In her hands were 10,000 yesterdays.

My Broken Language: A Theater Jawn (A play based on the memoir)

By Quiara Alegría Hudes

I loved everything about this lyrical coming-of-age tribute to childhood, memory, and the women Quiara grew up with and loved. I zipped through this in a day a few weeks ago. But in the spring of 2024, I saw Quiara and a cast read an excerpt at The Center for Fiction. And afterwards, instead of doing a traditional Q&A as planned, she changed her mind and led a manifestation healing ceremony with her bruja plant, descendant of the one from her grandfather's farm in Puerto Rico. Anyone who wanted to participate got in line and pulled a leaf from the perennial succulent themselves. Though the plant is known to be resilient mine, never grew into something more (though it tried for weeks!)—and I still think about that 'failure' a lot. What it means.

Anyway. Loved it. Loved the recommended song choices (including one below) that enhanced my reading. Short, fierce, soulful, devastating, true. 

"In her hands were 10,000 yesterdays." - From Abuela's rice recipe

(p. 33)

"Those books were definitive experiences. Their impact on me felt unquantifiable yet real as Abuela's palm cupping dry rice. They were recipes for my life's inner feast."

(p. 38)

All intimacy was exchanged as if in a foreign language, via gestures and quick, mistaken glances on the train.

Sonora 

By Hannah Lillith Assadi

I've wondered if I'd ever write here again and it doesn't make any sense to—I'd imagined by this point I would've translated this effort to another, more modern medium as Blogspot becomes more and more irrelevant.

Now that I am in a months-long spree of clearing out my apartment and donating many of my books (only deciding to keep what I love or is useful longterm), I'm returning to the marked pages and words I meant to note before I make my donation to the neighborhood free library stand.

Sonora made me quite sad, actually. And while by this point I don't really remember much of it, I do remember that. Still, there were a few descriptors that stood out.

"Laura turned to me. She had amber eyes. They alighted from her deeply tanned face like a beautiful curse. Her hair was streaked magenta. "I'm Laura," she said. She pronounced it the Spanish way, though no one else ever did. We sat there quietly observing the others. Laura hummed a tune dreamily as if I weren't there at all."

(p. 11)

"Like faces, the smell of a person cannot be replicated. The smell of a fire in my hair from a particular party, the smell of a friend's perfume rubbed into my shirt. The smell of lipstick and chalk soaking the dressing rooms at dance rehearsals. The smell of a lover in your fingernails the morning after. The smell of my mother: orange peel, suntan lotion, faint vanilla. The smell of Laura: lavender laundry detergent, danger, linger of red wine, sweat, cigarette. The smell of Eli: the smell of seventeen, of the beach at night, coconut, white blossom, salt, stars. The smell of Dylan: vodka, fire, dirt in autumn, February in the desert. The smell of my father: Ralph Lauren Safari, cumin, tobacco, spearmint, musk, red meat. Home." 

(p. 64)

"I felt happiest in my exchanges at bodegas over the purchase of a coffee or cigarettes or when observing the break-dancers twirl and the mariachis croon. All intimacy was exchanged as if in a foreign language, via gestures and quick, mistaken glances on the train."
(p. 102)

What remained were documents and my memories, and now it was up to me to make sense of myself.

wild, sweet child

Crying in H Mart

By Michelle Zauner

I've spent the first weeks of the new year loving on myself, nurturing all parts, including the parts I find hard to accept and/or want to change (think less rose woman, more thorn). Repeating "I forgive myself" over and over for what's found in the abyss.

My 2023 reflections are a jumble of words and phrases building in a note, waiting to be organized into coherent sentences, and in an ideal world I'd share them soon.

I spent the holidays in Houston immersed in lots of quiet, in familiar love and also in the discomfort of feeling out of place in a space that's been my go-to for 10 years. Reclaiming objects and mementos that are mine for safekeeping, and leaving behind something intangible. Thinking about what happens when home shifts. When I shift. How I've grown immensely and how sometimes that means widening a gap. Feeling some guilt and sadness.

Going through old photos, I experienced pangs, but what was hurting me? The love lost that existed in the taking of the photographs? The little girl in the photos, so spunky and radiant (who I am trying to get back to)? Saying goodbye to a "home"? Probably all of the above. And yesterday I remembered I went through this exercise nearly 10 years ago when I was moving out on my own for the first time. But now I have a decade's worth of layered memories and losses to compound the ache.

I read "Crying in H Mart" in the fall. She was so honest and flawed and brave. I knew Michelle Zauner as Japanese Breakfast first, and I played "Paprika" during my 33rd birthday photoshoot to feel more dreamy. I saw her perform at Radio City on October 4, where she announced she would be moving to Korea for 2024. I love that her journey has culminated to her current reality, despite a devastating loss. I'm so stoked for her year and the subsequent second book.

--- 

She was my champion, she was my archive. She had taken the utmost care to preserve the evidence of my existence and growth, capturing me in images, saving all my documents and possessions. She had all knowledge of my being memorized.  The time I was born, my unborn cravings, the first book I read. The formation of every characteristic. Every ailment and little victory. She observed me with unparalleled interest, inexhaustible devotion.

Now that she was gone, there was no one left to ask about these things. The knowledge left unrecorded died with her. What remained were documents and my memories, and now it was up to me to make sense of myself, aided by the signs she left behind. How cyclical and bittersweet for a child to retrace the image of their mother. For a subject to turn back to document their archivist. 

I had thought fermentation was controlled death. Left alone, a head of cabbage molds and decomposes. It becomes rotten, inedible. But when brined and stored, the course of its decay is altered. Sugars are broken down to produce lactic acid, which protects it from spoiling. Carbon dioxide is released and the brine acidifies. It ages. Its color and texture transmute. Its flavor becomes tarter, more pungent. It exists in time and transforms. So it is not quite controlled death, because it enjoys a new life altogether. 

The memories I had stored, I could not let fester. Could not let trauma infiltrate and spread, to spoil and render them useless. They were moments to be tended. The culture we shared was active, effervescent in my gut and in my genes, and I had to seize it, foster it so it did not die in me. So that I could pass it on someday. The lessons she imparted, the proof of her life lived on in me, in my every move and deed. I was what she left behind. If I could not be with my mother, I would be her.

(pp. 223-4, "Kimchi Fridge")

Lucidity came slowly 

I awoke from dreams of untying a great knot 

It unraveled like a braid Into what seemed were 

Thousands of separate strands of fishing line 

Attached to coarse behavior it flowed 

A calm it urged, what else is here? 

How's it feel to be at the center of magic 

To linger in tones and words? 

I opened the floodgates 

And found no water, no current, no river, no rush 

How's it feel to stand at the height of your powers 

To captivate every heart? 

Projecting your visions to strangers who feel it 

Who listen, who linger on every word 

Oh, it's a rush 

Oh, it's a rush 

But alone it feels like dying 

All alone I feel so much

I want my offering to woo, to calm, to clear, to solve 

But the only offering that comes 

It calls, it screams, there's nothing here 

How's it feel to be at the center of magic 

To linger in tones and words? 

I opened the floodgates 

And found no water, no current, no river, no rush 

How's it feel to stand at the height of your powers 

To captivate every heart? 

Projecting your visions to strangers who feel it 

Who listen, who linger on every word 

Oh, it's a rush 

Oh, it's a rush

I want to be a rose woman.

Grimoire Girl

By Hilarie Burton Morgan

Towards the end of the summer, I found the most delicious, luscious, fragrant pink roses. I have been searching for roses as fragrant since to no avail. In an unexpected turn of events, I discovered the same potent fragrance today...via a Yankee Candle in a Houston, TX mall. It'll do for now. 

In searching for photos of the original bouquet, I remembered my friend gave me Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's "Con Un Sogno in Testa" (which I have yet to read but can't wait to) and this excerpt from Hilarie Burton Morgan's "Grimoire Girl," whose magic spells and stories I devoured on a recent trip to the Dominican Republic. In it, she describes cutting roses from her garden and discovering a dying bee in one—admiring the flower like the Little Prince did his rose till its death—while she reflected on passing of her dear friend, life cycles, being your softest self.

August is a sunset, a Sunday, the last hour of the best party.

Plump and sultry summer August night featuring the Chrysler and the full moon

My Inner Sky: On Embracing Day, Night, and All the Times in Between

By Mari Andrew

Sweet & perfect summer 2023; feverishly nodding 'yes' to Mari's ode to August.

For many creative people, regret and longing is what we live for. We love limitations, especially the wistful ones. August is a three-week foreign love affair that you can't bring back home. August is a beautiful person who just got off the subway, or a tomato whose prime you may miss by a couple of hours. August is a sunset, a Sunday, the last hour of the best party.

It is one of my favorite months. Every year, like clockwork, I begin to see summer's charms when its days are numbered. I get preemptively nostalgic for the nights that feel as plump and sultry as an overripe plum, and I begin to miss the sundresses I haven't even worn yet. It's like living the last days of a relationship you know is about to end, and there's magic in that ache.

When we create this space within ourselves—a space of calmness that is undisturbed by the storm—the storm tends to pass more quickly.

Inward

By Yung Pueblo

A few reminders from Yung Pueblo.

Changes in the external world can cause great misery when we do not know how to engage and heal ourselves. Moments of pain and discomfort, or encounters with ideas that may break the mental images we have created of the world, are normally things we not only run away from but also things we build walls to defend ourselves from. These walls we build in our minds and hearts make sense when we don't know any better. We all have the right to protect ourselves from pain, but be aware that these walls can turn from protection into prison—the more walls we build around ourselves, the less space we have to grow and be free. We have a harder time releasing the habits that cause misery when we are surrounded by the psychological walls we have constructed, causing us to stagnate and fall into a rhythm where we are always running within a space that is slowly growing smaller.

(p. 15)

There is an important difference between dwelling in misery and understanding that on the path of healing things will come up that sometimes cause us to feel the old emotions and patterns that we are working on letting go. There is great power in honoring the reality of our current emotions—not feeding them or making them worse but simply recognizing that this is what has arisen in this present moment and that this will also change. When we create this space within ourselves—a space of calmness that is undisturbed by the storm—the storm tends to pass more quickly.

Practicing such profound honesty within ourselves helps in all facets of internal and external life—there is no real freedom without honesty, and without honesty, there can be no peace of mind. Healing ourselves isn't about constantly feeling bliss; being attached to bliss is a bondage of its own. Trying to force ourselves to be happy is counterproductive, because it suppresses the sometimes tough reality of the moment, pushing it back within our depths of our being, instead of allowing it to arise and release.

(p. 81)

I couldn't imagine ever being studied and known like that.

Ghosts

By Dolly Alderton

Time to pull a handful of posts out of the drafts folder...

As desired, I re-read Ghosts earlier this year, in the middle of winter (again). It made me cry (again). It also made me feel tinges of hope and empathy as I further dissected the parallels in Nina George's journey to mine and those of the people I know, as told via Dolly's delicious prose and metaphor.

Ongoing: I continue to contemplate the ghosts of my friendships, romances, and family.

This is one of my favorite moments from the novel. I had never consciously considered the ways loved ones (could) hold hope for one another. We've said prayers, but this beautiful exchange felt different. There have been times in my love journey where I lost hope and all I needed was for someone to hold it for awhile. I think some people have.
(p. 296)

There was the evidence, in all these profiles, where who we really are and who we'd like everyone to think we are were in such unsubtle tension. How clear it suddenly was that we are all the same organs, tissue and liquids packaged up in one version of a million clichés, who all have insecurities and desires; the need to feel nurtured, important, understood and useful in one way or another. None of us are special. I don't know why we fight it so much. 

(p. 32)

The sexiest, most exciting, romantic, explosive feeling in the world is a matter of a few centimeters of skin being stroked for the first time in a public place. The first confirmation of desire. The first indication of intimacy. You only get that feeling with a person once.

(p. 39)

"Big night?" I asked, the note of judgment in my voice as bright and sonorous as a middle C.

(p. 96)

Being a heterosexual woman who loved men meant being a translator for their emotions, a palliative nurse for their pride and a hostage negotiator for their egos.

(p. 98)

There was a daftness that I shared with Joe, and a seriousness that I shared with Max. Both were parts of me and both were true, but both seemed so in conflict with each opposing representative present. I hadn't anticipated that this merging of people meant this merging of selves—it made me think anxiously about myself in a way that was unfamiliar.

(p. 102)

I felt myself lean towards his praise like it was the warmth of sunlight.

(p. 113)

My body responded with more than my senses—I felt it in my cells. It was biological and visceral, prehistoric and predetermining. There in the middle was the garden square, perfectly kept in accordance with every angle my memory had captured.

(p. 116)

In the predawn hours of the next morning, unable to sleep, I went to Dad's bookshelf and picked up his dictionary of English etymology. I sat on the floor, cross-legged, with my back pressed against the sofa, and flipped to N. 

Nostalgia: Greek compound combining nostos (homecoming) and àlgos (pain). The literal Greek translation for nostalgia is "pain from an old wound."

(p. 138)

I stayed in front of Marie-Thérèse in her red armchair and examined every part of her exquisitely scrambled form. The impossible positioning of her breasts stacked on top of each other, the surreal placement of her mismatched shoulders. How her face split into two parts, one half of which could be another face kissing the other in profile, if you looked for long enough. Was the second face that Picasso saw symbolic of Marie-Thérèse's hidden multitudes? Or was it his profile—did he imagine he dwelled within her, his lips on her cheek wherever she went? What would it be like, I wondered, to be seen through such adoring eyes, that they could not only capture you in a painting, but rearrange you to further exhibit who you were? I stroked the rounded right angle of where my neck met my shoulder like it was the hand of a lover and thought about being put inside a Rubik's Cube of someone's gaze. I couldn't imagine ever being studied and known like that.

(p. 175)

Copyright: (c) Succession Picasso/DACS 2016 / Photo (c) Tate

My solitude was like a gemstone. For the most part it was sparking and resplendent—something I wore with pride...But underneath this diamond of solitude was a sharp point that I occasionally caught with my bare hands, making it feel like a perilous asset rather than a precious one.

(p. 185)

As I watched him surrender to the silly, untamable joy of hysterical giggles, I realized that while the future might strip him of his self, something mightier remained. His soul would always exist somewhere separate and safe. No one and nothing—no disease, no years of aging—could take that away from him. His soul was indestructible.

(p. 269)