Time in Arizona

1️⃣ We went to Arizona for some hikes and exploration the other week and it was Rhys’ first time out of state. Never imagined it would take this long for that to happen, but it was a great time. Here’s a highlight reel.

2️⃣ Absolutely mesmerized by the red soil we encountered on this trip. From the hiking trails to the dog park to the spaces best left untouched. Cryptobiotic soil and cyanobacteria is endlessly fascinating.

3️⃣ I think high deserts are becoming one of my favorite ecological settings.

4️⃣ We ran into just about every climate on the way out- from a pit stop in Yuma that already felt like summer, to the hikes we went on north of Sedona that came with some thick, fluffy snowfall.

5️⃣ Best purchase on the trip? We didn’t have adequate warm gear for Rhys, so we hopped into a thrift shop and got him a puffy down jacket so big it’ll probably still fit him in a year. The entertainment value of watching him float around in that big puff was well worth the six bucks.

The Sedona Dog Park

Need something to feel good about this morning? This dog park exists!

We’ve taken Beignet to some good ones in her life, but this one may have taken the title from one outside Seattle as our all time fave.

This is in Sedona, Arizona and it offers views of the red rocks everywhere, an extension to the run-and-fetch area where the dogs can explore the natural woods, and an adjacent running trail.

Where’s the best dog park you’ve taken a puppy to?

April 2021

#91 Marlborough Nights

01 April 2021 // San Diego, California

Baseball came back today.

It seems like the simplest thing, but it’s giving me a ton of joy.

Of course it doesn’t hurt that the Phillies’ nailbiter of a game went the way I hoped and I’m happy about that.

It feels good to have stuff to get excited about again.

#92 Fifteen Freway

02 April 2021 // San Diego, California

It’s been two years since I last left the country. I never imagined I would stay put for this long.

I realize I’m extremely privileged in all sorts of ways to travel as much as I have. But I still miss it.

Travel fills my bucket. And it’s not just about the selfies at famous landmarks, the escape from my normal life, or getting to live in luxury for a bit on someone else’s. If I’m honest, those are the mindsets around travel that sometimes bug me. It’s always been less of an escape from MY life and more of a deeper engagement with LIFE.

While I’ve been deeply missing it and hope to hop on pretty much any plane once it feels reasonably responsible and ethical, I’ve managed to still find a few ways to keep appreciating, supporting, and learning from the world’s cultures at home.

#93 Torrey Pines Trail

03 April 2021 // La Jolla, California

Something I’ve needed to hear, and that I suspect many others need to hear as well:

One day, one day soon, you will travel again. You will stand in some mindblowing spaces. You will taste incredible foods. You’ll meet people who change the way you see the world, all for the better. You’ll go to a city for the first time and it’ll feel like somewhere your heart has known all its life. You’ll get lost without feeling lost. You’ll find stillness in motion. You’ll find confidence in uncertainty.

Just remember, travel is a privilege. We are very fortunate to have traveled. And we’ll be fortunate to travel again.

After all, travelers adapt. We assess where we are, and how to make the most of our time in the place right in front of us.

#94 Easter Reemergence

04 April 2021 // San Diego, California

Church in person, on the lawn. Rhys’ first egg hunt. Playtime with Cousin Zara. Hanging with Very New Cousin Ollie. Getting to settle down and watch My Octopus Teacher before bed (which is a profoundly beautiful film that makes you so thankful for nature, btw.)

Easter this year was unforgettable.

Life the past year has been full of question marks, heartbreaking losses, and changes in plan. But one thing my life has shown me is that you never know what joy might be lurking just out of sight. One thing I love about Easter’s Resurrection story is that there’s always more going on than our eyes know how to see.

I’ve been really feeling the words shared by Austin Channing Brown today: “This is an anxious time. There is so much grief and disappointment. But maybe. Just maybe the impossible has already happened. What if new life has already happened- and you just don’t understand it yet. Maybe hope has already returned. Maybe something special, something miraculous is already stirring. Maybe the pain and confusion is only part of your story. What if this isn’t the end, if you don’t understand what could possibly come next.”

#95 Enda

05 April 2021 // San Diego, California

Need something to feel good about this morning? The Sedona dog park exists!

We’ve taken Beignet to some good ones in her life, but this one may have taken the title from one outside Seattle as our all time fave.

This is in Sedona, Arizona and it offers views of the red rocks everywhere, an extension to the run-and-fetch area where the dogs can explore the natural woods, and an adjacent running trail.

#96 Bench Rhys

06 April 2021 // San Diego, California

I recently learned that one of my favorite anti-human trafficking organizations is doing a deep reworking in how they talk about the issue they work with. The big one being that they’re moving away from framing the issue as “modern day slavery” and their work as “abolition.”

Framing human trafficking as "modern slavery" and responses as "abolition" describes a lot of the language that I used when I first got really engaged with the issue. It energized me, and I repeated it. But there were issues there.

It co-opts the language of another cause. It decontextualizes it from the root of racism, which has not ended.

It also paints the work that needs to be done as strictly rescue, rather than prevention and reworking the systems that lead to trafficking.

I’m thankful for organizations that allow their practices to evolve, and who do so in a way that invites others to evolve as well.

#97 Lapatet

07 April 2021 // San Diego, California

What cities in the world seem to be doing things right?

I’ve got a short list:

+ Amsterdam
+ Taipei
+ Vienna
+ Vancouver
+ Barcelona
+ Kigali
+ Montevideo
+ Singapore

There are American cities I like, but I think that the U.S. context doesn’t let cities be as well running as they could be. I also think Montreal could maybe make this list, but I need to spend more time there.

#98 Bubble Chaser

08 April 2021 // San Diego, California

I haven’t been able to travel like this in a while. In the time since my last trip, I became a dad, we entered a global pandemic. I know that travel is a lifelong love of mine, and its a matter of time before I go out there, but I’m trying to be intentional around this hiatus to think through what role travel plays in my life.

See, I’ve started to discover that I really don’t like the aspect of travel where it’s all about the visitor’s comfort and excitement, getting the cool Instagram pictures, all while treating the local culture, the local people like a backdrop. Yes, I travel to enrich my life, to add value to my family’s life. But I hope I do so in a way based on connection.

I know, just by nature of how I now have kids, and how the world has totally changed since my last trip, travel won’t be the same. And that sounds scary sometimes, because I’ve loved the trips I’ve done so far. But I think it can be made even better, by going slower, focusing on more local connections, doing so more sustainably, and with a better focus on storytelling and learning.

#99 Salt & Straw Del Mar

09 April 2021 // Del Mar, California

1️⃣ We went to Arizona for some hikes and exploration the other week and it was Rhys’ first time out of state. Never imagined it would take this long for that to happen, but it was a great time. Here’s a highlight reel.

2️⃣ Absolutely mesmerized by the red soil we encountered on this trip. From the hiking trails to the dog park to the spaces best left untouched. Cryptobiotic soil and cyanobacteria is endlessly fascinating.

3️⃣ I think high deserts are becoming one of my favorite ecological settings.

4️⃣ We ran into just about every climate on the way out- from a pit stop in Yuma that already felt like summer, to the hikes we went on north of Sedona that came with some thick, fluffy snowfall.

5️⃣ Best purchase on the trip? We didn’t have adequate warm gear for Rhys, so we hopped into a thrift shop and got him a puffy down jacket so big it’ll probably still fit him in a year. The entertainment value of watching him float around in that big puff was well worth the six bucks.

#100 Auntie eLLA’S 88TH

10 April 2021 // Carson, California

I’m 30. I read between 20-50 books per year, which over the course of my lifetime amounts to a ton of books. I’m also Filipino American. So how many of those books have been by Filipino authors?

Three.

Jose Vargas’ Dear America, Jia Tolentino’s Trick Mirror, and Elaine Castillo’s America Is Not The Heart.

That’s why I was extremely happy to see that Bel Canto Books inside The Hangout in Long Beach had a whole Filipino writers section. It was the first time I’d seen anything like it. And it had novels, kids books, cookbooks, graphic novels.

Best believe I dropped over $100 on books in one swoop, and I feel really good about it.

#101 Wildflower Piecer

11 April 2021 // San Diego, California

First time in five years, but I finally upgraded my phone.

I hope that devices I own, like a phone, can have a lifespan of at least five years. 

I also hope to only replace them with refurbished devices, and to still have old versions around as “backups.”

#102 Money With Melinh

12 April 2021 // San Diego, California

Angelo Quinta was a Filipino American veteran of the US Navy. He suffered from paranoia and anxiety. Two days before Christmas, his family called police to help deal with a severe episode. One of the responding officers knelt on his neck for five minutes while the other restrained his legs.

His family is waiting for the Antioch Police Department to respond to a legal claim.

I barely finished some art for Angelo Quinto featuring the words of his stepdad when I learned about Daunte Wright’s death this morning. Another Black life taken by law enforcement in Minnesota. There’s a lot more to be learned, but there are things we already know.

Like the fact that regardless of the circumstances, his son should still be able to be held.

Like the fact that we’ve seen these stories come up over and over again.

And the fact that we shouldn’t.

And the fact that there rarely seems to be any accountability for such things.

And the fact that these episodes happen in the name of public safety tell us who “safety is for” in our cities.

And the fact that the exhaustion of seeing the same story over and over, rehash the same debates over and over, without much change is a tactic of the forces that seek to keep it going.

But every act that sends the message that we’re still here, we’re still seeing these things unfold is an act of resistance. From protest to phone calls to art to amplification.

#103 pLAYGROUND pIECER

13 April 2021 // San Diego, California

Classically conditioned to think the Magic School Bus theme whenever honked at.

Despite having my own one-and-a-half year old, my mind still registers expecting/pregnant parents as way older than me. I know people half my age can be expecting parents, but still. Psychology, man.

#104 mISSION trails Evening Run

14 April 2021 // San Diego, California

In my mind, the two biggest compliments a piece of creative work can get are these:

• This made me so thankful to be alive. It made me feel like I gained a new sense, and everything right now feels significant and precious.

• I feel seen by this. I’ve never seen myself or my story reflected in a show/book/story/song so vividly as I have right now.

#105 Kain Na

15 April 2021 // San Diego, California

I’ve found it helpful, whenever facing a major decision, to take some time to think about how it moves you towards your ideal life… and to define what that life looks like.

There are a number of ways to do this, and they’re usually fun. What is your ideal day in the life? Week in the life? Year in the life?

I’m facing a few big decisions right now so I’m finding it helpful to look at my ideal dream week:

• Family pizza and movie night every Friday

• Starting each day with at least an hour of writing and deep work

• 2-5 days a week of childcare for Rhys, ideally at a language immersion preschool

• Running 3-4 times a week, weights twice a week

• Either filming/producing a video for my channel, or releasing it

• Either planning (or going on) another trip/adventure!

• One social activity Deanna and I do individually, one we can do as a couple/family

• A hike, camping trip, beach day, etc.

• Working twice a week at a co-working space, twice a week from a coffee shop

#106 Evening Run Crew

16 April 2021 // San Diego, California

The way things used to be is no longer.

The way things will be is not yet here.

🌚

Sounds a bit spooky and mysterious and maybe sort of promising, but also a little scary, doesn’t it?

Liminal space is a location of transition, somewhere in between origin and destination. An empty hallway of lockers two weeks before school starts. An empty King’s Cross Station in Harry Potter. And also my life lately, and probably yours as well.

🌀

For the past year, we’ve been doing things pretty unsustainably. Almost every project in my life has been a multitask. The childcare juggling when no other options in a pandemic exist is a lot. And strangely, looking at day care and other options right now also feels a bit unsettling and foreign. Sometimes you get used to what was, and even unambiguously positive change is an upstream swim. And that’s just one of many liminal areas for us right now!

I typically love change, and The past year has made me hungrier than ever for certain changes. Systemic changes. Personal life changes. STILL, I recognize the resistance. It’s real. Leaving the familiar-even one with many flaws-is always a push. It’s no excuse for why we should allow ages old injustices to exist, but it is a bit of a clue as to what we’re up against.

There’s eerieness and optimism. Anger over the worst of the ways things have been. Hope in imagining what could be different. Exhaustion over all the moving parts and the struggle to find footing.

I’m not even sure if this will seem like an ambiguous rant or if it’ll resonate with so many people who I suspect are looking at a similar thing.

#107 Oak of Ojai

17 April 2021 // Ojai, California

Once again at a crossroads of so many possibilities and so few certainties. So much is both exciting but also a little unnerving.

It kind of feels like we’re at a good cliffhanger spot of an interesting TV series.

How do we resolve our childcare situation? What will work look like when the world opens up? Where will we live by the end of the summer? End of the year?

These questions are lingering. Trying to enjoy the present time despite all the uncertainty, but also, I’d love to get some answers!

#108 Club Cocomelon

18 April 2021 // Los Angeles, California

Here’s an odd thing I do... poke around on Google Maps for fun. Sometimes I humor my curiosity about what life looks like in extremely northern towns in Canada, or as remote as street view let’s me go in Mongolia.

Occasionally I do this in places closer to home, and that led to me getting really interested in Greer, Arizona. Google let me see that:

🌊 It was at the fork of two rivers

🌄 User uploaded photos were great

🚶🏾A few hiking trails ran through

🧂 Most businesses were lodged

So how was it? Eh. But part of the fun of exploring is finding out for myself.

#109 wrAPPED rICE

19 April 2021 // San Diego, California

The past two to three weeks have been full of so many moving parts-particularly when it comes to my job and wondering how we’ll be making everything fit together or if we’re making the best decisions possible.

I loved actually getting to slow down enough to hear the verse lyrics to the song We All Have by Julia Stone–

Don't be concerned about your car not working

Boy you're losing it

Don't be confused about these games you're playing

You are choosing it

Leave it alone now just need time

This fit so well. 

#110 The Hidden Life of Trees

20 April 2021 // San Diego, California

Derick Chauvin was guilty on all three counts of George Floyd’s murder. This week, the jury affirmed it.

Like Brandi Miller says, “there is no good outcome in a racist policing and justice system, but there are better ones.”

As much as I want to say justice was served, justice looks like a world where Floyd is still here and where millions of Black Americans don’t have to worry about the same outcomes.

#111 Bookshelf Vlog

21 April 2021 // San Diego, California

Tomorrow is Earth Day, thus I thought I’d share some of my favorite recent reads on forests, trees, and moss that I’ve loved.

These are all members of nature that are easy to take for granted because we see them all the time. But there is so much we don’t know about these pieces of plant life that even the smallest slice of recent research and ancient knowledge can be astonishing.

If you’re wanting to step up your sustainability game, wonder is a great place to start.

🌲

The Hidden Life of Trees underscores some of the amazing ways trees behave in a community. Not only does this book underscore the importance of old growth forests, but it offers the reminder that we can learn so much from trees.

🌳

That book was actually the inspiration to The Overstory- an expansive novel that follows at least twelve characters, often through multiple generations. The connectedness of trees is clearly the inspiration of showing how connected we are as people, and our connection to the Earth. And somehow Richard Powers manages to do this without feeling preachy at all.

🌿

And then there’s moss. I’ve shared my appreciation for moss here before and Robin Wall Kimmerer (widely known for Braiding Sweetgrass) is behind so much of that appreciation. Her book on moss was the starting point to this recent obsession.

#112 Little Italy Walk

22 April 2021 // San Diego, California

Happy Earth Day everybody!

🌎🌍🌏

Over the past year, I’ve found myself more fascinated than ever with life on Earth. I’ve gone through phases of deep curiosity around mosses, maples, cryptobiotic soil, bears, waterbears, and junipers.

Why now? Can’t say. But I’m loving what I’m learning... not just about nature but from nature.

🌿🌿🌿

I’ve been learning that life isn’t about maximizing your resources as it is about optimizing them. Living in a culture that seems to only prioritize MORE kind of makes you underestimate the value of ENOUGH.

🌲

I’ve been learning from the way trees rush in to help other trees in need- rerouting nutrients underground. I recall the way many of you rushed in To get over $1000 sent to AAPI groups last month off of one post! Mutual aid and support is a core component of community development and organizing and the forest is a fantastic example.

🌲

I’ve been learning that no fancy bit of carbon capture technology can rival the optimization of an old growth deciduous forest... let alone it’s beauty. While we’re often mesmerized by what’s new, our most innovative ideas are almost always something ancient made new for a current generation.

🌲

I’ve been learning that the path to restoration isn’t just about rescuing every single plant or creature from the brink- it’s about healing the ecosystem. In a society full of misinformation, racist beliefs, and toxic ideas, We don’t need to enter each debate. Our focus can be on taking care of the broader ecosystem where these ideas and different ideas can take root.

#113 Playground Piecer

23 April 2021 // San Diego, California

Happy Earth Day! Getting to work as a climate communicator really is a gift. While things can feel heavy often, I do get to spend about half my time learning about how life on Earth connects, and the other half inspiring people with those connections.

To celebrate Earth Day, I thought I would share a bunch of recent stories, pieces of media, art, etc. related to the environment that I’ve been inspired by over the past year.

First up- the documentary My Octopus Teacher (available on Netflix). It’s beautiful, mesmerizing, and awe-invoking. 

Completely Arbortrary is perhaps my new favorite podcast. Every episode is an accessible, playful, but richly informative look at a specific tree species. Unsurprisingly, my favorite episodes thus far tend to correspond with my favorite trees: sugar maple, gingko, lodgepole pine 

How To Save a Planet is a podcast by Alex Blumberg (Planet Money) and one of my favorite current climate communicators, Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson. Some of my favorite episodes: Is Your Carbon Footprint BS? The Beef With Beef and Party Like It’s 2035

GreenWave is an organization that focuses on promoting regenerative kelp farming that How To Save a Planet introduced me to. Regenerative farming is all abuzz right now, and its amazing potential for good applies to seaweed very well too.

Our Changing Climate is a YouTube channel that does an excellent job of unpacking certain concepts in environmentalism. Some of my favorite episodes of his include the ones on Evo Morales, planned obsolescence, and eco-fascism.

Future Earth is consistently one of my favorite social media accounts and I love how they turn data and complex information into pretty sleek visuals.

Of course, the best way to celebrate Earth Day isn’t in front of a screen, but out and about in nature.

Before you do, though, do check out The Problem With America’s National Parks on The Explainer. No, this one isn’t going to make you feel guilty about camping in Sequoia, but it’ll add nuance to all the glowing histories you read about the National Parks written by the agency.

#114 Run Bird Park

24 April 2021 // San Diego, California

Here’s an odd thing I do... poke around on Google Maps for fun. Sometimes I humor my curiosity about what life looks like in extremely northern towns in Canada, or as remote as street view let’s me go in Mongolia.

Occasionally I do this in places closer to home, and that led to me getting really interested in Greer, Arizona. Google let me see that:

🌊 It was at the fork of two rivers

🌄 User uploaded photos were great

🚶🏾A few hiking trails ran through

🧂 Most businesses were lodged

So how was it? Eh. But part of the fun of exploring is finding out for myself.

#115 Salted Egg Chips

25 April 2021 // San Diego, California

I never think I’m gonna have opinions about the Oscars but then the awards start and I realize who I’ve been pulling for all along (you go, Octopus!)

This week, Halmoni won an Oscar.

I loved Youn Yuh Jung’s acceptance speech. I mean, we all did pretty much, but I loved the ending acknowledgement of ‘mommy working so hard.’ It struck a note of both playful and brutally honest at the same time that felt so familiar. So often you hear of how migrant parents, women of color, or other underestimated people need to work twice as hard to make it half as far. It’s an understatement if anything.

I grew up hardly ever seeing anyone who looked like myself on a screen, let alone my grandma. And while celebrity accolades aren’t usually of much interest to me, I will celebrate every accomplishment that makes that less true for my kid.

#116 Upper Balboa

26 April 2021 // San Diego, California

I watched a screening of Minari about two months ago, but I still think about it quite a bit.

One of the things I really love about the film is how specific it is to the family’s experience, and yet somehow in it’s specificity, it manages to feel very universally relatable. So many Korean American friends and Asian Americans have talked about how familiar the movie’s world felt.

For example, the family we follow tries to revive a farm in rural Arkansas to make a living. That’s an extremely specific scenario, but people can relate to so many themes, like intergenerational relationships or feeling out of place.

I love the ecological metaphors in the movie, largely because I work to promote regenerative agriculture.

In one of the scenes, you have Paul, a hired American farmhand tell the Korean dad to space his crops out further, because otherwise they’d compete over resources. He notes it’s an American way of planting.

Interestingly, in nonindustrial, regenerative farming practices, it’s more beneficial to plant diverse crops in a shared space strategically, so the relationships between them, their roots, and the soil can all be mutually beneficial.

More recent scientific discoveries have found that while sometimes parts of an ecosystem “compete” over resources, they’re just as likely to “cooperate.” We’re just less likely to see this in a culture that prizes competition.

One of the big losses you see throughout the movie is the loss of community solidarity, and how that’s something so many migrant families experience.

Regenerating community solidarity is one of the most valuable things to invest in.

#117 Crib Kidddd

27 April 2021 // San Diego, California

Growing up, I would always hear my relatives reference Filipino mythical creatures- mostly aswangs, which they told me were witches, but I’m now realizing that they’re completely their own category of spooky beings.

Just recently I’ve taken a deeper interest in these mythologies, and I’m realizing one thing I want to do sometime in life (whenever time exists again) is to write a YA fantasy story largely incorporating all these beings.

I know I have a lot to learn first about all the creatures I’ve only heard described in part. But I have the feeling this research is going to be really fun.

#118 A Pizza With Everything On It

28 April 2021 // San Diego, California

I went into the new decade with one big intent—to make sure I was taking the time to love the process.

In the book The Practice, Seth Godin does a pretty stellar job of explaining how in an industrial world, we’re conditioned to value outputs. This leads to us being so motivated by checking stuff off our lists that we no longer enjoy the actual moments where we’re doing those things.

This can be true in day-to-day things-like being so motivated to finish writing an article that you’re no longer getting pumped over the process of choosing words, giving life to ideas, or creating a narrative. This can be true in bigger picture things like being so rushed to get married that you don’t enjoy the sweet early stages of dating as much.

I run into it all the time with my creative work and I run into it all the time with Rhys. It’s easy to be allured by the promise of a new age or milestone and the bits of independence that brings. But I don’t want to be asleep to the fact that I’m currently living in one of the sweetest seasons of my life.

I get asked about productivity a lot, but I honestly don’t value productivity as much as I value process. I like reminding myself that a lot of the things I make or do, I do largely because it’s fun!

#119 Woah

29 April 2021 // San Diego, California

My life is not normal, and I get that. There are so many ways my life just doesn’t fit the script of what you’d expect from someone my age living in my part of the world-good or bad.

Deanna’s health challenges. The long wait and low likelihood of Rhys’ birth. The challenging family environment I had growing up. These are all things that didn’t go the way they’re “supposed to.”

But same with the way I’ve wound up with a dream job that’s part of a dream life. Or the way I’ve gotten to see nearly 50 countries. Or have the family life I do now.

With all the unlikelihoods that have become my reality… I guess it’s tempting to think I’ve already met my quota. But who ever said anything about a quota.

Today I’ve learned about a 1-in-500-million kind of thing that just happened to me that will forever alter the course of my life.

I’m thankful but also, just astounded.

#120 Balboa Trail Run

30 April 2021 // San Diego, California

I made a new video where I:

🗺 Talk about using Google Maps to explore the world.

🏘 Share literally everything I know about an Arizona town with a population of 40 people.

🪱 Obsess over cryptobiotic soil and high deserts.

🌊 Ford a barely unfrozen river with a one year old strapped to my back.

Video has been my creative outlet lately and I have a lot of fun making these. Enjoy! And find me on YouTube for more.

Easter Reemergence

Church in person, on the lawn. Rhys’ first egg hunt. Playtime with Cousin Zara. Hanging with Very New Cousin Ollie. Getting to settle down and watch My Octopus Teacher before bed (which is a profoundly beautiful film that makes you so thankful for nature, btw.)

Easter this year was unforgettable.

Life the past year has been full of question marks, heartbreaking losses, and changes in plan. But one thing my life has shown me is that you never know what joy might be lurking just out of sight. One thing I love about Easter’s Resurrection story is that there’s always more going on than our eyes know how to see.

I’ve been really feeling the words shared by Austin Channing Brown today: “This is an anxious time. There is so much grief and disappointment. But maybe. Just maybe the impossible has already happened. What if new life has already happened- and you just don’t understand it yet. Maybe hope has already returned. Maybe something special, something miraculous is already stirring. Maybe the pain and confusion is only part of your story. What if this isn’t the end, if you don’t understand what could possibly come next.”

Once Awakened

Proximity to whiteness.
The model minority myth.
The problem of ‘not seeing color.’

These are important conversations happening, but I don’t want these to be simply buzzwords. They’re stories from lived experiences.

My older family members tell me about driving through the Jim Crow South as Filipinos in the late 50’s. A simple pit stop brought up questions a gas station attendant wouldn’t have thought of before. Whose bathroom do they use? Uncertain, he directs them towards the one labeled white.

Imagine arriving to a new country and being in survival mode. It doesn’t take long to see the country’s norms and rules, written and unwritten, about which groups hold power. As a means of self-protection, you realize your best strategy for survival is to be considered among the dominant group. You do your best to adopt their values, their patterns of speech, their tastes, often losing your own in the process.

Enter a new generation. The kids can’t understand why their parents don’t want them to date somebody darker, or why aunts, uncles seem to be on the giving and receiving end of racism without recognizing the irony. The kids do realize that the lunchbox kimchi, curry, pinakbet, earns them mean comments at school, so they learn to dislike and detatch from those parts of their identity. To pretend to not see color.

These kids grow up, raised to succeed in this environment. Their academic success is seen, but in a way that doesn’t so much praise their efforts, but that insists the system is working. They are told that policies to help other disadvantaged groups find more academic success will come at their own expense.

Meanwhile they see their aging parents ridiculed. Abused. Attacked. Attempting to align with the dominant group meant aligning with their system. And it was never a system that loved them. Just one that ranked them. Behind some, ahead of others.

It’s too easy to point to the most visible examples of racism and say “let’s stop this,” without understanding that we all carry assumptions and habits that contribute. It’s why we all have our work to do. The work is systemic and spiritual. It happens at a state level and soul level. It’s both-and.

Kim's Convenience

At a time when we’re faced with so much human loss, it feels weird to also be really sad about the end of a TV series. But @kimsconvenience was always something a bit more.

For a lot of us, it was finally a chance to see an on-screen world that looked a bit more like our families. That was honest about things like generational divides and microaggressions but never weighed down by it.

I’m not a big TV watcher (though maybe quarantine has shaped that a little) but when I first came upon their first season during a weekend in Canada, it was something. There isn’t much in the show that’s a carbon copy to my life, and yet, the fine details- like the younger characters having a foot in each world, to the diverse and quirky set of customers coming in from all over the globe, to the portrayal of Asian Christianity and my personal fave, Pastor Nina, so much of it was very familiar. It was like suddenly one show had the eyes to see into an overlooked-in-plain-sight, beautiful, goofy, heart filled world.

I’m sad this show ended so suddenly at its peak. I hope to see a lot more of everyone who worked on the show, and like @simuliu puts it- “amazing things happen when you open the gates and allow more diverse stories to be told.”

Stop AAPI Hate Means

In the middle of a difficult week last week:

🔰 I got to connect with a number of friends, Asian and Non-Asian, reaching out to offer community support (and even snack funding!) during a crisis.
🔰 I got to hear from some folks who expressed a deeper appreciation for their Asian roots- including some biracial friends falling in love with an ancestry I didn’t even realize they had until now.
🔰 Thanks to donation matching, we got to send $1000 to a few of my favorite AAPI orgs.

None of this brings back lost lives, but it does remind us that community is how we make it through.

Visibility

To my Asian(Am) friends here, did you eat yet? Some of you already know what I mean by that, but I’ll say it two ways for those who don’t. I love you.

I’ve been thinking about the concept of invisibility this week. Steven Yeun says that “sometimes I wonder if the Asian American experience is what it’s like when you’re thinking about everyone else, but no one is thinking about you.” Tung Nguyen calls this the “racism of being made invisible.”

This was supposed to be a celebratory week for Asian-Americans with Yeun, his co-star Youn Yuh-jing, and their movie Minari receiving so many Oscar nominations. Not to mention Nomadland, the Sound of Metal, Mulan, and Over The Moon.

Sometimes you wonder if hate crimes often accompany breakthroughs. After all, some of the most visibly violent days of the year were *backlash* that immediately followed events like the Georgia Senate runoff. There’s a mentality among many that finds security in invisibility, especially among those that have had to uproot to a new place.

I’ve leaned this apparent defense move before. When teaching in schools where there weren’t many Asians, people’s inability to know my background meant the students quickly ran of things to say after asking if I was Bruce Lee. In South Africa, I did not fit into the rigid racial categories of Black, white, Indian, or colored- which kept me away from more challenging encounters there.

But this week reveals that at the end of it all, invisibility is a false friend. It relies on a racial caste system that harms all. Invisibility stands in the way of the things that ultimately keep us the safest: community, getting organized, and just being the best fullest versions of ourselves. When you’ve been invisible for so long and in so many spaces, it so much of what you do opens doors and breaks walls. You can give people their first glimpse at what could be on a stage as high profile as the Oscars, but it can also be in a space as every-day as healthy fatherhood, creativity, sustainable living, or whatever oddly niche passion has your heart.

I’ve never loved being Asian-American more than I do now.

They Are Our Beloved

Grieving the hate-filled murder of eight precious Asian lives in Atlanta.

I’ve always found anger easier to access compared to grief. I’m learning that there’s a point where the two occur side by side in a moment of sacred rage.

One of the things I love about being Asian-American is that our families are expansive. Any woman of an earlier generation can be my tita. Any man my tito.

When Lulu Wang sees among the victims of the attack the women working home to send money home, to send kids in school, I get that. These are the women who ran so I could walk. Working as women in American hospitals during the Jim Crow Era. Sending money back to the Philippines for younger siblings, like my dad, paving the way for my life to be what it has been.

I wish there was something I could say or do to make it stop. Right away, once and for all. But there’s no healing without grief.

Asian(Am) fam, I love us. Keep excelling and making the world better for each other. My inbox is open if you need encouragement, listening, or grieve and rage.

To everyone else, be kind. The kind of kind that mourns with those who mourn and dismantles racist systems. Stop sharing the killer’s picture, we don’t need that. And if you’d like to make a donation to @apen4ej, @advancingjustice_aajc, @stopaapihate, or @napawf, I’ll match you up to $316

UPDATE: You’ve all helped me meet my match goal and then some! Thanks- if anyone wants to extend the match a bit further, LMK!

Doing Your Best

A little reminder to whoever needs it the way I do: do your best, but remember that “best” is a moving target.

I like to live with a sense of urgency. Life is too uncertain to not leave it all on the road.

At the same time, what doing your best looks like will differ from one day to the next. There’s a difference between idolizing productivity and living a regenerative life. The latter understands that there are seasons and cycles. The former can put an unkind pressure on us to strive for the same kind of output day after day.

A Year of Pandemic

March 11 of last year started off simple enough. I had a staff retreat in the day, so I dropped Rhys off at my mom’s. While on my way back to pick him up, it all went down. Tom Hanks. The Utah Jazz. The shutting of every border.

A year into this tragic, absurd, and extremely trying time, I would’ve expected to feel a lot of heavy things. Disappointment in the ableism and disregard for the most vulnerable that I saw from so many people and institutions I had trusted. Grief at all that was lost. Those feelings are legit, and they’re around somewhere, but they aren’t dominant today like I might’ve thought.

Instead…

I remember the feeling of resolve I felt that night. The person I love most has fought to breathe her whole life, and now the most global threat was a highly transmissible respiratory illness. As disappointing as it was to give up all the plans we had for the year, the sheer determination to keep her safe, to keep my family safe took over.

A year later… we’ve done it. And I feel that reminder that with God’s grace and the love of community, we are capable of hard things.

On one hand, it’s easy to get stuck on the feeling of losing a year of our lives due to this major disruption. But I think it’s simultaneously true that we invested a year doing the best we could to save as many lives as we could.

Fittingly, I get my second shot this weekend. I am looking forward to reengaging so many things that have been out of reach the past year with a whole new, much deeper sense of appreciation.

Rick Steves/Appreciation

Almost a year ago, when lockdown was still a novel concept and the dust was just starting to settle, a podcast interview with Rick Steves came my way.

Interesting... I thought. This guy is travel, pretty much. Like, Steves-Europe is probably his real last name. If anyone’s sense of identity is totally upended by now, it’s his.

Instead his interview mostly talked about the simple joys he was finding in the view out his window, wine, and painting. It sounded so emotionally mature and healthy and I realized his gift wasn’t so much all the travel tips he’s known for, but his ability to appreciate. It works in Edmonds, Washington like it works in Europe.

🏔⛰🏕

Among other things, the past year has helped me appreciate so many things in a whole new way while taking less for granted:

The power that affirming words have to bring out the best in people.

Movies and stories that raise the bar for representation.

Healthy boundaries.

The social lives of moss.

People who understand that clarity is kind. Southeast Asian folklore and mythical creatures. Hummingbirds. Explainer videos. Garages. Older folks who know it’s never too late to re-examine a belief or idea. Foreign films. Climate writing. Ecodiscipleship. People who get the difference between peacemaking and peacekeeping. People who stand up for other people. Ancestry. Financial literacy that cares about ethics. The Eastern Sierras. Octavia Butler. Tattoo art. Grief. Seaweed. Starting each morning with music.

What’s something you’ve learned to appreciate more over the past year?

Beignet-versary

Five years ago this week we brought home this muppet faced doughnut, and what a wild time it’s been since then.

She’s lived six years and every one of those years has pitched a curveball. The year she kept me company when grad school seemed to drag on. The year we uprooted her from Oregon to California. The year we moved twice in a month and found out we were pregnant. And then there’s the mystery of her first year, and the chaos of her most recent year with us home all the time as the world goes haywire.

Mostly I think that we lucked out with her as a big puppy sister for Rhys. He loves attempting to climb her like a boulder and she puts up with it. Those two are a duo. We always wanted a dog who was great with really little kids. We saw plenty of promising signs from Beignet early on, but it’s been confirmed day after day this past year.

Happy birthday, Beignet. We’ll be getting out of the house more often this year.

#lifeofbeignet

The Climate Crisis is Not Gender Neutral

Have you heard of Eunice Newton Foote?

An Irish researcher named John Tyndall often gets credited with being the father of climate research by writing about heat trapping gases- but three years earlier, in 1856, Foote published her own paper: Circumstances Affecting the Heat of Sun’s Rays. Foote went on to participate in Seneca Falls, leaving an impact as both a scientist and a suffragette.

🗣

I learned about Foote from a recent read, All We Can Save and as it’s writers Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine K Wilkinson put it, “suppressing the climate leadership and participation of girls-half the world’s brainpower and change-making might sets us up for failure.”

Today, women are the frontlines of climate change and climate action.

In many low-income countries, the tasks of feeding a family, securing water, and tending to a farm often fall on women. This is where the impacts of climate are most visible and severe.

On the flip side, research supports the notion that women outperform men in adopting climate friendly habits and supporting environmental legislation. The concept of a multiplier effect when investing in empowering women is apparent in environmental actions.

Two things worth doing on #InternationalWomensDay this year —

1️⃣ My intern Camryn wrote a FANTASTIC article on women and climate change. It’s worth checking out.

2️⃣ Look into some of the stats around gender equality and income and how moms in particular have been affected by the pandemic... and if that feels discouraging, dig into the ideas surrounding a #marshallplanformoms - The multiplier effect of investing in women isn’t just an African development thing!

March 2021

#60 Tablet Drawings

01 March 2021 // San Diego, California

What is grief, if not love persevering?

Eish, Wandavision was a nice escape for several weeks, but after seeing that quote go around pretty widely over the weekend, clearly that line of dialogue struck a chord. It was so similar to a line one of my teammates shared: grief is love with nowhere to go. 

What persists after losing somebody? So many things. There are the ideas they left in the world, both the ones they’ve articulated and the things they’ve taught people. The way they saw the world. You know that feeling when you experience something and you know exactly what somebody who isn’t there would say in that moment? A very powerful and hard-to-pin-down replica of the way that person saw the world enters your brain, creating that experience. That’s especially amazing when it’s somebody who had a unique and beautiful way of seeing the world. It’s amazing the ways we permanently change each other in the moments we spend together.

At least half of everyone I know has had to say goodbye to somebody special in the past 3-4 months. Those kinds of losses don’t need to define you, but they do shape you, and they’re worth spending time with.

#61 African-Caribbean Market

02 March 2021 // San Diego, California

The question I’ve been wondering about for a year now has been: where will I go when I can finally travel again?

It looks like all the countries that seemed like good candidates a year ago are off the table.

New Zealand, which I actively imagined as our 2021 trip is likely closed for another year. So is Australia, our first ticketed flight to get cancelled last year.

Bali doesn’t feel right at the moment either, another cancelled plan.

Since most of Africa will be slow in getting the vaccine, travel to Congo or Burundi seems both unwise and unlikely.

Then there’s Japan, which seems to anticipate visitors for the rescheduled Olympics, but I’m just not sure this is our year for that. So where now?

There are prospective plans for projects in Colombia and Mexico. But for a place to go with Rhys and Deanna?

I’ve been eyeballing spots that seem doable, but mostly these are total shots in the dark right now: Poland, Budapest, Romania, Albania, Montenegro, Suriname, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Ireland. Georgia.

#62 Travel Reads

03 March 2021 // San Diego, California

There's now a mRNA vaccine in the works for malaria.

I think we’re just on the cusp of seeing some of the incredible things mRNA can do. I’m all the more amazed at what went into my arm last weekend.

#63 tHE rAMEN aISLE

04 March 2021 // San Diego, California

A few weeks ago we spent a few days in this cozy studio cabin at Lake Gregory and it was exactly what we needed at the time.

I recently saw this announcement from an illustrator who was going to put her illustration career on the back burner to go to culinary school… I think it’s cool that in spite of all her success, she knows there’s something left

One thing I keep thinking about is how life is too short to not go for it. If there’s something that makes you feel alive… think of the moments that make up your life, don’t spend them doing something you don’t want to.

#64 moSS oBSESSION

05 March 2021 // San Diego, California

I remember the first week of going into lockdown. For the first few days things were completely chaotic. I was figuring out if we would need to leave town to go be safer somewhere else. Did we have enough food? Did we have baby supplies? How could we safely make sure we had those things? What about work? Meanwhile, the rest of the world was in a frenzy.

Then in the later part of that week, you know, we had a sense of what we were doing and where we were going to go, but some of the reality of this really bizarre and catastrophic situation was starting to sink in. The big feeling was, what now?

I remember the world outside was so isolated. So quiet. I kept thinking of a number of places I had the chance to travel to, places that seemed to always have a ton of people. Shibuya crossing in Japan. La Galeria del Duomo in Italy. The neighborhood of Hillbrow in South Africa. I thought about the people I’d met from these places. I wondered how they were doing.

Right then, a hummingbird came by our window. A friend of mine who’s really into birds had just shared with me a whole bunch of knowledge about hummingbirds. About the specific hummingbird species native to our area of California and Mexico. I started to realize that I’d been taking this creature for granted that would be such a marvel to the rest of the world.

This might sound kind of weird, but that hummingbird made me think of how in this intense, uncertain moment, the birds remained blissfully unaware and free to carry on with everything as they always do.

And it felt like some kind of reminder that one day, we will too.

#65 oPEN hORIZONS

06 March 2021 // San Diego, California

We were going to watch Raya and the Last Dragon tonight but we ran out of time. So we’ll try again tomorrow. But one of the things that stands out to me is how much all the different landscapes make me eager to get back to destinations like Southeast Asia.

You know how when it’s like your first day on a job or at school or in a new place how time just seems to slow down? Like you notice everything? That’s what I feel when I travel. I’m away from everything familiar and it forces you to slow down and take in all of it. All your senses flip on. I feel really, really alive.

And then there’s the whole discovery thing. Engaging the wild mix of cultures that come together in a hostel lobby. It’s about hearing new perspectives. You never realize how many of your own ideas and beliefs are just assumptions you adopt and never question, until you go to a place that just sees things differently.

#66 Presidio Green

07 March 2021 // San Diego, California

I love it when you’re only a couple dozen pages into a new book and you already know it’s going to be real good.

I’m reading The Overstory- well, I’m just getting started and I’m already excited at the tease of how we’re all connected.

#67 STUMPED SLOPE

08 March 2021 // San Diego, California

Have you heard of Eunice Newton Foote?

An Irish researcher named John Tyndall often gets credited with being the father of climate research by writing about heat trapping gases- but three years earlier, in 1856, Foote published her own paper: Circumstances Affecting the Heat of Sun’s Rays. Foote went on to participate in Seneca Falls, leaving an impact as both a scientist and a suffragette.

I learned about Foote from a recent read, All We Can Save and as it’s writers Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine K Wilkinson put it, “suppressing the climate leadership and participation of girls-half the world’s brainpower and change-making might sets us up for failure.”

Today, women are the frontlines of climate change and climate action.

In many low-income countries, the tasks of feeding a family, securing water, and tending to a farm often fall on women. This is where the impacts of climate are most visible and severe.

On the flip side, research supports the notion that women outperform men in adopting climate friendly habits and supporting environmental legislation. The concept of a multiplier effect when investing in empowering women is apparent in environmental actions.

Two things worth doing on #InternationalWomensDay this year —

1️⃣ My intern Camryn wrote a FANTASTIC article on women and climate change. It’s the first link in my bio and worth checking out.

2️⃣ Look into some of the stats around gender equality and income and how moms in particular have been affected by the pandemic... and if that feels discouraging, dig into the ideas surrounding a #marshallplanformoms - The multiplier effect of investing in women isn’t just an African development thing!

#68 Ready to Speak

09 March 2021 // San Diego, California

I kid you not, I have 117 tabs open right now.

It’s been that kind of week. I think that might be the work-from-home equivalent of having your check engine light on.

So, as I shut some tabs, here’s a brain dump of things:

I’m deep into learning about regenerative ocean farming right now and I love the concept of kelp as a climate solution. I’m loving the work of @greenwaveorg

I’m still processing all the losses and premature endings over the past year, while also feeling excited to get my second shot this weekend and the prospect of various parts of life coming back bit by bit. Grief and optimism can coexist, but it’s a weird feeling.

The big question for over a year has been ‘where are you going once you can travel again?’ and I think the most honest answer to that question is that it’ll probably be determined by a bunch of factors way outside of my control. I expect the answer to be a bit of a surprise.

I want to start running again. Finding the time to do so when the childcare juggle already keeps our days full is going to be a challenge. But I know it’s time.

I planned to get a tattoo before my birthday last year, but that was just before everything shut down. I think it’s about time for me to start looking for artists!

Okay… we’re down to 38 tabs.

#69 bEIGNET tURNS 6

10 March 2021 // San Diego, California

Five years ago this week we brought home this muppet faced doughnut, and what a wild time it’s been since then.

She’s lived six years and every one of those years has pitched a curveball. The year she kept me company when grad school seemed to drag on. The year we uprooted her from Oregon to California. The year we moved twice in a month and found out we were pregnant. And then there’s the mystery of her first year, and the chaos of her most recent year with us home all the time as the world goes haywire.

Mostly I think that we lucked out with her as a big puppy sister for Rhys. He loves attempting to climb her like a boulder and she puts up with it. Those two are a duo. We always wanted a dog who was great with really little kids. We saw plenty of promising signs from Beignet early on, but it’s been confirmed day after day this past year.

Happy birthday, Beignet. We’ll be getting out of the house more often this year.

#70 SD Lagoon

11 March 2021 // San Diego, California

March 11 of last year started off simple enough. I had a staff retreat in the day, so I dropped Rhys off at my mom’s. While on my way back to pick him up, it all went down. Tom Hanks. The Utah Jazz. The shutting of every border.

A year into this tragic, absurd, and extremely trying time, I would’ve expected to feel a lot of heavy things. Disappointment in the ableism and disregard for the most vulnerable that I saw from so many people and institutions I had trusted. Grief at all that was lost. Those feelings are legit, and they’re around somewhere, but they aren’t dominant today like I might’ve thought.

Instead…

I remember the feeling of resolve I felt that night. The person I love most has fought to breathe her whole life, and now the most global threat was a highly transmissible respiratory illness. As disappointing as it was to give up all the plans we had for the year, the sheer determination to keep her safe, to keep my family safe took over.

A year later… we’ve done it. And I feel that reminder that with God’s grace and the love of community, we are capable of hard things.

On one hand, it’s easy to get stuck on the feeling of losing a year of our lives due to this major disruption. But I think it’s simultaneously true that we invested a year doing the best we could to save as many lives as we could.

Fittingly, I get my second shot this weekend. I am looking forward to reengaging so many things that have been out of reach the past year with a whole new, much deeper sense of appreciation.

#71 Striped Treasureflower

12 March 2021 // San Diego, California

Almost a year ago, when lockdown was still a novel concept and the dust was just starting to settle, a podcast interview with Rick Steves came my way.

Interesting... I thought. This guy is travel, pretty much. Like, Steves-Europe is probably his real last name. If anyone’s sense of identity is totally upended by now, it’s his.

Instead his interview mostly talked about the simple joys he was finding in the view out his window, wine, and painting. It sounded so emotionally mature and healthy and I realized his gift wasn’t so much all the travel tips he’s known for, but his ability to appreciate. It works in Edmonds, Washington like it works in Europe.

🏔⛰🏕

Among other things, the past year has helped me appreciate so many things in a whole new way while taking less for granted:

The power that affirming words have to bring out the best in people.

Movies and stories that raise the bar for  representation.

Healthy boundaries.

The social lives of moss.

People who understand that clarity is kind. Southeast Asian folklore and mythical creatures. Hummingbirds. Explainer videos. Garages. Older folks who know it’s never too late to re-examine a belief or idea. Foreign films. Climate writing. Ecodiscipleship. People who get the difference between peacemaking and peacekeeping. People who stand up for other people. Ancestry. Financial literacy that cares about ethics. The Eastern Sierras. Octavia Butler. Tattoo art. Grief. Seaweed. Starting each morning with music.

🏜🏜🏜

What’s something you’ve learned to appreciate more over the past year?

#72 Con Pane Menu

13 March 2021 // San Diego, California

Caught somebody hacking into my Spotify account currently listening via a web player. It's easy to boot them off and change my password, but having some fun with this queue first:

Jojo– Get Out

Bslick– I caught a hacker

The Blues Brothers– Rubber Biscuit

#73 Dos Doses

14 March 2021 // San Diego, California

As of today, I officially have my second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. By the end of the month, that should put me at the highest level of resistance possible.

The pandemic took away many things, but among them has been our ability to plan forward. That’s just one of the ways that it’ll be felt long after case rates crash and the outside world is once again open.

That leaves so much mystery around what happens next for us.

How much longer do we stick with our housing situation?

How can we get help with Rhys in a way that’s good for him and that frees us up to have a healthier and more rounded life?

Speaking of health… there’s the whole issue of figuring out if I can get back in shape.

How will I maybe proceed with the larger platform I’ve gained since this all started?

What will work look like over the next year?

Will we go abroad?

Despite all the uncertainty, I’m looking forward to it all. I believe that the things that need to be worked out will work out. Among the lessons the last year has taught me is this: we are capable of doing difficult things.

#74 Shizuoka

15 March 2021 // San Diego, California

A little reminder to whoever needs it the way I do: do your best, but remember that “best” is a moving target.

I like to live with a sense of urgency. Life is too uncertain to not leave it all on the road.

At the same time, what doing your best looks like will differ from one day to the next. There’s a difference between idolizing productivity and living a regenerative life. The latter understands that there are seasons and cycles. The former can put an unkind pressure on us to strive for the same kind of output day after day.

#75 Ballin’ w/ Piecer

16 March 2021 // San Diego, California

Grieving the hate-filled murder of eight precious Asian lives in Atlanta.

I’ve always found anger easier to access compared to grief. I’m learning that there’s a point where the two occur side by side in a moment of sacred rage.

One of the things I love about being Asian-American is that our families are expansive. Any woman of an earlier generation can be my tita. Any man my tito.

When Lulu Wang sees among the victims of the attack the women working home to send money home, to send kids in school, I get that. These are the women who ran so I could walk. Working as women in American hospitals during the Jim Crow Era. Sending money back to the Philippines for younger siblings, like my dad, paving the way for my life to be what it has been.

I wish there was something I could say or do to make it stop. Right away, once and for all. But there’s no healing without grief.

Asian(Am) fam, I love us. Keep excelling and making the world better for each other. My inbox is open if you need encouragement, listening, or grieve and rage.

To everyone else, be kind. The kind of kind that mourns with those who mourn and dismantles racist systems. Stop sharing the killer’s picture, we don’t need that. And if you’d like to make a donation to @apen4ej, @advancingjustice_aajc, @stopaapihate, or @napawf, I’ll match you up to $316

#76 eMPOWERING READS

17 March 2021 // San Diego, California

To my Asian(Am) friends here, did you eat yet? Some of you already know what I mean by that, but I’ll say it two ways for those who don’t. I love you.

I’ve been thinking about the concept of invisibility this week. Steven Yeun says that “sometimes I wonder if the Asian American experience is what it’s like when you’re thinking about everyone else, but no one is thinking about you.” Tung Nguyen calls this the “racism of being made invisible.”

This was supposed to be a celebratory week for Asian-Americans with Yeun, his co-star Youn Yuh-jing, and their movie Minari receiving so many Oscar nominations. Not to mention Nomadland, the Sound of Metal, Mulan, and Over The Moon.

Sometimes you wonder if hate crimes often accompany breakthroughs. After all, some of the most visibly violent days of the year were *backlash* that immediately followed events like the Georgia Senate runoff. There’s a mentality among many that finds security in invisibility, especially among those that have had to uproot to a new place.

I’ve leaned this apparent defense move before. When teaching in schools where there weren’t many Asians, people’s inability to know my background meant the students quickly ran of things to say after asking if I was Bruce Lee. In South Africa, I did not fit into the rigid racial categories of Black, white, Indian, or colored- which kept me away from more challenging encounters there.

But this week reveals that at the end of it all, invisibility is a false friend. It relies on a racial caste system that harms all. Invisibility stands in the way of the things that ultimately keep us the safest: community, getting organized, and just being the best fullest versions of ourselves. When you’ve been invisible for so long and in so many spaces, it so much of what you do opens doors and breaks walls. You can give people their first glimpse at what could be on a stage as high profile as the Oscars, but it can also be in a space as every-day as healthy fatherhood, creativity, sustainable living, or whatever oddly niche passion has your heart.

I’ve never loved being Asian-American more than I do now.

#77 sTEEL coYOTE

18 March 2021 // San Diego, California

With no special affinity for the Miami Heat, Dwayne Wade was my fave active player for a decade. Since he’s been retired, that mantle’s been passed to Dame. Patting myself on the back for taste.

#78 pIECER dRUM tUTORIAL

19 March 2021 // San Diego, California

Speaking up can get messy.

Solidarity is real when it costs you something.

But that’s what a love for one’s neighbor does.

A tip for speaking well to this current moment:

Take a Yes-And approach.

There have been critiques to the phrases “Stop AAPI Hate” and “Hate is a Virus” because of they don’t directly identify white terrorism as the problem. Valid critiques, but these are also the names of Asian-led movements that need the galvanized support more. 

#79 Yuma Break

20 March 2021 // Yuma, Arizona

Arizona doesn’t get enough attention for how odd of a state it is.

There’s the desert heat that won’t leave half the state alone, which I would absolutely hate to live in. Then there are the high deserts that get some of the thickest snowfall in the country. I love Flagstaff.

There’s the odd conservative streak that’s really strong in Arizona, which often feels like a misplaced state from the Southern Delta. At the same time, there’s a massive Latino population and some strong tribal nations.

Top it all off with the fact that it hides in California’s shadow, that there’s places like Sedona that offer a vortex for the new agey types, and pro-sports teams that never seem to generate much more than a lukewarm level of interest.

All that said, I’ve enjoyed the past few days I’ve spent here.

#80 Red Rock Rhys

21 March 2021 // Sedona, Arizona

I’m trying to buy every electronic good with the hopes of getting it to last at least five years. So far, my camera is at one and a half years, my computer at two and a half, and my cell phone at a proud five.

With clothes, I’m aiming for ten years. So far I’ve got a sweater and a jacket that clear that benchmark, but I think a lot more is headed in that direction.

I strongly dislike planned obsolescence and the practice of making things to be replaced. 

#81 Sedona

22 March 2021 // Sedona, Arizona

In the middle of a difficult week last week:

🔰 I got to connect with a number of friends, Asian and Non-Asian, reaching out to offer community support (and even snack funding!) during a crisis.

🔰 I got to hear from some folks who expressed a deeper appreciation for their Asian roots- including some biracial friends falling in love with an ancestry I didn’t even realize they had until now.

🔰 Thanks to donation matching, we got to send $1000 to a few of my favorite AAPI orgs.

None of this brings back lost lives, but it does remind us that community is how we make it through.

#82 Cathedral Rock

23 March 2021 // Sedona, Arizona

When a community is in crisis,

we must mourn with those who mourn,

and seize the moment to change the system,

to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Failing to do these things is failed stewardship of our voice, relationships, and influence.

After the Atlanta shooting, there were so many ways people expressed their support:

Venmoing money for takeout 

Supporting an AAPI local business 

Speaking up online and offline

Checking in with texts, DMs, or calls

Donating to AAPI justice orgs

Attending rallies or vigils

And more

I noticed every time a friend or family member did something like this and received it with love.

I also noticed people’s silence.

Many of us fear speaking up during a pivotal moment because of how others might react.

You may not realize it, but people react to your silence too.

Usually with hurt and a loss of trust.

#83 Snow in Flagstaff

24 March 2021 // Flagstaff, Arizona

At a time when we’re faced with so much human loss, it feels weird to also be really sad about the end of a TV series. But Kim's Convenience was always something a bit more.

For a lot of us, it was finally a chance to see an on-screen world that looked a bit more like our families. That was honest about things like generational divides and microaggressions but never weighed down by it.

I’m not a big TV watcher (though maybe quarantine has shaped that a little) but when I first came upon their first season during a weekend in Canada, it was something. There isn’t much in the show that’s a carbon copy to my life, and yet, the fine details- like the younger characters having a foot in each world, to the diverse and quirky set of customers coming in from all over the globe, to the portrayal of Asian Christianity and my personal fave, Pastor Nina, so much of it was very familiar. It was like suddenly one show had the eyes to see into an overlooked-in-plain-sight, beautiful, goofy, heart filled world.

I’m sad this show ended so suddenly at its peak. I hope to see a lot more of everyone who worked on the show, and like Simu Liu puts it- “amazing things happen when you open the gates and allow more diverse stories to be told.”

#84 Greer

25 March 2021 // Greer, Arizona

Proximity to whiteness.

The model minority myth.

The problem of ‘not seeing color.’

These are important conversations happening, but I don’t want these to be simply buzzwords. They’re stories from lived experiences.

My older family members tell me about driving through the Jim Crow South as Filipinos in the late 50’s. A simple pit stop brought up questions a gas station attendant wouldn’t have thought of before. Whose bathroom do they use? Uncertain, he directs them towards the one labeled white.

Imagine arriving to a new country and being in survival mode. It doesn’t take long to see the country’s norms and rules, written and unwritten, about which groups hold power. As a means of self-protection, you realize your best strategy for survival is to be considered among the dominant group. You do your best to adopt their values, their patterns of speech, their tastes, often losing your own in the process.

Enter a new generation. The kids can’t understand why their parents don’t want them to date somebody darker, or why aunts, uncles seem to be on the giving and receiving end of racism without recognizing the irony. The kids do realize that the lunchbox kimchi, curry, pinakbet, earns them mean comments at school, so they learn to dislike and detach from those parts of their identity. To pretend to not see color.

These kids grow up, raised to succeed in this environment. Their academic success is seen, but in a way that doesn’t so much praise their efforts, but that insists the system is working. They are told that policies to help other disadvantaged groups find more academic success will come at their own expense.

Meanwhile they see their aging parents ridiculed. Abused. Attacked. Attempting to align with the dominant group meant aligning with their system. And it was never a system that loved them. Just one that ranked them. Behind some, ahead of others.

It’s too easy to point to the most visible examples of racism and say “let’s stop this,” without understanding that we all carry assumptions and habits that contribute. It’s why we all have our work to do. The work is systemic and spiritual. It happens at a state level and soul level. It’s both-and.

#85 Papago Rhys

26 March 2021 // Phoenix, Arizona

Paying a visit to Phoenix felt good, and I’m not even too fond of Phoenix.

Like, if I had to live in a U.S. city that’s represented in pro-sports, Phoenix would perhaps be dead last on that list. Like, I don’t like the heat. I don’t think it has a whole lot of personality. And it just feels large and clustery.

But I loved being in Phoenix this week.

I enjoyed Kaizen, the Latin-Japanese restaurant where we ate. Papago park was fun to walk around. I wish we had the chance to visit the George Washington Carver museum.

I think I simply miss exploring places that aren’t familiar. And over the past year, I’ve had very little opportunity to do that. I’m excited that this opportunity is starting to come back. I look forward to what lies ahead.

#86 Phoenix Morning

27 March 2021 // Phoenix, Arizona

On the road back from Phoenix, Deanna and I listened to an episode of the Creative Pep Talk podcast which sparked a pretty great conversation. The podcast was all about decoding your tastes to see how it informs your style. The task was first to identify pieces of art and stories that most resonated with your heart, to take a deeper look to see what they have in common, and to see how that theme intersects with your life. The rest is tactical stuff, like understanding how its creators used those stories to share a message.

I could go on forever thinking of stories and art that seemed to speak to me. The suggestion was to choose six, but narrowing the list was quite difficult.

Big Hero 6 is probably a shoo-in. The Juniper episode of Radiolab is also, even though it doesn’t seem immediately obvious. The song Love Like There’s No Tomorrow. Kim’s Convenience. Dee Gordon’s home run after Jose Fernandez’s death. The movies Boyhood and Arrival.

(That’s already seven, and I’m upset I couldn’t include some more books like Pachinko or A Million Miles in a Thousand Years.)

The strange common thread is that in all these stories there’s death, the threat of death, or some extreme hardship. (Kim’s Convenience might be the exception, but I suspect the challenge of starting a new life as an immigrant might be worth noting). In spite of this, they’re all about characters and people choosing life anyways. And that seems to go hand in hand with my outlook as an Enneagram 7, my fondness for the environment and life in a biological sense, and my own journey of overcoming.

#87 Rhys’ First Swing

28 March 2021 // San Diego, California

I’ve been reading some theories about why there’s so much job switching going on during the pandemic. My favorite theories are these:

1. Facing mortality makes everyone choose purpose over payment.

2. Horrifically fragile economy makes everyone develop backup skills.

3. Fatigue from overwork makes the grass on the side of every fence look greener.

4. Chronic stress at work fractures relationships.

While I don’t have a desire to jump ship from the work I’ve been doing the past four years, I do feel like my relationship with work has evolved. I think I have fewer expectations for work to deliver meaning or purpose. I have a lot of fun with what I do, but by not over-ascribing too much to it, I can better tend to other areas in my life.

Interestingly, I think you can find imbalance by either seeing too much value in work or not enough. This only makes me more in love with the concept of play as the purest form of work.

#88 Time for HMart

29 March 2021 // San Diego, California

Have you seen Raya and the Last Dragon yet?

I remember being pretty pumped about this film when the trailer dropped. So many visual nods to traditional Filipino clothing, weaponry, and other items. But was she actually supposed to be Filipina? She also eats Thai looking food, brandishes an Indonesian sword, and is voiced by a Vietnamese American actress. It’s never clearly stated.

And this ambiguity raises more questions. Is this a positive thing that pushes a pan-Southeast Asian unity? Another lumping of cultures that doesn’t acknowledge their diversity?

The waters that flow through the region both connect and divide, and its national borders don’t tell the full story.

#89 Educated

30 March 2021 // San Diego, California

There was a study conducted recently. People were placed in a room with various colored dots on the ground and told to pick up the blue ones. Slowly and stealthily, the blue dots were removed, leaving only other colors. What did people do in response?

They picked up the dots that looked blue-ish. Deeper purples. Teals and greens.

All that to say, often you find what you’re looking for. Even if that isn’t there.

Similar research was done asking people to identify threatening faces.

The implication of that, especially around policing and racial justice is pretty striking.

The other implication is that we can affect what we see in the world by training ourselves to look for things. Certain patterns that fit a narrative. Nobody is truly unbiased. We all tell ourselves different stories and see the things that fit the mold.

This can be scary, as in, none of us knows what things look like unaltered. But it can also be empowering. We just might have more say in our outlook than we think.

#90 Untamed

31 March 2021 // San Diego, California

International Women’s Month wrapped up this week but the work and the learning never end.

Recently, I got to read my way through three memoirs with a strong throughline of women’s empowerment. Glennon Doyle’s Untamed, Chanel Miller’s Know My Name, and Tara Westover’s Educated all speak of such different life experiences but there are definitely common threads of overcoming trauma, finding one’s voice, and relearning how to live. And it doesn’t hurt that all three are fantastic writers.

The story of Tara Westover growing up in a survivalist religious family with a strong paranoia against the government, public schools, and hospitals, Educated struck me as especially relevant right now. At a time where so many people are being lost to misinformation, it’s a reminder that people can leave, relearn, and find their own way, especially with patient teachers, helpers, and guides.

Untamed was one essay after the next packed full of writing chops I’m frankly jealous of. While it covers an expansive set of things, one of my big takeaways was the value of raising kids in a way that honors their true selves.

Know My Name felt so deeply personal-and it is that sort of book. It only adds to that effect that everything takes place in a younger person’s life in California and that Chanel Miller was a UCSB student around the same time I was. Her integration of the attack that happened to her added nuance to the way I think of victimhood and survivorship.

But Love Persisting

What is grief, if not love persevering?

Eish, Wandavision was a nice escape for several weeks, but after seeing that quote go around pretty widely over the weekend, clearly that line of dialogue struck a chord. It was so similar to a line one of my teammates shared: grief is love with nowhere to go.

What persists after losing somebody? So many things. There are the ideas they left in the world, both the ones they’ve articulated and the things they’ve taught people. The way they saw the world. You know that feeling when you experience something and you know exactly what somebody who isn’t there would say in that moment? A very powerful and hard-to-pin-down replica of the way that person saw the world enters your brain, creating that experience. That’s especially amazing when it’s somebody who had a unique and beautiful way of seeing the world. It’s amazing the ways we permanently change each other in the moments we spend together.

At least half of everyone I know has had to say goodbye to somebody special in the past 3-4 months. Those kinds of losses don’t need to define you, but they do shape you, and they’re worth spending time with.

📺📺📺

On a much simpler note, I decided to surprise Deanna with a day trip to Disneyland. They opened some of the park to walk around in and order meals to go. Entry was free and people did a decent job masking, distancing, and all that. The most popular attraction was easily this Wandavision photo-op. What a good day.

I Got the Shot

So a very good thing happened to me this week...

We’re now Deanna: 2, Philippe: 1 in dose counts. It’s not all over yet, but the light at the end of the tunnel is very much real. Also, the scientific spectacle in my arm is pretty incredible.

I saw two posts online this week.

One expressing fatigue at having run out of energy to keep up the Zoom calls and a lack of new things to say. It’s virality was an indicator of how widespread the exhaustion is.

The other came from someone who works at the hospital where they treated the US’ first patient. “I wish you all could see what I see everyday,” she shared. “This thing will end. We’re doing it!”

With a little more frequency, I can dream up the sights and smells of layover airports, movie theatre lobbies, and black box theatres.

Fatigue. Grief. Optimism. It’s all valid.

I don’t think any of us are really the same people we were a year ago, and though I’m sure the feelings are complicated, I hope that difference has been for the better.

Here’s to never taking community for granted, always looking out for the most vulnerable, loving the process, and being a little more like the person Ted Lasso makes me want to be.

Solving Problems v. Solving Feelings

There’s a big difference between actually solving a problem and solving the way we feel about a problem.

I just released a video on YouTube (link in the bio) exploring the myths around recycling. I spent a few weeks researching and writing it and it became clear that a lot of our environmental services weren’t designed to effectively eliminate waste or pollution, as much as they were designed to make people feel better about the problem.

The same pattern plays out in a lot of pushes for racial justice. It’s a lot easier to make the symbolic change (rename the mascot, hire some cast members of color) than it is to make structural changes (prison abolition, reparations, etc.) I do think public sentiment and symbols are important, but their impact is also different than the impact made by structural change. (That’s a whole nother video sometime)

I don’t think this only applies to society and culture. At a personal level there are a ton of other examples of how solving a problem can be different than solving how we feel about a problem. It’s a distinction worth paying more attention to.

Cabin Life

This cabin!! Accommodations used to be one of my lowest priorities when traveling. I used to intentionally plan nights of sleeping on a bus or in an airport into my schedule to save the cash.

Things are a little different when a baby, puppy, and pandemic enter the mix.

This cabin we found at Lake Gregory was exactly what we needed. Technically, it was a studio, but it had more space for Rhys to run around than he probably has at home. Our host even made us welcome soup and cornbread.

If I’m not gonna go the cheap route for accommodations, then I might as well embrace making the place I stay all part of the experience. We spent our nights here winding down as early as six for the coziest time of reading, movies, and sleep.

Some of the best places I’ve stayed:

🇦🇷 A backpacker hostel in Patagonia that nailed the woodsy cabin vibe, and set out fresh baked bread and dulce de leche for breakfast every morning

🇿🇲 A Zambian hotel called Fawlty Towers. The facilities were decent, but the adventures you could book at the front desk were almost too good to be true. I’m still in awe at the safari tour I got arranged.

🇮🇹 The apartment we stayed at on our last visit to Italy in Siena was again just right. A balcony and kitchen to keep us close to the heart of the city and exactly the right feel.

Big Bear Lake

It feels like forever ago, but it was only a few weeks back when we got to spend a few days in Lake Gregory- kinda near Arrowhead and Big Bear.

Pandemic travel is weird and we didn’t do things too differently than what we do at home to enjoy. Stay in, get takeout, read, and spend time in nature. But the time off and away was much needed and appreciated.

Highlights:
🏔 Lots of time exploring the San Bernardino Mountains
🏭 Walking the quiet storefronts in the downtown spots of small mountain towns
❄️ Rhys loved the snow, no surprise
🥘 The homemade soup and cornbread our host set out for us
☕️ The coziest cabin with a mega supply of coffee and tea