Story

when i began working on the care package, i told myself i would only spend as much time on it per day that would bring me joy and peace. i know what it’s like to experience a project or an event where the organizers were stressed out, and i didn’t want that to emit into a project, especially one that’s about inspiring calm. but as projects go, the last couple of days still ended up being long, and there was no denying the irony in me swearing at my computer for processing meditations too slowly.

the days since tuesday’s launch have brought some very welcome free time, but i’m learning that being busy with work for the past couple of weeks also had its perks. mainly, i was hardly spending any time on social media and i was not following the news at all. now that i have all this time on my hands, those hands are back to typing nytimes.com on the browser bar, reloading ig feeds, and other things that are pressuring me to move from a state of “we are one” to “we are fucked.”

for as long as i can remember, people have known me as someone who is well-informed, or more commonly, “up on shit.” over the years, i’ve participated in what has become a culture that champions being the town crier, the whistle-blower, the tastemaker. but at the same time, we’ve reached an agreement that we’re all on information overload. in this moment, i could open my ig stories and see one set of posts that chastises me for not knowing the latest recommendations by the CDC, followed by another set that tells me i’m acting too privileged if i’m not aware of all the other travesties happening in the world, followed by another post telling me that it’s time to sit and reflect on how i can change the course of my life, followed by another post saying that i shouldn’t feel like i have to do anything right now. every website has a red or yellow banner at the header these days. it feels like everything is in all caps all the time.

lately, the strength i’ve been finding for myself and for others has been through not being up on shit. scrolling through all the headlines again, i can’t fathom how i could’ve found the morale to work on the care package in between exposing myself to all the fear, alarm, outrage, and even aggressive calls to calm down. i reckon that for as many of you who have been reading these posts of mine, there are plenty of others who find it too wordy, incredibly frivolous, so self-absorbed, very ill-timed or some other form of not the right thing. mostly, i’m finding peace in the fact that this is all okay. writing like this each day has shown me that if i don’t take this time for myself, something else will.

i know
too many poets
scholars
healers
movement leaders
& folx who
speak
slowly
for me
to be still
stumbling
like
this.

just lmk
how do i be
wise? how
do i look
back & not
feel
like i’ve been
coasting
thru life
missing
all the
boats?

bruh
do u
realize
it’s been
exactly
a decade since
u started doing
tai
chi?

bruh
do u
realize
it’s been
almost
a decade since
u abandoned
tai
chi?

do u
remember
how the aunties
at
hester park
without much
emotion & with
plenty of matter
-of-fact told
u u
weren’t the first or
the last young
one to start this
habit and
then break
it? & how
u were like
nah
not me. & how
u broke
it anyway?

do u
remember
walking thru
pell in the rain and
being led up
-stairs to the
ballroom studio and
before u even knew how
to breathe right u
already figured u’d
be the
one to pass this
to the next
generation? later that
afternoon u
strolled to sheng’s
and said
bruh
i’m bout to be hella
wise & then u
watched the cloud
exit the
window from your
nostrils.

if i told u
that
wisdom is
forgiving urself
for all the times u
could’ve been but
weren’t would
u say i
was just making
excuses? or
would
u say i
was just making
excuses. & then
forgive
me anyway?

hey, this is me finally taking a break after launching this care package online exhibition that i’ve been coding for the past four days. you wouldn’t know it by looking at me, because i’m still sitting in front of my laptop in the dark with terrible posture and knitted eyebrows. but i swear, i’m off work now, even though the only indication of that is that i’ve switched to a different tab.

at my job, installation days are some of my favorite days in life. the nervous energy of people putting up wild visions and seeing a space transform in front of your eyes. learning a city by making emergency runs to hardware stores. figuring shit out with other human beings. all of this is a stark contrast from the installation days of an online exhibition, which is basically me in my pajamas eating too many carbs and not drinking enough water, only backing away when my eyes are burning from staring at pixels for too long.

this is why i pretty much backed away from curating exhibitions online, and doing internet-based work a few years ago. my favorite part of doing art is being in community, and it can be so difficult when most of it is done in front of a computer.

don’t get me wrong – it’s been a true joy reconnecting with all the artists who are a part of this new exhibition. i’m proud of the collection of artwork that has now been able to bring joy to people with the click of a button. but as i copy and paste each person’s bio, crop their headshots into neat squares, and tag them in promo posts, there’s no comparing this to the rush i get when we get to do it face to face.

in both scenarios, time flies. but one makes me want to stay in a moment forever while the other makes me wonder where the day went. back in october while working on te whāinga in auckland, it felt like a chore for me to even post anything on instagram, lest i miss a magical moment with the people who were all at arm’s length. the nights of the event, we were out in the chilly nights for so late that the online realm seemed so frivolous. today, i’ve been constantly caught in cycles of reloading apps for likes, resisting the urge to spend an hour on google analytics. but data isn’t an adequate surrogate for human connection. there’s no algorithm for a friendship born in shared laughter.

launching the care package today has made me realize how much the act of constructing something for sharing has been keeping me motivated, making me excited to get up each morning. even though it all happened online, i could at least imagine faces lighting up in front of their screens, sighs of relief for an alternative to the headlines. i’m proud and overjoyed, it’s just all being expressed in my fingertips, and it feels weird.

in the meantime, there’s this new thing out there in the world, and i’ve been getting texts and comments from people i love. maybe all this isolation is causing me to ask too much out of this regular tuesday in april. maybe i’m fine with this exhibition bringing a smile to someone’s face, even if i can’t be there to see it.

everyone told me that los angeles is no place for my love of biking, but luckily for me venice is an anomaly. it is rich with secluded streets, and lately, my loops around the coast have been daily doses of sanity. over the past couple of weeks i’ve charted a route with minimal risk of getting doored or coughed at. even still, i’ve been going out with a thick cloth facemask, the same one that shielded me from the thick exhaust all january while zipping through manila traffic on a skooter.

during this time in quarantine, sitting at home all day with my thoughts isn’t new to me – but going extended periods smelling my own breath is a whole other level of intimacy i’m not used to. it’s not that my breath is particularly rancid (i hope??) but a cognitive dissonance to looking out at the ocean, take a deep breath, and smelling almond butter.

having bad breath but not knowing i have bad breath was a deeply existential concern of mine i was younger and gave a fuck. in high school, i carried a tin of altoids in my pocket at all times (this was the anchor blue era when my jeans were baggy enough to fit mints, a wallet with no money but full of photos, a keychain with no keys but full of sanrio swag, and a nokia 5110). for my 8th grade prom, i was so self-conscious that i drank an entire bottle of concentrated peppermint drops and gave myself an ulcer and had to sit the entire dance out. my stomach still gurgles every time i hear xscape’s “understanding.”

as of late, the scent of my breath has been low in my list of bodily concerns, filed beneath things like my aching back, my aching knees, my aching neck, and my forehead which apparently is winning in a game of risk against my hair. but this renewed relationship with my breath….i dunno. i dunno.

it’s not really my breath that’s the problem, it’s that i really really really love fresh air, which my breath is not. being out in the world with a literal filter, and that filter smelling like me, makes it feel like i’m the problem. when i’m coasting down a part of my route that weaves through brush, if there’s nobody in sight i sometimes pull my mask down for just a moment to steal a breath of outside air. the aromas of the ocean, the plants, even hints of smog, are suddenly ambrosial.

it makes me think about how i get in my own way of enjoying all the sensual pleasures of the world. all the beautiful sights around me while i opt to stare at my phone instead, all the joy i have access to while i choose to resort to petty concerns. maybe i’m not being fair to myself, or being too deep about it, or both. we’re all just out here trying to survive, waiting for the day we can breathe the air that’s not just our own.

i learned i was non-essential years ago. it was early 2014, and the government shut down because people couldn’t agree whether or not to make healthcare a human right. i had just begun my job half a year earlier, a job where orientations, handbooks, and the opening remarks of every program begins by elaborating on how our work at the smithsonian is absolutely crucial to society. until it isn’t.

today, as all non-essential entities are shut down, the smithsonian museums are closed but taco bell is open. i’m not appalled, just intrigued. i don’t think there’s anything particularly deep about the fact that in a moment like this if you were to ask the average person if they’d rather see abraham lincoln’s death mask or eat a chalupa, the answer would be that death masks don’t taste good with fire sauce.

i selfishly want my friends and family members who are still going to work everyday to just stay home, even if other people can’t. lovely’s entire family works in the healthcare ecosystem, and some nights the worry for them is so thick that all we can do is sigh heavily enough to sink us into slumber. the anxiety over other peoples’ disregard for my loved ones makes it feel like everyday is just the first day of the next two weeks. but we are also incredibly proud of them. they are the faces that first come to mind when i hear of how cities across the globe open their windows wide at sunset so that the streets can erupt in applause. they are essential.

the people working at the drive thru don’t get that same treatment. they are relegated to accepting commands through eroded intercoms, by customers who have become hangry while sitting in a queue that their craving for fries didn’t bargain for. the line of automobiles snaking out of the in-n-out on venice blvd is so enduring that it has become its own landmark. those tending the destination don’t get city-wide applause. they get crumpled dollar bills folded longways and passed like relay batons, and credit cards that are immediately sanitized when handed back. they transfer oil-stained paper bags to people who receive them with simultaneous anticipation for feeding their hunger, and repulsion that they have to eat something that someone else had to touch in order to make.

they too are essential, but in a fucked up way. they, like the grocery cashiers, delivery people, and others who don’t have the luxury i have of spending their days contemplating productivity – they exist in a twilight zone where they are essential in theory, but expendable in practice. none of us wants to admit to projecting such a horrid sentiment onto another, not in words. just in how we hold our breaths while receiving packages, how we keep our stares down while making transactions, like eye contact is a contagion. and how we’re glad that those other people aren’t our own loved ones. until they are.

on the days that i brave the outdoors to stock up on eggs and bananas, i do try to offer words of appreciation to the individuals at checkout, but i’m still guilty of acting like i’m walking amongst lepers. this period has made me keenly aware of all the things i do in the privacy of public space, the things i’m not proud of, how i act like everyone else is expendable. when i get flabbergasted by the people who are still approaching this outbreak with the spirit of “if i get it i get it,” without regard for all those who would be forced to carry them from if to then – i have to check myself.

i am enraged by their utter self-centeredness, until i think about all the messes i’ve made that i left for someone else to clean up, all the elevator doors i let close on people because i was in a hurry, all the restaurant workers who had to stay half an hour later because my dinner conversation was so important, all the traffic buttons and toilet flushers i’ve pushed with my shoe because who knows where everyone else’s fingers have been, all the ways i act like my own shit don’t stink.

i really miss being around other people. even the ones i’ll never know. i miss the time when we didn’t have to go out acting like everyone else is a scourge, and i regret the fact that we acted that way regardless. what a forlorn time the world is in right now. what a time to recognize that everyone is absolutely essential.

according to the gospel of wikipedia, national poetry month was born when someone took note of black history month and women’s history month and was like:

you know who else
has been massively
disenfranchised by
history and sorely
needs to be
recognized by
everyone including
the highest levels of
government for
30 whole-
ass
days?
obviously….
poets!

at some point, someone else was like:

you know what
would be a perfect tradition
to galvanize
the poets whose
work is constantly
undervalued
underpaid
trivialized and
misunderstood?
obviously…
challenge them to write a poem
everyday
for free!

every april, i’m like:

fuck! if i’m going to continue calling myself a poet maybe i should participate in national poetry month but fuck it’s only day three and i’m already sick of poems just like i was last year when i fell off by day five plus it’s not like the poems i’ve written so far are even that good anyway maybe if i just inject line breaks into my regular writing nobody will notice but let’s be real half my friends are poets and they’re all going to judge me so i should just sit back and watch everyone else compete in this very pretentious marathon ok it’s not fair to call it pretentious just because i’m salty i can’t keep up i mean some people really get something out of it and there are probably also countless people who don’t write poems but love reading them every month maybe it’s what makes them feel like it’s spring maybe 2020 is actually the perfect year to do it since everyone’s staying inside anyway and it’s a great opportunity to pursue a routine i’ve been feeling guilty for over a decade for not maintaining but didn’t i just read like twelve thinkpieces about why if i pressure myself to be productive during the time of coronavirus i’m actually just being a capitalistic pig so maybe i should just watch more tiger king instead but damn do you really want to look back on your life and think about all those times you could’ve written poems but instead watched tiger king i feel like an anecdote like that would make a terrible chapter in a memoir but an excellent segment on this american life damn maybe it’s time for me to start a podcast it can be about writer’s block and how different people deal with it i dunno maybe i should just check my email

this one goes out to
all the writing that
could’ve become
poems but
instead ended
up as
tweets
.

may you find eternal peace
in
the bowls of jack dorsey’s
omnipresent
repository
in
your loneliest moments
may you get
liked by a rando
eggshell
may you get
screenshotted and then
posted on ig
without
attribution
!

bruh
remember that one time
i tweeted you
and then someone
i know
retweeted you
and then someone
they know
retweeted you
?
i know
#thatshitcray

bruh
remember that one time
i tweeted you
and then nobody
liked
or retweeted you
and so
i felt shitty all day
and kinda lost
all
my
confidence
?
i forgive you
#blessed

bruh
remember that one time
i tweeted you
and then someone
i kind of know
felt a way about
it
and told me
i’m part of the problem
and then they got
all
their
homies
to come at me
too
?
yah me neither
#selectivememory

i know
it seems you could’ve been
more that
you lived too
fast
and died too
young that
in
a world where
the best grapes are aged
into
bordeaux
you shriveled
on
the vine
.

but bruh
in
all seriousness
imagine
how sucky
the world would be
without
raisins
…

oh, don’t even think for a moment
to
not let all this
change you.

the internet will have you thinking
that
you’re fine the way you are.
you are not.

none of us are.

maybe it’s a generational thang.
how to know you’re “digital born” is
if
you ever looked at a meme and thought:
this gives me liiiiiiiiiiife!
it does not.

if
when i say that pixels arranged on a jpg
are not vitamins nor minerals
you respond with:
[eye roll emoji].

if
when i ask whether system updates are
a pastime reserved for robots
you say:
oh, don’t even…
technology is all we have rn.

maybe you’re right.
without the internet, how would i even express
that
i miss you IRL.

yesterday i took a day off from writing so that i could join the rest of the world and binge tiger king. it would be a lie to say that i intended for this to happen. i woke up like any other morning, with the intention to begin my day with writing. but bit by bit, motion by motion, i watched myself allow other tasks to cut in line. before i knew it, i was deep in my old habits of scouring washington post articles and writing emails that are way too wordy (i’ve learned over the years that long-winded emails are my creative voice’s squeal to be let out).

what’s encouraging is that, throughout the day, i never stopped thinking about writing. i actually spent much more time thinking about it than i do when i just get it out of the way in the morning. it’s a long cry from just a few weeks ago, when opening up my thoughts to a page felt awkward, when the guilt of not writing like i used to was just a numbness that i went to bed with each night.

yesterday’s sensation was a sharpness, like a joint that needed to be snapped back in place. but it wasn’t a guilt. writing again today, i’m feeling grateful for renewed habits, for the liberation that comes with knowing that the core of my being is being regularly replenished. it made guilty pleasures like tiger king feel all the more sanctified.

i remember being more isolated than this, 10 years ago. 2010 was my first east coast transition from winter to spring, the time i understood how the emergence of sun from snow and gray could feel like gridlock in the sky. in a pre-uber era, in a pre-gentrified brooklyn neighborhood, in my pre-lovely lifetime, there wasn’t really anywhere to go in the world – aside from a key foods that i’d slip into once every two weeks to get some spotted bananas and shriveled yams. walk any further and i risked falling flat on my face on the unsalted streets. this was a time before “foot traffic” was a notion on lincoln and classon, before the non-gmo pet bakeries, before high maintenance knew to romanticize living in the rinds of the big apple.

i remember being more isolated than this, 7 years ago. in 2013, lovely and i moved to beijing amidst the smoggiest winter on record. in a skyrise in the middle of the cbd, it was like living in a house in the sky, if we just imagined the haze outside a bit whiter and less filled with particles that could coat your lungs. it was here that my nostrils became accustomed to masks, where i learned to smile with my eyes.

i remember being more isolated than this, 5 years ago. it was two years into life in d.c., just enough time to feel like a cog in the bureaucracy, before i had cultivated a community, and happy hours as a surrogate were running dry. if not for the artists, i don’t think i would love the district like i now do, i don’t think i would’ve untangled myself from all the red tape.

so in 2020 it appears that i have a habit of moving to places just to stay in. here in LA, i crash-landed into the unbelievably lucky circumstance of living a three-minute walk from the beach. for the first time in a decade, i’ve gone through winter without feeling the biting cold, and for the past couple of weeks my notion of isolation at least came with sun and sand and salt. but as of friday, construction tape stretches from pole to pole, as if to designate the entire horizon as a crime scene. those who dare step out for a stroll mean-mug one another, as if each of us are the only ones with a legit reason to stretch our legs.

this is not the last time any of us will feel alone. it need not take virus, climate, or politics to feel alienated within a vast world. but over time, loneliness has become a familiar, welcome companion. i can’t bear imagining a life where i’m never greeted by it again.