4th chakra: air

we were in the city happily sliding down the grass in a train, feet and legs wrapped over the person's lap. it was me, mo, fiona, and someone else. a sibling...becka turned andy or maybe even kat. we were going somewhere...somewhere fun. but then, a white hearst with 5 coffins in it appears. one of which enclosed my father. instead of calling it a cemetery, it was called a memoratorium. we walked into the place. mo said, "no, diana i don't do well in this silence." and you look out to see this giant land, kinda like looking over the bay area from the top of wild cat canyon, except everything was grey and randomized locations of graves, or memorials like la pere lachaise. and i wailed in both dimensions from the deepest pits of my heartache brokenness, stitches ripped open and dark matter flooding through. wail wail wail. the sound of an ambulance....

at first all i could think about was my grampa and my mother. this is how she felt when her father died and all her pain zapped through to me via umbilical cord because she knew i could handle it. my gift is holding burden. if you've never been heart broken, i think the closest thing to that is death of a loved one. maybe mine is still sore and a trigger will set the tears rolling, but i haven't cried like that since my dream about calvin.

as above, so below...i must understand that death in this world is a death somewhere greater...a star explosion, and that explosion affects other stars in the galaxy..or maybe the star explosion is my heart and what is left is dust....part of the universe

sometimes it feels like we're trapped into the forms that we have been born into....stars...bodies..hearts...all bounded but we strive to feel free...sometimes freedom comes in the form of loss.

tao te ching 11:

We join spokes together in a wheel,
but it is the center hole
that makes the wagon move.

We shape clay into a pot,
but it is the emptiness inside
that holds whatever we want.

We hammer wood for a house,
but it is the inner space
that makes it livable.

We work with being,
but non-being is what we use.

someone said to me, "souls aren't solid but you can solidify your acceptance of your soul"

sometimes i am left with no words...just feeling....i feel.....

after one week in my house,

it is very hard for me to say i have a plan. since i've been home, there has been a lot of pressure about what my future plans are after i graduate. honestly, i don't have anything past september when spop is done. yes, money is a factor but i can't let money hold me down from what i want to do. no, i don't want to work right after because i just want a break.

things are blurry because living in the hypothetical is an unpromising phantasy. for the first time, the university can't promise me a job, stability, continued education, or anything else that i am really excited about. i am not there yet and i don't feel like saying one thing and doing another. yes, i can lie but i would prefer not to.

i have long term and short term plans. long term: get a master's eventually have a career in something i am passionate about and continue in loving-kindness.

someone said to me, "live and be truthful to yourself. that's all you can do. But go all out. Do something and do it the best you can."

my anger and frustration is double-sided. i am angry with everyone worrying about me, all the noise. i am also frustrated with myself because i don't know. i don't have a plan i don't have a plan i don't have a plan all i know is i want a break! EVERYONE JUST GIVE ME A BREAK!!!!!

in a walk to remember, mandy moore said that she doesn't want to be mad at god. and i don't want to be upset with the universe because there is no point in me being upset. what is the point of living if i'm going to be pissed off? so i decided a long time ago that i didn't want to be anything but living in the moment.

and for the moment i have no answers just going with the flow and trusting in whatever is planned for me (even if it sucks).

528 Hz

when the future is bleak
and i am shackled
to cubicle walls
matrix laws and
wanting gravity
to consume my core

you whisper in prayer
guide in songs of dawn
and i surrender
to the light
clothed in mer-ka-ba
and follow the path

a second chance...

to live one vibrational energy

thank you,
omniverse

dreamwalker

he leads me through a vendor fair

i see: white flags bannered
and lined with yellow coord
green design in the middle,
leather belts, purses, shoes,
incense, sage burning for clarity,
children attached to bungee coords
jumping on trampolines,

life

he picks up a conch
looks at me, says,
"this reality..."
and blows at the shell

it smokes away and glitters
"is just an illusion"

this isn't love

gramma never had to break up with him
or go though the healing process that I did

i find my mind grasping for tangible markers:
buddha books, notebooks, meditation music, sun salutations

all left under my bed in my apartment
my safe space to be

without extra noise from gramma,
asking me to call him to hang out,

to pretend we are okay again.
o-kay, cantonese for home, we aren't.

above waking eyes, she insists that she call
and ask if he has a girlfriend!

no, i didn't ask for this.
he doesn't want me.

our fates aren't tied.
i break it down for her. i break up with her for him

echoing someone i've heard before...
she blames my unsettled heart

and i feel her anger attacking my inner
fleeting soul goddess i am

this isn't love, this is choosing sides
obviously, she chose him

and he chose another girl
and i chose me.

the dawning of the sun

when the world sleeps i can hear my thoughts in full stream.

so i've been scared of leaving home..yeah irvine has become my home away from home. if not, more of a home than the bay because i grew up the most here. independently from my family and dependently on my friends and mentors. dependency has been a challenge. within my core being i don't feel special, don't feel like i deserve to be loved. since i have been here though, i have made more friends than i have in my entire life back at home. i have found more people with the same values as i do who continue striving to make the world a better place. because of that, i am scared to show any signs of love and say goodbye, scared to finish my personal statement, and ask "who am i?" because the truth is...i truly am happy here.

i am trying to put the sweet in the bitterness of these lasts. i'm not a very reminiscent person because of my beliefs in time and usually because i have no one to reminisce with and i'm sorry i don't list peoples names individually and tell you exactly what you've done for me. those are my flaws and i'm working on that. know that as i write this note, images of people come flashing through my mind and these are the images i will hold in my heart wherever i go. and i also know that it's hard for me to use other verbs besides love but i can't help it....love has consumed my heart and i love love love. Brisa, SPOP, CCC, SMLI, REACH, VDC, Briarwood, UCI, Aldrich Park, the OC. i feel and am blessed, feel proud to have taken this path, to be loved and to love....to love and be loved in return...yeah...nothing gets better than this. thank you for the big hoohah!

ahx

Has anything you've done made your life better?

meditate on that.

Really Full of Thanks

It takes a trip home to finally take the real step forward toward healing, or at least seal the deal on my own self-healing. Home truly is where the heart is, and at my home where there are no walls, everyone knows my heart was hurting. Calvin penetrated every nook of my house, and after driving on familiar streets, it's easier for him to penetrate my thoughts....However, this is better than being at UCI and I nightmare about him. Why? Because all the mental reminders and notes make it easier for me to think about him and let that thought go instead of unconsciously thinking about him and having my subconscious ruin sweet sleep. This is truth.

I want to let him go. I want to move on. My gramma sat me down this morning, catching me at a very vulnerable state (when I am the most receptive to intimacy) and got REAL. She asked me if I talk to him still (via AIM, text, phone call). I tell her the consequences of those moments of weakness. Yes, but Calvin will never trust me again; he has changed; and he is happier (without me). With that she said that if I am down on my knees begging him to come back and he doesn't accept, then eventually you have to get up and walk away. A person can only take so much rejection and there are plenty of loving arms who won't reject you. Thank you friends who remind me how precious true friends are. This is truth.

Another truth is that age/time does bring change. My siblings have definitely grown into themselves and it makes me happy to see that. I gave them all strengthsfinder and understand who they are by how they work. My gramma had heart surgery the night before I came home. We also celebrated her 86 birthday this Thanksgiving. The doctor said she put on an extra 5 years. It's pretty spectacular hearing, "I put on 20 years!" rather than "I put on 20 pounds!" to me. I always make this dang resolution every year too: exercise more. Exercise in every way--physically mentally intellectually emotionally and spiritually.

In my self-healing, I've realized how much breathing, meditation, painting, and reading has helped me. Stillness. I runaway, stowaway, and flee like steam from a hot pot, evaporated water in the air. But sometimes stillness does a body good because all that invisible evaporation condenses into visible dark rain clouds, then the clouds can fully rain, and at the end of all the sadness comes sunshine. The weather reports for this weekend were right: 30% of rain and storm coming in. There were small bouts of showers in this heart-to-heart with mi abuela. At the end of it though, I feel a lot better and the bay, the heart of California, is looking fantastique!

My gramma keeps me real. It takes my gramma to tell me to move on and for me to listen. We can talk about death, money, and love--fully crying (without touching)--and it'd be okay. True acceptance. Oh! Also, my family has realized that I actually don't have a bed or room in my house therefore it is reasonable why I don't come home often. Of course, I told them that I'm the first bird to fly from the nest and that will probably be the case if I ever did come back home. No lie, I'd probably live in Berkeley. So for this Thanksgiving, I would like to suggest being REAL and trying to integrate that into every part of our lives.





I dunno how long it'll work. for now, I feel like I slowly let the door of my heart chakra open.

soul searching.

sometimes it takes one person to be real to make you realize that it's okay to let all the layers of ego fall away. undress myself for you to see that inside i'm still broken. even as a strong independent womyn, i hurt just like any other. in the whirlwind of extra-curricular-activist-reclaiming-spiritual-gaining, something deep within me feels loss. i loved a man and a friend and a child who aren't tangible to my fingertips, to my lips, to my lover hips.

to fill such a void, i've immersed myself in community, engaged myself fully in the struggles of peoples so that i don't have to focus on my own internal struggle. but it isn't as satisfying; it is temporary. granted, i am blessed to have the opportunity of being surrounded by the most beautiful people in the world, but these people are not living in my house. when i come home at night, there is no one to hold me, to cuddle with, to eat dinner with, to run their hands on my face when i'm sleeping, to rub cold feet against, to love like lovers.

to be intimate with. yeah i want to share intimacy because it is a manageable, micro-revolution of love. and though i made the choice to live alone for introspection, shit, sometimes independence falls into loneliness and before you even know it, life has moved on and left, forgotten about you....

people mistake me to be a happy person, a warm energy, and it is there, however it came from a deep darker place where children cry, people die, and there ain't no one i can depend on except myself. so it's hard for me to trust others, the warmth others give me, the attention others give me. is it real? at what point did i start to exist? at what moment am i me? i am scared of what is to come knowing there probably won't be anyone to come with me. calvin would've dropped everything for me, and did drop his dreams just to be close to me, but how is that fair? and i couldn't even talk my fears out with him either, i just pushed and pushed and pushed the same way i did with all the others and it's the same damn cycle. fuck my cycles, or "in loves gone bust." everyone knows that one shouldn't judge on identity markers, so why is it that this patriarchal, hypermasculine, slanger, get-by, worker whom i loved was not enough? why am I not enough for myself?

where are you god? and what spaces do you fill? i wanna believe in the silence again. the hum of my laptop isn't enough. are you in the colors of the sand? the scoop of a wave? the light behind the clouds, the cloud itself, the mouth of a boy chewing, the eye of a sewing needle, the laughter of a child, my own laughter?....

after putting immense amounts of energy in caring for Ava, I come home to no child of my own, and i don't know how to describe the smile, hug, laughter of a child but it's pure...holy, sacred because she knows how to be in the present. god, how can i bring a child into a world that knows no justice? that has perils and pain? why am i in this world? what is my calling?

i am drawn to the domestic. i wanna be a mother, i like to cook, notsomuch clean, kick it with my kid, and just play yet something in my soul stirs because there is work to be done; superheroes can't take a break. so do i surrender to your power? my own power?

i'm afraid of what i am capable of.

larval child

woman with a thousand faces,
you put on lipstick and kiss
the ear of boxes filled with notes
on how to BE.

hold umbrellas to the clouds
that rain cycles of truth,
shower water on the dead
spines of skeletons
hidden in your closet.

come out like re-birth
into the wringing arms
of earth; we can embrace.

i want to hold you
at your core
a larval child.

above is the same as below;
lightning daggers upon your head;
and men in heavy sleeves
wait to lead you down
beetle black stairs.

run

the path within

and hide
naked
in the fabric
of your being.

Womenstual Cycle

we go through cycles of rebirth
cleaning our walls like new year

the collective sadness
flows from the fountain

and we flush it away....



we, women, carry burden
and birth in our wombs.

Fall Spices

Cooked lunches for the week:
Indian Curry and Tikka Masala
And topped it off with
Pumpkin Pie Cheesecake
and Chai Latte.

Weekend Wrap-Ups

Caution: Long Post

Thursday: Hot Umbrella Nights. Got perfectly tipsy and surrounded by beatuiful CCC people. Seriously it's the best clubbingn ight for me because so many of my friends are there and we can talk openly about whatever and get crunk! Critical people can get down :)! Also, RC was there and my friends are such wonderful cockblocks.

Friday: Aftershock. So I wanted to go to Shocktoberfest to watch RC perform. Div was supposed to go with me but he couldn't because he was having his date with his significant partner. Part of my healing process has been trying to overcome or see through my loneliness. My therapist suggested that I find a friend who I can count on to call and support me through these times. I called Mikhal and it was perfect timing because he was feeling down too. We talked it out and I got over the fact that I wasn't going to se RC, and realized that I shouldn't even be sprung over him if he ain't gonna be sprung over me. So in the end, I went to Aftershock which I never went to before. No lie, I felt awkward being sober around all these freshmen who were more drunk than I was but it brought me back to the Spop days when we would have good ol' sober dance parties! In the end, I thoroughly enjoyed the music. DJ Miles hooked it up with some fabulous electronica! Div and I were thoroughly exhausted and sweating balls and felt satisifed with our last Aftershock ever in the history of our college career. On a nostalgic high, we revisited the Del Taco on Campus and got chugged medium rootbeers, then headed over to VDC for a house party. Lol what are the odds that at the hous party, I would re-run into Kirk Nakamoto and this guy from Sussex. All in VDC! What a great night!

Saturday-Sunday: FMLR 2009. WOW. Best time of my life. It brought me back to my purpose to the present. There were no cliques. Everyone was open, and though some people said some things that were controversial, people remained honest. Ale, Kevin and I have been planning FMLR for a while now. I'm glad all the workshops went successfully and that was partly due to the group we had. People weren't afraid to share, weren't afraid to challenge each other, and weren't afraid to share their stories.

More importantly, we all had fun. My cultural dance was belly dancing. Kristen, Anthony, Cedric, Melyssa, Marjory, Dalia, and I transformed into TEAM SEXY and laughed our way onto the stage, holding in our bladders, and shook our hips as if they couldn't tell lies! It was magical! We learned to salsa, meringue, barracha, and had a fabulous party.

King's cup, story telling, critical dialogue, and then finally people were starting to leave by 2 AM. By the end of the night, only a group of us remained and it was by far the highlight of the day. Ale, Vileana, Shacole, Carlos, Matt, Kenny, and I went around the circle telling each other our lives in 30 second intervals. It was like watching TV series and all of us were honest. Fucking amazing. It was like roll talks but on natural highs. Depth. And we ended on positive notes, each one of us being affirmed by all the others. Each one of us engaged. Yes!

Sunday morning we had two more workshops. Privilege walk was ridiculous. I've done this a million times, facilitated a million times, and most of the times I would end up all the way in the back of the room, having many disadvantages in my life. I was aware of this, being used to letting go of others hands, desensitizing myself to the
privileges my friends had. For the first time, I was holding someone's hand at the end of the workshop. Edi, my fellow WOC. She and I are complete opposites, but at the end of the day, she was still holding my hand, helping a WOC out and that to me, was more than I could ever ask for.

Lastly, our values that we chose were: Love, Integrity, Freedom, Personal Development, and Diversity. 3 out of the 5 were in my original list. It's so funny because when the interns first did this we only got 3 out of 5. Out of those 3, I had 0 of my original values on the list. Now that we know how to go through the workshop, we knew what we wanted to get out of it and we got what we wanted. It's definitely about voicing yourself, which is a challenge for me because I don't like imposing on others. My horoscope definitely told me that this year was about sharing my ideas and seeing them in action.

Monday: Kula. Bana texted me and told me that she will prioritize me over anything. I feel the same way. Love DTR even when only half of us are together.

Lesson: Learned. I have learned about others and they have learned about me. Together we are not lonely. I love you all.

Stop This Train

this describes my life right now: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-e1FHJkVoFE&NR=1

No, I'm not colorblind
I know the world is black and white
Try to keep an open mind
But I just can't sleep on this tonight

Stop this train
I wanna get off
And go home again
I can't take the speed it's moving in
I know I can't
But honestly, won't someone stop this train?

Don't know how else to say it
Don't want to see my parents go
One generation's length away
From fighting life out on my own

Stop this train
I wanna get off
And go home again
I can't take the speed it's moving in
I know I can't
But honestly, won't someone stop this train?

So scared of getting older
I'm only good at being young
So I play the numbers game
To find a way to say that life has just begun

Had a talk with my old man
Said "help me understand"
He said "turn sixty-eight
You renegotiate"

"Don't stop this train
Don't for a minute change the place you're in
And don't think I couldn't ever understand
I tried my hand
John, honestly we'll never stop this train"

Once in awhile, when it's good
It'll feel like it should
And they're all still around
And you're still safe and sound
And you don't miss a thing
Till you cry when you're driving away in the dark
Singing

Stop this train
I wanna get off
And go home again
I can't take the speed it's moving in
I know I can
Cause now I see I'll never stop this train

Humble

Spiritual. I believe in a power beyond me, omnipresent, and present within me. I am the vessel. I may not know exactly what my calling is, but It is calling. I can hear my self. Strength. Spirit. Freedom. Love.

However, I was not always like this. Within the confines of white walls, I bashed like personalities in a schizaphrenic's brain. My parents were absent and that created a void I tried to fill with sex. Why sex? Something about affection, temporality, and care drew me to its grasp, yet it abandoned me. I was familiar with abandonment and tortured myself with it. I could not escape, neither house, school hallways, or the backseat of cars. It was lonely where I lived. The more I escaped to sex, the more my parents tried to tie me down. The more they tied me down to cultural values, the more I broke out of them, broken their hearts. We were all broken. Broken English meets clashing cultures means my life in a 4 bedroom 3 bathroom house. We, all separate, in our rooms engaged in our own digital bubbles. Whether it was TV, the computer, video games, landlines, cell phones, or Chinese dramas, we all ran away from each other because we could not face our own heart break, our own disappointments.

I cannot say that my parents were wrong for beating me, for working and not having the time to spend quality time with us, for yelling, for making us pay for our own excesses, for staying up all night while I was out....

Nor will I admit that I was wrong in staying out late, crying, yelling back, attempting suicide, running away, trying to act older than I was, pretending I knew it all, using my education against them, mending my soul.....
All I wanted was to be free.
Because if all those things didn't happen, then I wouldn't be the way that I am today.

After a talk about religion, spirituality, faith, sexuality, disowning children, raising children, and love, I called my parents.

I said to my mom, "I know wah duh si nang (literally, roused the dead=caused a lot of trouble), but wah jing gao LUCKY that luh nang syeuht wah." I caused a lot of trouble going out late at night, and you stayed up for me, but I am very lucky that you love me. My mom laughs at me as I bawl, stuttering for her to listen. "I love you. Thank you. Can you tell dad?" She hands the phone to dad. And I repeat in daddy's little girl sobs, "I roused the dead but am lucky you loved me." Very my dad-like, he tells me about his childhood in Vietnam and tells me to play with the good friends and leave the bad friends behind. I tell him I have them. He asks me if I need money. I ask him if he needs money. He thought I was crying because I was homesick. I told him I was. He told me to study hard. I told him to go to sleep. I said, "Bye." And he said, "I love you."

Despite all the hardships, they loved me and never stopped knowing that I was their child. "It's okay. You were a no gyeah," my dad said. No gyeah, child. Gyeah...walk...no walk...I was a child who did not walk the world and I was blind, but now I see the roots that have been instilled within me. Freedom. Spirit. Love.


The paths I have taken have had many obstacles and they've all led me to healing and feeling more connected to my self, my spirit, my freedom, and my love. To my parents, to all the parents, I am forever grateful for your patience, kindness, and love. Your legacy of love and understanding lives.

Pillow Talk

i like lying next to you,


naked,

whole in our conversations.

this is me
and you are you.

and we share orange slice stories,
every bit is juicy,
filling,

all given to me jeweled in your musk
a flowing pandora:
memories of the night your mother died;
your belief that having children is a form of narcissism;
your favorite mos def concerts;
singing lines of songs that speak to your soul...

you tell me, in clarity--

your soul.



and i tell you that i'm afraid:
of how beautiful you might think I may be,
hiding bashful smiles under pillow talks;
that my children are political agents in the system;
and how i don't remember my mother in my memories.

our loneliness abated by our together

for tonight; we are intimate, in timid lust.
we kiss....

and morning comes.


there's no turning back.
i've been changed and,
re-arranged and,
it's not like it was before....

i relish in the now
of our isness.




i like lying next to you,

orange slices,

smiling in our pillow talks.

there's no turning back.

cheated

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The Power of Now

::Chorus "Hip Hop is dead" plays::
""Hip Hop just died this morning
and He's dead, he's dead.."

(Sings) What happened to hip hop? I will not know.
He left me before I could go.

Characters:
Jaci=electronica
Calvin=Hip hop

Diana: electronica/house makes me feel alive, happy, throbbing with the feul of love..special. Hip hop pierces my skin with bullets of struggle. It hurts to love hip hop because walking into his beat is massacre. Electronica, however, is free, free for all, free love for all, freeing the almighty within. I can be assertive, sexual, in love, and independent.

Inner peace: Maybe I'll go alternative and fall into his plain blues, into his six-string vibrations to keep me afloat.

Diana: Wow, I've been conditioned to think of depth as going downward toward our earth like a rock falling to the bottom floors of the deepest oceans. But even that has an end; our earth has limits. What is deeper than earth?

Inner peace: SPACE! It has no limits. The depths of our universe. Shit. That's deep AND infinite!

Diana: I can feel my heart rate increasing as I realize my ego, Director of Diversity, is a lie that I've projected. I also feel compulsive about Calvin, wanting to call him to escape the pain of the future, to feel the pain of the past. Why can't I just BE? What am I afraid of in the present? That I'm actually happy in the present? (I also feel sleepy. Ah the conditioning of my childhood!)

Diana: I'm afraid to know it's over. I will admit that I fucked up. I am afraid to have closure. I am afraid that he can be happy without me. I am afraid that he IS happy without me. I am afraid that I can't be happy in the end without him.

Inner peace: I am happy now, though.

Diana: How can I be so afraid?

Inner peace: Can't you see that you must have faith in me? The peace, I, ai, will bring love, ai, I. It's okay to be alone.

Diana: My brain is shutting down and just wants to sleep.

Inner peace: No, Diana, wake up. It's about time to fucking wake up to life.

Diana: I feel regret for taking Calvin for granted. he made me feel peace within myself. with BEing, (in the beginning). I could be myself and he loved me. We shared bliss, in Eric's apartment, on the floor, we had sex, and I cried in the moment. Bliss. I can feel it. I CAN be blissful. I want that again and my first time was with Calvin and my mind attaches it with him.

Inner peace: But that's one of the causes of human suffering--attachment.

Diana: I shouldn't have a new relationship when the fragments of my past relationship pains are still lodged in my mind/pain-body. I shouldn't have children or marriage because of all those pains. I should be in education either. Shit.

Diana: My inner peace is death. I can hear it drawing in me/me in. The secrets. I take to my grave. No more pain once I'm gone. It can't survive. They will not touch children's ears.

Inner peace: I am already dead. I am dead. I die. I died.

::Diana sobs:: (regathers myself)

Inner peace: So now, I can live the way I want to live.

"Everything is shown up by being exposed to the light, and whatever is exposed to the light itself becomes light."-St. Paul

Diana: I keep thinking about calling Calvin and saying, "You were right all along. I am wrong for not jumping into the unknown."

Inner peace: But that's not true. I am right. He is right. We both are right....just wrong for each other.

Diana: Shit. He was never the one. I am the one who is right for me.

Dream

I always wanted you to chase me.
Instead, you haunt my dreams.
It's the only place we can meet.



In them, I see you.
I see:
the red of your eyes,
the autumn of your skin,
and the warmth of your soul.
You are alive.



Although there aren't pictures,
letters, cards, or tangible reminders
of your existence in my life,
these dreams memorize,
vividly,
your being.



Still, I cannot gather enough strength
to touch you, to talk to you, to interact,
yet I cannot gather the will
to stop watching you, staring protectively,
obsessively, terrified that you might flee

like ether,

like dreams in the wake,

like you did before....



I don't want to let you go again,
knowing that you won't be in proximity
and that you won't come back,


(except for in my dreams).

indebted

sometimes being 21 and in school sucks. not because of the people, not because of the place, but because i am guilty for loving it. i love being able to learn, being able to live away from my parents, being able to make friends and foundation away from family.

yet i realize the guilt that plagues me...i have an unspoken duty to my parents that i cannot fully repay. i want to pay for all their accumulating debts, i want to pay for my own insurances, i want to be able to be financially independent so that i am no longer a burden in their lives.

jude: just forget about it... he doesn't realize that we are all under the age of 25 and don't have real career jobs yet. people forget

what can i do, y'know? i just feel so helpless, trapped in my age.

Naked Makings

I stand naked
in front of the mirror,
in front of you,
so we can see clearly
the making of god's Love.

Pomegranate Seeds

World, as we know it,
Open your heart
And let the juice
Of your brothers
And your sisters
Dissolve on the tongue,
Collected red with
Mother's love,
Hidden underneath
Protective wear
(From Father's wear)

We are the seeds
of a bigger fruit.

Person of Color

Take my blood and paint a sunset.
Rip my sorrows from my chest hollow
And fill the oceans with blues.
Grow parks from the green of my eyes.
Ball my innocence, throw it upward,
And let its light guide you in the dark.

Still

dedicated to Rumi

Still mind.
Still mind.
Lucid.
Every moment,
Every present,
I am,
Manifested,
Found.

Who was I
Before conception?

I was the greater
World spirit.
Wind, mind, motion.

I am all:
The green leaves waving in wind;
The wind that carries--sounds:
Car alarms, crickets, construction,
Dogs barking, people talking, bird chirping,
motorcycle on the freeway, plane in space--
the moon above; the sun to my west;
the house I am in; the houses around me;
the nails in the wood that hold my foundation;
the paint that cracks around it;
the cigarette butts in the ashtray; and
the water in the bucket to collect its burn,
the ashes, the wars, destruction, bones, blood, body,
the steel frames of globalization, gentrification....

Balance, peace, appease, a piece of harmony
I love the world we live.

Still mind.
Still mind.
Lucid.
Every moment,
Every present,
I am,
Manifested,
Found.

Who was I
Before conception?

I was the greater
World spirit.

It is

red paint
in heat
globs down my room walls
bleeding the origins of my mother
and the cries of my daughters

the sanctuary is not failing;
it is rebuilding

purity
in pain
curled under the rubble
drinking warm water of rivers
and the tears of my fathers

the journey to america is not hard;
it is living

yellow
in diaspora
flood upon flags
and the stiches come undone

the country is not under siege;
it is already ours

Loss

I don't experience loss that often but this year has brought me rolling waves. Rest in sweet peace Arlene. You were the first female to understand and love me for being the outcast and I love you. I feel guilty for being so close, but not close enough to hold you before you left. I will always remember your smiling face and your giggle, how you got me to shotgun, how you and I talked about our boos, how you and I were sisters in the beat of music....I promise to live life fully, to embrace what was taken from you. You have taught me that the present is a gift. Thank you.

Breakup with Music

Keeping my ear close to your bass lines,
Imagining purple hyacinths in adagio
Along pale breasts in goosebumps,
And whispering lover words,
I didn't sleep without you, Music.

As if there were no other chest you could live in,
The only space you found breath,
You looped my mind in choruses,
Versed me with depth—
Of your mother,
Of your father,
Of your revolution,
Of our future—
Clinging cobwebs
That made me believe
In the invisible,
In the wind,
In god,
In love…

Our lips
Are tectonic plates
Causing earthquakes
With every kiss.

I bought into your cover art,
Fighting fists at rest in my arms, and
Undeliverable promises:
Opening with moons
Falling out of orbit
If ever you missed a moment of my wake;
Next scene, you, on bended knee, say,
“We are destined
To intertwine together into a cosmic line,
Tracing back to the dusts of our universe;
We
are
creation.”

Yet you existed only in my sorrows; I cried
Into your rhythm and blues, neosoul,
Hip hop, electronica,
Secure in the stability of your measures,
Assured by your selfless heartbeat.

But this disease,
This codependency.
Is sucking the juice out of
Blackberries in Summer’s june.
I can’t be the lucky lady on your top 40 hit
Knowing I was never your lady at all.

I meditate on my pride.
I can’t suspend my sanity on your symphonies;
I can’t love you;
The way you want me to
Or the way you loved me
Because I don’t know how to:

How to breathe on my own
How to love my own
How to live on my own
How to grow my fruit
and eat it too.



In naked candlelight,

I orgasm staccatos
From my chest


And live there…

Without you.

Post-China/Post-APIA Summit/Post-SMLI 09 Reflections:

This weekend at SMLI while Dean Chemerinsky was presenting on free speech, I had déjà vu. For me, déjà vu is a sign that I am in the right place. When I dream, I enter a different plane of reality and when I am awake, I am in a different plane of reality. When I have déjà vu, it means these dimensions are crossing paths. This was a clue that I left for myself. I’ve been here before. So it was a big deal since I hadn’t experienced this way in a long time. What were the signs?

I was sitting next to Jesse Cheng, Sarah Bana was on the other side of him, Free Speech presentation going on right after the REACH workshops, True Colors posters on the wall behind the Dean, the 50 SMLIes attentively listening in Buckleberry Library.

Everything made sense! What I learned from the people at the APIA Summit was that we, people of color, can CREATE! At first, I thought I wanted to come back to the Bay after I graduate so I could work in non-profits and work with the people, write poetry because I can create valid histories of my family’s journey to America. But at this moment, I saw clearly how I do create. Not only can I create poetry, I create spaces in the world where people can come and learn about diversity issues and gain leadership skills, perspective, world views. My path is to create multicultural/leadership programs like SMLI, REACH, ALL-U, and Women of Color Initiative, and etc...This is how I give back. This is my pay it forward. To quote Justin Woo’s freewrite in Kelly Tsai’s workshop, “This is my work.” And to quote Sarah Bana’s favorite quote, “There is a loftier ambition than merely to stand high in the world. It is to stoop down and lift (hu)mankind a little higher.”-Henry Van Dyke. Bring them to my level and they bring me to theirs.

My fear is knowing where I want to go, knowing my potential and power. I am converting that fear energy into productive energy which will hopefully be apparent in my work. I take APIA/multicultural issues with me everywhere! APIA summiters, like Simone Jacobson, said to remember that when we go off to our own worlds, that we can bring the Summit with us and hold it in our hearts for the next 2 years until we meet again. What I remember is han, the sharing of trauma, joys, experiences, loves, and forging community. If you look into my heart, it is dripping with trauma--OUR traumas (good and bad), OUR stories. I see how I can make the change, BE the change. And again to quote Sarah Bana’s quote and the new theme of my blog, “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”-Mahatma Gandhi.

Because I realized this fear, I looked into my palms to read where I was going. The hand I write with is the life I try to control, the other hand is used less so it shows the lines of my destiny. The life I try to create looks like this: long life that’s separate from my career; I will be in a relationship that might end in divorce with 3 kids; lastly, the money I make isn’t fabulous but I can spend a lot and save enough to live comfortably. Sounds like a mediocre American-dream type of life, right? My destiny looks like this: my life will be intertwined with my career which will make me a lot more money; I will spend a lot, save a lot, and give a lot of money back to the community; I never have a relationship, maybe dating and no kids (of my own at least).

My destiny is such a 180 flip of what I’ve tried to create my life to be. It’s funny though because I have always been in love with the thought of an ideal (wo)man, and in love with the thought of being romantically involved with someone, but I understand and accept that that may not be the path I am supposed to lead. It’s okay. I will accept my fate to give back and work hard and live my work. It sounds a little bit like Oprah, but I found out that she is one of the idealists via Jung and Myer-Briggs Personality test. I am really learning about my strengths as a leader and as much as I’m learning other people’s strengths, I am grateful to be the way I am. I am truly blue: emotional, relatable, affectionate, compassionate, idealist, peace-maker, etc. I am an INFJ (Introverted, Intuitive, High in Feeling, and Judgment). Admittedly a lot of my energy has been spent in romantic relationships, but now I am moving off of finding a relationship so I can put my energy into my work…my community…family…my first love.

China was fun, but it was one of the hardest experiences I have ever gone through because I watched the love of my life move onto a new girl in close proximity for ten days. For the first time I felt my heart break. For the first time the game played me. With the help of my women, faith, breath, time, and Tylenol I made my way to the end of the ten days and was happy to find myself back with my apia folks in the Bay, in the struggle. No lie, overcoming heart break is a lot harder than working through social issues. I don’t have time to write love poems!

(Hahaha that’s a lie. I’m about to post one after this post)

This upcoming year, I can feel myself grow more than change. There is a difference between growth and change. Growth is a lot more focused, grounded in who you are just expanding your principles and ideas to enhance who you are. Change is drastic and traumatic, constantly figuring out how to adjust the self, applying new ideas to form new principles. Sarah Bana said that from my first year to now, I have definitely changed more than I have grown. I didn’t see it before, but I believe it. Looking at my pictures from SMLI 06 to SMLI 09 is just crazy. I am excited to grow into my position, grow with my new principles, and grow with my community.

Thank you mentors who kept lifting me higher, continually believing in my potential, and thank you peoples who keep me grounded and real; you give me strength. I am here to serve you all.

You have influenced me a lot in the past few months and I am forever grateful!

Babysitting in Corona Del Mar

In recent news, I have been working as a babysitter for a family in Corona del Mar. I couldn’t ask for a more chill job, working with a 16 month old with some cool ass parents who make me food and provide boarding. As much as I’ve learned from this job about parenting styles, I am very aware of my role within the community.
As a back story: Knowing that financial aid doesn’t cover my summer expenses, I applied for this job spring quarter via an ad in the New University, but I didn’t hear back from her until July. This was perfect timing for me because people who just graduated were having a hard time looking for work so I felt very blessed to get this job out of the blue. These are the perks: I get paid cash without tax, I get fed home cooked meals by the mom, I have a room that I can crash at, and a living room with a huge ass TV, I go to the beach every day (seriously, I’ve scaled Corona del Mar), I get to hang out with this happy kid, and I am learning about my teaching style as a parent.

Let me add that at 21, I already feel tired taking care of one kid by myself. In other words, I don’t know if I want to have kids anymore. I am so grateful that I have a huge ass family that took care, played, and nurtured each other’s growth. I am very grateful to have this family teach me how to positively reinforce, affirm, and encourage play as a learning device for happiness. It’s crazy how I was trained to be that domestic housewife—cook, clean, laundry,--be 100% selfless, sacrificing, and slaving away for the family. Now, I can see that it doesn’t have to be that way; I can still have my own life outside of my kid. I understand that hiring a babysitter is a privilege, but I also see that having family around is a privilege. Having help is such a gift that I will take it in any form and would love to give it back. For me, my parents were either authoritative or way too lax, both styles are too extreme—traumatic and lack of presence. What is important to me now, though, is taking care of the inner child who had to experience those extremes. Seriously, I love my inner child and try not to spoil it (She is 5 years old btw), raising myself the way I wanted to be raised.

My latest analyses of my position: Something I’ve learned about having a baby is that people will be a million times friendlier, saying “Good morning” to the baby, but really I am saying “Good morning” back. People smile, laugh, stop and play with her, say she’s cute and gorgeous, and those comments help get the day started right. When these strangers say “Bye” I always hope that Ava has changed their day or life around just because she made them smile. I hope my inner child does that to people too.

You can basically call me a regular at the beach because I’m there every morning, doing the same routine with Ava. On our walks though I have encountered some very interesting regulars. The first man I met is named Leonard Bernard. He has blonde, beachy, curly hair, his olive-tanned muscles bulging out of a red, muscle tank top, and wearing black sunglasses to cover the age of his soul. He has been feeding these stray cats around the neighborhood for over 10 years now. What is interesting about him is that he is a self-published writer, selling his books online. He writes children’s books, poetry books like “Poems about the beach and girls,” and etc. He was really happy to hear that I was a Creative Writer, that I am a fellow poet. Why is he interesting? He is the first person I know who lives such a quirky lifestyle. He writes, lives next to the beach, and he feeds stray cats! What a life! Today (Thursday) he gave me one of his self-published and bound books. Not bad.

I met Ascension this morning. He was sitting on a bench looking out of square, gold-rimmed glasses toward the hazy grey where the horizon fogs into the ocean, his skin hard-wood floor brown with dark sun spots like knots. I sat on the bench next to him, getting Ava’s banana ready for her when he sparked up a conversation. He moved to California from Mexico 15 years ago, in a city in the sierra, where there were no schools, electricity, water, and etc. He got laid off from a company that makes multiple-choice scantrons; his first and last job here in America because they moved the company to Pennsylvania. He asked his family if they would move there so that he can work. His wife, also a babysitter in CDM, said, “No, Go by yourself.” His 18-year old son didn’t want to leave is girlfriend. This man, 65 years old, didn’t want to move to a colder area when he realizes that his body isn’t as resilient as it was 15 years ago, and of course, he didn’t want to leave his family. What does a person do in that situation? He has no choice but to wait, keep his body in shape, and hope that the future holds better things. He said to me that it was good I was in school because I am working hard towards the future.

After walking with Ava, I caught a glimpse of a flock of 30 pelicans flying in a ‘V.’ It was a pretty crazy sight to see. What made it even crazier was that the next day I saw probably the same flock but now with 42 birds! The meaning of life. 42

There is street sweeping on Mondays and Tuesdays. I got a ticket by a white woman with brown hair and blue eyes and asked if there was any way I could get it written off. She was in the midst of a conversation with the street sweeper, a tall black man with glasses and curly grey swabs and white hair. He said this to Ava, “You don’t see many people like me around, huh?” And I responded, thinking that he was implying racial critique, “Yeah, it’s unfortunate that there aren’t.” The woman was smiling but I felt her shift tensely. Ava and I walked away, but I still wonder if that’s what he meant, or whether he meant that there aren’t that many street sweepers around. Should I take off this critical race lens?

Part of the reason why I feel so aware of the race relations in CDM is partly my own presence as an Asian-American woman carrying around a hapa baby (Chinese-Italian American) in a predominantly white area. Granted, there are other hapas (a white mother with her obviously more “Asian looking” children), but it’s mostly white woman who workout together, pushing their strollers and children in pairs, congregating at the main grassy knoll. I am all for female empowerment and physical fitness, but when I came home and talked to Ava’s mom about what I saw, she responded, “Yeah I know. It’s not the right crowd.” So where do we go? Women of color, women with children of color, where is our grassy knoll of congregation?

Another thing about being here is the constant construction taking place on every block. The construction workers are all men of earthy-brown skin tones and the blue-print handling people are white men. They sit on the corner eating their lunches and I pass hoping to draw some connection to them, hoping they can see that I am brown too and we are servicing the wealthy. Fuck! This was a big reason why I never wanted to work at the restaurant again. I hated serving dishes to white, wealthy people, especially in North Berkeley. I didn’t like the way they talked differently to my mother. I didn’t like the way they tried to manipulate their orders into something negotiable, bargaining. Likewise, I passed a dark Latina woman pushing a blonde, blue-eyed boy in a push car and following the white older sister on her pink bike. We made eye contact, and I understood my place here. We, women of color, were replacing white mothers. I don’t want to say this is a form of exploitation because I don’t feel exploited, but I do feel something off about the situation.

After talking with Floyd at SMLI, I realized how hard it is to balance a kid and work. It is important for me to be there for my child’s development. It is also important for me to be there for my career. How can we provide more accessible and affordable resources for quality childcare for parents in the workplace? So many questions with no real answers yet….

APIA Summit: "Where You At"-Day 3 and 4

I will call this recognition of community.

I went to "A Song for Ourselves" a documentary about Chris Iijima. It hit me really deep because we can be political and still maintain a "normal" life. It's easy to be consumed in the community and our work as leaders, but it's important to balance out the stress so we don't get burnt out. A lot of us, if not all, teared up and you could feel the air sink deep into your chest. It hurts to lose someone close to you, especially a person who has fought for the same cause. It made me appreciate the life I have and the good, great, godly people around me. To me, even in his illness, he chose to put a positive lesson or outlook on it. Whatever struggle it was, he followed his heart. When a person can always see the good and the open door in front of them, that's a sign that they are good people. I know many of my mentors have been this way: ray ray, mike song, sherweez and mike knox, my mom, etc. strong, good people y'know? and it's good to build that community because you know that you are being taken care of. We've got your back Chris!

Having three hour lunches is cool because I can just float around with Summit folk and know that it will be okay, that i'm not alone, that sometimes two is company enough. I ate with Jesse at Chipotle and got to talk more to Kelly Tsai about Chicago-style pizza and philly cheesesteaks and she's just so chill...i want to be adopted by her! So cooool!

Afer group picture, I floated into the Body Electric: the Queer Erotic as Power workshop. Nate and Adrien are amazing facilitators. We did a pictionary game but with sex words such as: kissing, doggystyle, blowjob, condom, lick, and etc. That helped get our blood going and our minds working and our nervous giggles out of the way!
Next we did magnetic poetry. One word per piece of paper, associate words to "sex" then do the same thing with the word "erotic." we brok up into groups, two given the sex piles, and two given th erotic piles and composed spoken word pieces. this was ours:

sensual sensual sensual
i got a fruit fetish
nipples
dirty symmetry
69 ecstacy
exoctic excitement and experimental pleasure
is wet whips candlelight
intense awareness of summer raindrops on my skin
bold curves
bondage freedom active verbs
one-up
sensual sensual sensual

pretty cool amazing genius stuff!
after thaaat we talked about the word erotic and what we could associate with it. likewise with the word queer. from those associations we write a QUEER-KU (5-7-5). super cute. interestingly enough, i wrote one that had to do with the negative perspective of "queer." mine went like this:

I was told not to
Live, reclaim, or empower
my sacred spirit.

But everyone started reading theirs and it was all about empowerment and the fluidity of the soul and the universe and the erotic intimacies of queer. so i changed it to:

Listen to Daft Punk.
Live, reclaim, and empower
the throb of self-love.

after audre lorde and regie cabico, we got to free write and share our own feelings about the erotic and queer and what it means to us. What is your erotic?

It's kinda cool learning how to float. I know i've always tried to create my own sense of security by making plans here and there so that I don't have to face the fact that I am alone. Luckily for me I had KC and Huy with me. I was craving yogurt so I got yogurt park and they got their boba drinks. I still didn't feel right so I went to get a donut. How funny was it for me to run into my spop kids, Jeff and Olivia, in the Asian plaza right as i walked out of the donut shop! small world. the pull of my gut and the fate of life....i dunno man..is the future talking to me via gut messages? sugar cravings bringing me small surprises. thank you Life, it's all very sweet! I want to drift forever in the sea of summit folk.

And the summit blew me away with this commuity showcase! serious power and voice and energy and love. so muuuuch looove.

we went to matt's and huddle around a jug of carlo rossi and it was a good time. it was a better time when the bud and budlight showed up :) I had to leave just as the party started though, without even getting to say goodbye (sorry peoples) because my parents called and said thy were on telegraph. such good parents for waiting up for me and driving me around places.

i came home and my gramma looked at me, crying, telling me that she was very scared of me dranking (i will write a poem about this actually) and then i went to sleep.

point: community leading to day 4
we opened up with a free write: I came here looking for....and then another one: I'm leaving here....both my freewrites were whaaack. but we sat in a circle of charis and shared what we wanted to say about the summit. So much thanks for the organizers who made this space available to us. It's a very scary and vulnerable place to be, sharing your honest feelings, thoughts, and reflections, but it truly made an effect on me. Again, I wasn't sure if I was going to share but I felt like I needed to. I didn't want to get up for the mic so I waited for it to float my way. Fantastically, Nikki sitting next to me just handed it over. Perfect.

For me, the summit healed me, or at least showed me that it's okay to be broken because we all are in some way or the other. However, we don't let those breaks get us down. We are survivors, yeah...we all are survivors in this cruel fuckin' world and I was finally able to find voice and body united, harmonious, in sync, in the bay, at home, in me. The women's open mic showed me that we are women who go through the same insecurities and struggles, yet we can be sexy. And man, my erotic is seeing how immersed we are in our passions in the community, in our art, in our history, in our experiences. I was soaking wet sponge because there was was an ocean of voices, many voices, one mic. and the mic was on me. I have a place in this sea.

So I read:
My erotic lubes me with intellect
stimulating thoughts of pain and pleasure--
race riots and community movements--
sensual slips between the inner paradigms, thighs
I traffic temptation, wet secret drip:
our domes, nipples, hips, and toes.
we are filled
with the orgasm of collective struggle.
We fight to reclaim the depth of our universe. I
see you, live you, am you.
I embody
the erotic.

We positives and deltas and voted for Summit 2011 Minneapolis, Minnesota!!!!

and bbqed and open mic and just basked in berkeley sun and golden brown people each brown black bbq! Beautiful....so beautiful that it took hours to leave....it's hard saying goodbye and for me, it never is a goodbye, because the possibility of seeing one another will be what I look forward to! We make the Summit happen and maintaining the relationships we made this weekend outside of it shows us that the fire is still burning.....it's hot...it's real...my APIA Poet community is ALIVE and WELL!

See you all in 2 years (or soooooner)!!!

APIA Summit: Volume Control 3-Day 2

I woke up sad from last night's closure with Calvin. Yeah it's a lot to take in, but then going to the MCC at UCB in the mornings to hear some amazing talent get spit on the mic really makes me feel like we've got bigger and greater things to talk about and do

so fuck yeah I'm moving on!

Canary in the Coalmines-The canary is important to the coal miners because they can detect traces of cyanide before humans can so if they die then it's time to get the fuck out.

The poet as the canary: we are fortune tellers, hypersensitive, privileged not to work but we got a job to do so our people can stay on the grind, and at the same time our death may be the only thing to make them wake up. golden yellow black brown red and white; poets come in all colors like canaries. we are the voice underneath. we are the voice and we have the power and responsibility to use it.

For the writer not to speak is a form of suicide-Mark Mamuti (?)

Tell your story to crack open the world

Yes! I wanna share my story because the world needs to get deep!

Women's Open Mic:
I was drawn to this open mic because I wanted to closer to my females and feel the depth of our shared experiences.

Naked ghost holding me at night which is the only thing that can put me to sleep-Jerrica

Mactivist-Yvonne

Measured by grades or the numbers on a scale-Irene

Ther darker the berry, the sweeter the juice; The darker the berry, the more it gets used.-Azizah

Open our legs like newspapers in the morning. Origin story is the origin between our legs. -El Dia


Each of these pieces being read is living the experience with them in spirit and THAT is the difference between an artist and a performer.

I was self-conscious about getting my poetry out there so I wanted to work on gaining confidence. Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai from www.yellowgurl.com said, "Get over your selfishness and share your work because some one may need to hear it."

Thank you apia females and the safe welcoming space provided for our family to come in and story tell. Thank you men for being allies. Thank you all for bringing me back to my roots.

Chicken Wrap from in-n-out gyros in berk and buy 1 get 1 free blackberry bliss jamba for dinner. got to talk to fong about richmond and getting involved there. I am really feeling passionate about this work and this community. thailand sex workers, community involvement, to palestinian-isreali conflict to siblings to moving home to poetry. i fucking love this man! holla for my apia men who understand and aren't caught up. YES!

Volume Control 3: we can get loud in voice, in words, in tears
Kiwi, Denizen Kane, Skim, Bao Phi, Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai, Broken Halos, Erica Benton, El Dia, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna Samarasinha, Drizzletron

wow wow wow talent life i feel it. beauty i'm so grateful for everything and everyone. for the space...we are blessed. thank you organizers!

Afterparty at Blake's: socoandcoke. Lee and me. Dancing to hyphy hits and classics spun by mr phatty fantastic. it's not about the venue but the people you're dancing with.

it's real love. it's real family. i'm going in for the squeeze.

"Don't let the Universe regret you!" meditate on that.

APIA Summit: "Where You from" Day 1

Wooo let me just say that our community is alive!

Wu Tang Clan ain't nothing to fuck wit and hip hop initiated me.

Today we took tours to historically important areas for the apia community around the Bay Area. I went to the Eastside Arts Center. Our tour guide and facilitator of the day was Eden. She was the same Eden who was an RA at COSMOS my sophomore year of high school, and here she is now in my neck of the woods. What a small world! And a blessing at that.

In East Oakland, the San Antonio District, International Blvd has a collection of resources: Native American Medical Center, Goodwill, Taco and Burrito Stands, Ice Cream trucks, a Chinese school, McDonald's, taquerias, and then this arts center.

stage, drumset, piano, display cases: critical resistance to the prison systems, sprung floor, recording studio, locked doors, visual arts room, graf in the back lot.

stand shoulder to shoulder: inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. we came here as a peoples who have a passion to make waves in our communities. don't forget the struggle, where we came from, who died for us, who die for us, who we die for...

stand toe to toe with someone: learn to embrace the uncomfortableness and let it be comfortable, intimate, trust, share 30 seconds of your thoughts. listen. share..listen

trust fall: balance, stance, you got my back, with eye contact? yes, i got your back! take a second to ground yourself. let the insecurities melt and just have faith....trust...ready? fall! falling...

back to back sitting and 10 seconds of it with the group: focus on your own power squat yet work with the greater collective in the squat pot.

beat machine: rhythm, layers, bass, sound, music, loud, quiet, loud. proud of our music

name game: upper body movements, callin out, calling in, around the world, and back again

YOU: point, eye contact, verbal communication minus the point, minus the verbal communication....be direct, stay focused, concentrate without getting all butt hurt

interrogation game: why you gotta be so mean? why is your whole team mean?

improv machine: theme-asian american sterotypes. act a stereotype and build it like a machine into a working scene. embody the stereotype and then challenge it. frustrating to do it over. sometimes your idea is not interpreted the way you think and you gotta let go of that ego because the idea may come at a later point. confusion. frustration. impatience. performance and success.

speak out: joy, trust, succes, pride, beauty, energy, fun, love, empowerment, englightenment, etc etc etc of fun gooey good stuff in the middle of our breath. in out 3x and OUT OUT OUT everything!


who came to who first? jacky
we aren't broken, we just have downfalls. we are survivors! bryant
chew chew chomp chew! panda express protest! phuong
monks wearing saffron robes. simone
2 sponges, damp and dry, damp and dry, with no water running between. simone


carry the energy within you....


”The role of the revolutionary artist is to make revolution irresistible.”
-Toni Cade Bambara, (1939-1995), writer, activist

in the echo of my fears, i finally heard my heart break. It transcended through my dreams, different dimensions, and worlds, showing me that it feels the same in all of them; I can't runaway.

Here I am, gripping my chest as if I could've saved it when in reality, I ripped it apart a long time ago. I am a broken girl made of 3: The sex addict, the emotional self, and the crying child. The addict has taught me to survive but pulled me away the hardest, farthest from the core of who I am. The emotional self is sensible, soothed both voices. The child has the most fears of all--abandonment, judgement, rejection.

She drops to her knees, elbows clenched tightly around her sides. "NOOOO!!!" She wails as though the depth of her sorrow has no weight. Both voice and body take refuge in gravity.

I want to be baptized in the ocean
held by a coord from the grey skies
The wind rustles around me,
cackling, whipping, my cold flesh
red rose flush hovering
below the plain of my land
three generations of faceless men--
where have they gone
and where are they walking?



__________________________________________________________


Rant:

I woke up early Wednesday morning and decided to spend two hours reading my book. I had plans to eat with Sobashi at 2:30 in the afternoon and Calvin was going to pick up the rest of his furniture. After I locked myself out and climbed through the window to get back in, I decided to take a shower with the music on blast. I thought I heard someone in the living room and thought for a second it must've been Calvin, but I rationalized and said it must have been the bass from the music. I walked out into the living room in my towel and the door was wide open. Calvin was here. In my vulnerable and drippy state, I started trembling in fear, anxious, and adrenaline pumping through me. I didn't know what to do but I wanted to do something. I heard him coming up the steps and I peeked out in my towel. He saw me and said, "how's it going?" His eyes were red and his hair was longer than normal....sad calvin through diana's speculations or really high. As he went out to put stuf into his car, I went into the bathroom and dried myself off and put on some clothes. I was so torn between my emotions, between the protocol of what to do and what i wanted to do. I wanted to hold him and hug him and tell him never to leave, but I couldn't. I was so terrified and in shock of his presence that I couldn't even say anything. I kept asking, "Do you need help?" "No" he'd say sternly. This pushed me further into my child-like state. I was rejected from his moving on process. I was succumbing to everything I didn't want to be--powerless. As he put stuff in the car, I'd walk to the kitchen window to see where he was, to see if anyone was with him. Then as he was coming back up the stairs, I quickly went into the bathroom and started crying. When he was packing up his stuff, I'd slowly creep out like a curious child, like an unwanted child, and stood against the wall at the end of the hallway hoping he would just scoop me up. Helpless. A silhouette on th edge of light and dark energy, i was sinking. Yet I tried to take in all of him, his white tank top and grey shorts and brown kswiss....his biceps, his shoulders, his eyes, his expression...something...i wanted to keep as much of him as i could but he was rapidly fleeting from the space and from my life. "as far away from you" that's what he's deciding to do. as he was bringing out the last load i asked him if he had the key. he didn't say anything and kept going and i watched him from the window, thinking he was going to leave and so i closed the door. unknowingly he came up to the door and left the key under the mat. he went to the car and as i heard him start the engine i ran out the door sobbing my eyes out. "this is it." "everything's gone. gone." as i stood there crying on the walkway, he drove away giving me one last look.

i never felt so conscious of abandonment. i know my true feelings come from my parents who left me because they had to work. and i have to learn that calvin is also leaving me because he needs to work on his life. I am imposing that need on his life. I left him a long time ago because he called me a whore which linked me back to my father calling me a whore for most of my high school life. don't get me wrong i love my dad but it doesn't give him a right to degrade me. likewise, i love calvin chu so much but i can't believe he said that to me! in public!

that wednesday threw me off, i didn't work out, i just wanted to sleep, i didn't call anyone, i didn't feel good so i'm writing this out to acknowledge that hurt. it's okay for me to feel sad. it's okay for me to recognize that spatially and mentally we're through.

i've been obsessing about all these other things knowing that it's helping me cope with the loss of calvin. i'm still frantically going on his facebook to spy on his recent activities but i'll probably delete him soon. it hurts to look at his pictures and see us close and happy or sad because we can never be close like that again. it hurts to know the spots on his body, the way his tattoos feel and look, the moles on his face...

i know he's having a hard time too but i believe in his resilience. he's always been resilient. i just have to keep striving to be happy. strive to be better in a holistic way.

Karma Locking Me Out

Man I just locked myself out of my apartment!

The story: I woke up and decided to do some reading and after reaching some profound thoughts, I decided to meditate on it by brushing my teeth. I looked at the screen door leading to the balcony and nervously thought that the winds were changing, seeing the leaves in the trees sway.

As i was brushing my teeth, I wondered what the weather was outside, so instead of going onto my balcony, i walked to the front door and looked down my steps to see it was sunny. just as i was embracing the warmth of the sun, the door slammed. Shit! I checked the knob and it was locked! Damnit! I sat on the steps and looked around, still brushing my teeth, trying to act all calm cool and collected. FUCK!

"I am lunch with Bash at 2:30. I have no idea what time Calvin is coming to pick up the last of his furniture! Usher's Confession's album is going to play fully through before I even get inside! AH!"

All these thoughts kept running through my mind. Calvin was going to come an pick up his stuff so maybe I'll just wait for him to open the door. Div comes home at 5. I'll miss Bash's call and just tell her I got locked out." NO! I did not want to at least try to get in!

I looked for openings--my balcony screen door was wide open and my bedroom window was always kept open. I thought about climbing up the wooden pole to get to my balcony but who am i kidding i can't slink up a pole!!!??! I'd be like Russell from Up trying to climb up the water hose.

So I went walking around my neighborhood, barefoot, to see if any neighbors were home and maybe I could possibly borrow a ladder. Luckily the house to across the street to my left had their garage door open and I saw inside a stepping stool! I went to the front door and asked the man working changing the locks if he'd happen to have a ladder I could borrow because I got locked out of my house. He flat out said no and I awkwardly said thanks and walked back home. Saddened by this white man's unwillingness to help even though I knew he had a ladder-type thing, defeated me! I sat on the steps and agreed with my rationalizations from earlier before. "I guess I'll just wait for Calvin. This is wht I really wanted any way. This is karma!"

Only when there is recognition of karma will she let you out of her wrath! So I looked at the opening of my bedroom window. There are two ledges. The first floor's and then a fence-type ledge under mine. It's the kind where you can pot plants on the sill so there's some space. I was worried the wood would break under my weight! Luckily it was strong! I climbed atop the first floor's ledge, hoping to gosh the neighbor's weren't home and going to pop through the blinds to see my bra-less tits hanging in full view! Unfortunately I am a little too short to fully get my self up to the second ledge! I tried to pull myself, thinking about rock climbing, but again, who am i kidding?!?! I have no upper arm strength!

I walked around again, hoping to find a neighbor. Across the street to my right was another neighbor sitting in his garage. He was about my age on the phone, and he hung up when I approached. I told him I got locked out and wondered if he had a ladder or a stepping stool. He said he didn't have a ladder but found a stepping stool! Perfect! I was so grateful! He even carried it to my apartment!!

So I told him my plan and I set up the stool on the first ledge and jumped over the bush to get on it, climbed up it's two steps, and pulled myself to the bottom of the fencing of the second ledge. I climed onto this 1 inch wood and inched my toes from one gap to another gap until I could open my window screen, and pull my body up onto the ledge and into the window. The entire time he was walking with me on the grass, spotting me just in case I fell! I'm sure anyone would do that but it was great to achieve something I thought was impossible and seeing someone there supporting me!

I jumped through my window and unlocked my door and said my thank yous and laughed at life and myself!

Man, karma you got me locked out!

Soy Goo's story

"Ma, wah mai keuh"
I don't want to go

The dilemma in mind:
if he goes, drowns, then regret
if he doesn't go, the money spent on his fare, waste

I go; we purposely sink the boat,
so the ship will rescue us, bring us to land.

________________________________________________________

A dream:
He came to me in a dream
tall and looming
covered in white from wrist to ankle
"Ming, burn money for me to use"
"What kind of money, Ah Bah?"
skin pale and finger pointing
to a fire in a bin.
"Geem tzwah" gold paper
to burn for the dead.
"How much?"
"Enough for me to live."

describing faith in an email....

i guess that's what faith is. it's an internal purpose. i know that when i was on e or after e i just felt like the only thing to think about was the now and being connected to the now and living life because living is great. but e lost that when i started doing it with calvin. it became more about sex actually. you know...faith is like the coldplay concert to me. just fully connected; its beauty reaches a sublime than cannot be expressed. i've had both experiences with ecstacy and with calvin. with calvin, we had sex and we orgasmed at the same time and it was fully connecting, both opening up body, mind, and spirit and feeling safe and comfortable in that exchange. wow. i've never thought about it like that before. it's like an exchange of our souls and laughing....we both laughed because we were so consumed in it. it's like when a baby laughs...pure...joyful...unkowingingly aware of what it's laughing at. i cried afterward because it was beauty at it's most intimate and sensual and sexual and natural human form. with ecstacy it's connecting to the beat of music and to lights and to the people around you...it's tribal...like a heartbeat...simple...as though the light was the stars, the beats were the sound of our drums, the crickets, our hearts, and the moon is always watching overhead....the fire in the middle...is where we burn our insecurities...yeah...it's the love we have for one another...the safety from being together in the dark knowing that we will forever watch after one another spiritually. that's ecstasy to me. tribal. pagan. holistic. both those instances i felt enough. and that's probably what i'm missing right now. faith. purpose.

SAA

I

Is he lying to me?
Am I lying to myself?
I like his lips, sex, and intellect,
But where are the emotions?
FUCK MY THOUGHTS!

II

You can take my lips.
You can take my tits.
You can take my clit.
You can take my thighs and hips.
But love,
you may never take my eyes.


III

Sex corrupts me, tells me lies:
"You're so beautiful";
"You're so hot";
"Harder. Yeah like that"
And makes me forget the consequences
After the moment. That present
Led to this present
When shit hits the fan
And I'm alone
Again.


IV

I am easy:
easily loved
and
easily fooled


V

sex stains the skin


VI
Brown eyes, lined red,
They've seen blood shed;
Deeper than the "natural" hues,
Blue and Green,
They've seen me.

Affirmations to get me through the day

I am a really fun person to hang out with.
I am a really cool mom because I am very chill.
I am a very cool coord for REACH because I think about them a lot.
I am a successful student leader, mentor, and student at UCI.
I am fortunate to have such great friends and a supportive family.
I take advantage of life and try new things.
I am open.
I have stretch marks on my ass and tits which means I lost some weight!
I have light brown eyes that look like mud in afternoon sunlight.
I have titties that some other women have to pay for.
I am very flexible and enjoy stretching myself.
I like stretching and massaging others so that they feel good too.
I know how to give myself massages (out and in).
I like to run barefoot but will run in shoes if necessary!
I am able bodied and can explore the deeps, the dips, the treacherous, the highs, and etc.
I have a very loud voice that can outbeat any man's voice!
I know how to whistle, snap, dance, sing (in my car), clap, jump, swim (lightly), cry, and curl my tongue.
I have a great music selection that is more underground.
I can write.
I write.
I know how to show people love.
I can arrange flowers, cut hair, bake, cook, and cater to others.
I enjoy doing hair and make-up.
I am very resourceful.
I am a quick learner.
I know how to cater to myself: baths, music, candles, movies, writing, and masturbation.

These are my affirmations.

Focus of Positive Believing

Today I woke up with the dark and light clouds shadowing from above. I caught a glimpse of the sun and thought, "Alright, there's some sun. Not too bad." To my surprise, As I peered out through my other window to scan the whole of Irvine and whether they were covered in the gloom, I saw a rainbow!

Then I thought to myself,"Okay. If it's this gloomy but there is a small patch of sun and a rainbow at 8 in the morning, then it is for sure going to be a good day!"

The reason why I was up so early was because I was trying to edit my paper to turn in before 11. I jumped on my laptop to see the 7 pages I left safely on it from the night before. I don't know what happened. Sadly, I couldn't find six of those pages and wound up with the first page which was pretty much the prompt.

I felt a dilemma because normally, I would whine and howl and be utterly discouraged from starting all over and fallen into the pits of despair. However, I could not let the disappearance of my paper get me down because I believed it was going to be a great ass day! So I focused all my energy into cranking out 8 pages in an hour and half! And voila! A final paper!

Focus, getting straight to the point--Concise. This is what I needed and wanted to be in every aspect of my life.

I hung out with Doris at Reggaefest. I bought a new pair of peace earrings for a bargained down price of $5 and a new pair of red-rimmed sunglasses for $5. After Doris left, Calvin and I ate stoner fries and a hot dog from the Pub, went back to my apartment and talked about our relationship (because I broke up with him last weekend), hugged, packed, and I was off to a new CCC interns meeting. I had to leave to facilitate Cross the Line for first-year SPOP Staffers. Staffers from the last training also came back to do it again for more practice! I felt so proud of them!

Satisfied. Efficient. Content.

Calvin surprised me by already being in the parking lot before I even got out of my training so it was great because I expected to wait for him. He was meeting me one step ahead. Perfect way of showing me his love. Got in, headed out to Long Beach so I could fly out to Oakland.

Got to Long Beach but I was early so Calvin and I went to Mickey D's and ordered our faves: 2 caramel sundaes (I get all the nuts), 2 apple pies, 10 pc. chicken nuggets, french fries, and (not normally) a soda. We ate and smiled and laughed. He asked me out on a date to Catalina Island to celebrate the end of the year. I said yes!

Then he dropped me off at the airport at 7PM. I literally got through bag drop and security by 7:02. I called Calvin and we talked about therapy and how we're both in the process of healing and seeking help. At first we felt ashamed, but now we are so confident and recommend it! It's great to connect with him emotionally about the process of healing which is something different than the emotional connection I have with my best friend. My gbf connects with my sexual past and my bf connects with my present and future healing. It's a beautiful thing to finally be connected to Calvin.

It's a full moon and I got my period. It's a cleansing cycle. Shedding the old self, becoming the new.


Anyway, now I'm home and my parents gave me a jade Buddha for strength, my mom gave me advice and meditation tips, my dad cut and porcupined Manila mangoes for me (though they were from Mexico), and I get to sit in the silence of my house and write.


I mean...can life get any better than this?

A Letter to My Son

son, the lines in your palms
have gotten you this far
and the map in your heart
will take you farther

be safe on your journeys to a new land
where you can....

BE

you
no impositions of definitions
except the ones you choose. you said,

"ma, life is all around you"
and i didn't believe it because for so long
I lived amongst the white walls
white white white walls
white faces that told me:
depend on masks, hair, and bras to up lift
what ever I wasn't
and hide whatever I was

how can i see life, if someone is looking at me to look at myself?
i had no agency, silenced
by their objects yet wearing it
to make myself MORE
of an object
like collecting baseball cards for a collection
i sat on their shelves, in their possessions

until i met you, my son
whose beauty reflects off of me
when i see
how grown you get
just from having colors
of imagination paint depth

and finally from your cries,
i could breathe out
whatever i held in,
at birth

i heard life
and saw life
and kissed life
and made life

aren't you proud of your mother?
despite what they made up,
she made out what was natural to her.

so my sweet son,
you came from a line
of instinct and just follow
what is natural to you.

walking backwards

normally, i walk home from campus. I have a route: pass uci extension, pass student health center and the police department, through verano place, up through the arc fields, across the backetball courts and up all the stairs.

today i tried walking backwards from home to campus. and though i have this path going one direction, it is a totally different direction going backwards.

even though i'm walking in life on something familiar, i have to start all over, create a new path for myself. even if somewhere in the past i had already created a path.

it's strange the cycle of paths, like routes of water that somehow all connect--ocean rivers lakes ponds rain ponds lakes rivers and back into the ocean.......

it's been tough walking backwards, scary actually
yet i need to trust that the flow of my body will lead me on a path that will get me to where i need to be...

Warring Shame

I know shame like the shadow near my feet. It haunts, stretches, distorts, and sneaks up on me. There is a depthitude of worlds in which I traveled and never looked back. I ran out of there so fast.

Why would anyone want to be locked in the dark? Silent dark space. No sound, no wind, no smell, no touch, no taste, no you, nor me. We,

insignificant. It's terrifying running into the universe of fears. It's hard getting out. What kept me alive? This dream: white, green, orange, red, light, joy--colurs, flavors, life.

Life conquered the blackhole, where i'm from.

Where i'm from the black waters stole the souls of people. people who looked into their reflections and got dragged in by the Goddess of Death. They just couldn't let go. Yet how does one let go if all they know are their memories? What makes them who they are? Forget where you learned it from, it's in you now. The lines twists and bend into and outside of each other. Cross-eyed, and color blind, it's overwhelming, this war.

The noise of people trying to find each other is so loud that I go deaf. I hear a dead mute. Something in me died, tone deaf, losing my language, I can't hear differences. I just see people crying, running, screaming with mouths wide open, inaudible. No one can hear their voices trampled upon by men in green suits, black boots, jabbing with bayonets. Green, red, black, grey, dirt in the river. We all flowed into the river veins of mother and she cradled us until we found the open womb. Gapetto echoes in the night.

The sun doesn't set too far from the moon; we were born at the edge of a waterfall, rushing in like infection. White blood cells attacked, yelling Get out! You nasty germs pollute our blood with your genetic make-up. So we made ourselves up to disguise as them. But this shadow won't stop telling truth of who I am. I am the weathered skin of my feet. My soles cannot tell lies.

Abandonment

It hit me through my body,
violent vibrations with no ventilation.
It kept pulsing like fresh blood
from the wound, the womb.

My mother left me
because she had to work,
because of her own fears.
I knew she wanted to hold me,
and hear my cry for her breast,
for her.

My father left me too,
the day he hit me,
because he couldn't recognize
the girl he left behind.

So, he went to my little sister
(whom I am jealous of),
who resents me
for being the person
everyone loves but
can't have.

I abandoned them all
because it hurt too much to feel
their love, distant memory of a love,
lost in transit, in translation, in transition,
in America.

I abandoned the one I loved
before he could leave me. I,
a runaway, got good at hiding, yet
I kept searching for a distant
ideal, love in the form of a man.

Men, mirages, barrages of men,
who thought pulling a girl's hair
was fun, taking her freedom,
raping, molesting, violating, whistling, smothering,
silencing, playing, and lying to a girl was
okay, was everything a "man" does
in today's society.

But even after such violence,
I decided to comeback stronger
to face those men, however painful,
to face my family however painful,
to face my love, and
to face love in general...

(because I'm tired of running away
from being abandoned).

mmmm music

mmmm music
tick tick tick ticking tick
i want want want want
you

to
dance around me
between me
through me
in me

vi vi vi vibe vibe vibrating
from a steel-string


I moove oooh oooh oooh
in your mouth and
drip from the tip
tip tip drip trip
off your sweet
tongue

um um um
fiddle, faddle, babble,
can you play the guitar?
can you play it louder?
with your fingers
d e e e ee eee eeee eeeeeper

kick kick kick kick tick tick kick t-t-t-tick
zaaah zah zaaah bah bah bah bum bum
um mmmm mmmmm music pleeease

don't stop
singing the blues!
i feel you you ooo oh oh now

now now now aaaah putting it in you baby
putt putt putting in you
a groove all over me

me me me me
I I I I
you you I me me I I I I
aaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
want want want want
you






---dedicated to the pain that plagues

Broken Heart

HEART
HE-ART
(HE)ART
HE ART
ART

4 AM

In the silence,
I hear echoes
of my spirit.

You are awake.

a letter for easter

god, tell me i survived death
because my love is that strong
tell me i am surrounded
with strength and the will
to live
because I cannot do this alone

my love is lonely
my life is lonely

god, fill me with love and life again.

How to Cope with Living

For most of my life I thought I would die at the age of 32. It would be a selfless act for selfish reasons, as strange as it sounds. I was depressed, I was lonely, and I always ran away from heartbreak. In other words, the best and most efficient way of running away forever was simply to die, a perpetual sleep, an escape, peace.

And you know, as dark as I am, the underlying truth is that I care too much. That I am an empath, sensitive to pain, even of inanimate objects. I am sensitive to everything that it's almost overwhelming. It's like autism, when too much information overloads into my brain, I just black out. And as a child I blacked out, or slept, a lot which ultimately led to my current social anxieties.

Sleeping to me meant entering a different, yet parallel dimension. And as much as I loved to sleep, I loved staying up until 3 or 4 in the morning in the silence of the world and write. I wrote in my easyjournal about nothing and everything of those times.

And what distracted me while I was writing was my sexual addictions. I was a sex addict. Actually, I was a love addict who thought sex was my only way of gaining true intimacy. Though i was aware of the risks, I risked anything to feel loved, to feel like someone. This time of my life felt like a different world I went to school during the day and did my thing--a social butterfly that had no true friends, a great student in class, and an active student leader. But in the silence of the night, a recognition of loneliness woke and drove me to websites like wouldyouhitthis.com and chatrooms where I prowled, lurked, advertised my self, flirted, and engaged in sexual encounters.

I became an expert in manipulating, lying about fingering myself while these men cyber sexed me, faking orgasms in phone sex, faking orgasms in real sex. Pretty much I acted like I wanted them so that they could petend that they really wanted me. I was not aware that their sexual love didn't equate to love love, like the kind in the movies. (Come to think of it, the kind in the movies aren't real either!) Even though there was a consciousness somewhere that said, "No. This is your last time," I didn't listen and kept doing what I did because I was good at it, because no one had the guts to stop me, because i couldn't stop myself. The saddest thing about it is that i didn't remember, or couldn't remember, what I had done. I was so emotionally detached from these exchanges that they didn't stay in memories. It was like astroprojection; i left my body and watched from above in third-person perspective. you can imagine how hard it was for me to be honest with calvin when i couldn't even remember. it was amnesia; it was repressed.


May 27th, 2008--
When I found ecstasy, I found redemption. I thought I was going to die that morning. I hit a peak so high that the drop was far scarier than I ever imagined. I sobbed when everyone left; I sobbed harder when I made peace with the fact that I was going to die. I wanted to live an honest life, live an honest death. And obviously, i survived from such an intense experience by choosing to live.

I re-gained spirit, that was once traumatized by molestation, abuse, and neglect. With this new spirit, I wanted to be different. I wanted to seek help and love the people around me who supported me. And I did; I do seek help from the resources I have.

Recently I broke up with calvin because we have issues (we are currently working things out). I didn't cry, I didn't feel anything but numb; I was comfortable being with my friends, being alone, being back in the space where I had been for so long. and nothing changed about me. I still sought out imaginations of a man to love me yet i couldn't really think about having sex with any of them. as the days wore on, so did my hard shell i put up. i was hurting, i wanted someone to come home to, someone to wake up to, someone to share my life with, someone to give me an affection that friends just can't. and i ran to poetry. i tried writing a poem but everything led back to memories of calvin. memories of middle school, high school...things we did when we were in love. nothing to do with the present, nothing to do with our issues; i just longed to be in the place with him, to be in love.

during our relationship, I stopped working to be better. i stopped listening to myself.



tonight, i cried because something was lost in me. a child was lost because men damaged me. i don't have a fear of the world. i have a fear of men. i want love from men. calvin is starting to realize how important it is to be a parent. and as much as i am challenging men to become allies, i am also implying the role of the mother. my mother was absent. my mother didn't defend me; she defended the laws of males, enforced it. and i think back to the days when i was in highschool. i snuck out, ignored my mother;s calls, didn't tell her where i was. she waited up for me until i came home; she knew. and there is something karmically linked between us women, mother and child, sister, this biological understanding of labor, this womanhood, this struggle to prove to men that we are worth looking at.

calvin and i both have a disease--codependency. it streamed from our past and into our current relationship. we are both working to get out of it. i just read that the problem with codependency is resisting fun, so maybe the key to living is just to let it all go and to live.

(note: i need to go bungee jumping soon.)

It's crazy to realize that I have no idea how to live. I don't know HOW to be in a relationship, how to be in a friendship, how to BE. i never learned the standards. i just woke up one day and said this is how i'm going to live my life. since college i've been discovering that there are norms and i'm trying to learn them. I really do wake up and no matter how sad I feel, I think about how lucky I am to be here in the present but i'm working toward a better future, toward a better me.

i'm trying to purify my soul. my therapist said to me: of course you feel sad. it's okay to feel sad, you've gone through so much that it's okay. and for the first time in my life, i have accepted my sadness, mourning, grieving it. it's hard though, to find enough tears in a day to wash away the last 21 years of my life. there's just not enough in me.

post-rejection: we-struggle

I'm trying to work on my final but I can't stop thinking about SPOP and the reasons why I am here standing at these new paths in life.

After the rejection, I felt relieved actually because I was excited to close a door to find new ones. when this door closed, I was even more obsessed with getting it opened again! the hype and excitement of the new staff just kept me coasting on a strange high even though i was rejected. both happy that i wasn't the only one rejected and truly happy that people i love got the positions.

Yet at the same time, I felt this sadness. After talking to kar, I couldn't stop thinking about how i would feel if i got rejected and a few third year returners got it instead of me. i still couldn't fully feel it the same way he did until i got rejected from my poetry class. I felt like damn! society is not recognizing me as anyone special. what is wrong with me?!

so i said, fuck school. i'm going to the beach with div, after he passed out i thought about short-term and long-term goals. i am only preparing early for my life because i am the most scared.

as we returned to vdc, i talked to one of the new first-year staffers on Friday in a transaction. He said to me, "I'm so excited to do the work!" And it hit me!...

The work; The purpose of SPOP was to help the incoming freshmen transition and get excited about UCI.

In all my feelings and my dramas from both teal and gold, I was so focused on my returners and my first-year staffers that I forgot my initial purpose.

The reason why I wanted to be in SPOP in the first place was because I wanted to help others. Because I was in SPOP for so long and I was so STUCK in the details of the program, I couldn't see the bigger picture. I was here for my kids, the kids, our family.

SPOP became a comfort zone for me and to finally get kicked outta the box to fend for myself is truly bittersweet. i was rejected out of love! I needed this rejection more than ever to see this. I needed to re-feel this lost passion to serve others of all ages, nations, races, ethnicities, spiritualities, etc....humanity

humanity--that's what i was fighting for all along.

and i remember back to what phil lee said, that he didn't do teal year and helped disabled children at a camp, and martos traveled throughout southern america, and kat has a homeless program and went to build homes in new orleans after katrina, and norma helps women and children in a free clinic in mexico, and many of my spoppers didn't apply to go home to be with family, and calvin's keeping at-risk youth off the streets, and what am I doing?

not enough! there are so many things to do because the world isn't quite perfect yet!

it brought me back to my ROOTS. I came from nothing, depression, anger, distrust, fear, loneliness, and abuse. Jesus said to me that he was happy to see me, to be around me because there was something about me that felt happy to be here. and I understand where that happiness came from: the joy I have is seeing people thrive in the community. and though it may not immediately seem like the community is damaged, there are broken pieces everywhere!

(especially since i've spending more time in long beach) calvin got racially profiled and thrown down on the hood of a police car by a rookie police officer this weekend because the officer was having a power trip. my people, all people, we people--i'm coming back down from the high of college life because i see (y)our hurt. because we are human, we will hurt together and we shall heal together.

at UCI, I have a foundation of love and family and the best way to pay it forward is living it every day beyond UCI.

the beauty of the human spirit is our resiliance....

it makes life that much more worth it.

i am saying yes! to clarity and to our real struggles.