cultivating
As most of you probably have gathered from my Instagrams, I’ve been creating terrariums and cultivating succulents. It’s a strange new hobby that I’ve started in my new apartment after I bought a succulent. Now, I have at least 10 or 12 plants to manage now, which is crazy to think about.
For me, it’s a hobby that comes full circle. My grandfather, after WWII, was a professional gardener like most Nisei and my grandmother grew up as a farmer near Yakima, Washington. My dad learned how to garden from my grandfather and spends a lot of time maintaining our yard at home. My grandfather on my mom’s side also has a large vegetable plot at his house in Staten Island that he often eats from.
As a kid, I was always fascinated with life. I like watching animals because they live such different lives, display intelligence and are resourceful. The human body also grabs me with its intricate anatomy and specific design. In the same way, plants live at a different time scale than humans, measured in seasons and stillness. Even though they aren’t animate, they are still alive.
I see my plants as miniaturized worlds that I can cultivate, that I can place myself and watch. It doesn’t terribly matter to me what kind of plants they are. Weeds are just plants that are growing where they aren’t wanted. Oftentimes, I just pick up cuttings that people have thrown aside or ignored. It’s all about context. Lightbulbs and corks are just one of many possibilities. After all, it doesn’t take that much for life to emerge; just attention.
Drifter
There are days when I feel like I’m on the surface of things, like a swimmer in a pool. As I look down, I recognize the patterns of streets, sidewalks and plans. I’ve walked on that concrete. My clothes are still caked with the dirt. And yet, I’m at a distance.
In that sense, my life at times feels observant. I watch movies. I sit and play something on a screen. I read things that I haven’t written. I attempt to replicate data. I listen. I take pictures. But, I feel a lack of control over those sensory experiences. My data comes out wrong. My mood changes with a chord. I squint. I react to what is shown before me.
This sense of self is a twist for me. Before, I was obsessed with finding the meaning of things. I thought that perspective made me different. I wanted to read between the lines but only ended up adding my own interpretations like a tessellation. Now, I appreciate the textures but I will not rip off the upholstery, or else risk destroying it.
People live off aesthetics, especially young adults. They consume things that look nice. We live off of numbers, results, fashions, manners, sex appeal and packages. At times, I envy people who can devote themselves to such things, career wise or hobby wise. I participate in it and cultivate my life aesthetic.
Yet, I keep reminding myself I’m flesh and blood. There are parts of me that are not meant to be seen, yet they work unobserved. There may not be any truth under the surface, but there’s something more interesting: process, like gears in a clock.
literacy/middle name
I remember learning the magic of words in high school. In older illiterate cultures, words carry weight. They affect real things when said. Stories are remembered only through retelling and reciting. And names, when said outloud or cursed, can bring blessing or ruin. Compared to most people in the world, I’m fairly literate, having gone to university and all. I like to write down things for the sake of remembering them. I read when I can, especially online. It’s a gift people take for granted sometimes.
Thinking back on this, it made me think about a quirk of mine. I don’t like mentioning my middle name to others. I don’t post it on Facebook and I only mention it on applications when I need to. I think it’s because it’s an inherited name from my grandfather. It reminds me of the qualities I should uphold as its bearer. Sometimes, it feels like a secret, known by few, kept safe from identity theft and curses. After all, words may change meaning but their weight never does.
24
So my dad decided to give me, for my birthday, (constructive) criticism of my career (or lack thereof). Compounded with my unusually busy work day, my birthday has become less like a celebration and more of a reminder of less happy things that I need to take care of, if I want things to change.
chasing pavements
April have been dreamlike for me. Not in that it’s what I “dreamed” things would be. Rather, I’ve been somewhat detached. I’ve made an effort to not reflect. I take things at face value; my slew of Instagrams and music posts are a testament to that. I don’t hold grudges or feel left out. I focus on just enjoying things for the sake of enjoying. It’s been a light existence.
Still, all this “dreaming” is more of an avoidance of a heaviness that comes once in a while and takes me hours to forget: that my accomplishments don’t add up to a lot, that I should lower my standards, or worse, that I’m not going anywhere. That heaviness, in short, is that I won’t be going to medical school next year. Some of you are surprised. Most of you aren’t.
I’m not sure what I’m going to do now. I’ll probably stay at my job for this year but most of my coworkers are leaving or considering it and I’m afraid of being the only one there, bored and stuck. I’ll probably have to take some exam again, GRE or MCAT. I’m not sure if I should stick with medicine or another field. Applying again seems so exhausting.
So, for once, I’m coming clean and thinking. I’m going to try to enjoy what I can in Los Angeles since it seems I’m stuck here. Not sure if I can be more independent if I move out or get a car, rather than rely on public transit and the goodwill and hospitality of others. All that I know is it’s going to take me a while to accept this failure but to not see myself as a failure.
regarding haters
I remember when I was a kid, all the 5th boys were talking about asking girls to the graduation dance in an effort to act older than they actually were. Not wanting to be left behind, but too shy to do it, I asked my little sister during lunch to talk to this one girl in my class. Right after she asked for me, the principal came outside and declared that no one is to ask anyone out. The girl then came up to me and accused me of trying to get her in trouble.
She then said to my face, “I hate you,” then again the next day, and the next, and then for a few weeks, when we were getting into line, after running during PE. She basically made it a point to tell me that she hated me whenever she saw me. I just took those words for a long time, even though they hurt. Eventually, I remember crying in the bathroom after school, wondering what I had done to deserve all that. I told my parents about the bullying, who told my teacher, who made us apologize. The hate stopped, I entered middle school in another area and I never saw her again.
Since then, I’ve had my share of people who have hated me for one perceived reason or another: my lack of action, my aloofness, my heritage, my complaining, my lack of direction/passion, my opinions, my honesty. Most of the time, I never really know why; I’m left to insinuate unless I’m told to my face. My instinct is to avoid those people but I should really stick to my New Years’ resolution and be direct. And if they’re going to hate, then I guess they’re gonna hate. At least then, I know.
grandma
My grandmother was a “survivor,” or at least I like to think of her that way. She lived through so many things and outlived her friends and those she loved. In a way, I find that just as admirable as my grandfather, my mom’s dad, who used his cunning to get through life. Life is hard, but it seems like hers had difficulties I couldn’t imagine bearing.
She grew up in a farm in rural Washington, the eldest daughter of Issei immigrants. She attended school infrequently to help with the farm. When she was a teenager, her parents saved enough to send her to Japan for school, perhaps in the off-chance they would eventually move back, away from the hostile segregation and racism of the time.
Then, like with my grandfather, Japan became the enemy to America and chaos ensued. During the war, she was stuck in a foreign land while her parents and siblings were subjected to the irony of American internment at Heart Mountain. Food became a priority as she did odd jobs at factories. It wasn’t until one day, she commuted to Hiroshima for work and saw only blackened ruins.
She eventually moved back to the US and married my grandfather, a man who was good with his hands, liked to carve wooden sculptures, and gardened for a living. They bought an apartment complex in Echo Park and raised my dad, my uncle and my aunt. Tragedy struck again when she was forced to bury my uncle when he died at age 9 from an appendectomy, and later her husband, who died middle age of colon cancer.
After my dad and my aunt moved out, she took care of the family property, occasionally volunteering at her Buddhist church near Little Tokyo and getting together with her siblings for annual holiday gatherings. She moved into my house in the Valley as her senses failed her more and more. She settled in a routine before she passed away 3 years ago after surgeons decided her “broken” heart was in need of repair and ended up worsening things more than they needed to be.
I like to think my grandma survived, in spite of what happened around her and to those she loved, through routine, by enjoying simple things like basketball and reading the news and not succumbing to the weight of it all. She didn’t go to college or have a job outside of housework yet I know that she passed away ready. She survived until she couldn’t anymore.
grandfather
If I could describe my grandfather in a word, it’s “logical.” I remember when I was a kid, he made a multiplication chart for my sister and I to memorize. He beat our old Windows 95 computer at chess in Expert mode and nowadays routinely plays against Russian chess players in parks around New York City. Sudoku is too easy for him and gambling is more of an exercise in statistics than an actual source of money. He later told me about the time when he worked for banks in Wall Street, how he routinely had to reprogram computers and even froze assets during the Revolution of 1979 in Iran.
There’s a slight irony in my grandfather’s logical approach, given the chaos he grew up with. He was a teenager during World War II, when the Japanese imperial army invaded, seeding chaos everywhere. His father and his brother were killed, not by the Japanese, but by Filipino guerillas who suspected them of being conspirators. He dodged death several times; a scar alongside his head marks where a bullet grazed by. He survived the indignity of the Japanese war camps, eating food off the floor and praying for better times. He credits his strong Catholic faith to his survival, although I would credit his cunning and will to live.
After the war, he married, had a family of eight and earned a degree in accounting with some later training in computer programming. However, he was dissatisfied with the corruption around him and did not want his children to grow up in a place where hard work isn’t necessarily rewarded. So, after my grandmother died and with the sponsorship of a cousin, he immigrated to New York City and got a job in Chase Manhattan. It was with more irony that his eldest daughter, my mom, decided to marry a Japanese American. After some letting go of past grudges, he gave her his blessing.
One day, I’d like to go to the Philippines with my grandfather. He wanted to move back there with my step-grandmother but her failing health made it impossible to do that. My mom is waiting for him and my uncle to plan the next trip so she can bring my family along with him. Though he’s in good health for his age, I hope it happens before he can’t live as he likes.
expressions
I grew up around quick tempers, yelling and tense airs. It wasn’t about whether I was right about something; it was whether I could stand hours of loud voices barking at me and feeling guilty/stupid about whatever was being directed at me. Being quiet by nature, I could never get the upper hand at being louder. I learned that it’s better to just weather the storm and keep things to myself rather than be stubborn.
These days, I avoid expressing my anger or sometimes, even feeling it. When I do release the emotion, I lash back with a quick raise of my voice. I sigh a lot and glare. My temper is short. My thoughts and my words race until my mouth can’t move fast enough to put the two together. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten mad while drunk but it’d probably be all-the-above but exaggerated.
I hate anger. Still, that disdain doesn’t invalidate what makes me angry: being micromanaged, being provoked for the sake of being provoked, repeating myself, being taken advantage of, etc. I just don’t want to reenact the habits of others that I grew up with. I need practice when the time presents itself and better emulatees.
Note: This entry has been sitting in my queue for a while. I’m posting it because I’m tired of seeing it there, in the hopes I can bury it under something more cheerful.
under pressure
Several weeks ago, during a routine visit to the doctor, I learned that my blood pressure was at over 140 over 90, as it had been 3 months before. For a 23 year old without diabetes or a lot of weight, this was concerning since it put me over the borderline for Stage I hypertension. My doctor told me to change my diet, exercise more, sleep more regularly or else take medication usually designated for people twice my age.
Being the ruminator that I am, I wonder how I got to this point. My parents point out that even they have lower blood pressure readings than mine. Yes, I’ve stopped swimming ever since temperatures got under 70 degrees here. I’ve been eating unhealthy hospital food too much. I sleep later than I should for someone who wakes up at 6:20AM everyday. But for some reason, I feel like the reasons go deeper than that, as if it’s some personal failing.
I’m stressed. There’s no getting around that. Work, commute, lack of career progress, dealing with my parents, new social situations. My shoulders are constantly tense. My brow furrows and my teeth clench. There are days when I feel like I have nothing to look forward to except sleep. I try to remind myself that my life isn’t so bad compared to others but it doesn’t assuage the random chest pains that stop me in my tracks or my tired legs as I stand on the bus home.
I should just start on those diet, sleep and exercise suggestions but I feel like I need to do more than that. I want time when I’m not responsible for something important. I want to feel like I’m working towards something worthwhile. I want to stretch myself and let go like a rubber band. I don’t want to drop dead on the street clutching a broken heart.
