Dispatches from Elsewhere: Packing my demons into my carry-on
Day 0: Vancouver
I am writing today from my childhood bedroom, and in my head, I've drafted up far too many ways to start this record. Last time I travelled, I filmed a bunch of vlogs, and because I'd carried so much grief with me last time, I am grateful to see the nostalgia I'd captured, but I'm really hoping this trip can be more light-hearted. I'd even settle for relaxing. Partially relaxing, even. Honestly, I'm not sure what kind of demons I'm taking with me, but as usual I feel the ambitious rush to document as much as I can.
I'm not sure a blog is sustainable in competition with jetlag and other forms of exhaustion, but there is a lot that I don't want to forget. Perhaps over time, these dispatches will become shorter and more nonsensical. I don't want to police these pure, imperfect nuggets of my present attempting to hold hands with the past and future. Perhaps I will have videos and pictures interspersed with text. Perhaps I'll have little poems to make sense of whatever comes up.
The last time I was preparing for a long trip back to Asia, I'd found a half-written essay on Substack that I forgot to post, which I then attempted to accelerate my healing process by responding to it in a nice little letter to myself. This piece was my last post on Substack, now imported into BearBlog. This time, we're heading to Asia during a period of healing, of incubating, of trying not to be so damn tired all the time, if I'm honest.
I've been working on myself lately, not that I can remember a period where I wasn't (yay, trauma). A lot of my work recently has been trying to understand the parts of myself that I've buried. I'm taking Kai Cheng Thom's Falling in Love with Being Human with me to work through some of the blocks in my mind. So far, I've been fixated on the Magic Mirror vs. doorway problem, and it is only a week after coming across this did I realize I'd literally written about doors for my publication. My metaphor pairs well with Kai Cheng Thom's, but they both make me want to punt something petulantly or scream into a void. Perhaps this is the lens in which I view my world though on this trip.
Competing for thing-that-makes-me-want-to-punt-something, Mom wants me to repack my suitcase and take fewer clothes. She thinks we’ll buy clothes there and doesn’t listen when I try to explain my current love affair with vintage pieces after the vintage fair a few weeks ago. “So what if clothes these days disintegrate?” She said in not so many words. “The styles change so fast that we can just get new things.” How do you say “your generation’s callousness with the earth makes me want to set my hair on fire if fire wasn’t already a problem in the midst of our current climate catastrophe(s)” in Cantonese? Correction: how do you say all of that in a way that won’t make you look like the asshole. I settled for “哦”, meaning okay (but in the dialect of an emotionally absent parent). Another battle for another day.
Luckily, I'll have 14 hours on the flight to think my thoughts. On the other hand, I was smart this time and I downloaded all 8 hours of Max Richter's Sleep album in preparation.
This was a rambly sort of post, wasn't it? Maybe it'll streamline down the line. Or maybe I'll only write when I'm pushing past sleepy to full on fatigued, and every post will be as unfiltered and teetering into nonsensical as I speak my brain. All of these maybes and what ifs are finally starting to feel like excitement.
For now, I'm going to enjoy my time with my human and furry friends, try my best to delete work from my brain, and pray to the universe that Bee will be okay at the cat hotel.
Sleepy Flor, out!
