Happy new year. did you think I would start my newsletter and then not actually write anything?? sorry to disappoint you but I have, in fact, written a post. it’s been a few weeks, so I wrote about my break and my family. we’ll see if I can keep this up weekly while school is happening. might have to do biweekly. if you don’t hear from me next Monday, then you know what happened.
Work
n/a—I’ve been a potato on vacation, but I’m starting school this week, so more is on the way. ~
Life
Sunsets
On the first leg of our drive through Death Valley, my family and I crunched through 2 bags of potato chips before arriving at Badwater Basin. If you’re unfamiliar, it’s a basin with very salty water (hence the name ‘badwater’). When we parked at the basin, there was nothing except a long path leading off into the horizon, so we just kinda went along with the other visitors and started on it. The whole way, my dad and I kept making our own hypotheses for why there’s so much salt here and why it crystallizes in such odd hexagonal shapes.
We reached the end of the path right as the sunset turned pink. I don’t think you could’ve timed it better if you tried—somehow, the water’s shallowness combined with the sky’s reflection made it seem as if everyone were walking on sky, as if you could sit on it, lay on it, and time would just stay still.
But sunsets end quickly. Afterwards, we hopped back in the car and drove in darkness to our hotel. I stuck my head out of the window to see the sky. I always thought my hometown had pretty low light pollution because you can make out the Big Dipper and Orion’s Belt, as opposed to nothing in major cities, but in that moment, I saw so many stars that I didn’t even know where to begin looking for constellations. You could draw them anywhere.
We stopped the car on the shoulder to step outside and look, and I said I could see the Milky Way. My mom asked what the ‘Milky Way’ is.
After I explained, she nodded. Then, she looked at the sky and said, “In Chinese it’s yín hé.” Silver river.
The graceful art of deduction™️
The rest of the drive to our hotel, my parents thought my sister and I fell asleep, so they started snacking, probably to help them stay awake while driving. They didn’t tell me they were opening a snack, but I heard the crinkle of a package and saw the silhouette of my mom feeding my dad something every 5 minutes or so. And every time she did, I was hit with a strong wave of Ruffles cheese & sour cream smell.
But I never saw it in the light. So they were either eating Ruffles cheese & sour cream chips, or they were eating something that just smells a lot like Ruffles cheese & sour cream chips.
The order of events when we got to Santa Monica Beach:
My parents and I walked by the beach houses and wondered out loud how much they probably cost.
We talked about how writers sometimes rent scenic places like these for a while so they can lock themselves away and write with inspiration.
We segued from that into trying to remember the title of the 2003 rom-com Something’s Gotta Give.
My mom and I sat on the damp but firm sand by the water.
My dad continued walking closer to the water.
I watched him watch the horizon by himself.
I wondered what he was thinking about and if he was ok.
He came back to sit down.
My parents and I played the game where you prop a stick up in a mound of sand and take turns scraping grains off until someone knocks it over on accident—like Jenga, except not.
My dad lost.
The sun set.
I always tell my mom about my worries. And I always feel ok crying in front of her. i’m an ugly crier and I cry about stupid inevitable things like aging (i.e. I tear up often because, guess what—you’re always aging! what??) so I’m glad she’s chill with that.
Play
I stepped away from news over break, so here is instead a list of the things I recently hung or am about to hang on the walls of my school apartment:
A copy of “An Ode To Gentrification,” a poem by Samantha Thornhill. This online version was revised and published in Breakbeat Poets, a hip-hop ‘new American’ poetry collection. the poem’s title is pretty self-explanatory
A copy of Rozette Rago’s photo collection that replicates stills from coming-of-age movies with Asian-Americans. I think the way they’ve digitized it and had the pictures scroll over each other is simple and effective. It lets you reveal the differences on your own and feels a lot more personal. Media representation has been a topic for a while now, but seeing these pictures side-by-side as hypotheticals makes me feel a lot of things—happy? sad about all the things that could have been? hopeful for what’s to come soon?
“These characters moved so freely in their worlds, while mine suffocated me. I wondered if the stories would be the same if I were in these characters’ shoes, looking the way I do.”
A cheap print of Hopper’s Nighthawks. Apparently art critics have pretty collectively deemed the painting as a representation of ‘urban loneliness’ (side note: this is a term that people keep saying to me. I want to read more about it, especially with how its affected by social media, but there’s not much online. let me know if you have suggestions. I’ll do some more digging on my own, too).
A few things from Dafydd Jones’ The Last Hurrah, a photo collection of “society weddings and debutante dances of the British upper class” in the 1980s. When describing his experience, Jones said, “I had access to what felt like a secret world.” I read an article about its exhibition in 2018 and bought a copy. It’s just strange and interesting and kind of uncomfortable, too… every time I look at the photos, I get a different impression of what they’re feeling.
this is a sad song. happy Monday!
nice!
Madison