a long-winded diary of the creative process

dear readers, 

    i am wishing you beauty and serenity these days. it’s been atrociously sad how little i’ve been posting recently, but i finally feel free from the throws of summer stress. moving out this year was the most anxiety-inducing process ever, with a few all-nighters, many panicked phone calls, trips to the storage unit, mental breakdowns in the college ten parking lot, and various instances of me sweating all the way through my layers of clothes. in the process i lost my wallet, definitely got some penalty housing charges from my uni, and sacrificed a solid chunk of my sanity. anytime i imagine those few couple days, i feel a surge of anxiety within my chest. after that, axelle and i flew back to boston, where we chilled for a few days. then we took the greyhound bus up to montreal where we stayed in an airbnb for four nights. in the process of crossing the border, axelle left their passport in the checkpoint bathroom, so our trip had an air of stress as we tried to figure that out. we’re planning to make zines about the boston and montreal parts of the trip, so i’ll keep you updated on that. suffice to say i would not recommend losing your passport in a foreign country, especially one you’ll only be in for a few days, especially when most of those days are the weekend or a holiday. despite the panic, we managed by the grace of god to get back in the country and have a relaxing rest of the trip. it’s been a few weeks of solitude in my home town, with axelle back in san diego and all (but one) of my hometown friends gone. 

    despite my lack of posting, i have been writing a fair amount. i’ve always struggled to call myself an artist, but it’s always felt natural to call myself a writer. as a deeply compulsive person, obsessed with posterity and record-keeping. i live my life through photos, notes, voice memo reminders; a childhood hoarder turned archivist. sometimes i wonder if when i’m old and withered, on the brink of death, if i’ll feel sad that i can’t take any of my records or writing with me. i wonder if i’ll regret spending so much time on my computer taking detailed notes on everything happening around me. maybe i’ll hold onto the mindset i have now about it, that every word is precious, no matter how mundane. that someday, somewhere out in the future, someone will stumble upon my diaries and be interested. or maybe that someone in the past had visions of me now, a decedent of every author, poet, songwriter. 

    i have a lot of longer-form “manifestos" in the works, although this blog entry has already gotten pretty long itself. i’ll share some of those soon once they’re a little more polished. but for now, i want to share the processes and journeys i’ve been on regarding a few recent artistic projects.

    let me give you some background:

    to pass the lonely days at home, i’ve been on-and-off crafting and working with my dad painting windows. for the first few weeks of my summer, i was really stressed over a commissioned linocut i’ve been tasked with. back in the spring, i had submitted to the food systems working group’s cover design contest for their bi-annual magazine, with the theme “back to our roots". i didn’t really expect to win, and figured it was just because i wrote a convincing artist’s statement. i later heard there were only a few other submissions and they weren’t that impressive. but regardless, i was confident in my vision, and my artistic capability to pull through. 

    despite my initial excitement, as soon as i learned i had won, i was really procrastinating getting started on it. since the stakes felt so high, and the reward was a generous $300, i was completely paralyzed. i procrastinated getting started on it, and then convinced myself that i couldn’t get it done in the remaining two weeks before the deadline. about a week ago, i somehow decided to push past my fear and just start it. after that hurdle, i got on a totally addictive roll, and finished the entire print in less than four days of work. here’s the final result (and artist statement):

    at the same time, i was painfully stressed about another submission. i wasn’t used to making art for an audience or on a deadline, and now i had two projects to complete under this structure. this one was for a magazine some friends are putting together called Heart is in the Herd, the theme being friendship and community. after many lost hours of sleep, keeping a notebook in my bed to jot down my middle-of-the-night ideas, and countless dead-end ideas, as well as a healthy dose of self-imposed anxiety, i devised a concept and a plan.

    at first, while brainstorming inspiration, i was thinking of previous projects i’ve done about a similar topic. my lit of the road final project in high school, where i asked friends who lived in different areas of boston what places “home” to them. i then went to those locations, took and edited photos of them, and printed them on a deck of playing cards. another high school endeavor that i ended up publishing to OffBrand at the time, was a long-form poem about the beauty of my friendship with pharbs. similarly, i wrote many other pieces for that magazine about my childhood memories of friendship with mel, jj, and countless others. i debated just submitting various zines i’ve made- my zine on organizing or the collage i made for maeve’s birthday. maybe i could submit the linocuts i’ve made for friends, the collages i’ve made or been gifted, or the pocket shrines i made for pharbs last christmas. 

    i was brainstorming topics and vibes. my first thought was to explore childlike girlhood friendship, but then i felt like it was missing a sort of sensuality or maturity. below is my initial brainstorming list:

    as the idea began to manifest in front of me, i made more lists. i decided i wanted to do a photography project. photography is a joy of mine, but not a creative medium i utilize a lot. maybe it was my reminiscing on my previous photography projects, maybe it was the influence of some photography-heavy zines i’ve bought recently, but it felt immediately necessary that i do a photoshoot. here was my secondary brainstorm: 

    maeve was the only friend who was in town and i thought might’ve been interested in being my photoshoot model, but she turned out to not be interested, and i ended up using her as the photographer while i modeled. i had reached out to my sibling val, who agreed to take part in part one of my photoshoot. here are some stoned thoughts i archived in my notes apps from those late nights, as i began to brainstorm the poetic significance of my photos. ignore the spelling errors, as they were all transcribed from voice dictation. 

    this first thought got me thinking. at the same time as my increasing brainstorms, i had been seeing an influx of this “creative director” aesthetic. it seems like it’s one of those fake jobs that L.A. nepotism babies lie about on their resume, like “freelance DJ”. i had seen several people with "creative director" in their instagram bios, as well as several people making fun of the “creative director” phenomenon, and this on instagram from the beautiful jess cheng: 

    this growing trend- satirical or serious, gave me a method to counter my project-induced anxiety. i started fully thinking of myself as the creative director. for each photoshoot- mine and my sibling, i printed out sheets with the shoot details and inspiration photos. i even titled it “heart is in the herd submission: CD doc” for creative director. here are some pictures documenting the process of the photoshoots, and the process of my linocut.

photoshoot process ~

lino process ~

    it’s been a month since i developed this idea and took the photos, and i’ve included some of my favorites below. admittedly, i’ve been contemplating bailing on the photo submission (artistic cold feet, naturally), because i’m unsatisfied with the result, so i’ve been revisiting my previous brainstorms. needless to say, it feels hard to create art around friendship and community when you spend most of the summer isolated from those friends and communities. however, even as i rethink and brainstorm further, i find that i got a lot of joy from the processes of both of these art pieces. tricking myself into the romantic idea of being “creative director” was a good strategy for pushing through deadline stress, artist’s block, and the feeling of artistic inferiority.  

    it's interesting to be in the process, to be in the flow state with making adaptations and getting new ideas. it feels like synthesis on all levels that transcends the stress of a deadline, and godwilling, the end product will satisfy us. i now am really excited about multiple other submissions, as i’m also taking on a challenge of practicing rejection by taking advantage of every opportunity i can. i feel as though i’ve adjusted a little to the process of making art for a specific theme, under time constraints, and now feel motivated and comfortable to continue the trend with more publications. 

    i still have to edit some of the photoshoot photos, and since the magazine submission deadline has been moved back, i ultimately haven’t decided if i’m going to submit them. i will upload the edited final versions under this post or another one soon. until then, stay creative!

---

in love and deeply in “process",

- ek 

remembrance and return

dearest readers, 

it’s been a while, and i’ve missed you. this wasn’t the post i was expecting to return with, but i wrote it in one sitting and couldn’t wait to upload it. i’ve been working on another piece that gives more context to my hiatus, so keep your eyes peeled, but i’ll lean into the mystery for now. 

i come to you from a room, redone. waiting for the inevitable kick in of something, the weed or flow state, or some other trance that bewitches me at night. i have completely torn apart my childhood bedroom, and in its place is a new, poorly-washed-clean slate. it feels as though i’ve laid down a paper cut out, chaotically painted over the whole thing, and then peeled the image up. i’m living in the silhouette of what’s left. for context, i recently redid my room. i deconstructed my loft bed, purged two dressers worth of clothes and other stuff, repainted the walls, constructed a new bed and storage space, and rearranged everything on my desk and shelves- all over the course of 5 days. i felt prepared to have a change- despite the rush, and i love the new set up, but i still feel a little melancholy for the old look. it wasn’t quite my childhood room, but the decor had remained the same (changing only in amount of clutter and dust) since i was 11. 

the room previously

   

    a change was long overdue, and i feel much lighter; finally free of my hoarder ways. i think i might not want to leave in september when i have to go back to california. i digress. i am currently sitting propped up by pillows against the wall, writing to you by lamplight. it is from here i bring some important musings.

my (unmade) bed in the new set up 

    i’ve been doing a lot of deep thinking recently, more than normal, which says a lot. i’ve been pondering style, personality, and individuality. i’ve been exploring the creative process, and how i operate in relationships. my perception of myself physically and spiritually. i’ve been thinking a lot about god. 

    in terms of spirituality and god, i have a lot of work coming your way. check out my instagram for some upcoming stuff, as well as my blog posts soon to come. there’s some big things in the works. 

    for the sake of this post, i want to talk about mary oliver, but let me back up a little. my friend sada from california has been visiting me for the past few days, and since i was scrambling to get everything ready in my room before she arrived, i forgot to make any itinerary for her short stay.

    as an aside, as i was writing this paragraph, i had the overwhelming deja-vu feeling that i once dreamt about scrambling to clean and organize my room before a guest arrived. i have an ineffable feeling that this dream happened long ago, before the idea of redoing my room was brought up or acted upon. i can’t remember any details, just the feeling of anxiety about the arrival of my visitor. 

    so yesterday, driven by sada’s curiosity about the local jewish community and my yearning to return, we went to saturday morning shul at temple beth zion. i also have a mission to accompany someone to church on sundays, congregation-hopping to get a breadth of experience, but christians are a lot harder to find in my area than jews. plus, there’s something profound about judaism that speaks to me- a yearning that characterizes a long-standing consideration of conversion. remarkably, i’ve never really talked about it on this blog, but the idea has long since been a feature of my complicated religious thoughts. all this to say, it was a morning full of devotion.

    i had been to tbz countless times over the years with my friends and their families, for normal friday or saturday services as well as holidays. i missed the songs, the prayers for those in mourning and those suffering; the devotion and clarity with which the congregation sung, a conviction both childishly simple yet profound and unabashed. i missed all the introductions, the lighthearted gossip, and the tuna fish salad. there was a substitute rabbi in place of claudia i had gotten to know, but i really liked her. 

    that evening, after puttering around the shops and cafes, after trekking to the boston common and chinatown and getting rained on, we went to see the new mary oliver documentary at my favorite theater. i had seen the trailer a few weeks prior at a screening for backrooms (which scared me shitless, for the record). i didn’t have a ton of interest at first, but it was the only intriguing thing playing on the only day we would have time to see a movie. i always knew vaguely of mary oliver, not knowing anything about her life, breadth of work, or even the time period she lived in. i always grouped her in with other famous women writers from “antiquity” like virginia woolf and jane austen. like many people, as the documentary went on to explore, i knew the few famous lines and otherwise considered mary a run-of-the-mill “nature poet”.

    the documentary was so moving that i cried at three separate points. having never been taught her poems in school and having never owned a collection of hers, my ignorance was too be expected but nonetheless disappointing and off-base. the film chronicles mary’s life, her love for her partner m, their life together in provincetown, her philosophy, and most importantly, her poetry. i find it interesting that she became such a celebrity in poetry, a rarely recognized face amongst the books of sonnets and odes, yet was genuinely so misunderstood. people like myself, from the public to the academies of fine art and literature, reduced her to the subject matter to which she was devoted. they criticized her for being gay without being a gay activist. they wanted a female walt whitman, a poster child for the fetishized myth of “secluded celebrity”. 

    in the weeks and months before watching this movie, i would joke that i was going through some big identity crisis. these feelings ebbed and flowed, from the dark moments of wanting to up and leave my life, transfer schools and move cities- to my near-manic anxiety about simply experimenting with my style. i felt paranoid- watched, judged, and inauthentic. i felt misguided, disconnected; a ship adrift at sea. the tides began to change when i accepted my reality in santa cruz, sometime in early june. i slowly emerged from my unrealistic visions about dropping everything to run off to an art school i couldn’t get into and a life i wasn’t prepared for. i told myself that i was in the right place. i began believing that the trade off i was making- staying in a place i struggle against, for the sake of the people i love and connections i’ve built, the excitement the future can hold, was a worthwhile exchange. i believe this still, and it has given me a lot of solace.

    regardless, even as i accepted the next two years in santa cruz, the identity part of this crisis still simmered away inside me. i was driven by things- dreams, computers, cryptic visions, horniness, needing to touch grass. i was moving in a strange way- enjoying myself for the most part but remaining unmoored. 

    i felt misunderstood. i became fixated on the fact that people (the wrong people) perceived me as intimidating and judgmental. i’ve been told this repeatedly over my life, usually in a joking tone months into a solidified relationship. “i thought you were so scary when we first met, i thought you hated me, i thought you didn’t care about anything or like anyone”. i heard this so many times that i started to believe i was threatening and that i did hate everyone. no one ever told me that they saw my tenderness, my devotion and shyness until months of knowing me. this has long since been a point of struggle for me. i couldn’t understand what about me gave people such a hostile impression, and i still don’t. my best theory, supported by evidence and conversations i’ve had with close friends, is that people's external projection of “cool” combined with a monotone voice, leads them to the conclusion that i am uninterested in their friendship, or incapable of being vulnerable. this is not to toot my own horn and proclaim that everyone who meets me thinks i’m cool, but i’m simply trying to understand. i know i’ve done this to people i admire- i jump to the illogical conclusion that they would judge me because of our perceived “swag gap” (as the kids say).

    the clarity i got from mary oliver, is that it’s truly okay to be misunderstood. i know from experience that it can be lonely, isolating, and frustrating, but i’ve finally metabolized the fact that the perception of others doesn't reflect anything on me. this has always been easy to say, to dismiss my heartbreak over feeling misunderstood, but i finally think i’m starting to grapple with what that means. of course, i still want to work on being more outwardly tender. i want people to automatically feel safe around me and i want to make friends easier. but i think it has become easier to process that some people might not ever feel safe around me, some friends will never be made, and some judgments will always stand. i can process the likely fact that these things might not have anything to do with me. external perception doesn’t make me less tender or vulnerable, just like it doesn’t make mary oliver any less profoundly important.

    as we walked out of the theater, i joked through stale tears and snot that my identity crisis was solved. although it was a humorous exaggeration, i’m fairly certain of it. i feel moored somehow, even if i don’t have clarity on what i’m tethered to. at risk of sounding corny, i finally feel like i’m here for a purpose. 

    the vague strokes of this purpose are something along the lines of: devotion, healing, complete spiritual surrender, exploration, documentation, and creation. i still have no more clarity on my career path- instead i only have more contradictions. i’ve never felt more compelled towards struggle and revolution. i’ve recently felt incredibly moved by the birth of my friend’s baby. at the same time, part of me feels ready to throw all of my career aspirations out the window and escape to a cottage in the middle of the woods or a beachfront hut. a proper artist’s retreat. i crave a time without deadlines, without academic or career or monetary purpose. i want spiritual purpose, artistic purpose, interpersonal purpose. 

    mary suggests every poet get used to writing and reading every day. to this i am committing myself, as i know it brings me immense peace and joy. i am still grappling heavily with the role of art in revolution and struggle. i wrestle with what art even is, and if there’s any purpose at all seeing as i’m not convinced any of my reality is even real. i’m conflicted over the identity politics of the whole thing, and the ethics of creating in a time of destruction. i plan to find some other voices on these topics, to give some external wisdom to my ever-raging internal battles, as well as some old-fashioned meditation on the subject. i’m sure this will be a reoccurring theme in future posts, as i discover more and begin to get a sense of what it is i feel tied down by. i recently read a quote that says motion brings clarity, and i couldn’t agree more. so i plan to move, and i’ll keep you updated. this blog has always been for the purpose of my own self-exploration and archiving, so i’m happy to reinvigorate the spirit of this page with the bellows of self discovery.

    for now, i have a mary oliver poetry collection to read from ("coincidentally” titled devotions). maybe i’ll share some of my favorite poems of hers soon. i’m going to try and convince my long term best friend, maeve to get matching wild geese tattoos with me, since she loves the poem, i love wild geese, and i feel my life has been fundamentally changed by mary’s words and wisdom. i’m sure more reflections will come soon, as i’m going to rewatch the film with maeve later this week, but for now i leave you with the soft animal of your own body, as i retreat to my own. 

--

in blessed love and sweet dreams, 

ek

another slightly intoxicated poem

dear readers,

    i come to you after a night of dancing. i want to share another poem that has come to me, while i was hella overstimulated and having a bad high. there was a man who introduced himself as Wireless, playing the piano in the hallway of the club, improvising with the EDM seeping through the walls. on the piano was a vase full of flowers on a 3D-printed spinning tray, and under the piano there was a small porcelain lamb. given this strange scene, i was having a lot of visions, and had to write them down. i’ve included some photos i took, but check out @wirelessmusic on instagram for more (see his tagged posts to see the video i was able to take of his beautiful playing). i hope you enjoy my poem: 

there are doors constructing the ceiling above me

somehow i’m reminded of fortt brag, the shopping center 

or the antique store on tremont* street run by a woman who’s 102 years old

but that was three years ago

but the rug underneath me, the doors above me,the lamb 

that is making eye contact 

the man playing piano and the spinning flower vase

i see my world through another’s eye, convinced i am seeing a dream

or a vision from a different life,

a glimpse across the universe 

expecting my sober mind to read this poem, steeped with imagined drunk sanctity, and feel a resonance

    *it’s on bolyston street not tremont, but i forgot this last night. i hope the 102-year-old lady is resting well, wherever she is in the universe. sure enough, i do love the way this poem unfurled itself, perhaps because i see it as another set of fascinating inebriated anecdotes. but i do in fact know myself well enough to see this coming, hence the last line. regardless, i do feel a resonance. 

---

in love and glimpses through the universe,

- ek 

how dogs love us, internal monologues, cyclic time and hair dye

dear readers, 

    as always, i hope you are well. i come to you from the other side of the Void with a few recent conversations and moments to share with you. i haven’t blogged properly in several weeks, and i’ve been missing it. i’ve been lost in thought, with no time to write them down. i try not to quantify my blog posts into how often i post per month, but i’ve been sad to have such little time to write recently. plus, eleventh hour (my normal blogging spot) was closed for a week for what looked like deep cleaning. regardless, i prevail to bring you riveting anecdotes from my life. 

   because of the eleventh hour closure, i’m at rcc dining hall, sitting on the patio in the sun with my knockoff marshmallow cereal and kind of gross “french roast” coffee. there is a girl here with her dog, a beautiful pointer of some type with a sleek chestnut coat. i had seen her walk by the patio with the dog, and then enter the dining and come out to the patio and sit. the dog stands attentively in front of her, fixated on the food she brings to her mouth, until the woman tells the dog to sit and lie down, rewarding her with some kind of meat stick. the woman adjusts herself, foot up on the chair next to her, scarf draped over her head to shield the morning sun. the dog lies at her feet, licking it’s paws like a cat. the woman shifts and i see the cover of what she’s reading: how dogs love us. 

    edit: the day after writing this, i met this woman at a meeting and rode the bus back to campus with her and her dog. i forgot to ask for her name but she was very sweet and what a coincidence to meet her the day after she appears in my blog.

    the girl sitting next to me on the other side- a first year i assume, is talking on the phone. she is wearing a long lacy pink skirt, a tie dye shirt and sunhat. she has rainbow painted headphones and many rainbow bead bracelets, and a rainbow pixel backpack. she’s fending off the sparrows who encroach on her half-eaten hashbrown (although the bird later succeeded).

    she asks the person on the other line if they ever have a voice in their head that knows what to do. i’ll paraphrase: “like leaving home, not talking to some of those people ever again. that hurt but it was beautiful.” she goes on, talking about a breakup. about how she saw him (“jacob”) in the dining hall and got excited, but then sad. “i still love him but i feel like i don’t want to see him.” i feel for her, honestly. but she has a good head on her shoulders. “if you’re not actively choosing to be with someone, that’s not love. like if you don’t wake up every morning… well, i don’t know”. 

    her conversation makes me reflect. sometimes i feel sad about the loves that i’ve lost. sometimes i wish i could have one more hug, or one more final conversation with them. but i’m alright, and i know my dining hall companion will be alright too. i look to the future more than i look to the past. i carry those lessons and knowledge with me to this day. i know the emotional depth that my heart is capable of, the profundity of sadness and raw heartbreak that i can withstand. the (hit or miss) poetry, art, and writing that comes out of it. 

    yet on the other hand, i’m equally amazed by how much can change in two, or four, or six years. i know the depth of healing that has happened in the interim, i carry the wisdom from those loves into my current ones and future dreams. i am blessed in feeling truly and deeply in love now, and to have it be an experience of beauty and growth, rather than one of melancholy. to have it be one of future promise rings, of slow dancing and soul-understanding like i’ve never experienced before. in the words of my dear izumi suzuki, our hearts are intertwined.

izumi ~

    this depth of love has lead me to axelle’s living room, the comfy chair. my first anecdote. it had been a long day in a long week. i was feeling sad, about nothing in particular. i was feeling jealous of my friends, a symptom of the low self esteem i know i’ve been maintaining recently. i got talking about my style, my qualities and values. i asked axelle what makes me important or special to people. even though i wasn’t feeling as down on myself as this makes it seems, i know this isn’t a good thing to ask your girlfriend- even if it’s out of genuine reflective curiosity. in hindsight, i feel kind of embarrassed about how i was behaving, but i suppose everyone has these moments of childish insecurity. regardless, i think there was some interesting food for thought that came out of this conversation. 

    i’ll spare you the long winded debrief, but i was essentially wondering what my “self” was. who am i without the clothes that i wear, the music i listen to, the things i “like”? what makes me like those things, and how do those factors influence my “true self”? is there even such thing as a “true self”, independent of external societal influences? the idea of “my true self” being “who i am when no one is looking” (from that popular quote) might be a total illusion. scientists think it’s such a mystery that particles behave differently when they’re being observed versus when they’re not. they wonder about the implications this has for physics and the science of “consciousness”, but don’t we operate the same way?

    at the most fundamental level, what is the self made of? i guess this turns into the nature versus nurture question, which i ponder a lot. there were more intricacies to this conversation i’m forgetting, but i’ve explained the gist. this conversation morphed into one about internal monologues, since i have a prolific one and axelle seems to think very different from me. we talked with their roommates about this as well, explaining the complexities of each of our mental worldviews. 

    we deduced that there must be a spectrum of internal operations. on one side, a full blown internal monologue (what i experience) with full or semi-full narrative thoughts that may or may not be heard, “seen”, or just sensed. of course, people who experience a full internal monologue can also visualize things, but it’s not the primary way we process information. in the middle, a narrative that focuses on the gist of a situation. axelle’s housemates’ boyfriend described this: instead of thinking “i need to knock on the door because she didn’t answer her phone”, he thought “call, door, knock”. on the other side of the spectrum, there’s what axelle experiences, where they visualize thoughts through images, emotions, and physical sensations. they process information through the body, through emotions and re-imagining literal situations, instead of drafting soliloquies in their heads as people like me do. at least in some cases, this seems to make it harder for them to have a “filter” because everything isn’t run through mentally before it’s said. 

    axelle tells me, “maybe this is why you love writing”, and i agree, although i also think it explains why i am such an overthinker. indeed, i think i’ve been overthinking more than normal recently (not necesarily in a bad way), especially after my several rewatches of Ghost in the Shell and my continued work on my Divine Machinery zine. i love the work, but it’s definitely a mind fuck that makes you rethink your whole reality. 

the progress photo of another zine, debrief upcoming~

    another anecdote i want to share is the funny intro questions that we went through for a recent meeting. we were all struggling to think of a fun question. we started with “what’s your favorite color”, but then added “what’s your favorite shape”, “have you ever been in love”, “what’s your deepest secret”, and “do you think you make good first impressions on people”. 

    i answered blue or green, spirals, definitely have been in love many a time (and cherish the experience of being in love, even in moments where i’m single), and that i don’t think i make good first impressions on people since i apparently come off as mean and disinterested (this could be a whole blog post on its own). i couldn’t think of a deep secret. i love these questions because they’re the kind of deep conversation starters i want to have in social situations. i’m filing them away in my brain for a future party setting.

    another funny anecdote happened in a text conversation with my sibling, who normally talks with an air of chronically online. they are almost never deep, but they were super stoned when we were texting, and i mentioned that i’ve been listening to bts again for nostalgia’s sake. to my humor, he simply wrote: “time is circular baby”, and i find that quite true and funny coming from him.

    many coincidences have been happening recently. i had been scaring myself a little, because i have recently really wanted to dye my hair again but keep thinking that its going to completely wreck my hair. i want to have long and luscious natural hair, but also have some color and interesting style in it. i had been really contemplating this, feeling as though length and health needed to be totally sacrificed for color, until i passed an older woman, probably 70s or 80s, with long hair down to her waist that was dyed entirely magenta and purple. we smiled at each other as she passed, and i was too much in awe to compliment her hair but i hope she got the idea. i am feeling very inspired and might add a little color to my hair soon. until next time!

---

in love and circular time, 

- ek 

p.s, i think i’m going to shift to posting in times font. it’s maybe not as aesthetically pleasing, but i think it’s easier to read and write. this being said, i might change my mind sometime.

assorted thoughts, theories, and dreams

dear readers, 

    another short post today. i feel shrouded by many fragmented thoughts and interests. instead of one cohesive blog post, i thought i would share some of my recent musings, sorted into categories for easier navigation but kept messy and intact. 

    my blog feels like a message in a bottle to someone in the future, who stumbles upon my url and can explore my life and my brain through my writings. i want to cut through time and share my devotion with spirits, my future self, and strangers in the past or future. i hope you can imagine these thoughts as various pieces of paper and objects on my messy desk, and that you are in my home, sorting through and exploring. the photos are all from the san jose museum of quilts (highly recommend, might post more photos soon). i hope you enjoy.

moments and thoughts from my notes app:

1. the recent trend of people favoring and romanticizing “rot" over leisure. everyone wants time to "bed rot", to "brain rot”, whatever. No one wants time for leisure. No one seeks out of leisure as much as they just want to be left to their bed to “rot. I think it is indicative societies drive for productivity and the shame that comes from rest. with the ideas of “bed rot”, people maintain the negative connotation that’s associated with rest, instead of pursuing relaxed and peaceful leisure- that in many cases, makes us feel more healed and replenished.
2. thinking about how funny it is that we learn things like applause from our parents. like we’re not quite adults yet but we all know how and when to clap, the whole etiquette. we learn from experiencing it, from being told by teachers when to clap in the school auditoriums, and i just think it’s quite whimsical.
3. If I'm so committed to being a cool old person who does a lot of interesting creative things in old age, I have to be a lot less concerned about getting all of the cool things I want to do done while I'm still young
4. my spanish teacher explaining catholicscm better than i’ve ever heard it on april 27, 4:52pm. Someone had asked about the book we’re reading, where a child named panchito dreams that santo niño de atoche heals his sick baby brother. Our professor explained the idea of many saints or spirits, manifested through different people. To paraphrase, he said they’re “human expressions of the divine, the baby saint is a representation of the helping hand of god. At some point in time, a miracle happened around a certain baby and people believed god manifested through the baby. It’s not that it’s many different people, but communities see divine power through different images that make sense in their context.”
5. closing prayer from art in oceania class - "Our ancestors want to find us as much as we want to find them. Let us fly free of our restrictions, our knowledge baskets are stored safely away” (blog post on tattooing and oceanic cosmologies to come)

overheard

1. at the airport at 5am: "just the longest piece of super sticky tape early in the morning, what could go wrong?”
2. "it was weird how everything was predetermined”

future amateur research projects/things i want to learn more about

1. i would be interested to do a study of race indicators online. i’ve been thinking about how it seems very trendy a few years ago for everyone, particularly white people to put their ethnicities and flags in their instagram bios. i also wonder about the thumbs up and other hand emojis, as well as slang and use of aave and more. White people often use the yellow “default” skin tone while in my experience, most poc use whichever skin tone is most accurate to them. i think it is often considered normal for white people to use the “default” emoji color because of the way whiteness is normalized as the “default” on our society. but then some white people (usually older) use medium dark skin tones in their emojis either because they inaccurately estimate their skin tone, or are trying to show some weird solidarity? so perhaps emoji skin color use is based less on people wanting to represent themselves as individuals of a certain racial group, and more a “neutral” signal? there is a lot of race signaling happening and wondering what the consequences or results of race indicating are online because of anonymity or other factors?
2. study of how people sit on the bus (which seats are most frequented), and what this says about human nature
3. wanting to study the culture and sociological dynamics of erotica, fetish, kink, sexuality. also queer theory, grime and it’s connection to whiteness, leaky and “dysfunctional” bodies (pregnancy, birth, chronic illness and disability), theories around intersex, fatness, etc. want to continue my studies of DEVOTION, but also DESIRE
4. paraphrased from an instagram reel: "the public (space) is conceived of being complimentary to the private (space and ruling class)” —> study how this shows up in santa cruz/california with high rise condos, third spaces, spaces of unhoused community
5. want to understand Kairos better. described to me as referring to the immeasurable moments of experience and transformation—recorded as sentiments and narratives. measured by interactions, moments, intimacies, transitions, and transformations.
6. want to write and blog about Izumi Suzuki, Issy Wood, more about Jon
7. in addition to my WIP zine about religion, i want to understand how people rationalize their existence, regarding souls and spirits, linguistic understanding (how does our language shape the way we see ourselves and the world), the idea of internal monologues (perhaps an interview between me and axelle as we exemplify the two sides of the internal monologue spectrum), and the possibilities for connection between people

---

in love and messy compiled thoughts,

- ek

a drunken poem about meeting strangers

my “girls carrying shit” offering: 

digicam, lighter, herbal j, world’s strongest jungle juice

dear readers,

    a short post tonight (i promise). i haven’t uploaded much this month, not that i worry myself about my posting frequency (as i truly see this diary blog as The Void), so i wanted to share this poem i wrote while i was drunk the other night and waiting for my bus. this night was the birthday party of an old class friend, who i connected with but never really spent time with outside of our allotted hour, monday wednesday and friday. i had run into her on the bus (everything in my life revolves around buses) a few days earlier and lovingly received the invite, despite our tentative friendliness. axelle couldn’t go, and the one mutual friend me and the birthday girl shared couldn’t go, so i dared to go alone. i couldn’t think of a party i went to alone since the age when i was single, over a year ago. i challenged myself to be talkative and try to maximize my “npc” interactions. 

    as a bit of a side note, i have mixed feelings about the perception of strangers as npcs, because i genuinely believe that everyone is complicated and immense, and i’m honestly a little obsessed with learning the details of these “npc’s” lives. what words they can’t pronounce, what their childhood toy was, their relationship with their mom, their dreams. this being said, i like labeling people as npcs because it challenges me to engage with them to shatter the illusion. it pushes me out of my petrifying shyness to learn these things about people. a party full of strangers is the absolute best place to do this. low stakes, high concentration of people who’s complexities i have yet to discover. the most fun place of social observation, analysis, and engagement. especially when everyone is a little tipsy, people tend to get deep and honest. weird questions aren’t as weird anymore. i mention this in the poem, about discovering clues to people’s destinies and dreams.

    i had a ton of fun at this party because i truly took advantage of the situation to maximize my interactions. in the words of some Internet people, i was seeking out little side quests, interacting with the npcs to learn more about them and my world. in hindsight i regret the moments i spent awkwardly against the wall- a powerful reminder that regret is omnipresent no matter the actions, but it was a vast improvement from my usual level of avoidance. i feel motivated and moved by this experience. it’s harder in situations where i know people and the social stakes feel higher, but i feel as though i have already started implementing more of this mindset and practice into my days since the party.

    for context i should specify that it was Rio themed, so everyone was dressed up as birds or characters from the movie. i had painted a little cardboard hat like a bottle cap, which i reference. i have cleared up a few lines for legibility but more or less kept everything the same. it’s unknown whether or not these people remember me, or the conversations we shared (or the game of truth or dare we played), but i hope you enjoy this poem.

[written approx. 11:45pm, april 17]

drunk and I feel like the bus I’m going to take home was divinely chosen for me between the sea of other buses. I feel spiritually connected to this bus and it’s inevitable driver.

drunk and alone had a party

Asking the girl McKenzie in the kitchen if she knows about divine machinery

Asking what her dreams are she says child psychology 

Then she answers that she wants to write a book

She needs time to think about it

I ask if it will be a novel

She says it will be sci-fi

I recommend her Set my heart on fire

The boy plays guitar to stim

And we dare him to confidently pretend he knows a stranger

Audrey and Amelia have been together for four and a half years

i talk with zoe and dhalia about dykehood while waiting for the bathroom 

daddy yankee is younger than i thought he was

so many lesbians at this party

and everyone loves the bottle cap hat, the paint still on my fingers

i ask people their names knowing i won’t remember, 

and that i probably won’t ever see their faces again

but because it’ll give me some drunk insight into the destinies assigned to them

and i pass them drinks

in love and drunken bliss,

- ek

unspeakable amounts of love

dear readers, 

    i come to you with a message from the archives. the following text was written sometime in the spring of 2025 and last edited on october 1, 2025. for the sake of this post, i have kept it as it was written. know that this excerpt is very old and dear to me. it’s a little out of context for now, but i’ll add some reflective thoughts at the end.

“ there are unspeakable amounts of love in the farm kitchen. this one-room building is where we gather during all hours, in the quiet mornings or frigid nights. here, the sink doesn’t drain unless you crank it with two hands, there is never a trash can, and only two outlets work. there is a scary hallway and the bathrooms have showers and posters pledging to conserve water. if you stand on the porch, what has become the designated smoke spot, you can hear everything said from the inside, but it’s near impossible to hear what is said outside. this thought scares us, so we try not to dwell on it. we only figured it out when the so-called 'agroecology gays' were making their pseudo kale salad in the porch sink, trying to barter with elsie for lemon juice by yelling through the closed windows.

in the mornings, fog hangs in the cool air, lingering over the crops and toying at the steps up to the kitchen building. ” 

    the first thing i want to address is the “pseudo kale salad”. i can’t remember what this meant, so i’ll leave it up to your interpretation. now, let me set the scene for this excerpt and this period of time. i wrote this in a phase of my life that i cannot adequately summarize here. it was characterized by intense comradeship, beauty, and community. there were countless instances of circumstances i described- late night or early mornings of food preparation or security briefings. it was always the same group of people who showed up- more or less, and although i wasn’t close with most of them, i began to notice their habits, their senses of humor, the dynamics between them. i was a first year, among mostly third or fourth years who were jaded from the encampment but seemingly revived by the energy of a new year.

    i remember the “exclusive” feeling smoke sessions with sonya or rigo, the community education we’d do in backyards or on public picnic benches. i remember those long working hours, the phone calls late into the hot summer evenings. taste testing each others cigs or carts after meetings, warm dark walks back from the library, waiting for the bus together. i would come home late and leave early the next day, boasting about my upperclassmen friends (even if everything i said was a little bit of a romanticized stretch). 

    i remember in april when we all drove out to watsonville to see leehi in court. afterwards, we all walked over to the japanese x mexican grocery store across the street. i remember the japanese tv show they were playing behind the counter, and the discussion about the trials of ebt. i don’t remember if i ever got anything, but i remember kaia buying pandan flavored ice cream and we all tried it. there weren’t enough spoons so we chiseled it out of the container with wooden chopsticks. frances had driven a group of four or five of us, playing saweetie and megan thee stallion. i remember we talked about music- jill scott and kendrick and such. we followed mira all the way home, recognizing her car from the Palestinian flag sticker on the back window. this is when i found out frances and sonya had dated. 

    (as a side note, this was also when i found out that they were all seniors, not third years like i had thought. this was devastating information to hear. i immediately went home and made a playlist called Green ice cream is turning me blue, to process the shock and grief. it wasn’t ever the end of the world, but i struggled with thinking- and acting as though i had more time than i did with them. in hindsight, i should’ve cherished my proximity to these people more than i did.)

    i remember elections. how late everyone was, how i brought a big bag of snacks and drinks across two bus rides, and how sonya and the others had to still make a grocery outlet run. i remember the jewelry making, the sign painting, the circle we sat in like we were gossiping around the fire at summer camp. there’s still a paint stain on my watch band from when jamie hit me with their paintbrush. i tried pacifico for the first time from either ivy or rigo- whoever let me siphon some from their can, and loved it.

   a long time ago, i wrote a sort of love letter for my dear friend rigo. in it, i recounted a few other memories that ill share here. i wrote about doing security together, "communicating in stupid hand signals while buried beneath our kuffiyas” and that moment on the beach after a vigil. the sun had set long ago and the moon was high, plumb with its reflection in the calm ocean. jamie, rigo, and i were sitting on the lifeguard dock, smoking rigo’s cigarettes and dangling our feet over the railing. jamie was talking, but i am certain rigo and i were communicating in silence. he’s one of the only people to not graduate last year. we’ve gotten closer this year and i’m so grateful. perhaps we were both wishing for that, or both processing the departure of the friends we had, and needed to lean on each other for support.

    i remember flying kites under a brilliant sunset, “security” night walks around the neighborhood to smoke and talk. trips to oakland with christine and sacramento with jonah and mercedes. somehow giving myself food poisoning the night before 4/20 by my own cinnamon pistachio rolls. i remember our pizza, kabobs, and persian love cake. i remember feeling so close to everyone- hattie complimenting my music taste, hitting jack’s bong (aka blowing the flower everywhere). 

    hints of the meaning these people and moments held for me are still buried in my life. the zines and flyers i have saved, screenshots of instagram and spotify accounts or funny texts. jamie’s balloon animals, frances’s lino stamps, our altars, canva downloads and spreadsheets. i wish i had documented more of my memories and lessons from this period- or even remembered more. looking back, it kind of feels like the peak of my experience in community organizing. maybe i’ve become too salty, but i regret taking these simple things for granted. 

    if you’ve ever smelled an old perfume scent and been viscerally brought back into a past period of your life, you know what i’m talking about. it’s that feeling of being awake early before everyone else, when the fog still hangs over the bay and the crops. when the birds and the cows haven’t woken up yet, when the city is still opening its sleepy eyes as the sun crests the rolling hills. it’s being squished in the back seat requesting songs, hearing stories about people you’ll never meet, trying to mentally photograph someones outfit to emulate later. it was phone flashlights, forgetting to season the beans, putting online usernames to faces, roleplaying ridiculous scenarios, assembly line burritos, zine cutting, meeting “new" people for the hundredth time. 

    i’d be remiss to leave out the other beautiful things that filled me life these days. this was largely in spring quarter when i had great classes and a beautiful budding relationship. excitement was tangible in the sweet air and warm sunlight, for everyone. they had all been talking about their plans- for graduation, for summer travel or work or moving. we discussed some big dreams, all of which have fallen to the wayside, but i felt held and included. frankly, a lot of my infatuation with this period might be as simple as me not having been disillusioned from organizing or college yet. i know i wasn’t really as immeshed as i felt, but i still recall these moments with such fondness.

    this is also, of course, not to say that there’s not beauty in my life a year later. today i had a beautiful day where i woke up next to my honey, did some class and org work in the sun, had an insanely good salad (ingredients listed at the end of this post), and smoked with friends. all the best parts of last year, with even more connection. i saw what may turn out to be my future house, fingers crossed. i made a new playlist, called Creator Creating, about the divine energy i’ve been feeling in my life, and the intentions i have for a beautiful and delicate future. 

    this future will be full of soft early mornings, where the fog still creeps through the streets and the birds are yet to wake. it will have more zine making days, now my own instead of mass-printed ones. it will have food prep for strikes and events, but also for people whose names i know. for birthday parties and sunday mornings, for visits to the farm, road trips, tenderly shared cigs and secrets. i can’t wait for my beautiful house, for my dance parties, for more art builds and cans of pacifico, for friends crashing on my couch after visiting from the bay. for drives by the courthouse and years of separation from it. i see tenderness through herbs, birthwork, community health. i see a future career that is healing to both myself and others. 

    i thank god or the universe for what i have now, and all that i know i will receive and create in the future. 

    it’s 1:15am, and i have to wake up to get a book and some varnish from downtown. really riveting stuff, but i’m going to (attempt to) wake up early so i can recreate the serene moments i’ve described. i suppose this post is a reminder to revisit your beloved memories, to send gratitude to the influential people no longer in your life, and to look forward to beautiful things in the future. i feel hopeful and truly blessed. i feel powerful in asserting that i am the creator of my own destiny, and i will continue to stay creating.

---

in love and green ice cream gratitude,

- ek 

ps- the salad

arugula, pistachios, sliced dates, cubed strawberries, tarragon sprigs, date balsamic dressing. it was so dreamy