š±some things my phone saw, 2025 edition š±
big moments / small moments
spent some time in places with midnight sun (Lofoten Islands & Juneau & Homer) looking at plants and animals and bones; ate some of the best tacos and cherng fun Iāve had in a while; had another surgery to remove fibroids and endometriosis; wore the cutest glass bolo tie a talented friend made!!!; began splitting my time between nyc & dc to teach, a thing Iāve discovered in recent years that I really love.
(forever trying to use this app less! Iām so aware that itās a main touch point for so many connections ā and am haunted by something a stranger said to me in June, that theyād lost track of me for the past two years because I stopped posting. didnāt know what to say then (and still donāt?). been planting seeds & nurturing loved ones & myself & other projects. but if you are a friend/dear one/person in my life and itās been a minute, I would love to hear from you/see you/catch up š)
beauties in alaska from the last month. so much daily awe & gratitude; left this vast place altered. thank you @storyknife_writers_retreat and the incredible people behind it for that dreamy june. š
Working on my book has required a bit of research into the Chinese diaspora in Cuba, since my paternal grandfather, Chow Hoy Kit, was one of thousands of huaqiao who left the Pearl River Delta in the 1920s or 1930s to work as a laborer in Havana. My grandfather died in 1954 in Havana and was buried somewhere there, which remained a family mystery for decades. My family only knows a little about my grandfather from the records we found when we were in Havana searching for his bones in a couple brief trips in 2017 and 2019, but there is so, so much linked to immigration, nationalism and the cost of human labor and capital in this story. You canāt learn about Chinese Cubans without first learning about how the U.S.ās racist Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 re-routed Chinese immigration, or how the Chinese coolie trade of the 1850s sprung up in Cuba (in part) because it was considered a cheaper alternative to the labor of enslaved Africans who had been forced to work the sugar cane plantations for years. There is so much complex, thorny history here, which I hope youāll get to read a part of in Seeing Ghosts.
Iāve been slowly working on this chair since May. Itās my first project like this, and itās been important for me to have something so physical to turn to and rebuild these days. I work on it when Iām trying to solve a problem with my book, or I need a way to process the news. It needs a new cushion and bottom cover, which Iām going to sew. The cane ... now needs to be replaced. Maybe it didnāt need all of this work? But here we are, and now that Iāve started, Iām going to bring this little chair back to life.
