Lately, I鈥檝e been watching myself disappear again. I remember the feeling, achingly familiar, like the warm hug of your covers when you know you鈥檝e slept too long past your alarm. It used to cling to me constantly. My freshman year of college, at any given point, I wasn鈥檛 sure whether I existed. ...
My mother鈥檚 childhood was full of plants made into toys. The last time I was in Moscow鈥�11 years ago now, the memories are growing rusty鈥攕he shared them with me, introducing me to the many plants that could become playthings, even in a big city. There were the 鈥渢ouch-me-not鈥� plants, 鈥渘edotroga,鈥� ...
I found out recently that my favorite coffee shop in Providence will be closing in less than two weeks. This is both heartbreaking and, in some ways, strangely fitting.
Trees in Rhode Island stand tall and thin, reaching toward the deep-blue sky with their spindly branches. From the window of a train speeding from Providence to Boston, I watch them stretch, toward the clouds, toward each other, standing proud and bare in the icy earth. On the CalTrain from my hometown ...
There are the ones I left in a drafty room over a frigid New England December, only to come back from sun-baked California to their slouching, frozen corpses. The countless overwatered succulents, the root-bound vines, the pothos I just couldn鈥檛 make happy. The ones left forgotten, unwatered on my ...
A friend once told me that he thinks Californians grow up thinking life is easy because they don鈥檛 have to deal with bad weather. He鈥檚 not entirely wrong: At home, the seasons melt into each other almost unnoticed鈥攖he sun shifts its shade, the wind picks up a chill, suddenly it鈥檚 dark at 4 p.m. ...
When I was in the fifth grade, I was given an assignment to write a poem about 鈥渨ho I am.鈥� A big task, really, for a fifth grader with naive brown eyes and puffy cheeks and very little concept of what it meant to be something or someone. In a font meant to imitate handwriting, centered on a page, ...
A tea bag in black ink winds its way up my upper arm, lavender and carnations blooming inside of it. The winter chill means it鈥檚 mostly hidden from the world. Sometimes I forget it exists. But in the back of my mind, I know it鈥檚 there: an amulet I carry with me, a reminder that I exist in the world ...
A few weeks ago, on a grocery run, I came across bunches of daffodils鈥攖he first sign of spring. I bought a bunch and brought them home, cradling them gently; I put them in an empty pasta jar and propped them up against the windowsill. Daffodils always remind me of home鈥攎y mother loves them and buys ...
(1) the act of blurring what is not yours and what is (ex. black sesame milk tea; tonkotsu ramen; cafeteria chicken noodle soup)
