Echo

re: the games tonight with my dad

i’m probably not blameless. i’m a tenacious (annoying) defender and i did trash talk before the game. (my mom is so cute in this video, telling my dad, “don’t foul!”)

went and played basketball at the open gym reserved through my dad and the company. i was already irritated because he wouldn’t tell me when and where it was, so i had to find out from bohr.

his team was off when my team came on so he was watching from the sidelines. he was silent for most of the game, not a peep if i scored or did anything good, but lord, you should have heard him cheering for the other team when they scored like he’d put money on the game. it’s bad enough he can’t be supportive of me, but tonight he blatantly rooted against me.

no wonder my idea of love is so complicated. this shouldn’t be how someone who loves you acts, but yet…it is.

you keep me honest

i’m saving it. to read at the right time.

chinese moms? with their daughters?

zero boundaries.

for better. for worse.

maybe that’s what people find interesting. how i can live in a fantasy world and still function so well in real life. but i’m also a highly analytical and logical person. so for me to be willing to believe in what others may perceive as fantasy, i’ve clearly found some kind of logic to it that allows me to accept it as real life.

my mom always said, “if you win all the time, people won’t want to play with you and you won’t have any friends.”

yet white moms were telling their kids to go for the win no matter what it took.

it’s always been hard for me to decide whether something my mom is doing or saying is motivated by wanting to protect me, and when it’s out of making sure she can control me, because her default setting is to see me as an extension of herself. like consciously, her intentions are completely pure and she loves me dearly, but she’s got that tricky unconscious side that can’t be trusted. i think that’s why i get so mad sometimes when she gives me advice, even though i always go to her for it. i know she loves me deeply, but sometimes, i think she can be unaware of her own motives. i hate having to triangulate her intentions to decide if advice is for me or for her, and i hate having to do it. i wish i could just trust it.

and that’s the thing. i know i’m writing out a lot of the old family skeletons, but i need to see them and decide how to use them to build a better understanding for future me, how to let go of things i don’t need anymore. i’m not wallowing in bitterness or the past. i’m letting consciousness flow into these places of stagnancy to flush out things that may be blocking me.

my parents have been wonderful parents who, despite their issues and their own childhood experiences of dysfunction, tried their best to make things work and take care of children in a difficult and complex situation (a child with a disability). there’s a lot of love in our family, and a lot of trust when it comes to standing together to face the world outside. but the bone i have to pick is with the unconscious part of them that plays out like a haunting, possessing good, intelligent people. i don’t want to play with that part anymore. i lived with it, i dealt with it, i’ve grown beyond it with an ability to look at it all from a bigger perspective, but now i get to throw it out of my closets so i have room for my own things, things that i like.

can’t remember if i wrote this story.

i was at a warriors game last month, and end of the game, i was walking towards the exits. this guy was standing by the stairs, definitely drunk and kind of swaying. as i walk by, his eyes follow my breasts and then he slurs to them, “all night long i’ve been lookin’ at…titties.”

he was compelled to give my titties his report of time expenditure.

you can never say men aren’t classy.

being in fremont.

is like, being reminded how much it hurts to be close to people who are in some areas, ruled by bad ghosts and determined to defend them to the end. because on one hand, you accept people as they are–for their good qualities, for their limitations. for their immense love and loyalty to you. you accept and you understand. you can’t demand a goat to turn into an elephant. it’s just not possible. you have to love the goat for its goatness, and find an elephant to be your elephant. so the compromise–addition by subtraction–is you accept them as they are, and because of that, you gain more appreciation of the positives.

but if the goat is eating up your garden, you can appreciate its goatness but still really want it to stop eating up your garden.

it’s unfair for the goat to turn around and say, i’m a goat! i can’t help it! this is just what i do, so be a better person and just accept it. you’re taking advantage of my acceptance to excuse bad behavior.

there’s a big difference between accepting people for who they are holistically, and wanting a certain behavior that is detrimentally affecting the relationship to be discussed in a calm and rational manner.

my mom picked me up from the airport but mentioned she hadn’t eaten all day, so she stopped at a restaurant to grab something to go. in the parking lot was a homeless woman. at first, i thought she was cradling a baby, but it turned out to be a small puppy. she had 3 puppies and one kitten surrounding her.

my mom is very compassionate towards homeless people, always wanting to stop and give something. i am more discerning as i like to go get them food rather than money, but when i worked with that advocacy group for battered women, i learned that over 50% of women and children on the street are escaping abusive situations, so i usually try to give to women.

we went up to her and i asked her if we could get her some food. she said thank you, but she already had a salad. i asked her if she wanted anything else to eat. she said she can always use more.

i asked her what she would like, and she asked for fresh fruit. the store was across the street and my mom needed to get back to work, so i told her i would come back with it in a bit. my mom gave her a 20. she asked us to wait, then went back to her shopping cart, digging for something. she came back with a pristine gucci box. compared to everything about her that showed so much wear from the streets, this box was in such good condition, she could have very well been a gucci saleswoman bringing us an item to inspect. she opened it up and there were a handful of bracelets inside, set with small stones.

i wasn’t sure if she was trying to sell me one, so i told her, no thank you.

but she insisted, and i realized, it was her way of saying thank you. this woman had so much dignity and pride. so i took a purple one, and it’s actually quite pretty. i asked her if she had made these herself and she said she had. i thanked her. i know i’ll wear it, because it represents good will. i was actually amazed at this gift.

i got home, then went to the gym to pick up michael. we went to the store and since i didn’t know what kind of fruit she liked, i got her a fresh fruit salad, 2 containers of peaches, 2 apples and 2 oranges.

while in line, this asian woman behind us asked us why we had so much fruit (which is strange because i didn’t think it was unusual to buy just fruit). but i said it was for the homeless woman in the parking lot across the street. i could tell she got offended that fremont had a homeless person (asians are scared of any kind of “sketchy” characters. like when i told my mom about the weird asian robot guy, trying to tell her a funny story, but i didn’t even get to it because she freaked out thinking that he might have been a deranged rapist or killer). the woman in line said that she gives money to an organization that gives to the homeless, but she doesn’t give to them directly. she said it kind of disdainfully.

i told her i understood, because you can’t give to everyone. like, it’s hard in a big city like san francisco, because you get hit by panhandlers every 50 yards, so you can’t possibly give to all of them, especially when you know a lot of them are buying booze or drugs rather than food. and if you can’t, it’s hard to decide who you do select to give to. but that i like to give food, because you know it’s something they need to survive. then i told her about the abuse statistic, and the woman not wanting to just take charity, so she insisted on giving me a bracelet in gratitude. this made this woman backpeddle. she’d started the conversation kind of hardlined, more upset about there being a homeless person openly camping out in fremont, but then because she didn’t want to come off like a bad person, she was agreeing with everything i was saying even before i’d finished saying anything.

so we went back to the woman to give her the fruit and she was really happy. i thanked her again for the bracelet and told her it’s very beautiful. i asked her to please make sure to stay warm. i’m always compelled to say this to homeless people. like by saying it, it’s going to give them extra energy towards ensuring they will be warm in the near future. just like i always tell friends to drive safely when they leave. these things are really important to me. as i was walking away, the animals came out of their hiding places around the cart and approached the bags like children inspecting loot. i heard her say to her animals, oh look at all we’ve been given! it was really sweet, and really sad. she’s either schizophrenic or ptsd. and again, the determination to be dignified despite abject circumstances.

all night, i’ve been thinking about her and her animals. even from the first time i saw her, holding that puppy like it was a newborn baby. and then the way she talked to them inclusively, clearly seeing them as equals. i’ve been thinking about how a logical, rational person would look at her situation and say, if she’s working hard enough just to keep herself safe and alive, why does she have animals when they would just take away from the resources she needs to survive. but then i thought of it another way, about where it is she may have come from, perhaps a lonely world of terror and voicelessness. perhaps the hell she is coming from is no better if not much worse than her current circumstances. these animals provide her that connection that previous human connections could not. she takes care of these animals lovingly, validating her nurturing power inside, her aliveness, her relevancy. it creates an outlet for love to come out of her and nurture living creatures, thus empowering her with the knowledge that she is not completely worthless–she is giving something of value to those who depend on it. and they in turn, reward her with unconditional love and trust, something she’s probably had withheld from her.

i would bet everything i have that she comes from a place where love was conditional if not cruel, and here now we have a woman who is still alive inside, a survivor, trying to find her place in this world.

this woman taught me something today, but i’m still grasping what. just like that sobbing little girl whose memory made me so sad last night, it feels like meeting them and connecting…while i wasn’t able to directly help them within their personal life journeys, by seeing and hearing them, they left me with something. it’s like a haunting, a seed of truth now unveiled and planted inside you, from which a profound understanding will slowly unravel with time.

one day when you have kids, no matter how rough things get with your spouse or how unhappy you are with your life, please never go weeks refusing to talk to your child and letting them think it’s because of something they did. this is something that can live inside them for a very long time, eating at their sense of self worth.

what is it? what is it i’m not seeing?

what if we were all more conscious and kinder, and all the autistic people of the world bloomed like flowers. and it turns out, they’re like the children of atlantis. we’d just polluted this reality too much with pain that they couldn’t function because negative frequencies short-circuited their wiring. and when we clean it up, suddenly, there are these ridiculously unique people living amongst us, who are very likely more intelligent than us.

ohhhh. you know what just made me so sad? when i thought about that little girl whose mother won’t let her talk to her father.

then i thought about how sometimes, you realize the best you have to give someone is a really, really good hug because they need it, but you know that will never save them from drowning. but you pretend you don’t know that, because in a life where miracles are possible, maybe they can turn their lives around. it’s worth believing it in the off-chance it could happen.

so i walk around hoping and believing that the most basic, sincere form of love might just make a difference. that kindness is profound, particularly between strangers. i don’t like to see pain. i don’t like to see the way people hurt each other. there’s no reason why they should be mean but they do it anyway, to people they’re supposed to love, to strangers, even though they know it’s contagious. and yet, so is joy. so maybe it does make a difference. maybe people can evolve. but even if they don’t, even if things are exactly the way they are, that we’re just one giant cycle of pain, then at least it was worth the chance. at least maybe some people will have pleasant memories to hold on to when things go dark. (but to be honest, it’s not. even if one day something happens to me and my mind goes blind and bitter, listen to me now…i’ve seen it. it’s not)

i’m really a simple being in a very complex manifestation, because the world i’ve come into is very complex compared to my basic perceptions. but this whole idea of the real world…the mundane is abstract and non-tangible. money is just symbols. we’ve just all agreed to attach the same value to it. but it’s not even real.yet we’ve agreed that it’s real. so a kinder, gentler, more conscious human being can also someday become the mundane.

we all live somewhere. in our heads, in space, rooted in gravity, we’re somewhere. yet it really doesn’t matter where we each live, or where we each come from. what matters is where we meet.

where we meet should be a mutual decision and be consistent. that’s how realities are created.

so let’s all meet somewhere where we’re not playing out the world’s, our family’s, our childhood pain cycles, and try to be more positive and kinder.

i admit it.

i wanted to love him but didn’t want to be with him because i couldn’t see a future.

but i wanted to love him because his eyes were entire universes of emotion just under the surface, but behind them, all i could feel was an echo.

sometimes i wonder if i’m a human manifestation of the patron saint of young boys lost in the woods.

it’s like a role i have to get away from.

what’s annoying–people who walk around with voice recorders and anytime they say something that strikes themselves as clever, they dictate to themselves that this would be a great book title. though they’ve never in their lives attempted writing a book.

i was rereading the report, the section about my relationship with my father and his rejection of emotional or instinctual needs. i think my mom was more in charge of the rejection of emotional needs. she was always telling me i’m too sensitive and would be disgusted with me when i would cry. she called me weak. i think deep down she both resents and feels responsibility for my brother’s disability as a weakness, though she may not have been conscious of it. but my dad used to make us feel bad when we were hungry. he would kind of taunt us, or eat in front of us but not offer us anything. you would either have to ask for food and risk getting a comment that would hurt, or just suck it up in pride and pretend you’re not hungry. i know it’s because he went hungry a lot as a kid, and a lot of times, people withheld food and he couldn’t say anything.

and he always had to scare us, jumping out of corners, thrusting spiders he’d just squashed with a tissue at us before disposing them. in a way, that’s why i envy 5 year-old edison’s confidence–when my dad tries to scare him, he just firmly says, “i don’t want to play like that.”

i look at it now as kind of a cry for help. like giant indicators of where he was hurt as a kid. he probably went scared and hungry a lot. his parents had abandoned him and his siblings. my mom had to be strong to survive a community turned against the family because of my grandfather, so the only way to survive was to never show weakness. by giving us those experiences, i can understand how they felt, because i’ve tasted the ghosts–i’ve lived with them. but it doesn’t mean they have to keep perpetuating.

my parents are terrified of me blaming them for the past. they’re well aware mistakes were made, so anytime i bring stuff up, they get really defensive. but i think if you got a really close, loving supportive family, you kind of won the lottery. maybe it’s cynical, but i think of it as being realistic. most families have issues because people have issues. i think most families, there are certain things passed down generations, and each generation tries to break the cycle so they don’t pass it down to their kids. it’s not personal to the parent, it’s just this darkness, this perpetuating pain, that gets passed through unconsciousness. it’s part of our humanness.

i’ve always recognized that to break our family’s particular cycle would require conquering this rejection and embarrassment of normal needs. i won’t be able to get close to people until i can feel comfortable with the fact that i have needs and to need is human. right now, it’s still nearly impossible for me to verbalize what i need. if you put me in a position where i need to state what i need, watch me freeze like a deer in headlights. it’s a paralysis. in the last few years, i’ve learned to feel more comfortable with verbalizing what i want without fear that people will know exactly what to withhold from me, or that they will ridicule me. it took a while for me to believe that the majority of people aren’t that cruel for the sake of cruelty. but need is such a different level. want is something you can take or leave. need is something you, well, need. like food, shelter, understanding, compassion, kindness, love. but the code written into my psyche, is rich with experiences where i was rejected or taunted for having needs. i really want to conquer this. i don’t want to feel so terrified anymore about the prospect of admitting something i need. otherwise, i’m going to keep denying bridges that would bring me closer to other people in a way that is mutual and normal.

you know what would be cool? if i had a boyfriend who came to my basketball games and cheered us on. and enjoyed doing it. reggie used to do that. and that always meant a lot to me.

i signed up for an online short story writing class to motivate me to write short stories. my mom is demanding a collection of short stories, fictional or non-fictional, she doesn’t care. i also see myself being most ready to put together a collection of short stories. so the first thing we had to do today was submit bios. here’s mine:

Born in Texas, raised in California, my greatest trauma was the mom-subjected perm I had for 6 years (junior high through high school–the cruelest years). Majored in English and Film at University of Michigan and lived in LA for 10 years, before moving to Amsterdam last year, winning a Cannabis Cup as a brand-consultant bringing a smoking product to market (surprisingly, my Chinese parents brag about it, showing you that Chinese parents will brag about anything their children do). Now living in Seattle on a one year living/writing sabbatical. This is code for moving to a place where I don’t know anyone so I can force myself to talk to lots of strangers and write. I find that writing is 80% paying attention while you’re living and 20% writing. 80% banging your head on your desk screaming obscenities at the heavens (or strangers on the sidewalk below), sometimes curled up in the corner wallowing in self-pity, 20% typing like the wind thinking you’re some kind of chosen one. When I don’t know what to write, I will check the fridge continuously like I’m gonna find some kind of answer there. I hope this writing class will give me more answers than I’ve found in my fridge.

the first assignment? don’t laugh… a 10 minute stream-of-consciousness free-write. little do they know, i’ve got a massive blog and cabinets full of notebooks containing free-writes. i think i can do this assignment with my brain closed.

the worst thing after a hard run or workout–the recovery protein shake after.

the best thing–not being sore the next day.

ran 4 miles, played basketball, 30 minutes on the elliptical to read, then boxing with 5 lb weights last night to strengthen shoulders and core. played all 50 minutes of the game today.

hit our team’s first 3 pointer! 5-9 shooting for 11 points, 5 assists, 3 rebounds, 2 blocks. and again, great leadership, but my lack of focus (was giggling and running around chatting with the female referee) was very detrimental the first half. because of it, we were down 9 to 27, but came back in the 2nd half and took the lead in the final 6 minutes with my 3-pointer. we lost by 4 in the final minute. i think it was 55 to 59.

the irritating girl, she shows up and doesn’t talk to anyone, and after the game, just leaves. she’s a good player but not really a team player. i think that’s why we had the conflicts. when people show up, they’re always happy to see me–their faces light up and we’re joking around, bonding before the games. ethan said that she was going to like me or hate me for her own reasons, so i may as well be me, and i think how chatty and well-liked i am rubs her the wrong way. but i’m really glad ethan gave me that pep talk. i have to have the confidence not to shrink into myself just because one person doesn’t like me. if they’re going to not like me no matter how i am, i may as well go all out being myself. and it’s made a huge difference.

after the game, the girls were talking and saying how bummed they are about me missing the next session because of surgery, but that i should come out anyway and hang out. and that they’d like to get drunk with me (we’d been trying to plan a team outing after a game, but we got really late night games the last few weeks). it was a good feeling. younger people have always looked up to me. i think it’s because i’m both a big sister type and a big kid inside.