the great conjunction. charcoal, watercolors, acrylics. 22.5x30". 2020.
for just a moment, i thought i could fade into you –– a rare alignment of our ecliptic longitudes, bearing witness by naked eyes in starlight. how dizzying it is, to be drunk with the everything of you. to behold the everything of each other.
but it was just for a moment, a fleeting crossing of heavenly bodies. we are the conjunction that never became one, too tied to our separate pathways amongst the void. i rest in the peace of knowing none of it is real, in the knowing it will happen again, in the happening of falsity that begets real beauty. a trompe-l'œil to dream about.
one day, one day.
a year in photographs 2020
january
i prepare to leave san francisco while attempting to tie up this chapter of my life with a neat little bow. a lot of time is spent sinking into friendships that i am sad to put on pause, focusing on the small bits of joy around the city, and reveling in the beauty of a routine that is no longer.
february
the transition to living in los angeles is dimly lit but also shimmering with vibrancy. my life is suddenly overwhelmed by old friends, and i begin to build a home for myself in a small nook in koreatown.
march
my friend daniel gets married just before los angeles goes into lockdown. i stress out about emptying grocery stores, indulge in the loneliness of isolation, and count my blessings all at the same time.
april
every day feels the same. i fall into a numbing routine, rarely leaving my apartment, dialing into endless zoom calls, and keeping myself as busy as possible. i bake, set up fundraisers, start live-streaming on twitch, and work far too much – all to chase away a dangerously meandering mind. on the weekends, i plant flowers in animal crossing and sit around in my underwear. i go to bed before sunset.
may
i turn 29. the day came and went. sleep was a refuge.
june
the world feels like it's on fire. my heart begins to break.
july
an era ends and my world suddenly feels expansive. i begin to sell all of my paintings and make space in my life, physically and mentally, to bring in new inspirations.
i start to like a boy, and it is nice to know that i can. i even begin to daydream a little, of grass and fluffy clouds, of shady trees and sweaty summer nights. but it ends as quickly as it begins.
august
my life becomes inspired. i turn my insomnia into sunrise runs. i use my idle time to teach as many art classes as i can. i stream more, paint more, and look towards the skies.
the last few days of august saw mountains and rivers and hotpot in the middle of nowhere. i feel deeply connected once again.
september
the world is on fire. the red sun in our skies, the ash hanging heavily in our lungs. our poor state is burning. amongst many other things.
october
i return home from a work trip in san francisco and have trouble easing back into isolation. i pour my feelings out by tending to my plants and dancing in my living room.
november
everything around us rages madly on. we let out of a collective breath for a moment but immediately fill up our bellies, lungs, and heads with anxiousness to hold once again. i lose understanding of what it means to find balance, and the boundaries of where one thing ends and another begins are blurred into oblivion.
december
my heart breaks more and more as i find joy in the most unexpected of ways. i grapple with how these two things that seem to be at odds manage to run parallel in my life.
i end the year in austin, texas, surrounded by laughing faces from long, long ago. they call me by my vietnamese name and i couldn't be happier. for the first time in months, i feel loved.
le chrysanthème et sa poupée
i. i remember sitting with you at the mall food court after we fled from our own home in tears. i was nervous when you were blankly staring down the road, nervous as you continued speaking in abstracts, nervous as you contemplated the worthiness of living this life. i was sixteen and begging for us to run away. you stared into the empty air. around us children were wailing in their seats, young couples were flirting with love, families were waving each other down with trays in their hands. the normalcy of it all cut through the heaviness that hung in front of us, tables empty of food, hands empty of each other's. why can’t we be like them?
ii. i'd get hurt. you'd tell me to apologize. we'd sweep the floors searching for scraps of happiness. then i'd get hurt again. or you would. we'd apologize. rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. but why does it feel like we can never wash our hands clean of this?
iii. i thought it was just a phase. maybe the unwieldy anger, with time, with age, with distance, can shift and make way for what truly lies beneath. surely it's love. surely it's just sadness transformed. but when i saw him raise his hand with fires burning in his eyes, i understood that these things don't just fade by themselves... they're buried. we tried to smolder the flames with our hands, but the embers are still crackling and the ashes are still falling. rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat.
iv. someone told me yesterday that when he was a child, he would fill his backpack with juice boxes and dream of running away to see the world. i laughed into the phone and said i was exactly the same. but you and i both know it's the reverse, that i've been all around the world trying to run away.
i imagined what it’d be like if we had the chance to run together, le chrysanthème et sa poupée. i'd lay my head down on your lap and you'd stroke my hair. i'd cry and you'd tell me that i need to toughen up, that the world isn't kind to people like us, too fragile. but tell me, how do we toughen up now, when someone has already broken us into so many pieces? when can we stop sweeping?
v. today i watched the sunrise with eyes half closed and a mind half dreaming. i pictured you, in the vastness of the ocean, where we let you go and watched you dissolve into the pacific. then i pictured me, here, in the vastness of the los angeles sky, engulfed in the orange brilliance of a new day. and then i pictured us. i was wrong. we aren't fragile, we aren't broken. we are ubiquitous. we are here, there, and everywhere, across the sea and across the sky, you and i. no more rinsing and repeating. from the droplets of your waters to the condensation of my skies, cycling in and out of each other, being, becoming, and disappearing, over and over and over. we are so much more than we ever thought possible.
what a mess we've made
what a mess we've made. charcoal, watercolors, acrylics. 18x12. 2020.
i. my first kiss was in the dark, somewhere behind a pillar, at a high school i didn't go to, during a talent show i didn't perform in. he was my boyfriend of two months at that point, and we had only ever shyly held hands before. we had two radiant years of explosive vibrancy – so much music, art, and beauty before it all imploded. we self-destructed into fragments so small that only the mixtapes, photographs, and paintings we left behind could make sense of it all.
ii. i used to think kisses were sacred. until a boy kissed me without embracing me, held my hand without ever holding my gaze, and told me i was beautiful so often that i stopped believing in it. and in him.
iii. what is truly sacred, i've learned, are all the spaces in between. and it is in those spaces where things get messy, where we hurt and cry and laugh and dance and live in such a way where love can emerge. whether it implodes, transforms, or nourishes... the undeniable truth is that it at least means something. something, within all the chaos of two universes colliding. the kiss was just the beginning. and what a beautiful mess it all is.
october 2020
in uniform
september 2020
wait –
– they don’t love you like i love you.
