hey besties! it’s been a while. a long while. i missed this and i apologize for my hiatus. (but i don’t apologize that much because i needed the break). hoping the next one isn’t so long, but no promises *cowboy hat emoji*
in a previous newsletter, i wrote:
I feel that we haven’t processed the months of pent-up trauma that we have collectively been experiencing out of fear that in our moment of vulnerability, disaster will strike harder than ever.
unfortunately, turns out i’m the accidental prophet — since my last newsletter four months ago in january (a few weeks after the capitol riots):
houston froze, so suddenly that the ice took the pipes and water and power with it. in a year of isolation, this was the loneliness icing on top — i don’t think i’ll ever forget the 30 hours i sat alone in my apartment, with the flurry of mutual aid activity that happened after — the weight of the world and anxiety with it. i still remember the gaslighting i felt when i stepped outside in shorts a week later; the reminder that climate change is no longer the slow-moving fairy-tale beast of my middle school powerpoint presentations but rather very much here, present, and wreaking havoc
Delania Ashley Yaun, Xiaojie Tan, Daoyou Feng, Paul Andre Michels, Elcias Hernandez, Hyun Jung Grant, Soon Chung Park, Suncha Kim, and Yong Ae Yue were shot and killed in atlanta. i waded through the incredibly complex feelings i felt (what is an aapi community? what is solidarity?) while i smiled on work calls between crying and thinking how i shared a last name with xiaojie; texting my sister and searching up tasers that my parents could figure out how to use, now that a previously distant fear was at the forefront of our minds
i, like many others, continued to struggle through the growing pains of adulthood. i joined the 2020 grads re-emerging from the cocoon of a frozen-year at home, disillusioned with the prospect of a corporate job after so much restlessness and ennui. constantly wondering about my status quo, my next steps, the assumptions i had made about my next five years that i would upend in my mind in an endless game of ‘what-if.’ watching some friends get married; others move cities; others mourn losses; and others playing the same games of ‘what-if’
daily, i would feel my mind stretch and contort with every covid contradiction; in steep cognitive dissonance every time i felt happy from re-introducing a ‘normal experience’ while cases climbed in india and the delta variant spread and anti-vaxxers turned down shots
so many other traumas happened throughout: news notifications about violence against palestinians juxtaposed against emails advertising fits for our incoming ‘hot girl summer,’ watching the derek chauvin trial side by side next to the powerpoint i was supposed to be editing, and more. and more.
but, i got vaccinated. i graduated. i felt the joy of being in proximity to my closest friends. i was able to hug people, more than a year later. sit in a coffee shop and people watch. i planned my next move, venturing into the next decade of uncertainty. and now i’m sitting in a new apartment in new york city — the first city besides houston that i will live in for longer than three months, and remember it — amidst broken-down cardboard boxes and the tiny bits of memories that i was able to cram into my two overweight suitcases.
i have a scar on my ankle from when i was 4 and stuck my foot into a moving bicycle wheel. 19 years later, the scar still prickles from time to time, a reminder that recovery remains elusive and nonlinear — that even after the skin changes from bloody to evenly scarred, turbulence hides beneath the surface. this is how i picture our collective ‘recovery’ from the traumas of the past year, and every year — a series of wounds in various states of healing, prone to twitching every now and then as if to say, “remember me? i’m still here, bitch!”
two months ago, i went to my favorite coffeeshop in houston, snagged a rare outside patio spot, went inside and ordered a lavender chan (in a for-here glass, finally), turned right. and made direct eye contact with my abusive high school ex who i hadn’t seen in six years.
after the eternal second of eye contact passed, i went outside and sat down. my glass is for-here, i told mike, we can’t leave, i didn’t get it to-go, and it’s nice outside, and i love this coffeeshop, and it’s my coffeeshop, and it’s my city, my space, my last two months here. but just like my ankle scar, something prickled underneath the smooth scars, and as i protested i started violently shaking, so much that we put my chan in yet another to-go cup and walked out.
i, like you and everyone else, am still figuring out what to make of the past year and the years before it. but one key aspect for healing, even if only partially and bit by bit, seems to be vulnerability and openness: of acknowledging that everything is in fact, not really okay, and that in itself is okay.
a big reason for my hiatus: my guilt at asking for reading recs and then not reading said recs. see previously mentioned mental block for ‘fun’ stuff that feels like ‘work’ — something i want to work through, hopefully in time for another newsletter. here’s some other recs in the meantime:
nyt: spend less time online (a mantra i will try to follow this year)
nyt: these chinese millennials are ‘chilling,’ and beijing isn’t happy — as much as i vehemently dislike nyt’s china coverage, this piece is A+ and i asked my parents about tangping and it’s a real thing! good to know that discontentment with capitalism is a universal sentiment
twitter: follow @nytdiff, to balance out the two nyt recs above — this bot tracks every change the nyt makes to its headlines and ledes. it lays bare some of the deeply editing processes at the nyt (which, icymi, doesn’t even have a copy staff). egregious example from covering palestine:
new yorker / alfred knopf: crying in hmart by michelle zauner (a.k.a. japanese breakfast — she also just dropped an incredible project, jubilee) i read the first chapter of this book when it was published early in the new yorker and had some full-body cries. the book is no less cathartic/extremely painful (and very specific to my asian american girlies with difficult relationships with their mom!) if you buy the book, consider buying from a local shop (brazos bookstore in houston is a great, reliable place to shop from)
substack: popular information (s/o to anna for the rec!) super succinct newsletter that tracks the movements of corporate america: what they say vs. what they do, such as changing their icon to rainbow for pride month while donating to homophobic politicians
corrections from my last newsletter:
liana gently corrected me: a life sentence is not always 15 years — it ‘depends on parole eligibility for when you can physically leave prison which sometimes is as low as 15 but often sentences are multiplied/consecutive/or without parole.’ this is why i have smart readers like you all — to keep me in check!!
i was also corrected on ‘hibernation is not a months-long sleep’ by gill, who confirmed that bears actually can sleep for months and do not defecate or eat during that time
lessons learned: one-minute tiktoks are not enough to learn things!! and also! i’m keeping myself more accountable to transparency than the nyt does!
see you soon,
christina