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

on male friends

dear readers,

    i come to you from a cafe in montreal, conflicted and a little blue. recently, i witnessed the end of a very short-lived friendship. i say witnessed like i wasn’t the one repeatedly proclaiming to the world that it was over, with pride and more often than not, with an apprehensive melancholy. 

    in eighth grade, around 13-14, my closest male friend dropped off the map. he stopped texting me, talking to me in class and asking to go to 7/11 after school (the favorite activity). it was around the time of covid, which coincided with our graduation and transition to high school. he was in a weird social position, friends with mostly girls but seemingly desperate to be accepted by the boys in our grade. his family life was turbulent, with an anti-vaxxer mom and homophobic dad (from what i heard from a mutual friend years later). when we were about 11, he had told me he had a crush on me, and i had rejected him. nevertheless, it hadn’t really impacted our friendship. we grew closer over the following two years, until he was my best friend. sometimes i wonder if my rejection hurt him more than i could gauge, and he had to stop talking to me to protect his heart. 

the flan, which i know i’ve posted before. as seen in the “four years and i still cry” meme. but it’s been six years.

    on the other hand, prior to his irish goodbye, he had tentatively come out to me by confessing he had a crush on another boy. this is another factor (i assume) contributed to his cutting of contact. maybe the homophobia in his home made him retreat into himself. in fact, i remember in high school hearing that he called it “just a phase”, and that he was now friends with the sporty, frat-bound boys. (indeed, he is in a frat now.) my heart always broke for him, because i feel like i witnessed in real time how his kindness was whittled down and his spirit dimmed. 

    in high school, it was always awkward to see him. i remember being at a party once in junior year and running into him. i don’t remember if we exchanged any words. he had obviously noticed my boyfriend at the time, who was standing next to me, and that seemed to make him a little uncomfortable. i remember him looking a little sad, and feeling brokenhearted after the moment. i still sometimes drive by his house when i’m in our home town. below, i’ve included the birthday card he wrote for me (i’m not sure what year), so you can understand how horrifying this situation truly was:

circa 7th grade

    in hindsight, there’s no animosity. but from the tone of this letter i think you can tell why it broke my heart for him to leave my life. i don’t blame him, and although we’ve never discussed it, i feel as though the aforementioned reasons give explanation enough. i still think about him often, and have considered reaching out to him. he still lives in boston, and is in a frat now. at risk of sounding cliché, i hold out hope that i’ll see him one day, out and proud, unafraid to be kind and vulnerable. in some ways, i wondered if i could’ve done more to have helped pull him from the clutches of toxic masculinity. i wish i could’ve lived with more humility, and inspired both of us to be more of ourselves.

    this is all to say: i struggle to connect with men. i don’t have any close male friends and haven’t since eighth grade. i don’t have daddy issues, as i have genuine connections with male family members that embody masculinity safely, but since eighth grade, the closest i’ve got to a male connection was back in junior year, and even that’s a stretch. i reckon i was more of an emotional support outlet than mutually respected friend. myself and his other female friends were often aware that we were “mothering” or “therapizing” him. 

    i’ve felt close to a few men i’ve been involved with romantically in the past and called them my best friends, but that creates such a different atmosphere. oftentimes i interpret wanting to be friends with a man as romantic attraction, which is its own issue. and although i’m grateful for the experiences i’ve had with men and all that they’ve taught me, i’m equally grateful that i’ve forever chosen to move away from dating men. 

    i have one (cishet) male friend, R, which has been an interesting journey. when i first met him i thought i was in love with him. as i got to know him, i definitely developed love for him, but i quickly realized it wasn’t romantic. on top of this, it was tinged with being a mentor-mentee, quasi-fraternal relationship, so it quickly turned away from possible romance. we’re not as close as i wished we were, (a problem that, like most ailments in my life, is something within my control). he graduates this year, but i intend to soak up more of his wisdom and laughter before he leaves. 

    

    my love for R aside, a lack of male closeness still stands. it is evident that patriarchy has always gotten in the way of my male friendships. if their compassion isn’t destroyed by expectations of toxic masculinity, the gendered dynamic wrenches us apart. i think i can have good platonic relationships with men, but i’m not sure if it’s in my near future. 

    recently, i thought i was making a new male friend. i’ll call him fred as an alias (palo alto reference, if you get it). i immediately felt that a gendered dynamic was visible between us- i felt myself adopt the kind of teasing (often misinterpreted as flirting) that i usually save for men, but spending time with him wasn’t difficult. we bonded through shared complaints about organizing and the people involved. (interestingly, this can be compared to R, with whom my conversations consist of wisdom about and love of organizing). fred leant me books and walked 2 miles both ways after a meeting just to talk with me for a while. we talked organizing and we talked theory. he told me about his childhood and we talked about music. maybe i was naïve in thinking that i understood him, or i fell victim to the “i can change him” mentality. 

    fred was the type to be borderline mean in a meeting, dismissing someone’s idea as blatantly bad, but then text me immediately after asking if he had been rude and how to improve himself. he once expressed that he liked hanging out with me because he thought i was more intelligent than everyone else we knew (i’m sure he feels this way about himself as well, and was just happy to find a conversation partner he found stimulating). evidently, i did not think this was a red flag at the time. i think the fact that he relied and confided in me made me overlook the fact that he truly was being mean regardless of the quasi-apology texts afterwords. a lot of the issues with social cues could be excused by him being super autistic and super russian. i never believed he was a bad person, and i still don't. i still think people dismiss him too easily and don’t care to get to know him, which i’m sure adds more reason for him to be mean to them back, but i also don’t want to keep giving him excuses for being an asshole.  

    long story short, this man still confuses me. he is strange and hard to understand, but at the time, i took pride in the fact that he was opening up to me. perhaps in a selfish way, i was proud to be the only person to bother getting to know him and to be “approved” by him. we had inside jokes, we would be thinking the same thing and making pointed eye contact during meetings, and we would debrief after while looking at the stars and roaming the streets of santa cruz. i felt that our friendship was sweet, intimate, and understated (aka, i could hardely tell if he actually liked me or just liked the company). i should specify that he's gay and i’m a lesbian (and very seriously involved with my bae), so there wasn’t any weird romantic vibe. regardless, it was comfortable.

    until we were in the accountability meetings. in broad strokes, some of our collective organizational behavior was being guided by him, in relation to other groups we work with. some feelings were hurt and trust betrayed with multiple people, social repercussions were had. it was brought to our attention by some club members and we gathered to discuss what happened and how to move forward. it was myself, fred, another person who had been involved in the hurt feelings, and the club members who were facilitating. myself and the third person (both afab and conditioned as female, mind you) were quick to take accountability for our lack of communication and respect. we apologized, took the blame, and were ready to discuss how to move forward productively. unsurprisingly to some (yet embarrassingly shocking to me): fred denied any responsibility, instead explicitly blaming several other people by name, despite his primary involvement. most of this issue was semantic, so it wasn’t even a matter of him standing on principles. he just could not admit he was wrong or that he hurt people. it wasn’t just that he refused to apologize, re refused to admit that the hurt parties were valid in being offended by our disrespect. honestly, with his track record i shouldn’t have been surprised, as he hasn’t always shown the most attention to people’s feelings. it wasn’t even that he paid attention to mine, i just hadn’t been blatantly disrespected by him (yet). 

i’m not really sure what the point of writing this big long post was, besides catharsis. besides expressing my grief about the loss i feel, not only of this friendship but the ones that came before it. it’s not necessarily that fred was a great guy or a great friend to me. it wasn’t that any of the other ones were especially great friends either, besides the boy from eighth grade. i guess this post is just a somber recognition of the ways patriarchy strip me (and men i could love) of connection and wholeness. 

i have visions for male friends, and i think it’s possible. i intend to get closer to and stay close to my current close-ish friend R. i suppose this is the first beginnings of prayers that will let me experience connection and relationships free of suppression. like my eighth grade best friend wrote,  to make friends that “make me happy and push me to be the person [i] know i can be”.

in love and somber prayers,

- ek

"confidence” and growing down

dear readers, 

    once again i have come to eleventh hour meaning to lock in and have fallen victim to the siren call of my beloved blog. i think this will be a short post, but i start every post thinking that so we shall see. 

    on the bus a few days ago, i had a spiritual experience. i was listening to young miko’s new album (it’s mid), feeling a surge of motivation to lock in on my spanish learning grind. i was on the eleven going downtown, but sitting on the right side of the bus, so my view the entire time was of the rock wall on high street. i felt like that cartoon of the two guys in the bus and i was the one looking at the stone cliffside. regardless, i felt joyous and pensive as always. 

    i forget how i started thinking down this path, but i was thinking about the people i admire, and trying (as i do pretty much every day of my life) to discover the secret sauce that makes them admirable to me. i have written many lists of their physical similarities, piercings or specific articles of clothing. i stalked spotifys and instagrams, thinking that maybe if i posted or listened to the right thing i would be put on the right track. i took up their interests (most of which are genuinely interesting to me as well, i should say) like djing, graphic design, painting, and cigarettes. 

    my biggest fixation was always what they looked like. since most of these people are admired from afar, i was obsessed with their online presences, trying to deduce whatever i could from their curated digital footprint. what i constantly got stuck on is the idea of “ancestral swag”. that might be a bad way to put it, but let me explain. a majority of the people i am exceedingly in admiration of are people of color. this is perhaps a coincidental pattern, but not inexplicable. this is because a lot of what i admire can be reduced to “ancestral swag”, or the way a person deeply incorporates their ethnic and cultural characteristics into their unique style. for example, grillz on black women, mexican girls braiding ribbons in their hair, indigenous beaded crafts, tattoos in other languages, any type of traditional clothing, jewelry, or motifs that people use to craft their personal style. 

    i’m sure a lot of it is grass-is-greener thinking. i’ve never received implicit or explicit messaging that my features aren’t beautiful, certainly not from a racial or ethnic standpoint as i’m white living in america. maybe it’s just our society’s fucked up beauty standards, race aside, that you’ll always be missing something. this being said, and my white advantage being acknowledged, i really resonate when people talk about resenting or feeling dissonance towards their features. i feel as though i’ve improving my relationship with my appearance recently, but i still sometimes dislike my forehead, my pale skin and dark body hair, my jawline, etc. 

i’ve always been inexplicably attached to this image, it makes me feel very safe.

    the first of my bus epiphanies was (and don’t make fun of me for how obvious this is): it’s not all physical. in my pondering stupor, i came to the completely blatant realization that my idols are simply self-assured and confident. they all have vastly different styles, aesthetics, niches. i worshipped a multitude of things, but was searching for one singular key that would grant me self-satisfaction. none of them are top models, they might not even be considered conventionally attractive. but i admire them because they’re creative, kind, self-assured, unashamed- confident in who they are. the secret sauce isn’t genetic, it’s not about who can wear certain clothes or who has the most instagram followers. it’s simply a matter of trust and love in oneself.

    it feels embarrassing to admit- even to the Void that is this blog, that it took nineteen years to seriously realize these things. it’s easy to brush off confidence as something that grows naturally with time, but i’ve found it’s actually incredibly difficult to cultivate and very labor-intensive. maybe this says something deeper about me, but it feels a lot like breaking out of the addictive cycle. every time i berate myself about something small, or feel the urge to resist an interaction to minimize potential damage, i have to manually correct the patterns. i feel like i’m beginning to put myself through behavioral therapy, and with that, i notice all the ways a lack of confidence was truly wrecking my life. 

    again, this might hint at deeper issues than the average persons’ insecurity, but i would always wait until passing periods were over to walk around campus so i would minimize people looking at me. i used to brush my teeth in my room and spit into the trash can to avoid possibly seeing people in the dorm bathrooms. i try to walk on the right side of the road, so drivers and passengers couldn’t see me as well as they passed. i duck into bathrooms or “go the long route” to avoid people or crowds. i used to despise mirrors, clothes shopping, and photos. i have gone through nearly every one of my college courses without raising my hand one single time during class. 

    i’ll never forget what my former boss/mentor said to me once, in a one-on-one check in. she, a licensed therapist and social worker, had asked how things were going at school (senior year). i opened up about my social anxiety- my hiding in classrooms, my awkwardness in my body and my “inability” to be self-confident. 

    she looked me dead in the eyes and said, “are you really trying to blend in?”

    i was caught off guard, but i said yes. something along the lines of “that’s the way it is, i’m just an awkward person”. i think she laughed at that. to paraphrase the following conversation:

    dennie: “i don’t think you’re really trying to blend in. you dress so colorfully, you’re so tall and have good posture” (true). i was genuinely speechless.

    “maybe you’re trying to blend in because you’ve been taught to, but your subconscious is trying to make you stand out.” 

    i think about this conversation constantly. she read me like no one ever had, and made me realize the biggest contradiction of my life. since i was a child i was participating in talent shows, friends with every kid in the grade, always participating in class. i would wear feathers and fake flowers in my hair, piling three skirts on all at once and dying my hair bright blue. 

    i could blame it on covid, on the transition to high school, on my career-obsession with “normalcy and professionalism”, on being told my teeth and height were unattractive. all probably contributed, but i honestly don’t care to go down the path of soul-searching for a reason why the shift happened. tldr is; for whatever reason, i shrank into a shell of myself, socially. but for the most part (besides junior year, that’s a whole other story), my style didn’t change a lot. i still dyed my hair and gave attention to my posture. i cared deeply about school and did well. i let my self expression flounder, let my values be swayed and my flame dim, and i let my social confidence wither away entirely. but still, i was the same little kid, just grown up.

    this is what i mean when i say i need to grow down. i need to reconnect with the inner flame of my younger self that made me excited about the world, about making friends, talking to strangers, dressing up and standing out. my sense of identity was solid because it was coming from the inside out, not the outside in. i feel like in my recent years i’ve been seduced by the “cool girl” aesthetic. the packaged and consumable model of success, girlhood, and most offensively- honesty. for a more in depth take on this, i liked mickey galvin’s video stop trying to be cool girl. it furthered my self-intervention, and made me realize how important internal sense of self is, regardless of the exterior form it takes (especially in relation to fashion and thinness). my favorite quote is: “your job as a human and in your own development, whatever age you are, is to create new conditions in which a new personhood could happen.” 

    additionally, i think as i reconnect more to my ancestors and their spiritual practices (blog post on this otw hopefully), i’ll come to appreciate my physical beauty more. i always remember the quote that goes something along the lines of: your face is the result of thousands of people’s love. i think once i center myself to that anchor, in relation to the grief and reclamation necessary for “white” people like myself to become whole again, it’ll get easier. 

    further on this point, i think i have a new thing to embrace. although i recognize how i should really be focusing on my inside → outside re-grounding, my new focus is impurity. i saw a video about how some random white celebrity (idk her name) is radical for embracing grime and physical dirtiness in a society that wants white women to be pure, soft, clean, etc. i got thinking about how so much of my internal pressure against my spirit is in pursuit of this soft, clean professionalism. it’s the reason i haven’t gotten hand tattoos or more facial piercings, or why i want to have a “normal” hair cut and color, and wear fairly normal clothes. it’s why i’m obsessed with whitening my teeth and why i layer on perfume to cover b.o. it’s why i anxiously shave or pluck my facial hair, even if i think i’m “natural” by having leg and armpit hair. if i want to deconstruct these (white supremacist) beliefs in society, i surely have to start with my own body and mind, which i intend to do starting now. this is the path to my own ancestral swag, true internal self love, and subsequent confidence. 

    although i still struggle with the aforementioned insecurities and anxieties, i think my fortitude has improved over the years. this blog is a letter of gratitude for how far i’ve come, and a promise to myself to continue with increased clarity. writing this, i am filled with the motivation to continue to improve. i have to admit, i’ve been failing. the same day i rode the bus and had this realization, i passed someone i knew at eleventh hour, and although she didn’t see me, i didn’t say hi. honestly, i’m proud of myself for even choosing to walk by her and risk an interaction, instead of going “the long way”. but next time, i will speak to her. and the time after that, i will talk to my bus driver and interview the strangers in dunkin donuts. and the day after that, i will chat with the interesting man sitting next to me in eleventh hour, or the girl next to me on the plane. i accept that failure and struggle is part of the process, especially in unlearning something as deep as self hatred and the avoidance of rejection. i know it’s a protection mechanism, but i think it’s time to grow down.

with love and self love, 

- ek

making changes: vultures, magnolias, and ancestors

dear readers, 

this morning i woke up late- around 11:30, from a dream in which i was getting married to my childhood friend. the dream ended with me in a taxi with axelle, driving through downtown boston, not unlike the opening (or final) scenes of lost in translation. i’m not sure how to analyze this. 

by the time i had gotten up and showered, it was time for me to log onto a webinar i had registered for the week before called “afrofuturism in birds”. the first half of the webinar was four project presentations from the afrofuturism in birds fellowship. the featured projects included a kids book about noticing birds, an essay on community involvement in ecology, an art exhibit in homage to George Washington Carver, and a collection of stories from Black elders in the bayous of Alabama. 

i wasn’t sure what to expect from the webinar going in, but i cannot emphasize the wisdom i feel i’ve gained within the hour. i’ll share a few things that stood out to me. one of the presenters, Dr. Mel, talked about her book Biomythology Bayou, and how birds are ancestral technologies and connectors. they gave the example of the laughing gull, who always seems to know something we don’t, or the brown pelican that can inspire us with it's salt-water desalinization glands. my favorite was the blue heron, who’s telescopic eyes watch over us- watching how we move, seeing all of what we did last night, projecting our actions through to the ancestors. hear Dr. Mel read her brief piece about the heron here (33:19). 

what stood out to me most was one of the last questions the moderator asked the panelists. at this point i had caught a bus downtown and was walking to a cafe to get some work done and write (per the advise of a grad-student coworker, i’ve been trying to write without judgement for a few hours per day). the moderator asked: “what is your biggest dream for the future of black people and afrofuturism in conservation?” in response, panelist Binta said “i haven’t dreamed my biggest dream yet”. i began thinking of all of my dreams, and was filled with a rush of excitement for the dreams i have yet to realize. i hope i have a long life filled with beauty, love, humility, and ever evolving dreams. 

i have been giving a lot of thought to my dreams recently, a practice that has been a great source of joy, grounding, and serenity for me. as a child, i would spend hours in my room watching nature documentaries, making art and decorating my space, and dreaming in my head. although i wish i had written more of my dreams down for posterity, i remember a few. i wanted to be a marine biologist, i wanted to live in california, i wanted dyed hair and cool style, and i wanted boobs. the last one always makes me laugh a little, but 3/4 dreams come true is pretty good. 

it sounds very intense (and possibly a little self-absorbed) to admit, but i think i have always been a visionary. i loved making physical collages of my dreams and desired futures, i loved worshipping people i felt i could learn from, i loved practicing new things and imagining vivid scenarios of the future every night before bed. i have always found solace in my own imagination, and my own dreams of the future. i was a genuine hoarder, an obsessive list-maker and budding archivist. i think that from a young age i understood the ephemerality of life, the fleetingness of memory and emotion, and the importance of posterity. i hated deleting old playlists or pinterest boards, throwing out receipts or ticket stubs that reminded me of a special memory, or forgetting. a lot of my obsessions focused on forgetting, something that would throw me into an impenetrable state of anxiety or full-blown emotional meltdown. i think hoarding and documentation was the compulsion that eased this fear. 

since then, i have obviously been heavily therapized and medicated, and the obsession has shifted from a world-ending paranoia to a mild discomfort. i still make lists, scrapbook, and collect, but it’s out of love and devotion more than a feeling of scarcity. i like to think that my childhood prepared me to be a lifelong archivist (one of my ongoing dreams). i archive for my job, i archive my relationships and my time in california. i am currently archiving lesser-known boston history, lesbianism, and religion. my blogging is part of my archive. part of the mark i’m making on the world, the space i’m carving out within the infinity of the internet. 

as i continued listening to the webinar, i was walking down one of the most beautiful streets in santa cruz, a street my dear friend rafa used to live on. the sidewalk was lined on both sides with montbretia flowers, sundappled and the air warm. it was at this moment that i saw a monarch butterfly flitting around in the street, weaving throughout the low hanging branches or arbors in front of affluent mid-century homes. i was reminded of something Evelyn- my childhood caretaker/art teacher/chosen grandmother had told me last summer. she lost her brother at a young age, and had processed it through art. she had told me that butterflies are often seen as ancestors visiting, and that every time she sees a butterfly she is reminded of her brother. i have been so privileged in my life as to not have lost anyone close to me, so i don’t necessarily view this butterfly as a visit from a specific ancestor, but perhaps many of my distant ancestors. there had been a lot of mention of ancestors in the webinar, mostly in regards to black and indigenous ancestral knowledge, generational connection to land, and the connection black people have to birds in their resemblance of flight and freedom. 

i was reminded of Abigail and Dennie, former bosses and mentors, calling people ancestors in training. i feel the need to devote myself more to my dreams, more to my community and loved ones, and more to spirituality in order to become the best ancestor in training i can be. on my walk, i pass a magnolia tree in full bloom, its smell filling the air around me. i pick up a pristine petal, feeling its softness and admiring it’s beautiful magenta coloration. i’m reminded of the magnolia in the front yard of my childhood home. the magnolia, to me, is an ancestor and guiding spirit. i know how to cook it’s blossoms, how delicate the petals are, and when it blooms (at least in an east coast climate). 

i spend a lot of time thinking about connection to land, belonging, and spirituality in terms of whiteness, indigeneity, and settler identity. i have a lot of complicated thoughts that might be best for a future blog post aided by supplemental research, but i’ll give you the elevator pitch. for my whole life, despite my love for and connection to my childhood home and lands in massachusetts, there’s been an underlying sense of dissonance. undoubtedly, this is a symptom of the settler identity. a lack of connection to any “native” land- not in the “united states”, surely not anywhere in europe where my ancestors are from. there’s a reckoning that is ongoing, a feeling of grief over the loss that whiteness and colonialism have inflicted on white people. this is obviously not to discredit the impacts of colonialism on people of color, specifically indigenous people in this case. however, i take it as a fundamental principle of my work as a white person committed to liberation and ancestral work to grapple with this truth.

from a human level, i do resonate with the idea of land and animals as ancestors. but simultaneously within that connection, there is an acknowledgement of the hollowness that whiteness has created within myself, and evidently, many other white people. one way i hope to reconcile with this hollowness is to dive into devotion, spirituality, and the creation of new belonging. not through appropriation (the method many white people take in the effort to belong), but through hard work, creation, and honesty. i want to create a space between the lack of belonging to turtle island lands and to european lands. i want to reconnect with my blood ancestors and metabolize the legacies that proceed me (good and bad). i want to create new spaces of wholeness for myself and other white loved ones, and in the process connect deeper to the people of color i hold close. 

a dream that has been emerging recently has been the work of a death doula, in addition to the dream of being a birth doula or midwife. in the webinar, one of the panelists named Mykah had mentioned how her mom always knows when something has died because she notices the turkey vultures in the sky. this anecdote, along with the talk of ancestors (in training), reminds me of the beautiful sanctity of death. it reminds me of the many problems with the death practices in our western society, particularly among white people (and most especially; non-religious, long term “american” white people). i deeply admire the work of Äni, a community member who runs Ancestors Embrace death doula services. although we have only met once a year ago, i look up to Äni with such reverence and devotion. i dream of being a healer who is honored and trusted enough to bring life into this world, as well as helping ancestors pass with peace, dignity, and culturally relevant healing practices. i look to my ancestors in training, Äni, Dennie, Evelyn, Abigail, the panelists from today’s webinar, the birds. 

i am throwing this post into the void as an oath to my childhood self and my ancestors. it is a reaffirmation of my seriousness about this work. it is a promise to commit deeper to decolonizing my mindset and my communities, to build new connections through friendships and loving mutual aid, to regain my spirituality. it is a betrayal of the assimilation i used to strive for- into empire, capital, and whiteness. i began this post by talking about my literal dreams, of marriage and life in the city, and i end it by illustrating my goals and visions for the future. i am taking after the vultures, the magnolia tree, and throwing my heart into the good, messy, hard, and beautiful work that awaits me. i am frequently reminded of a poem by w.b. yeats, called Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven, that i’ll leave you with:

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,

Enwrought with golden and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

Of night and light and the half light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet:

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

in love and cosmic reverence,

- ek

on chicago, Leda, and alexander

dear readers, 

    i want to introduce you to someone. Leda is a pseudonym created out of the names of movie characters from funeral parade of roses. this blog will be my thoughts as i try to process why i have been so hung up on the girl who i've nicknamed Leda. i doubt she would ever find this blog - particularly because she doesn't actually have any idea of my existence. frankly, i give enough description in this blog that it would be obvious to her if she ever did. however, out of respect, i don't want her real name on my blog, so we will keep Leda.


    it was not that chicago was the interest, at least not at first. because if so, i might be equally as hung up on some other figure, like bernardine dorhn, the panthers, nuscua, or countless other artists. and it’s interesting because I’ve had so many other fascinations (parasocial relationships) in my life; grace, sahara, isis, iz, or maya. it's not just about an aspiration. something about Leda stuck. maybe that she had had been alexander's first love. maybe because she has been the artist of my ex boyfriend's only tattoo. maybe because she was likely looked up to by people like sahara and carmen. but i have a third theory:

     i’ll reiterate that she has no clue of my existence. it's for precisely that reason thought this adoration is not logical. we went to school together three years apart. she was the same grade as my brother, but they ran in very different circles. in fact, i sometimes imagined that she transcended even the coolest high school cliques. i didn't know anything about her while we were in school together, and i hadn't even ever heard her name. 

    

    but after she graduated, when i was in sophomore year, i was introduced to her name by a friend. alexander (a psedonym from the sacrifice) was definitely a friend of hers, and i like to think he was a friend of mine, but he was a senior and probably didn't give it the same weight i did. interestingly, in sophomore year i was completely obsessed with him. i studied him however i could- his instagram, band camp, soundcloud, letterboxd, spotify, facebook, anything i could find within the public domain. when he wrote me a note at the end of the year saying he felt like a brother to me, my heart had exploded with joy and reaffirmation. 

    my friends were convinced that i had a crush on him, because i had admitted he was kind of cute if you tilted your head, but it really wasn't like that. i looked up to him so immensely- artistically, aesthetically, socially, academically. everyone else seemed to have mixed reviews about him, but anytime we got to interact my heart would swell. i even tried to mimic how he acted and dressed to try to grasp at the unique form of masculinity he displayed. after learning he liked the band sunn, i started routinely wearing my dad’s shirt from the group. i reference him in my art and listen to his albums, as well as the voice memos i have of him playing at open mics.

    

    i started watching alexander religiously throughout our classes. i took notes on the back of my hands to memorize his thoughts or references. i wanted to be just like him in every way, besides the drug addiction. i told my parents about him, tried to convince my friends it wasn't romantic affection. in some ways i think it was, just not in the way that is lustful. this is somewhat related to my love of highly romantic platonic friendships, which i could talk about at a later date. admittedly, a lot of my fascination coincided with my burgeoning interest in punk. i went to his shows, i watched his movie recommendations, i started smoking more weed in search of whatever it gave him, and tried to memorize everything it was that he liked.

    

    he was disturbed, manic depressive and unmedicated. he is perhaps the most interesting psychological and philosophical case study i've ever witnessed in my life. he had bouts of extreme extroversion and brazen self-confidence bordering on self-obsession and a god complex- truly a kind of self-assurance i've rarely seen in anyone sense. but then it would come crashing down in the form of instagram story rants and obvious hangovers the next day in class. he hated himself, thought he was deeply fucked up and shameful.  he had at least four different recognizable personalities. looking back on it, he was probably suicidal. although it was hard to witness, i felt he was one of the few people that understood what i had gone through up until that point. he understood the kind of art that is made when you truly can’t stand yourself, and i spoke that language. 

    

    he loved that i listened to the same weird music he did, although most of it was me stealing my dad's song recommendations and overemphasizing my coolness. he would recommend me movies and books, excited to share them with someone finally. i guess i thought that he must have felt the exact same way that i felt about him, in that he was the only person in the world to understood me to such a close extent. in hindsight, i realize he probably had that feeling with countless other people who knew and could resonate with deeper parts of him than i did. Leda was very likely one of them.

    

    when i first listened to his album, the song called chicago was immediately my favorite. the title parenthetically notes that it's a song for a good friend. at the time i was doing fbi level research to figure out who this good friend was. it was only until later in the year when he told me about her for the first time. i forget the context, or how he even put it. but he brought you up so casually like it was something he thought about every day. my ex was actually the one to tell me he was in love with her. he had gotten a beautiful butterfly tattoo that looked professional, apparently hand poked by Leda (one of her many admirable skills). my ex was the one who told me that alexander was secretly and unrequitedly in love with her, and about the song connection. from this point onward, my obsession shifted.

    

    alexander and i stayed close throughout the rest of that year, but it wasn't like those first three months. his reputation and school attendance plummeted after a certain xanax-induced public meltdown. but i hugged him at graduation, and i continued his love for Leda. my adoration shifting west from north hampton to chicago. it has since matured into a more complex love, but with Leda it had started the same way. with instagram accounts that linked to spotifys that linked to websites and art exhibitions. she lives and went to school in chicago, recently graduated from an art school studying fashion and "new media”. i have memorized her multiple instagrams, her friends faces, her sense of humor and music taste, her tattoos, her writing, her tumblr, her website. i am profoundly moved by her art. among the pieces are memes, 2010 throwbacks, tattoo pictures, edgy photographs, and work-in-progress snapshots. old fashioned book sketches or a published magazine or hatchets lined in a row. projects i wish i had thought to make, but that i feel speak to my senses in a spiritual way.

   

    i think there is something psychological about hearing someone i was quasi in love with talk about the person they were real in love with. i became fascinated with Leda, not out of an effort to win his affection, but in striking clarity of my true self. i imagine myself in chicago, the weather, my neighbors. i imagine myself in the halls of her university, running late to a studio of shadow photography. 

    

    i don’t know if i imagine being friends with her, or being her, but she became as much an aspiration as an apparition. she embodied a dream of someone i felt like i could never be, but yet deeply yearned for.

    

    midway through high school, smack in between when she would have been in my life and where i am now, i faced a cross roads. i could run off to the warm embrace of california, to a place that felt like a shallow pool where I could safely learn to swim as an adult. or, i could jump into new york and try my best to survive. i had gotten to nyu, and although it wasn't barnard, it sufficed to meet my academic dreams. in the end it came down to the obscene cost of nyu, and the fact that my mom hates the city. i always told myself that new york would harden me, and california would nurture me further into my tenderness. i still believe this, and i think it has come true- in some good ways and some detrimental ways. however, i’m constantly grateful for my tenderness, not to mention the beautiful life and profound relationships i’ve discovered in california. i don’t regret my choice, but i wonder. 

    

    i feel like Leda is living the life i could’ve had, and my ability to be witness to it from afar is haunting me. just today, i typed her name in when trying to look up a parisian eyewear designer with the same first name. she is a knee jerk reaction for me. 

    in many ways, she represents things about myself i wish were different. i wish i had her haircut or her style, her confidence, her technical skills. i wish i had the feeling of disposable time to be able to entertain things like art school. despite these disparities, fundamentally, i feel like we are similar. we seem to have similar interests, tattoo and music tastes, similar dreams and visions (even if i struggle to bring them to life). i like to think we’d be friends in another life, if we were closer in age. i like to think there’s someone out there who has a parasocial relationship with me like i do for her. 

    

    to end my rambling, i doubt i’ll ever see her again, let alone have a conversation face to face. but i continue to dream of what she represents to me. she represents a life of leisure, of art, of nude photoshoots and adornment. of physical media, of digital media, of chicago, of making a mark on the world before we’re gone. i try to do her justice in my emulation. i try my best to scream out into the void, fill it with mediocre art and writing, and leave behind a trail of proof of my existence. through Leda, i explore myself deeper. i find solace with my awkwardness, softness, and occasional shame. i find stillness in my lack of tattoos and my frizzy hair. i find divinity everywhere. i sleep with my computer and i dream of other dimensions. i study and i archive, i am obsessed with art and devotion. she lives in chicago in a tiny apartment inside my rib cage, living though me, and i see through her eyes.

in love in chicago,

- ek