Morocco keeps finding me. Which should be old hat, given that I’m Sentimentalist-in-Chief and brains have a knack for dredging up memories of people and places at the most mundane sensory cue. (I can have a scoop of almond cookie ice cream and suddenly I’m six years old again and digging the nut halves out of their sandy cookie base with the same precision as a game of Operation. Let me know when I can look at a trash can and remember things that I actually have to do.)
Several weeks ago, while getting a ride back from a grocery run, I got to chatting with my driver. We cycled through the usual topics one does when reluctant to commit to an actual conversation for the ten minutes you’re in a stranger’s car: the weather (summer in the city? the worst!), the mess that is currently trying to navigate around LGA, musings on the curvature of streets. But somehow we ended up on the subject of weather again, which led to sharing our respective hometowns and next thing you knew I was babbling about L.A. and the food I missed and he was talking about the life he knew in Marrakesh. I recalled the fresh orange juice carts that lined the perimeter of Jemaa el-Fnaa; we heaved a mutual sigh over the virtues of desert heat (how it never clings no matter how deeply it stretches into the night).
On the subject of summers: it has been that long since I popped by to say hello. It’s been, not impossible but a watery version of that, to want to write. I can lament about the relentless onward pull of time; I can mumble something about exhausting what endurance I have on the daily business of not losing my head in our current world; how the heart must learn to contend with so many sudden, impossible hurts. But it’s all a load of bunk! Not untrue, but bunk, nonetheless!
I haven’t been in the mood. I haven’t been in the mood for many things, but namely this one thing that I once built my entire self around. And I am aware enough to know that if I were to wait for the day I’m “in the mood”, nothing will ever come of it.
We’re going to slog through, though! I don’t know who “we” are (myself and all… three of you who might read this?), but I need to believe that a collective unit exists.
I spent a good week and a half at the end of June and into July back home in California. San Francisco for that first weekend—eating my weight in roti prata and mie goreng, spending precious hours with friends I’ve known for over 16 years, resting bare feet in the grass of Mission Dolores Park, and feeling present and content in ways that tend to elude me; Los Angeles for the rest—camping out on our 50s laminate kitchen floor with my dog to escape the 114 degree heat outside, an overnight family trip to Seal Beach to reacquaint myself with the Pacific, and days of almost guilt-free doing nothing-ness.
But we’re back in the hallucinogenic heat of NYC! I know that I should be more thankful for summer’s long daylight hours and that it’s stone fruit season, but anything above 80 degrees makes me hazy, distracted, disinterested. I’m ready for my glorious two weeks of autumn and that blessed return to mental clarity that I find in cold weather.
Anywho, a list, while my brain buffers and prepares for its seasonal reset:
- Was stupid lucky enough to see the Ninagawa Macbeth in July at Lincoln Center. I haven’t seen many live productions of Bill Shakes (Hamlet at The Public with my favourite guy, Oscar Isaac; this year’s Shakespeare in the Park production of Othello), but this is now my definitive Macbeth. A full-blown cherry tree!! Onstage!! An omnipresent reminder of rebirth and decay!! Also, Masachika Ichimura—who played the magnificent title character—is the original voice actor for Mewtwo and that is too perfect to make up. The universe bends towards goodness and this is all the proof I need.
- A rather baffling side effect of working at a theater company is that I… don’t get out to see that much theater. But I caught Angels in America (an eight hour emotional and cerebral wringer that I would gladly put myself through again—I’m still searching for the words for that experience), Sweeney Todd (what a historic and deserved run!), and Spongebob (which filled my heart with what I can only imagine was thousands of tiny rainbows, packed end to end and vibrating with pure, uncynical joy).
- I am deep in my first proper NYC apartment hunt (it is a hell) and it has been going on for two months and I am
moretiredthan usualand gaaaah!!! What are the odds that three different places that I loved (and that liked me) all had family/friends that materialized last minute needing a place to stay? I just want this entire mess sorted by October, please please please. I want a place with sunlight and zero raccoons in the roof screaming bloody murder at 4 AM! I want to hang up my prints and get a bed with proper back support! - If you ever want to feel exceptionally uncool, take a hip hop class. I have now taken FOUR, which is four more than I ever imagined myself taking. In all my years of lindy, I can count on one hand the classes I’ve taken (outside of the basic lessons that are offered before a social dance and the rare workshop weekend I’ve attended). I want to do more and be better—it’s an ongoing groan. I wanted to try something completely out of my comfort zone and knowledge and it does not get more uncomfortable than being told to pop a muscle you didn’t even know was a muscle. It’s been an embarrassing, but delightful time.
- Hozier, you know Hozier? Hozier, my favourite solo artist/enigmatic woodland creature. He is releasing new music this week and I am seeing him in concert for the first time ever at the end of the month. Please scrape me off the floor of the Beacon afterward, thank you.
My birthday was two weeks ago. It happened, nothing particularly festive the day of (my choice—partly a lifetime of being averse to big parties, partly the paralyzing fear of time and self-imposed deadlines): a swift undercurrent of dread and anxiety with a midday lunch break of good ramen.
It’s been an off, shambling sort of year, but with moments of such profound softness and goodness that I can only hope for another [year] so I can try and capture even more of those moments.
If you’re in the States, vote.
x
P.S. Great Comet closed a year ago today and I still remember every minute of that afternoon and it’s only proper that the last post I wrote was about that, huh? I treasure that brightly burning love letter to life, always.
Maybe I’ll eventually come up with a name for this, but in the meantime, here are some things I’ve been digging lately:
📚 The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
🎶 The entire High as Hope album, but especially “June”, “The End of Love”, and “No Choir”; Nicholas Jarr’s “Space Is Only Noise If You Can See”—it’s not the kind of music I’d normally arrive at on my own, but I was at a friend’s place and he had the record on and I was not ready for the beat to drop the way it does.
🍰 I’ve had an inexplicable and persistent hankering for sachima the past few days. My mum used to send occasional boxes of them—fresh from a bakery in L.A.’s Chinatown—to me when I was living in Boston. I think the only way to deal with it is to try and find the stuff here in NYC (all signs point to Lung Moon Bakery, but if anyone has any other suggestions, I’ll take them!)
🌟 The Cosmos. I made it to their second NYC book club session and I can’t wait for opportunities to be more involved. I grew up in a bubble of my own, one that was predominantly East Asian/an immigrant community, and it wasn’t until I left it that I felt the pang of loss.
🎥 To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before. Something tells me you maaaay have heard of this one. It’s on Netflix. Go. (I watched it three times in as many days and I know that sounds bonkers, but it’s the hug my heart’s needed, so don’t you go making that face.) (Also, a friend of mine is quoted in the article linked above—all of my friends are the coolest!)
Skilly 'n' Duff 