a breath too big to keep in

You are the river

preparing to become the sea.

Don't fight and don't leave, 

let what may be as it be.

You are a spiraling form

cutting through trees, along a mountain, skimming the lakes,

where no one is watching

except for tiny fish and the whirr of mosquitoes. 

You are a full burst

and a breath too big to keep in.

You rest in spaces after each last breath,

like footsteps that disappear in a forest.

No one knew you were there.

Let what may be as it be.

No one is your witness.

No one remembers you.

Simply an energy, a flood of light that loses its tail over and over again.

For you are the river

preparing to become the sea.

"How strange", the stars would whisper amongst each other,

"how naive", as they forget you.

A hunger from long ago

sustains and eats

the pieces of everything that can create a dream.

You fly as if you've forgotten

That a globe continues to swirl with or without you

how small you are

wishing to be witnessed

long enough to be real

how small you are

wishing to flood forever

long enough to see yourself an ocean.

hello marietta, o-hiii-o

It's official. I've been here for 1 week, 3 days. 

I'm a little and a lot more alone than I've ever been. 

After completing a successful 1st week of work, I found myself along the Ohio river Friday night, seated on the cement edge of the boardwalk. I let the little waves from some anonymous jet ski lightly brush against my sandals. I let the beautiful memory of the sunset on the rippling water stay somewhere deep. Let this be another reason. 

I quickly pulled out my journal and wrote down sentences that sounded like: "I've made it back to the Ohio River. Away from home, not thinking about it. All its colors are too beautiful to describe and the river sways and ebbs with lines and circles of where things are. Life in water is what made a ripple. 

A blue, a white, the way I feel most myself as if crystal, clear, and empty of headtrash. I can see myself looking on forever in the wake of the speedboat that made waves that lightly splash me. I move nowhere. The sound of it like small ocean waves. I am a part of the shore, a need to be part of something more. A desire to breathe. Every breath of mine is light and airy and I'm never more real than to be a part of such a river beauty. Keep all things quiet. The waves are getting bigger and bigger and I think I'm hungry.

I hope I don't eat too much again. I hope I'll stop worrying and just do the very thing that makes me worry. I hope my mind can save this moment into a safe place I go to when I'm stuck in buildings all day. Let me live richly, all needy of the beauty around me and appreciate the beauty already within my needy body. 

My mind is my own paradise if I can memorize a place like this.

What that a gun or a firework?

Was that sweetness or fear?

It surprises me how badly I love being in myself right now. 

Let's own a boat on the river and sail nowhere, because we've got nowhere to be."

I wrote words like that in a single breath by the Ohio River. And so I did, before I packed up all my stationary and haunted main street. Every shop stayed lit within, even if closed. I walked past so many couples and into a place called the "Moose Lodge" where people in jeans played pool and young women sat together smiling warmly at each other. I felt the evening closing in on me and left the "Moose Lodge" just as quickly. I walked back to my car with not even a grin on my face, just a sober look. A young-woman-freshly-displaced look. An empty look.

I wasn't empty though. Just... living. Perhaps. Perhaps? 

The local vendors at the farmer's market yesterday all asked me after I introduced myself lightly, "What brings you here? All the way from Texas?" Their one-of-a-kind plant pots ("I don't take pictures, so none will ever be alike!"), one-of-a-kind five-dollar banana breads, or a hive of bees, stare back at me.

"Someone I really trust advised that I start my life here." In other times, I said, "A job. A really good one with great people."

I never pause at their questions. I've answered this same question so many times for co-workers, and in front of the bathroom mirror after I've cleaned my teeth. Somewhere in that mirror or in the hole in my head where something else once was, was a thought about why I was truly here. What made this so? Something I can't know well enough right now. 

Because the answer doesn't feel real yet. Even though it's the truth. 

The real answer is somewhere else. It existed once, in the hole in my head. I'm afraid of filling my head up again. 

I'm afraid of living alone. I always look back after I've turned off a light in a room, so that I can catch something that is there if it wants to be. And for what? So that I can be afraid, and maybe go home.

Haha, silly girl. 

I feel the truth of my life right now, which is, I have to stay at a place long enough to understand why I had to stay. 

Like why did I stay in Houston for so long after graduation? 

Because I needed it more than I knew it then. I needed to be at the nail salon. I needed to learn a deeper lesson about all sorts of humanity. I needed to become a better person, so that the person I am today can experience deeply all sorts of humanity here, in Ohio. And on weekends, in West Virginia.

I have to stay long enough in a place that the history in those months and years and on and on actually make sense. They can't not make sense, right? I can't live a life as silly as myself.

Some of the farmer's market vendors are happy to make my acquaintance. They're warm and cozy. I made a new friend briefly while buying cat earrings, even though I'm a dog person. She had to leave shortly after, but you should have seen the smile on my face.

From the market, I walked to the best coffee shop in town. Jeremiah's. As a Buddhist, the name of this place went way over my head. I bought a medium iced coffee and it turned out to be, basically and surprisingly, a Starbucks Venti but bigger. It was too sweet and made me all jittery while I handpicked and downloaded 200 photos/videos of my mother for her birthday video. 

I really like her video this year. It's damn good!

Today, I haunted Walmart. The instant rush of how often I'd go here with my family came back to me. I could see, as if real, my father's back in any Walmart. A resilient hobble in his walk. The gout forever crippled his ankles but will never stop him from shopping. 

Like me. 

I'm sorry dear reader. I'm throwing a bunch of random moments and details and everything is flying like a plate.

It's the transitioning. I'm in transition. I'm moving much too fast.

I turned 24 in the same week that I just got back from Viet Nam, in the same week that I had to pack my bags and make the 20-hour drive to Ohio, in the same week that I set my things down in an apartment that I'd found on Craigslist, actually.

In the same week that I said a physical good-bye to someone I liked a lot. 

I've cried in my Subaru a couple of times now. Leaving Houston, leaving Cleveland, coming back to Marietta. All roads lead to Marietta.

You know, it's the shock of transitioning. I'm in transition, after all. I'm moving much too fast. 

So give me a break, Ngoc. 

Ah, and give me a head pat too, for putting out the trash tonight. Give me a head pat too for finding a very pretty rug for my reading room. A reading rug. 

Give me a head pat for making tasty honey-glazed salmon while sad. 

And give me a head pat for remembering in a moment of delirium, that I AM liked. 

And a big, big shout out to my mother, who's always called me when I needed it most. 

I found myself on the steps of my porch earlier this evening, looking up at the sky and the birds and repeating the sentence, "I am not alone. I am not alone" over and over in my head like a haunted Asian woman. 

And that's when my mumsies video called me, posing in a cute white puffer jacket and wondering what my opinion was on it. 

Of course, you're beautiful, Mom. And I felt so much better. Gah. Gosh. Eeeeep. 

So I'm not alone, even if I'm physically alone. 

And even that's not true. I'm not physically alone. I'm now acquainted with new people who recognize that I'm not Japanese, but actually Vietnamese. 

"I have Southeast Asian calves, look at them! They're a key differentiator!" I would yell in my head.

But honestly, I take a lot of humor in it. In my legs, and in my life right now. 

It's tough, heh, to be an independent woman. 

Is. Tough. 

I'll figure out soon, hopefully, what the hole in my head is all about. :)

For now, your girl is a silly lady. Silly enough that I hope my silliness makes you feel better about your silliness-es. 

Sending a hug to you, dear reader. I like you.

ngoc's job search lessons

* it's 50% how you feel about yourself

* the other 50% is simply proof

* people know people. It's not a number's game. It's a people's game. 

* you have to take breaks. not every week is perfect where you've sent in your quota of applications. you will need days sometimes weeks simply to breathe and exist and feel grounded again. Because... oh how the days blur. Don't they? 

* if the days start blurring, call a friend. make a plan for yourself. drive to the closest place to breathe and listen to your favorite song. here's mine right now for when I want to feel myself breathe: Journey by Kim Bumsoo

* try to maybe answer this: what makes you valuable, even if you've no title, no name, no game? what makes you shine? 

* they have to want you as much as you want them.

* say thank you. all the time.

* you're more than your job status and certainly more than any feeling that gets ahold of you. you're the you that you are when you find your breath again too. 

* promise me you'll hug yourself every day. one hand on each shoulder, squeeze, and close your eyes. you're more real than you've ever imagined.

* more than ever, protect your spirit. protect your hope. protect your joy. but also hold gently, very gently, your sadnesses. hold gently, your disappointments. laugh lightly at your mistakes. laugh lovingly at what you didn't know before. while protecting your spirit, hope, and joy.

* your joy and spirit are very important. the most important during this time. please nourish both. nourish your body.

And these are the simple lessons I've learned.

the last pet

that I gave Tonia was this morning. She was on her side and when she noticed my voice, she turned her head to me. I reached down to give her a pat on her soft, flat head. Her eyes followed me while her legs stretched my way. Two of her legs lifted so she could expose her tummy. Her skin a light rosy pink where her white and black fur don't touch.

I knew what she wanted. A belly rub and pat.

She loved to sunbathe so that a little halo of sunlight reflected off her white and black dotted fur. Specifically, a black ear, and a white ear. The black covering one eye only. And at the base of her tail, she's white except for one black spot on the right of her cheek. An entirely black tail. Those little black eyes, closed, small lips rounded into a small maybe smile, taking in the sun. Whenever my shadow covered the sun on her face, she'd open her eyes and know it was me. 

She loved anything with beef in it. She once bit, maybe ate, a cat and a pigeon before, or simply bit them hard enough that they bled out and painted her white mouth red. That's when we looked at her in horror. The neighbors accused our new dog of killing their cat. Yen and I looked at our dog, innocent and small and maybe mean but a killer? A cat chewer? 

"You've got the wrong guy," we said, while we sent them our sorrows and confusion. It really can't be her. With her black dotted back turned to us, Tonia was guilty and our Dad knew that but failed to tell us, until a decade later. Yen and I stood at the bedroom door piecing together the day Tonia went rogue. 

She liked taking her rounds 'round the neighborhood and escaping the heat by lying on our cool tile floors. The constant sniffing and acquainting with different scents along the sidewalks and other people's gates and other people's dogs. She didn't grow up friendly. In fact, she never was, not to anyone wearing blue or any dog that dared to pee the sidewalk before our house or any stranger strutting beyond 10 pm, but as the years wore her down and the same mailman proved to be innocent of whatever every other dog was accusing him of, she stopped barking. 

Perhaps it wasn't because of anyone's innocence. Perhaps she simply grew tired of the fuss. The last 3 years of her life was a silence. Any bark that came out sourced from casual conversation, not accusation. 

She enjoyed being an only child, throwing the biggest fuss, the loudest barks at the newcomer. The most she ever tolerated was with our slow, fat dog, Wooly. Yet with all the confidence she had in our gated home, she was mouse-shy in unfamiliar territory, a timid, socially awkward dog in front of other people's houses.

I would learn this whilst biking with her. Unleashed, she ran freely beside me on the street. Just a few paw steps behind. If I paused, she'd pause. And if she was far off, I'd simply raise my voice, "Tonia!" Those adorable faraway steps would pitter-patter closer. It wasn't walking my dog. It was biking with her. The length of this small neighborhood became magical with her next to me. Wind in my hair, Tonia alongside me like my princess. A promise.

Once we accidentally locked her outside the house gates. We came home at 9 pm. Most dogs would search for their freedom long ago, but when our family car pulled up slowly to the entrance, her little medium-thick body stirred sleepily. She used her front legs to push herself up and her eyes slowly opened, staring at our car as if expectant. 

"Where were you?" she seemed to ask. Her little body by the exact spot where we open our gate. Oh how much we inconvenienced her that evening. And oh, how she made sure we knew it.

Her 14 years of life with us were a mix of human food and dog food. She loved anything stir fry, with beef, or a good poached egg. And smaller kibble went down easy.

She was a soccer dog. If a soccer ball came, then she was there to intercept. Never return them. Just intercept and put it in its place -- the exact way she intercepts other dogs that wander in.

I knew her as a toddler. A teenager. A middle-aged woman. And then an elderly family member.

The beautiful thing of life is sometimes what you want isn't what you need. 

I didn't want to job search for as long as I did, whilst living at home. I wanted to be on my own quick after college. 

But what I needed was to be with family and the most important family member I know, Tonia. 

I am grateful for the time given to me to properly re-learn Tonia again. As a being and as a personality. 

The first time I ever drove a car on my own, unsupervised as a licensed driver, was because I wanted to buy her a new dog bed and snacks so badly. Noting that my Dad was asleep, I stole his keys and pulled his truck out the driveway like a renegade. Giant dog-treat-shaped bed in hand and new snacks, I shoved them into the truck while I drove so carefully, butt-scared home for all of 5 minutes. She gave me all these reasons to level up in the past difficult year of my life, so I can best take care of her.

I acquainted her with the giant bed for a bit, until an hour later, I found her half on it, half off, with her hind legs touching the tile. Her front legs reaching forward, eyes closed.

She also learned my habits too. When it was me that came home late that night. When it was me that called out her name or pushed tasty stir fry onto her plate. When it was me that blew dry her fur after the warm tub bath, mosquitoes nipping us both. When it was me that rested my hand on her head and whispered on my way out/my way in, "I love you." Each time, she received it with all silence and peace in the world.

The times when I felt like she really knew who I was was when I'd first get home from a long day at the nail salon. She'd skip on past my Dad, past my Mum, and she'd walk towards me. Or whenever late at night, 11 pm and I'm walking around, checking on the moon, she'd follow me about, even if I was walking the farthest corner of the house. As long as she knew of it, she would be closely behind me, curious at my curiosity. And I knew her as well to know that she doesn't follow my Mom or Dad around so freely. That she follows me because she prefers it. In my company, she is her true, easy-going self. And I know that and how beautiful it feels, to be one of her favorites.

Perhaps she understood every time I whispered "I love you" after all.

In her last month, even if she'd struggle the long 30 seconds to get up, if I didn't already notice and help her, she'd happily try to get up and follow me on my walks around the house. Right behind me, as if we were biking. 3-5 rounds around the place like a quarter mile school loop. I would comment on a leaf or walk in silence. In those grass-and-flower-scented evenings so dark blue that Tonia almost glowed, we'd communicate to each other with our little steps in the grass, pitter patters to prove we were there. 

no one

Episode 95: Hug the Day

12.11.23.

I like holding myself softly. Whenever my body tenses up, I want to hold onto myself, softly.

Touch the soft skin on the nubs of my toes. Make myself laugh when I feel dem nubs. 

Have you been breathing softly lately? Have you also noticed your own tense body coming home?

4.2.24.

I've written a similar episode about this when I was 6 years younger. Today, I saw on Yen's friend's instagram story about how she first practiced Buddhism after studying so much for her SATs, being the anxious, busy high school student that she was. The first moment where she realized she was in the present was realizing how green the tree was. Realizing the wind blowing against her hand, her hair. "Is this what the present feels like?" she wondered. And true-er than she expected, was the green leaves of the great tree before her.

That was her moment. And what a beautiful moment that was.

My moment was very much similar. On a hammock, looking up at the sky and the wind. Dang it, it's always the wind, isn't it? Did you know our ancestors or dead loved ones can exist as a wind in our presence? Possibly guiding us, making us smile.

I think when we've gotten so used to running and feeling heavy from an entire day, the first moment where we realize how true we are, and how nothing else can be true-er, is when we realize the greatness of life. 

We are more than our emotions. We are more than our needs, desires, and at times, emptiness. 

We are the love we choose to give. We are the way we were last remembered in the eyes of our loved ones. We are the ripple of the compassion we chose to see strangers, the world, with that day.

Tonight, I hung out with a new friend again. Lydia made me smile, made me root for her. In a loud social bar garden, I learned about her anxieties. I learned about her hopes, and I was trusted. I think every choice I made tonight, was rooted with love and compassion. Lydia is such a kind, sweet, and loveable freaking person. SO CHEERY AND ADORABLE. 

I love talking with her. By the time we were parting, I realized how I wish the night didn't have to end. She felt the same way.

But throughout it, I was rooted. I was grounded in her presence. And I realized how great the joy is to meet someone who made their way to you that day, whom you put in all the effort to see. Someone who bought me my drink and listened to my excitement. Someone who I'm so excited about. 

How great that joy. How greater the laughs. She knew I'd be leaving for Ohio in September. I knew that she'd be leaving Houston for the Northeast and the real ocean one day. But despite what may be tomorrow, I knew I deeply enjoyed her lovely, sweet company. ^-^

For today, that is the greatest thing.

I sound hippy. I sound high off ginger ale again. 

I sound like a preacher who has a trophy wife and golfs to find my spirituality again. 

December, when I first started this episode, I simply wanted this episode to talk about how nice, hugging myself felt. How I didn't hug myself enough. And gosh, how true that is. 

I was running and anxious about the job search, and now that (soft launch: I found the place at the same time it found me!) I have more answers, I realized how hard I was working. How tough I was on myself.

I was scared to write emails. I was scared of saying the wrong thing, not being by my phone when any call came, I was anxious about everything. I was forever scared of not doing enough. I kept adding more to my plate without taking anything away. 

I spoke every word with fear. My self-confidence wore away. The girl that was vivacious, sassy, and confident in her last 2 months of college was no where to be found. I was a shell of that girl. No where near her confidence or self-love. Every day was a day to endure, instead of a day to experience.

And so... there was that point where I needed to redefine what I live for. What makes me whole when I don't have what I want, when I'm no where near where I want to be -- what do I still have? What can I still experience?

Buddhism really grounded me in the past few months. Being in the present. Being grateful for the present. Grateful for life, for the day. Simply rising. 

Tapping into my spirituality, into Buddhism, has enriched my job searching experience in ways I never imagined. 

More on this in the future!

But -- WAH! Thank you everyone, living or dead or godly, who have helped me guide me here. 

I love you so much and am full of gratitude. <3

Whale Watcher

I live a dozen lives in my head.

The one that keeps haunting me is one where I live as a forever whale watcher, but only from cliffs. Never in the water myself. Only ever at night. I would be bare except for boots and a curtain that I like too much to use as a curtain, letting it wrap across my broad shoulders, my broad back, and back around my broad arms. I imagine that it is too dark for anyone to gaze at me, and if they did, they'd see a shape they were only familiar with, but never got to know truly. It wouldn't even spook them. 

I'd be the ghost that existed in all their nights.

My fingers would curl tightly into the fabric whenever I'd glimpse shapes darker than the night, far from the white foamy-mouthy edge of the beach. Shapes that shift slightly before disappearing like little black horizons. I'd run further down to the edge of the cliff. Each time, running out further until one more step means turning myself into a siren for the waves below.

The spyglass would be in one hand, almost brand new except for where my fingers wore the bronze down. The full moon, wherever it glows in the sky, would reflect itself as a road towards the magnificent creatures.

My heart would lurch at their sight and tumble when they're gone, one eye more sore than the other. This would happen all the time and just when I thought I'd gotten used to feeling lost when a shape dips below the surface, I feel more lost when I see them. 

Looking at things I want to keep. Creatures that must be free. But for a second, they're mine, before they're gone. Nothing changes in that moment and I have everything. My eyesight, my boots, my whales, my cliff and ocean, and all my wonder, my youth, and my want.

By some lucky hand, I'd never be cold, no matter how windy it would be. As long as my feet are warm, I'm warm and as long as my feet are heavy, I am rooted where I am. At least, until another whale sighting. I would let my hair blow against my face. My eyes would be sore from staring, blinking only when it would need to, and no one would call me to return inside. 

They've gotten used to pretending I'm well where I am.

I'd wonder what keeps me rooted in a different spot on the cliff every night. Perhaps each spot makes the foamy teethy whites of the ocean closer or farther. Each spot makes my curtain fly differently. Perhaps I want to see all perspectives from the edges of my world and grip my curtain cloth like wings.

Suddenly, I hear it. 

My imagination would fill the spots when I don't see the whales. Images of warm liquid gold running down the tip of my head, over my silver dress, down my arms, belly, and thighs, to the floor. The shocked gazes of anyone who opens my front doors. I look too bright to be anybody's in my imagination, but I'll always want to be the friend you loved, even if I'm swallowed up. Even if I changed after rising from my dive.

But I hear it. The wind blows harder and I hear the laughter of the women I loved. At the jokes I used to make. Because I was that person.

I was the person that made the jokes, made the effort, made the last-minute plans, made half the conversation and asked for more. I was the one that was always gone and always came back. Once, I laughed, I said, weightlessly, like a whale. To be so vast and almost always more than anybody's imagination. Weightlessly moving in every shape, everywhere. 

No longer on the edge of cliffs.

Once, I never waited for things to happen.

I want to be all mine again.

I don't want to look at whales until the sun rises. Eyes aching.

Tears I'll never feel, blown away as soon as they rise. 

Hands gripping at the same places on the same spyglass.

I don't want to be the ghost that you've always known, always seen, when you've closed your eyes, then woke up in the middle of the night, and looked out the window above your bed, only to see me.

The one you've seen, every night. Different places on the same cliff. 

A shape you're familiar with, and you can't stop staring at, because it makes you feel haunted. That you might know me and you could do nothing about it.

---------------------------------------------------

oh my GOSH okay, this was an atmospheric read ummmm IM OKAY. I PROMISE.

This whale-watching thing was not supposed to be so spooky, but wELP, I went all in. Heh. :)

Maybe there is a version of me out there, sadly watching whales and never touchin' them. Maybe there is a version of you out there that sleeps every night in a house right above the ocean. 

My mom says I stay up too late writing nonsensical things that are even MORE nonsensical when Google-translated hot off the press into Vietnamese.

Alas, cheers to me, and my future home-owning self. Hopefully, I do own a home, next to friends. Or down the street from one. Hopefully, I always make friends where I live and never have to haunt anyone. :P