I’m afraid I’ve run out of words to write, said the girl with the dictionary in her palm. I’d stare the sun in the eye if it meant I had just one short story left, and that is to say that I’d endure the green spots in my vision if it meant I’d have to stop running long enough to remember that every word I’ve ever known is exactly where I last left them: stuffed in the toe of a ladybug rain boot once two sizes too big, now five too far gone.
There are lessons I learned from my parents. One is always check the to-go bag when you pick up a takeout order to make sure you have the right things so that no one is disappointed when dinner arrives. Another is love and love and love and love and love.
There’s a thing my mom told me about being me, or living. It was always carry your key between your knuckles at night. It was you can do anything and everything, if you are surrounded by orchids.
Dad taught me that Monopoly would be an abolitionist game if we could all share our cards to get out of jail free. Or, Monopoly is a capitalist game and I learned through the kids’ version to grasp at pink paper bills and I learned to be grateful when the man with the money winks back and I learned all of this young because even a disease can be made palatable if you just package it small enough and sweet enough. Dad taught me to make sculptures out of pinecones from the garden. Dad taught me to recognize Elvis on the overhead speaker of the beachfront store.
When I was eight, I knocked one plump leaf off a jade plant in a studio window and since then, every night I’ve asked the universe three times to keep my family always together and always safe and always loving each other.
And it worked, I think, and by that I mean I can’t stop asking the universe for things. And it worked, I think, which means I know “always” is an oxymoron of itself when it really comes down to it.
I’ve planned an escape route for every room I’ve entered since I was seven, which is just to say I won't take the seat next to you and please don’t be surprised if I never ask to stay because I know the safest thing you can do is leave.
The therapist says there’s nothing you can do in life without risk. She says it’s okay if you let yourself remember the time you saw the car crash and remember that, yes, people get in car crashes every day probably on the roads you drive on and then remember how you’ve still gotten in cars every time since and you’re still here so maybe she means that it’s okay that the only thing I see whether my eyes are open or closed is my two fists one inch from the steering wheel and metal crumpling like construction paper and so actually what she’s saying is it’s okay if I’m 20 and I don’t know how to move around in the world but maybe what she really wants is to reach through the computer screen and snatch the key fob out of my hand but if she did she would realize it wasn’t really there, it was already hidden away in the drawer behind the staple remover I never use and the pack of gum I can never find. The therapist says there’s nothing you can do without risk. She says this when I say I’m afraid to sit on my bed and also when I say I’m scared the house caught on fire while I was gone and it would be all my fault just like everything else and also when I say I’m worried everyone hates me. She says there’s nothing you can do without risk and that includes driving, feeling, and writing, too.
Hi! It’s been a minute. I hope you’re well. It’s okay if you’re not. It’s likely that you’re not. I’m sorry. Life’s so weird, life’s so hard. You’re here. We’re landing in the present. In the present, here’s what’s on my mind.
I don't really remember learning how to write besides show not tell short stories in first grade and then hamburger essay worksheets in high school and then dad just reads and reads and reads and then all I know is that sometimes writer people say “On x-y-z thing” and it makes anything sound really fancy and writer-ly. Like, this is a newsletter “On motherhood” but really it’s my musings on being a daughter. Or, this is an essay “On the Asian American experience” but really it’s me hating myself but loving my family in the form of words. What is all of this about being “on”? Frankly, I am feeling rather off. But I will continue saying on because that’s what writers do and here is the place in which I pretend I am a writer.
I never wanted to be a writer; writers were people who lived cool lives and did cool writer things and wrote at cool writer desks stacked with books and crinkled papers and a few too many pens without caps and also a cup of coffee so I couldn’t be a writer because coffee makes me shake uncontrollably and also so does writing.
I always wanted to be a writer; I checked out stacks of books from the library when I was little, and hid behind piles of words and paperbacks with fairies and treehouses on the cover.
The first book I wrote (in second grade) had a bunch of pigs scribbled on cardstock and a lesson about friendship and then the next one was when I was 12 or so and mom helped me put it in one of those fancy clear plastic covers with the binder piece that slides right on and it was a mystery about a lawyer and her missing daughter and it turns out I’m not creative I just have OCD and a debilitating fear of being kidnapped at all times.
Then all of a sudden I was a copywriting intern at a luxury athleisure brand, and also writing a blog for my favorite Chinese American designer on the side but I wasn’t a writer then, I was just a person who wrote. I was just a person who was tired, I think because I still thought it was okay for me to always want both.
This was at a time when I was lost and didn’t know where I was going. This was said in only a literal sense. This was all written in passive voice, and the big, official writing rules will tell you you must be active, active, active but what if I just want to sit on the couch and watch End Game tonight?
This was when I was 20 listening to “22 (over soon)” by Bon Iver on repeat and my only mantra was it might be over soon over soon over soon, but I wasn’t even sure what it was that I wanted to be over so badly.
This was at a time when I didn’t know LA, LA didn’t know me and this was at a time when I thought the only way to write about the present was to speak as if it was the past so this is all right now, of course.
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Here is a list of a few writers I admire, and the things they are thinking on.
Question to ask your mom:
What is your favorite song?