corruscates]

have taken to calling old friends on the phone while wandering in the generally upward direction

[corruscates]

something about the light, the clouds, the blueness of the sky startled me today

[corruscates]

there exists this mythos about what the west coast means: some collage of liberalism, opportunity, and golden sunlight everywhere.

M once described what he thought of as “California’s enthusiasm” to me, and I find myself thinking of that phrase from time to time. it feels like a koan I can’t solve.

[corruscates]

Today, sitting outside Ritual Coffee with S, my college roommate, and M, whom I had just met two weeks ago, we picked up friends who happened to walk past on Valencia, gradually evolving into a boisterous sidewalk party. Everyone knew everyone through different means. I’m reminded of Joan Didion in “Goodbye to All That”: I had already met them, always...

[corruscates]

“But the fact that there is this other, this infinity of ocean –– that liberates us.” - Karl Jaspers

[corruscates]

The Resident Tourist :: Grandma | Tapas

Translations: Ai jia zui mai? - (Teochew) Would you like a drink? gia - (Teochew) let's go, literally to walk

[corruscates]

your dedicated lakeside perambulator of 2016 has become a dedicated bayside commuter

[corruscates]

I crossed into the new decade uneventfully, sitting on the floor in the room I grew up in, filling out 401K forms on my laptop.

At 6am, I boarded a plane for my other home across the Pacific, and at 6pm, still new year’s day because timezones, D and I walked up bernal heights and caught this brilliant sunset. He said the texture of the clouds reminded him of close-ups of irises.