"dance, and one day you’ll stop walking."

"Desire can make anything into a god." 

— Mark Doty from ”The Death of Antinoüs”

tonight, lies winked and gasped for attention in their voices.

"He's my brother," she proclaimed, and at once I knew it was false.
"Your lips are dry, you need to drink some water," he stubbornly concluded.

At once, I knew that they were secretly in love.

hello,
it's raining and below 50 degrees at the end of april.
a guy named Andrew offered me a ride home.
i said yes.

rain falls here like it's not sure that there will be enough left at the end: drizzling, hesitant, and continuous. for days.

also,
50 words a day is pretty lovely.

"When I am working on a book or a story I write every morning as soon after first light as possible. There is no one to disturb you and it is cool or cold and you come to your work and warm as you write. You read what you have written and, as you always stop when you know what is going to happen next, you go on from there. You write until you come to a place where you still have your juice and know what will happen next and you stop and try to live through until the next day when you hit it again. You have started at six in the morning, say, and may go on until noon or be through before that.

When you stop you are as empty, and at the same time never empty but filling, as when you have made love to someone you love. Nothing can hurt you, nothing can happen, nothing means anything until the next day when you do it again. It is the wait until the next day that is hard to get through.”

- ernest hemingway in the Paris Review

today's lunch. 

sweet potato and shiitake tofu scramble. 

served with ample drizzles of ginger-soy-shiitake sauce... 

with

ample servings of whole apples for dessert. 

lunch today. my mom's ubiquitous vegan mapo tofu recipe. 

i learned how to roll a proper burrito today, and that's where i met D, all curly hair and short sleeves in the 50 degree weather. she rolled the best burrito because, according to her, "i like tacos better so i don't fill my burrito with too much stuff."

we found out we went to the same middle school, two years apart.

she works at bloomingdale's, and her method of dealing with the cost of living in new york city is to compile a list of restaurants she wants to try and get guys on okcupid to take her to dinner and buy her drinks a few times a week. "a girl's gotta eat," she whispered, and winked while taking a bite of her free burrito.

yup.

i walked through chinatown today,
lower lower chinatown,
across columbus park, and onward even further to seward park

i tried to contain my nostalgia as i stood behind the excited men watching and discussing heated games of chinese chess, thinking about the groaning afternoons that i spent in extracurricular chinese chess classes after obligatory chinese school. the chess games were set to a soundtrack of the straining, gasping lilt of the erhu filtered through shouts from the soccer fields.

in true Amelie fashion, I sank fingers into and through the bins of watermelon seeds, thinking of all the times we sat at the kitchen table cracking our molars on opening those seeds to get the tiny morsel of flesh inside.

i walked slowly through the bakeries, inspecting the sweet glutinous rice treats. i felt heartsick about the Mandarin language as i listened to toddlers point out in bird-like voices the "tu shu guan" (library) to their smiling and proud mothers. heartsick because our children may never experience as close of a link to their "heritage" and language as we did, as the sons and daughters of immigrants.

i thought about my grandmother's wrinkled hands gripping my tiny ones too tight, but how i never dared to complain. all i could think about was the pain of the handhold as she sang me songs in Fukinese, songs that i never understood and don't remember.

i thought about the value of the mangoes my mother cut up, how she saved all the fleshy parts for us. she only ever ate off of the peels, biting off what was left after she fed us. i felt immense gratitude flood across my heart, for the times i never saw the sacrifice that helped put the grapes and strawberries and Asian pears on the kitchen table. the water added lovingly to congee, to stretch the grains of rice just a little bit further. the pots of soup that were made from not just the chicken, but the bones themselves, to stretch it just a little bit further too.
this actually haunts me regularly these days, in the face of the seeming gluttony of our $12 salads (oh and add four dollars for chicken breast).

perhaps it's all so pessimistic. perhaps i'm dancing the fool's dance, thinking this way. i feel almost guilty, that it's all too easy to walk down a few blocks with a few dollars in hand acquire the rare and coveted and scarce treats of my childhood.
i feel like if i put all the words i could craft together in a bucket, it would still be too shallow to show my family how i feel about this, to tell them that i understand now. it feels a little like walking backstage and seeing what really made the play come to life.

i stood quietly behind a fence, watching a lone man practice qi gong. i studied the sweeping and dancing of his feet, the discipline behind his movements, the serenity that sat in the stillness of his face.
i know i panic daily, everything is in a rush, has to be part of a plan. it ruins lives, all this planning. let me learn how to slow down.

how do you sink into the noise around you? how do you transcend it?

hey guys, happy friday, and remember to:




recently my mom and i have gotten into the habit of exchanging text messages daily about our meals.
yesterday she asks me, "guess what i'm having for lunch??"
and i said, "a slice of the ice cream cake that's been sitting in the freezer"
and she said "yes!! i haven't eaten any in two days, i had to catch up."


breakfast today-
- 2 poached eggs (can use splash of sushi vinegar in the water, bring to medium heat. drop egg in ramekin. swirl water. drop egg gently in the vortex. swirl occasionally for 3-5 minutes. take out with slotted spoon.)
- black beans
- mushrooms sauteed with garlic and black pepper
- top with cracked red pepper
serve garnished with avocado and ample amounts of sriracha.

Sunny mornings sitting outside. Chai latte and books.

rooftop shenanigans. Open bar with free tequila spells trouble for Texan transplants.

Met a girl from Berlin who cussed more than I do. A man who started a company who helps children learn how to cook healthily. And who also finnagled a free bottle of prosecco for us. A CEO who helps lazy people order anything from their, um, la-z-boy. A girl, tome, whose name meet innocence.

also broke a wine glass nonchalantly and ate guacamole and chocolate muffins. I think I see a rude springtime awakening happening. 

And hope. That grows daily.

oh man. oh man.


it is hard to believe when I’m with you that there can be anything as still
as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of it
in the warm New York 4 o’clock light we are drifting back and forth
between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles

(frank o'hara)

It never gets easier. It shouldn't. We should hunger for something more from life. From ourselves.

Every day, you should ask yourself, how have I impacted my soul? How have I grown?
More often than not, I am surrounded by people who instead ask themselves, How much money have I made, and how much more can I get?

Mistakes get harder to make.
We don't want to fall. We don't want to fail.


John McPhee in the Paris Review-

INTERVIEWER

I suppose one of the hard things for a young writer is to learn that there’s no obvious path. 

MCPHEE

There is no path. If you go to dental school, you’re a dentist when you’re done. For the young writer, it’s like seeing islands in a river and there’s all this stuff you can get into—where do you go? It can be a mistake to get too great a job at first; that can turn around and stultify you. At the age of, say, twenty-one, you’re in a very good position to make mistakes. Twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four—each time the mistakes become a little more costly. You don’t want to be making these mistakes when you’re forty-five. But the thing is, in steering around all those islands, and finding currents to go around them, they’re all relevant. 

fine. admittedly, i might have just consumed a dozen cookies for dinner.
and the equivalent of a carafe of mango rooibos tea.

i can hear my heart beating against my shoulder blades. as in, the back of my torso.

spin, spin sugar.

today's lunch.

 honey marinated salmon.

4 salmon filets (about 6oz each)
1 tablespoon honey
2 teaspoons tamari or soy sauce
1 teaspoon olive oil
1/4 teaspoon black pepper (i was liberal with this)

i always have trouble with honey and coconut oil. i clumsily melt it into the mixture.

anyway. i mixed the last four ingredients in a quart-sized ziploc bag.
marinated salmon inside for about 15-20 minutes.

i cheated and made a bit more marinade with the honey i had left.

i let the saucepan heat up on medium up. sprayed it down pretty well with some olive oil.

placed the filets on the skin side. i drizzled the extra marinade on top.
cooked 5 minutes. pressed down on the tops with a spatula so that the edges browned evenly. sort of.
repeated on the other side. kind of winged it, since there was a smaller filet, i let that cook for a short period of time.

i committed the cook's crime of eating while standing up.

i read some Shantaram.

i found this great spice store in the east village. i could have stayed there forever.
there were bags of cardamom, coriander, cumin, teas of all kinds,

the guy at the checkout register was this young-looking indian guy with long hair. he said hi to me as i was finishing, and chatted with me (in his distinctly American accent). this older indian guy came into the store and started mumbling something in another language, and i smiled patiently as the checkout guy seemed to respond.
checkout guy looked and me and shrugged, "Don't worry. I don't understand a thing he's saying either." And grinned.
i think he was joking. but i couldn't really be sure.
i laughed and said that i feel like i never understand what people are saying, no matter what language they are speaking.
we talked a bit more about language.


--
two weeks ago when we were in new orleans for french quarter festival, i rediscovered the virtue of apples.
i'm kind of a banana girl, and my mom says it's because i'm lazy. i don't like to wash fruit.
every morning, our hotel would have green apples sitting in a basket in the lobby. the apples basically kept me from going insane from hunger while we "looked" for places to eat (which usually means wandering around for 2 hours).

my refrigerator probably now contains a lot of curb-rose's-hunger fruit. including about 2 dozen apples. i think it's working out well.

april drizzle. 
windows open. 
haven't felt like going dancing, and as B said the other night, "if you have even a sliver of doubt about going, you won't have fun"
ain't that the truth. 
chamomile and lavender instead, and some eileen myles. 

“Literature is love. I think it went like this: drawings in the cave, sounds in the cave, songs in the cave, songs about us. Later, stories about us. Part of what we always did was have sex and fight about it and break each other’s hearts. I guess there’s other kinds of love too. Great friendships. Working together. But poetry and novels are lists of our devotions. We love the feel of making the marks as the feelings are rising and falling. Living in literature and love is the best thing there is. You’re always home.” 
- Eileen Myles

breakfast. 

1/4 cup almond milk, unsweetened 

1 tbsp chia seeds, whole

1 soy yogurt (I used silk strawberry)

mix vigorously in a jar and place in the fridge overnight.

wake up.

top with fruit (I used bananas and strawberries).

if desired, shake an ample amount of cinnamon on each bite.

watch the sun appear between the buildings.

weekend notes:

- spontaneity may breed a bit of carelessness (read: no cutting utensils, no sleeping pads, lack of matches?)  but it sure does allow for creativity (read: bite your potatoes in pieces and spit them back out into foil, son)
- with a bit of patience, some ingredients thrown in foil cooked over a fire can be damn good. especially after a whopping party bag of chex mix for appetizer
- waterfall treks are always worth it
- give thanks for the sunlight. give thanks for the sunlight. give thanks for the sunlight.
- cold builds character. i'm still waiting for my character to build, but there you have it.
- the beginning of spring can look a lot like autumn
- look at the bareness of trees in a different light- the lack of foliage gives way to the sun streaming through
- with most uphills, there will be a downhill. take your time.

“Hurt is a part of life. To be honest, I think hurt is a part of happiness, that our definition of happiness has gotten very narrow lately, very nervous, a little afraid of this brawling, fabulous, unpredictable world.”

-  Julian Gough, Juno & Juliet

(coincidentally a book about twins)

Leave the dishes.
Let the celery rot in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator
and an earthen scum harden on the kitchen floor.
Leave the black crumbs in the bottom of the toaster.
Throw the cracked bowl out and don’t patch the cup.
Don’t patch anything. Don’t mend. Buy safety pins.
Don’t even sew on a button.
Let the wind have its way, then the earth
that invades as dust and then the dead
foaming up in gray rolls underneath the couch.
Talk to them. Tell them they are welcome.
Don’t keep all the pieces of the puzzles
or the doll’s tiny shoes in pairs, don’t worry
who uses whose toothbrush or if anything
matches, at all.
Except one word to another. Or a thought.
Pursue the authentic — decide first
what is authentic,
then go after it with all your heart.
Your heart, that place
you don’t even think of cleaning out.
That closet stuffed with savage mementos.
Don’t sort the paper clips from screws from saved baby teeth
or worry if we’re all eating cereal for dinner
again. Don’t answer the telephone, ever,
or weep over anything at all that breaks.
Pink molds will grow within those sealed cartons
in the refrigerator. Accept new forms of life
and talk to the dead
who drift in though the screened windows, who collect
patiently on the tops of food jars and books.
Recycle the mail, don’t read it, don’t read anything
except what destroys
the insulation between yourself and your experience
or what pulls down or what strikes at or what shatters
this ruse you call necessity.

— Louise Erdrich, from Original Fire: Advice To Myself

I am listening to the ice against the window, in the middle of April.
Snow is illuminated beneath the street lamps.

Earlier, I was walking in it.
The wind blew ice in between my eyelashes.
Thinking about how one possibility was that I could feel cold and wet,
but think of all the other feelings I'd miss.

And so I broke into a run, and reveled in it.


--


Consider the Hands that Write This Letter (via poets.org)

  by Aracelis Girmay
         after Marina Wilson

Consider the hands
that write this letter.

Left palm pressed flat against paper,
as we have done before, over my heart,

in peace or reverence to the sea,
some beautiful thing

I saw once, felt once: snow falling
like rice flung from the giants’ wedding,

or strangest of strange birds. & consider, then,
the right hand, & how it is a fist,

within which a sharpened utensil,
similar to the way I’ve held a spade,

the horse’s reins, loping, the very fists
I’ve seen from roads through Limay & Estelí.

For years, I have come to sit this way:
one hand open, one hand closed,

like a farmer who puts down seeds & gathers up;
food will come from that farming.

Or, yes, it is like the way I’ve danced
with my left hand opened around a shoulder,

my right hand closed inside
of another hand. & how I pray,

I pray for this to be my way: sweet
work alluded to in the body’s position to its paper:

left hand, right hand
like an open eye, an eye closed:

one hand flat against the trapdoor,
the other hand knocking, knocking.

almond butter cups!

I experimented with some almond butter cups from Oh She Glows. Another note about being super amateur- I had to figure out how to use K’s food-processor-blender-in-one. I had only used it to make smoothies thus far, and I had to put together the food processor. I know, rocket science.

I’m glad my bachelor’s degree came in handy, since I did eventually figure it out.

 Raw Almond Butter Cups from Oh She Glows

Almond Butter Cup Base:
3/4 cup raw almonds, ground into a meal
1/4 cup rolled oats, ground into a flour
2 tablespoons raw almond butter
1.5 tablespoons coconut oil, warmed
1.5 tablespoons pure maple syrup (I used fresh Vermont maple syrup from our road trip!)
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
pinch of fine grain sea salt, to taste

for the topping:
3 tablespoons coconut oil
3 tablespoons pure maple syrup
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
pinch of fine grain sea salt, to taste

1. Add almonds and oats into a high-speed blender and blend on high until a flour forms. Dump into a large bowl and break up any clumps with your fingers.
2. Add the nut butter, coconut oil, maple syrup (or agave), cinnamon, vanilla, and salt into the bowl. Stir until thoroughly combined. The dough should be fairly sticky like cookie dough.
3. Line a mini (or regular) muffin tin with paper liners or use a silicone muffin holder. Portion the dough into each muffin cup and press down until even and smooth.
4. To make the chocolate sauce: Whisk together the coconut oil, sweetener, cocoa powder, and salt until no clumps remain. Spoon the sauce over top each of the cups, distributing evenly. Garnish cups with sliced almonds if desired.
5. Place in the freezer in a flat area for 30-45 minutes, until firm. Pop out the cups & enjoy immediately!

My batter did yield slightly more than I could fit into one silicone mini muffin tray, and the cocoa sauce got a little gloopier for the leftover few that I made. But still tasted good!

last autumn.

If I could tell you what it meant, there would be no point in dancing it

Isadora Duncan

Lately:
- Food & Wine's article on Jean George's French and Asian influences
- Ae-ran Kim's Ascending Scales

notes:
- azaleas in bloom yesterday, and wilted today
- the bravery and potential injury recovery time of children playing on playgrounds
- when mom wants to go somewhere to eat, accompany her.

I don't often tell people where I am, or report on how I'm doing, or where I'm going next.

This week, I've been home.

What a profound word, one I never fully understood because I was naive enough to think that I traveled enough to know what it means to be away. What a foolish thought. It has only been a pair of months, which is less time than some of my extended vacations. But there is a tangible difference.

I drove around the sun-drenched city in a daze. Walked the neighborhoods in wonder at how quiet everything is. Awoke every morning to such dense silence. Sat for long periods of time at the park, taking in the space and the green and the children's laughter untainted by other noises. I drowned myself in food and family, which is what you do when you are home. I felt the need to shed this relentless wintry sadness, punctuated by moments of sharp hope, or something closely resembling hope. I thought about how when under the pressures of certain periods of time, I do not allow myself time to meditate or write or create- these times when I need those activities the most.

Today, I willed myself to walk into the yoga studio. After weeks of feeling like a robot when I go to classes, I felt even more reluctant to go today. I saw on the schedule that S. was teaching, and I knew that every fiber of my being needed to hear her speak. Her embrace flooded me with relief. We may not have known each other long, and our "knowing" only consists of sporadic meetings here and there. But I knew that she'd understand this concept of home.

She described it as a relationship- you try on a new city. Maybe you are in love with it. Maybe you have known for a long time that you are mad for it. Maybe you know that you will never fall out of love with it. But leaving that city is like breaking up with a lover that you are absolutely head over heels for. Her words rang in my ears, "I absolutely love that city, yet I was dying inside."

I face my new city, the way it faced me. Daring me, challenging me, willing me to give up. It chants this daily, nightly, the streets alive with this chanting. What a daunting chorus.

And yet, I'm singing along, right back at the city. An octave higher, and crescendoing louder.

---

Every day, I read honest, soulful writing- in food blogs, in photo blogs, in travel blogs, and yes, sometimes even the news. I realized that I rarely allow myself the luxury of being honest and complete when I write. Say what you will about how technology impacts humanity, but bloggers are the bravest people I know, because this ain't fiction. It feels vulnerable to bare weakness, to bear an audience, to be truthful, to share thoughts of fear. For me, there is still that lighthouse, that beacon- the very reason I continue to write. Universality of experience and the hope that what I write will may even one person's heart exhale with relief that "god, someone else knows exactly how I feel," or "this is exactly what I needed to hear today." 

V. came up to me on the boat and talked to me about how much it impacted him to read something I published a while ago. I was so moved that after months, he still remembered and felt compelled to let me know. I put this feeling in the palm of my hand, and pocketed it for the future. 

that was some strong-ass coffee at 5pm. hence, i am awake listening to pitter patter of precipitation.

there was rain today here in the south, and i reveled in it. there is nothing like being home.

i have never noticed such deafening quiet in the mornings.
my skin has never been more shocked at the heat that touches it when enclosed in a sun-drenched car.
this is how it feels to learn warmth again.