nestled next to her acrylic paints, she found this old letter from when i was eight.  she came up the stairs saying, "hey, look!  when you become famous, this is gonna make me rich!"  ha.  if only.  anyway, enjoy the laughs.  i like how you can see i was still a little general back then.  sadly, time has not changed too much.  also, i think my dad made me go back and correct all my korean, which is why there's a separate blue ink writing over all my original korean writing.  but, it's still in my own handwriting, so i guess he turned it into a teachable moment.  good times.

wake up!

there's a p.s. called "(and edison also)" but it can only be told in words.  sunday driving.  rita's.  gelato.  "grandpa, what are they doing?"  "shh, they're sleeping..." a cat's meow.  the freshest (first) green curry i've ever made.  kir!  kir!  it's good for your heart and soul.  words.  lovely words.  and english trifle flambé.  a strong coffee in the morning made reality come back.  sort of. 

the doldrums caught me unexpectedly this time.  les cafards is what the french call it.  the cockroaches.  it conjures such a different image from the english translation - the blues.  but the effects are one in all the same.  sometimes i wish i knew myself better, but even after twenty eight cycles of the same thing, i'm still surprised by me every time.  i look at my face in the mirror as if i were examining a new creature from mars.  each time i'm surprised by a habit i have long-documented, and each time i come to the conclusion that i should know myself better.  but before long,  i forget.

that's why i write.  because i forget.  it's a little amazing and disturbing at the same time when i have a free saturday afternoon and i happen to stumble across my old journals.  they are surprisingly accessible - they occupy the top row of my bookshelf in chronological order, not too far off from the dewey decimal system.  sometimes, for the painful fun of it, i'll flip to my first journals from childhood, and sadly, but reassuringly, i'll see the same thoughts as my most recent ones.  hmm.  and yet every time i write something new, i think i'm being totally novel and original - only to find that a former me already thought of those things before.  of course, it goes with out saying that the later me has learned about garnishings and embellishments, but essentially, the message is the same.

e told me today that i am extremely hard on myself.  i never knew this, and even though it sounded true, it was again a surprise.  extremely gracious to others, and extremely stringent with self.  i found this to be surprising and revelatory since i never hesitate to treat myself to a deliciously decadent chocolate mousse for no occasion.  i remember v telling me how simply appalling it was that only children would treat themselves to these extravagant meals just for themselves.  being an obedient middle child, he'd never allow himself the luxury.  but maybe i'm only gastronomically generous with myself.

i want to write, and yet i'm so afraid.  i'm afraid that my words are redundant, and not new.  even though there have been so many encouragements along the way, i'm afraid to be revealed for what i really am.  in the words of holden caufield - a phony.  being a phony sucks.  at the same time, i'm waiting for that mandate - a flurry of angelic voices from above complete with a radiant beam of light, to come down from heaven and commission me to write.  but who am i kidding?  prophets come once in manatee's lifetime, if even that.

what i realize these days is that the biggest battle i fight is with myself.  an all-knowing me still seems at odds with a more ignorant and unsure me.  one who can sing and inspire others to their veritable core, yet quakes on the inside when called to show herself.  the counseling has been amazing, and yet every time another layer is stripped away, i feel a little stunned, and i can't help but take a shred and cover my backside when i'm leaving.  isn't that counter-productive?

ultimately, my problem is that i want to be great, but for whose eyes?  i've always been afraid of being mediocre, but again, in whose eyes?  it's as if i've fabricated this giant pair of eyes that see nothing, but consistently haunt each crevice of my life, not unlike that moth who has two large eyes painted onto its wings to scare off predators.  ever-seeing, but never-knowing.  wow, the great gatsby is all coming back.  high school english.  long live vivitsky.

it finally boils down to this.  i'm afraid of you.  i'm afraid that you will see me.  see.  me.  so i keep dancing, so that i'll be a running blur, and you might perchance to like the swish of colors that passes you by.  but one day, i'll have to stop, and you'll see me in stark clarity.  and even though i want to show you, i'll also want to hide.  even now, in the midst of a frenzied dance, you can see my arms outstretched to you.  they are offering you bits and parts, but i quickly rescind them, and you're never sure if they were part of the choreography.

i keep thinking that one day i will step into the shape of this woman i should be, but until then, i am growing to fill this enormous outline.  but it is elusive, and i'm starting to wonder if this is all a fabricated ideal.  perhaps the shape i am to fill is the one i see seated before me in the mirror.  she's stark, but real.  perhaps i have already arrived.

i'm shedding my skin.  the layers of roles i once used to play.  i'm shirking the shawls that have been placed about me either by volition or imposition.  and as i walk in this new unburdened form, i shudder slightly.  is it the excitement of newfound freedom, or is it the cold that seeks to succumb?  i'm walking ahead, but there is a fine line between steeling oneself up and truly being confident.  it's funny because i'm walking with all my hopes in a tiny treasure chest that i hold in my hands.  at a moment's notice, i'm ready to jettison it and pretend that it never existed, and yet i know i will lament that move forever.

were i a greater woman, i would open my heart and trust you fully.  i would generously give of my bounty and laugh at the days to come.  were i a greater woman, i would stand perfectly still and allow you to examine my inmost core.  to search me and know me.  but sometimes i am overwhelmed by the largeness of you.  by the swooshing wind that trails behind you.  i want to hide in the bushes even though you know exactly where i am.  and then i feel like a small girl.  a tiny girl.  but maybe.  maybe that's enough.

does that sound awful?  sometimes i want to rake my brain...gently.  with one of those wooden rakes that comes with the zen rock garden gift set in the bargain books section of your favorite monstrous chain which you love to hate.  it's a small rake that fits in the palm of your hand, and set upon your corporate desk, it's supposed to make you forget your worries.  four subtle but poignant lines trail along in the sand, moving in all manner of ways as you sinuously turn your wrist...sometimes curvy.  sometimes straight.  but always ordered in perfect distance from one another.  parallel lines that never meet despite their close encounters.

somehow, if i could rake my brain in the same way, i'd bring order to the chaos that lives inside.  the piles of memories seem to grow at exponential rates, so much so that i've given up trying to document them all.  some people don't like to write.  others don't like to take pictures.  in one sense, that's their rake.  their way of ordering thoughts that are sometimes meant to be forgotten.  but me?  i treasure them all.  i store them away like marbles, except that after some time, they begin to weigh you down and so you let them glide out of your head and roll down the rube goldberg-like contraption that spins and whirls, and ultimately releases.

but then something will happen.  a trigger if you will.  and you'll remember.  today, it was this article i read about alaa al aswany.  his illicit reading room sessions where under the guise of night, egyptians meet to talk freely...liberally...even unchastely.  it reminded me about what i loved most about cairo.  maybe what i love most about this world.  finding beauty in the most unassuming of places.  i heard someone share about that this week.  a life-transforming experience among people who lived in the garbage dumps on the outskirts of town.  how even the acrid smell of burning garbage was no match for prevailing beauty.

i loved seeing art amidst the dark alleyways of cairo.  sometimes it wasn't meant to be art.  it just was.  a splash of color placed just so to contrast the prevailing drab of brown.  sometimes it was innovated.  sharia champollion.  car mechanic alley.  a group of young aspiring artists transformed an old garage into a new studio.  from here, they could fight the prevailing tendency to take life as it is.  from there, they sought to inspire and renew.  even in its quietness, it was exhilarating for me.  so anti-insh'allah.

on my dullest days, i want to remember to rake my brain for the beauty that i've stored up inside of it.  the myriad of mental images i've captured to utter perfection save for the problem of recall.  so i try to rake them with my words which so often fail me.  and yet in brief glimpses of light people share that moment with me.  they read what i see and hear what i write.  it's all an attempt at beauty.  the man who renounces God says there is no beauty.  because why would chaos bring this profound sense and desire to experience the aesthetic?  but a creator God who knits, stitches, and sews with intimacy is one, i'm sure, who delights in beauty.

townhouse gallery, cairo, egypt