2024, april 24

i find the personal growth metaphor a bit outrageous, tbh, especially as a tiny-sized human in a world full of height privilege and an obsession with upscaling in general. we always talk about wanting to grow, which suggests that bigger and more is the desirable thing. it’s about time we celebrate some smallness. who says we shouldn’t want to be smaller? let’s flip the script. instead of saying i want to grow, let’s say i want to shrink, or instead of saying, i’m here for personal growth, say i’m here for personal shrinking. haha maybe that’s why therapists are called shrinks.

ps: my friends and i now find ourselves in the habit of neither saying growing nor shrinking, but densifying. as in, i’ve learned so much from my deep shit point last year. i’ve densified big time. i like densifying because it makes me picture cotton candy and the moment when i take it into my palm to squeeze it into my fist and make it small like a snowball.

2024, april 4

the reality show "love is blind" inadvertently condenses toxic narratives of romantic love that hint at broader societal norms. besides the obvious gender stereotypes, what particularly jumps into my face: how the show glorifies some kind of high dependency on fake predictability. it is bizarre how the show celebrates fast-forwarding the beginning of a romantic connection. thereby the show embodies this kind of life-averse urgency that skips the most magic parts of life in order to jump to some kind of certainty that‘s unattainable after all. why would i choose to skip this electrifying time of a new love?! this time when you‘re bubbling over with happiness and when every day feels as if you had sunbeams for breakfast. this kind of predictability addiction behaves hostile towards experience. it is favouring fake certainty over a cotton candy sky and it makes us miss the moment when it is raining macaron-coloured cupcakes.

2024, february 29

the letter ‘L’ is my favorite, giving me a cozy corner and a solid backing, a sense of being held while also letting me breathe wide and open, like letting go into the world. it’s bright and airy, and pale yellow, like the color of the yellow fruchtzwerg yogurt. i love every word that starts with ‘L’ and enjoy the sound of ‘L’, how the tongue gets to play a good part in it and ‚L‘ is life-affirming.

2024, january 8

inside my novel

mia is sitting in sydney, immersed in the heat of the new year, and her star lights dance on the ceiling, casting water-like reflections, and outside, the jungle garden is thriving with lush greenery, and her cat sprawls in her lap making the keyboard wobble, and through the window, mia sees people braving the morning heat, and the sunlight flashes into her room as cars pass by, reflecting the intense australian sun, and it’s seven in the morning, and she's sipping hot coffee from her tiny mug from saigon, and the freshness of a recent shower lingers on her, and her pajamas are crisp and new, and she’s wearing her black history shirt with the aboriginal flag, and, on her screen, a zoom connection bridges the miles to her friend in berlin, and her friend is enveloped in the winter coziness of her room, and it’s dark and snowy out there, and the berlin winter cold cools her, as if the chill seeps through the screen, offering respite from sydney’s summer. and her thoughts flow rapidly as she types, seeing her reflection in the dark tv screen, noticing how her hands swiftly move across the keyboard, and mia feels remnants of her recent illness lingering in her body, and even through the freshness of the shower, traces of the past days’ lethargy remain, and as she types, she’s sweating out the last of her illness, detoxifying as she writes, and her mind delves into dreamscapes, blending her sydney monday morning with her friend's berlin sunday evening.

2023, december 22, berlin

sparkles and flashes everywhere when the sky is blue, as the water reflects so light so loudly and the brightness of the white swans is dazzling, and the trees’ nakedness feels resolved and radical. there is no hesitation in their bareness.

2023, december 11

inside my novel.

during this time of transition, mia woke up every morning without an alarm and first thing, she would read for either minutes or hours in her ocean-colored bed, sometimes it was five in the morning, sometimes it was twelve noon. then she would get up, and, still in her negligee, she would make her omelette with cottage cheese, onions, and scorchin’ hot chili oil, and she would cut it into little pie slices to eat throughout her working day during breaks from her relentless admin toil, and she would cut avocado into little cubes to go with the omelette, and when her shoulders became sore from all the digital paperwork, mia would do a little workout until her shoulders burned in satisfaction, and in the early evening, when she had toiled all her admin energy out of her and the australian spring sun had lowered, she would head out for a stroll in kirribilli and wendy whiteley's secret garden, and while strolling she'd dictate writing snippets into her phone, and she'd walk the stairs in wendy whiteley's secret garden up and down until she started sweating and panting. and when mia came home after dusk, she’d cook something spicy and collapse on the sofa with a red wine and she’d watch australian shows about slut shaming, and her cat would sprawl on her lap, her purrs vibrating into the night.

2023, december 5, cammeraygal (sydney)

i walk through the morning heat, heading to the doctor‘s. later, I sprawl in my ocean-hued bed, slipping on a sleeping mask, a touch of wellness. in the afternoon, i stroll among towering palms at the petite harbor. among them, there is this short palm, not slim and elegant like the others, but wrapped in a leafy fur, like it’s wearing a winter coat. compact and squat it stands, clumsy but confident. the sun lotions my skin. come evening, i drop into my chair in the coaching atelier, my tunis towel blazing pink beside me. as after-work hour strikes at midnight, i tiptoe to the stairwell, leaving german nikolaus candy at neighbor‘s thresholds. then, i read in the dark, thrillingly spooked, munching on pasta, sipping red wine, the day’s coaching marathon a satisfyingly resonating in my bones.

2023, december 3

inside my novel

after a full day of binge-worrying, mia‘s mind unexpectedly shifted into a state of deep relaxation. it was a paradoxical surrender: the more she worried, the more her mind eventually let go. reminiscent of her experience with her tense shoulder muscle — counterintuitively, not relaxation, but further straining would loosen the muscle. doing a shoulder workout, she would push the muscle to its limits until it had no choice but to relent. further tension led to ultimate relaxation. same with her mind: mia had worried so hard, it was like she had worried the worries out of her system. overthinking burns itself out. she exhausted her anxiety, leaving her mind in a serene repose. 

2023, november 30, cammeraygal (sydney)

a shadow from a coconut tree flickers on the door, surrounded by gentle white-yellow light, then quickly disappears. i wonder why these subtly spectacular light shows are so fleeting. then i realize it’s the cars outside casting these flashingly bright reflections. my place, surrounded by palms, jacarandas, and paperbarks, captures these moments for a micro-second.

the fleetingness reminds me of the little bright red flame angelfish in hawaii. our divemaster mentioned, the moment our eye catches this fish, it will disappear again. he suggested that we simply enjoy the rare sight for a second, rather than pointing it out to our co-divers because we might miss the moment ourselves.

the extreme fleetingness of the flame angelfish and the flickering palm tree shadow force me into soaking in the micro-second instead of trying to capture, share, or prolong it.

2023, november 28

inside my novel.

‘the process of falling asleep is so weird, her friend said. ‘first we pretend to be asleep and that makes us fall asleep eventually.’ 

that’s when mia realized, ah that’s how normal people go to sleep! fake it till you make it. this made her remember that she used the same approach when she was a child and nap time was forced on her in kindergarten. first she would close her eyes, then she would pretend to be sleep-breathing while her mind was wide awake. she hated it. eventually she would fall asleep, yes, but the sleep felt like a light-weighted blanket that was too light to soothe her but instead grazed her skin annoyingly. 

she couldn’t believe people still do the fake-sleeping method even when they are grown-ups! to mia, the core of being grown-up meant that no one could force you to sleep (and that she could pile as many salami slices on her sandwich as she liked). 

her going to sleep was totally different. she would let sleep come to her while she was busy doing other things like reading, watching, scrolling, writing, playing tetris, eating chips. oh, how delicious it felt when the sleep was overwhelming her. when she could feel it kicking in, when she could hear the distant bump of her book crashing to the ground, because the sleep just took over her hands, weakened her muscles, loosened her grip. when she could feel the sleep clouding her mind, while she was trying to hold onto the words she had just read. the sleep would suck all logic out of the words, spit the logic out and leave it to the real world. without the burden of logic, the words would enter her dreams and her jaw loosened and her toe twitched and a shy, rainbow-furred fox was handing her sun ripe avocados.

the other day, mia learned that in korean, instead of saying ‘i’m tired’, you can say ‘sleep is coming’, and that’s exactly how it feels. 잠 와.

2023, november 19, honolulu

hawaiian language sounds so delicious because it tastes like bubbles. as a child, i always dreamt of only eating just the holes in cheese or the bubbles in aerated chocolate. that's how the sound of ōlelo hawaiʻi feels. airy, bubbly, as if i'm finally allowed to eat just the yummy holes.

2023, november 5

non-urgency means sinking into this moment, rather than getting stuck in a parallel space of should-haves. non-urgency means enjoying a harbor stroll with a friend, without ever saying we should have done this sooner or we must do this more often. all this wanting of a wish to be fulfilled sooner, and more frequently makes you miss the actual moment of the wish being fulfilled, which is the current moment. non-urgency means being in this current space with the harbor and the glittering water, not being stuck in a parallel space of missed opportunities and unlived friend dates. 

interestingly, all my older friends over sixty seem to live that kind of non-urgency. when i‘m with them it feels like the present moment doesn‘t follow an arrow but simply babbles along. with them it’s easy to sink into the singularity of a moment, rather than trying to multiply the moment into the past and the future and thereby missing the moment itself. non-urgency means not taking the current moment as a stepping stone to another, but letting the moment be itself, free from the constraints of past regrets and future expectations. 

2023, november 3

inside my novel.

recently, mia realized that she finds people most beautiful when they’re hungover or heartbroken. it’s because they let go of all composure. their faces look like they are slightly melting. not horror movie melting, but firm melting like tealight wax after you’ve blown out the light and after a few minutes, it’s not liquid anymore but not hard yet. that kind of softness the tealight wax has. that’s the softness people have in their face when they’re letting go of all composure because they’re hungover or heartbroken. that’s how mia’s face will look. those tiny muscles by her eyes, they will be completely relaxed. almost like they’ve given up.

2023, october 18

talking with t. and k., we often get into how society usually doesn’t see children as beings, but rather as becomings. when something awful happens to a child, the concern leans less towards their current being and more towards the grown-up they will become. will they be permanently damaged? or will this experience forge them into a stronger, more resilient person? these are the kinds of questions that frame children as becomings, not beings. this was a major mindblow for me a few years back in our discussions about concepts of childhood and such. there is this incredible shift that happens when we start seeing children as beings from the very start. or as both beings and becomings, just like we can view ourselves as both. more on this some other time.

right now, i want to capture another thought. i’ve just finished liane moriarty’s ‘nine perfect strangers’ and something struck me about the middle-aged characters. they’re so wrapped up in what they used to be. this past self is a constant theme, both in their minds and in how others see them. after becoming and being, they’ve now entered the stage of what I’d call once-been. (actually, i would like to call it has-been, but that is already a standing term for people who were once successful and glamorous and are now dusty and bloated) anyway, it seems to me that upper-middle-aged people both in moriarty’s novel and in real life are depicted as if their original persona is obscured by age. as if their core appearance is buried under layers of age-chubbiness and sagging skin. they define themselves by what they once used to be, not by their current being. when they assess each other’s attractiveness, they’re not looking at the present face, but trying to see behind it: was this an attractive person back in the day?

in societies that value age, it seems different. at mamas birthday party, her seventieth year was celebrated in a big way. her korean friends hung up banners: ‘life begins at seventy!’ from this perspective, it appears that older people are seen as embodying the richness of their lived life. it’s the abundant life that’s living inside the seventy-year-old and not a buried statue from their heyday.

2023, october 10

inside my novel.

[mia] mia. whenever the mess flooded her apartment, mia would turn to painting. not because the chaos itself was inspiring – far from it. but because painting was her way of justifying this excessive clutter. seeing it as the mess of a forty-year-old made her feel incapable of life. but viewing it as the chaos of an artist she felt her genius underpinned.

2023, september 23, cammeraygal (sydney)

chinese place in chatswood. we're sitting in semi-private dining booths. the tables have these built-in hot pot baisins, ours is bubling with extra spicy broth. i'm dipping in beef, tofu and massive glass noodles. the server hands us hair ties and red aprons – a shield against splatters. every corner has someone celebrating their birthday – with birthday banners and sparkling balloons decorating the table. a robot glides around serving dishes to tables, dropping off dumplings and enoki mushrooms for us. another robot parades around with a shockingly pink birthday cake. two servers carry a massive blinking sign, going from one birthday group to another. the sign is flashing with birthday wishes, hearts, what have you. they swing it around, performing songs for every birthday table. they are wearing these headbands with tiny ears — maybe mouse ears or rabbit ears. makes sense, it's the year of the rabbit after all. 

it strikes me that asian spots here, unlike berlin or new york, don‘t seem to be part of a hipster foodie culture but instead inhabit their own self-immersive parallel universe. a world seemingly hidden from many white sydneysiders. for moments, i forget i'm in sydney. and the sichuan pepper leaves a numbing tingle on my tongue and a delightful dizziness in my head.

2023, september 21

message to a friend.

you asked me why u. never holds grudges. how does she manage to let go of fights and hurt feelings? i think the difference between u. and people who hold grudges ist that she sees the fights and hurt feelings as single dots and doesn‘t connect the dots with a line. she can still feel and relate to the pain from each single dot, but she doesn‘t draw a line from one dot to the next and to the present.

2023, september 17, gadigal (sydney)

the day is a scorcher. though it’s supposed to be only spring, the air is burning. we‘re marching from redfern park to victoria park, the blacktop beneath us radiates an unforgiving heat. the streets are buzzing with banners and ‚yes‘ signs. i spot a woman with a white sun umbrella; she has pinned handwritten signs on the brolly, announcing: ‚i‘ve got sunscreen. i‘ve got masks.‘, an oasis of care. we keep marching, and every few meters, neon-vested volunteers appear, holding up water spray bottles to sprinkle your face if you like. marchers willingly pause, present their heat glowing faces to the volunteers, to be cooled by the gentle drizzle. a momentary relief in the blazing sun. as we enter victoria park, guides direct us to a water bar, a place where water is handed out like tequila shots at a party, providing quick hydration. collective heat management at its best. every gear is in sync. 

2023, september 11, gadigal (sydney)

shanty bar night in redfern. props scattering the ceiling, a pink phone, a tiny table football, some kind of retro toy car, an aboriginal flag. the air red with dimmed bar light, the crowd a deep, deep a cappella choir, singing and humming. it smells pre-pandemic, of gleefully innocent aerosols. fresh, cool beer in my mouth, the heat of wild abandon in my shoulders. later, m. sends me a text: you looked happy like a kid.

2023, september 9

note on the barbie movie

when ken steps into the human world, someone casually asks him the time addressing him as “sir” (according to my memory). it blows his mind — that simple act feels monumentally respectful to him. this took me back to a moment at prinzenbad when an elderly white lady approached me, wondering if i could help straighten out the back of her swimsuit. a part of it had gotten all crumpled up. that caught me off guard. i suddenly realized that i’m not used to white grandmas in germany asking me for such a favor. usually, i sense a certain distance, some kind of hesitation, or fear, towards people who look ‘foreign’ to them. sometimes it can manifest as outright hostility — like that time a grandma at oranienplatz verbally attacked me, accusing me of shoplifting “like a typical foreigner” — but more often it seems like they simply wouldn‘t consider someone who doesn’t look ‘white german’ as a person who could help with mundane things like de-crumpling a swimsuit strap. not necessarily out of malice, but maybe rather because, in their eyes, we seem to inhabit a completely different universe, too alien to request earthly favors from. 

so when she asked me without a second thought, i was stunned. and then, i was stunned by my own surprise, showing me how i’m not used to this kind of interaction. that’s how the ken scene resonates with me; it highlights how ‘being seen’ often manifests in the most ordinary moments.