Letting the container burst
The multitudes of a month and life in general
I’m driving down Sloat Boulevard towards the Sunset, both the literal one and the neighborhood. It’s a gorgeous evening after a couple days of dreary downpour. I’m munching on snacks I just picked up from Trader Joe’s, bringing Matthew soup, excited to snuggle Misu. I’m listening to Know My Name by Chanel Miller A.K.A. Emily Doe in the Brock Turner case. They just handed down a guilty verdict on all three counts. Then, I’m weeping, fingers coated in chili lime dust, sun shining in my eyes.
Like this drive, the past month has been a barrage of sensory and emotional experiences.
I wanted to write a piece about Lao New Year, which passed a couple weeks ago. Always a special holiday for me, but the topic didn’t fully encapsulate everything that feels alive right now. The container within which I usually write, making meaning with each season and the rhythm of the natural world, can’t quite hold it all. It…
It’s homecoming to NYC. It’s dancing at Disco Tehran with Ji and Mon, breakfast in Herbert Von King with my favorite people, art shows and openings that both inspire and overwhelm. It’s holding my friend’s baby at his wedding. It’s reconciling, achingly, that a place can be home but not where I live, not everything I need.
It’s a one week trip turning into three after a cascade of sickness. It’s meeting my partner’s family and getting to be a lens through which they see each other. It’s returning to the Bay, breathing in the Monterey cypresses, feeling so lucky to live in such a beautiful place. It’s dancing in the rain with my best friend.
It’s witnessing two beloveds witness their mothers through cancer. It’s a soul sister sharing moments from her dog’s last day. It’s my family’s first Lao New Year without my grandfather. It’s knowing that every day, lands I love are being ripped apart by war and greed.
It’s FaceTiming my dad to show him how I made his chicken rice soup, hearing him acknowledge that he’s getting older—a big deal, because the man is a forever 18 year old. It’s hanging up, letting the grief wash over me, and in the next moment hearing my neighbor start their nightly saxophone practice. It’s the sound of Golden-Crowned Sparrow joining in, and the pleasure of knowing its song.
We talk a lot about joy and sorrow, how they are inevitably one in the same. But getting it here 🧠 is different than getting it here ❤️
That said, I’m not sure that even encompasses what I’m talking about.
What I know for myself, what I hear from beloveds, is that it is a lot right now. Highs and lows at the same time, pulling us in opposite directions, sometimes apart. Standing in awe of our capacity to hold it all, wondering when we will break—or if we already have.
Maybe we were always meant to let the edges burst and just swim in it all.
Delightful things I’ve been loving
Crafts & public libraries! The 30-year-old crafting obsession has landed. I attended a free library workshop on weaving and now it’s all I want to do. Highly recommend checking out your local library’s program calendar.
LoveShack! Dear friend Ayesha has the most electric POV on pretty much everything. I’ve been loving their recent writing on money and values. This piece in particular shifted how I think about desire and spending my time.
Fluent! An old friend and collaborator, Yari, writes the coolest pieces that weave pop culture, social impact, astrology, romance, fashion, and so much more. I loved her recent report on who’s getting it right in culture vs. who’s missing the mark.
Random Substack Discovreies! I recently stumbled across this piece by a writer in Hanoi that resonated with something deep in me.
Elementary school.
Midday.
More than forty of us in a classroom.
Back from the playground, sweaty, restless, complaining.
It was always too hot.
The kind of heat that clings to your skin.
Even the fans didn’t help.
Some days there wasn’t air conditioning at all.
We would lie there and complain.
Say we couldn’t stand it.
That it wasn’t going to pass.
The woman who watched over us would always say the same thing:
“Just lie still. It will pass.”
We never believed her.
But after a while—
it did.
Not all at once.
You’d still feel the heat.
Still feel the sweat.
But if you stopped moving,
stopped fighting it—
it would pass on its own.
Listening, Reading, Watching
Listening:
Mariska Hargitay on Good Hang with Amy Poehler. I generally love Amy Poehler’s podcast, but this episode in particular had me LOL’ing in the car. Who knew Olivia Benson (and Elliot Stabler) could be so funny?
Know My Name by Chanel Miller. I’ve been working on this one for a while, and it’s working me back. I love the audiobook because it’s powerful to hear Chanel’s voice tell her own story. Engage with care and trauma-informed tools.
Reading:
A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers. Optimistic 👏 sci-fi 👏 Imagine where we’d be if stories that help us imagine better worlds were just as popular as those that showed disaster? How much of literature is forewarning as much as it is self-fulfilling prophecy?
Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher. A fucked up dark fairytale that honestly got me a little spooked at night, but was sooo satisfying to read. I love this author because her characters are textured and usually over the age of 30 (a rarity in a fantasy market saturated with teenage heroes).
Watching:
Beef (Season 1). Yes, I said Season 1. I was stressed AF watching it when it first came out—I was still stressed, but it was more satisfying this time. And now I can watch Season 2!
Grey’s Anatomy. One of my comfort shows that I’ve seen a million times, but honorable mention because Mak is watching it for the first time so I’m riding along with her.
If you get something out of these writings and are able to be in financial reciprocity, I invite you to upgrade to a paid subscription. $8 a month or $88 a year means the world to me 💸
With love,
bp
This made me tear up, especially the part about your Dad. Happy belated New Year, babe, and sorry I didn’t wish you happy new year before, especially because I was kinda lamenting that no one said it to me🥹
“It’s dancing in the rain with my best friend.” If this isn’t the goal of life, to dance in the rain with the ones we love (both literally and figuratively), I don’t know what is.
These words have a gentleness that sound just like you. Forever grateful to be in IT with you.