#gwritten

[galebtw]

13 / Imagine yourself in a room full of art. It's only you, in a bedroom-sized space, surrounded with paintings, sculptures, light installations. And no, this isn't a room where art is perfectly arranged and curated to have enough space or density between them. This is a room full of art - exhausting with colors, bursting in size and depth. Too much. Your vision adjusts to it, you no longer know where to focus. It almost looks to plain to you. But you know in the back of your mind that these are masterpieces.

This is how I feel. Overwhelmed. But in a good way, if there is such thing. There are so many things lined up for me at work and they are pushing me to do things I've never done before. To tell you the truth, I've always wanted to do these things. Immensely. But never realized it would come so soon. That it would be happening now.

Maybe that's life. Maybe it's luck. Maybe it's opportunity granted for me by other people. Maybe it's because of other women opening up doors for me. It feels like I'm suspended mid-air. A loss of gravity, or a cloud carrying my weight. Potential energy. I just have to reach up, and grab grab grab as much as I can without falling. But maybe that's also why I'm writing to you -- because there is also fear too. The ground I might fall on is hard and I might break. But gaddamn, I think it's worth breaking for. Maybe there's beauty in that too. Maybe even a lesson.

(This photo, they call it The Art of Embracing Damage.)

[galebtw]

12 / This space is usually dark, occupied by cars, unnoticeable, and something you only see by the corner of your eyes but barely stop to look at. But not this night. I was rushing home, mindlessly thinking about something else, my muscle memory does it job and takes me on my walk home. A light catches my eye. An irregularity in my normal walk, a spark. Illuminated. And my god, do I want to keep that light on. This, I wanted to capture, but knew that I can’t put it as well into words than how I saw it in real life. So I ran to my apartment, grabbed my camera, and ran back to the scene hoping the light would stay ablaze. And to my surprise, there were two brothers hanging out by the light. Stunned at the humanity of the scene. Two men conversing by a fluorescent light, some discarded furniture, the space almost empty but the two of them. It felt like a cinematic high from a movie where something cathartic is about to be revealed. I asked to take their photo and they obliged. Brothers, the other said to me. “Brothers,” smiling either to welcome me or to introduce themselves. I smile back in acknowledgment. And just as I click on the shutter they shake hands for the photo. I see them in better light.

Brothers, I nodded.

[galebtw]

08 / One week of happiness. I don’t want to say it out loud because doing so might take the magic out of it but yes, I have been unusually happy this week. I question where it’s coming from. But I’ve come to realize that like most things, it is a succession of the good I’m choosing to see. It is stacking domino painstakingly piece by piece and everything perfectly falls into place. It is waking up before your alarm rings and realizing you still have some time to sleep. It is hearing music, truly hearing it for the first time, and you realize what the lyrics meant. You appreciate the song even more. It is discovering cash in your pant pocket when it’s the last few days till your next paycheck. It is being engrossed in a novel, you discover why it’s entitled such, and everything is illuminated. It is the first drop of rain after a long, hot summer. It is having a hand to hold especially when you’re most afraid. It is hearing a song you love again after years since you’ve first discovered it. It is making someone laugh. It is a late-night conversation that’s enough to electrify you after weeks of no heat, no energy, and no spark. It is knowing that through all the things that could be wrong someone is right by you. It is having someone to come home to. I’m no longer questioning it but choosing to embrace it.

[galebtw]

07 / Two months of sheer silence. I haven’t been writing and yet again, it isn’t as easy as cracking your knuckles, one, two, three, four, five, and I write again. Beginning to write always feel like arthritis to me, words flow like joints bumping against each other causing a slow pain. It is getting to know you have hands and within them, bones, joints, and nerve endings that feel the need to light up time after time. They remind you that they too are the parts that make up the whole, there to remind you to take better care now.

[galebtw]

04 / Am I Summer?

Do you ever have moments in your day  that remind you of movie scenes? Do you ever suddenly act or say a line from a movie just because the situation seemed to fit the scene?

This week’s theme: (500) Days of Summer.

Am I Summer?

I don’t know why but when J asked me what music I listened to I said, “I love The Smiths.” Exactly the way Summer said it. It felt like a lie afterwards. I don’t know why I said that. Don’t get me wrong, I like The Smiths. But it isn’t usually my top-of-mind answer. Once everyone has left, he plays There Is A Light That Never Goes Out for me. I do not know what to feel of this.

I came home and there was a Kazakh man in our kitchen. Enough said.

J tries to learn a word in every language. This is his word. So I teach him, “titi!” He can’t say enunciate it right so I say it again. Louder this time. “Titi!” He gets it right when he adds his Italian to it. Ti-ti. It feels liberating to shout titi with as much freedom as Summer does. Haha.

[tropicanababy]

Ok. I know gift giving and receiving is gr8 and all but,,,what I rlllyy wanted for Christmas was a long complementary speech about my quirks that I didn't know I had from a friend.

[galebtw]

01 / Want to go almost make it?

Beginnings are always the toughest. But I guess happiness has to begin somewhere so here I go —

I. Falling in love? This is just the beginning. Let’s not get in trouble yet.

II. A book and an illustrator, however, has won me over. I picked up an Aino-Maija Metsola illustrated cover of The Waves novel and I am thrilled with this love affair of Woolf, words, and watercolor. Their love story is mine to call for now. I bring it with me to trains, put it to sleep, dream about what’s next for us.

III. On the topic of dreams, 1 of 8,923,723 tasks complete. I have moved— to a city that does not remember me. It has grown. City meet Gale, Gale meet City. “I have met you before,” I say to the city. But it has moved on without me. I am finding ways in which I am myself with it again.

IV. Good things take time. Happiness and time always seem transitory. Much like myself these days. And while the city tries to remember, I have found a place to foster my shy little self, to socialize. Lost and scared at first but ended up “right where you need to be.” Thankful for new places, new faces that feel right.

V-VI. One night, I asked what you prayed for and you asked me too. I mumbled an answer back. But what I didn’t say was: I pray for whatever this is, that it’s good and true. Hello, you. Somehow it just takes someone to believe in your potential for you to pursue a creative hobby. Thank you for the push. I’m glad to rewrite old drafts, revisit stories, and write new chapters. As long as you are there. For when you’re no longer there, my art will keep me company. At least I will always have that to take with me.

[galebtw]

Saving myself the best way I know how:

1. A quiet moment captured between bestfriends surrounded by larger than life art to remind us that in the grand scheme of things, all of us are just passing through.

2.  My mother sent me this photo. What a wondrous feeling knowing that she finally has someone to grow old with. I’m taking care of you both very soon.

3. Walking along the street of my home and snapping it at the very moment the light hit this house perfectly. Home is all the good, and all the light, and all the pink against that warm sky.

4. I let myself be kind to myself and accepted a fact: I felt beautiful that day – a feat.

5. Our library has the most fascinating collection and some of the oldest books you can ever imagine. There’s a secluded area just for literature and it feels like Brontë must have been there at some point.

6. In my hand, a book from 1964. How rare, how feeble, how delicate.

7. We don’t say regularities enough and we don’t see each other often.