Remnants
“bucket list of places to go, things to do, views to see, humans to get to know… for the quest of self-discovery, the search for sources of creativity, and the courage for the purest longings.”
looking back at my wishes made at the half-year mark, i’m glad these were what i wanted—and what i want still. toward the dusk of the year, i found myself wandering on the brooklyn bridge. for me, special things had happened here, so naturally that was where i wanted to rewind the fading and embark upon the new. closed my eyes, and memories started to fly.
cappuccino in the clouds… those were the very first images that came to life. i reckoned i was brought back to the corner gem i resided in on floor twenty-eight of that midtown skyscraper. traversing the flows of manhattan, unwinding on the couch by the window, sipping a cup of coffee with marvin gaye in the rear… the tranquility on the inside juxtaposed with the buzz on the outside. it was a strange feeling, one that only amplified as i drew back the curtains. mondrian arrived, compartmentalizing energies of the streets into monochromes. pollock knocked, unleashing texture, density, sharpness onto a clean slate. opening up my private space atop the storiest streets brought me a spatial and temporal interconnectedness that had never surfaced before. some say there isn’t much more melancholic than sifting through the crowds in a vacuum. but is it not great that it teaches you to face your heart—and be the architect of your own? plus, dig hard enough, and echoes are always around the corner.
pain cave cloaked in mist… immediately i was pulled back into my first mobile home. because it is my construct, it has to be clean, sleek, multipurposed. it is my daily retreat for unplugging and restoring, before tapping into the intermingling nexuses out there again. it is the texture of my daily existence and the vantage point of peak experiences, bridging the substances from which my self is made. more than anything, nevertheless, it is my lab for experimentation of controlled suffering. it is where i push the body and the mind to the edges, over and over again. because consistent disequilibrium is needed to win the finite games in life, and restore the equilibrium needed to keep the infinite ones in play. because some journeys are meant to be walked alone, such that those microadjustments needed not to tip over are learned by heart. because anything is possible. “when the going gets tough, the tough gets going”—that’s what my cave whispers to me every day. operating out of this thing would be any tinkerer’s dream already, as i remind myself every now and then.
terrasse by the border of emerald green… it was the most picturesque sat afternoon. we were sharing a fine shakshuka and some creamy berries. she loved the toasted baguette and the whipped mascarpone. i was intrigued by the soft herbs and the lime zest. with a piece of bread and a cup of coffee, our minds traveled to shakespeare and co. by notre dame, a home gallery at provincetown, an irish pub in davis… one thing i noticed was that i really loved listening to her talk, so much so that i started to see the world through parts of her lens—sugar factories molded into creative spaces, slanted windows spanning a whole loft, rakish rooflines poised for take-off—and savor the tiny little things that make life a bit quirkier and sunnier. she said i’d zone out sometimes when we walk, but really i was just trying to remember those moments—what it felt like to wander around with a tender voice and a beautiful mind. carving out space to craft the texture of our life—like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies, and all that’s best of dark and bright—that’s what we loved.
opened my eyes, the new has arrived. look how far we’ve come. it has always been about a time, a place, an emotion. to the next crazy ventures beneath the sky…