ReCoGnIzE! (My Day in DC)

Last week sometime, I was talking with my new female-writer confidant (LP2 is what I'll nickname her, since I already know 1 LP already.) and we had decided quite brilliantly that since we both worked for "governmental jobs" (hers more than mine, to be honest) that allowed us to celebrate the birth of Abraham AND George so luxuriously, it might be fun to check out the new Hip-Hop-infused art exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery in DC. (Seriously, what better way to celebrate the birth of two Presidents than to go back to their political stomping ground?)

I was really looking forward to hanging out with LP2 for several reasons:

1. LP2 has to be one of the most amazing writers I've ever read. Anything she writes about, I just have to read. It's ridiculous, honestly. To be completely embarrassing, I have to admit that I will scroll through the comment sections of Racialicious just to read her comments. Why? Because this woman has the ability to speak her mind in intelligent and graceful ways I can't even imagine. In short, I am LP2's biggest fan. (oh yes, LP2, it's totally true.)

2. Something about becoming closer to LP2 as a person rather than a writer, helped me open myself up as a writer again, surprisingly. Talking with her through emails back and forth and such, really reminded me of how much I miss writing and expressing myself. And how much I've been using so many other forms of communication that haven't been as faithful or as effective as writing has been for me in the past. I am just so excited to finally have a tie into writing community again. I felt like I had been pushed out, mainly voluntarily...okay, mostly voluntarily. By pushed out, I guess I mean, me - slowly over time - pulling away from writing because I felt it kept me from the doing of life. But now after all this doing, I'm starting to feel the only way for me to truly own it, and love it, is to reflect and write. And it's just great to be surrounded by people who get the same satisfaction, like LP2.

3. We were going to see a fricken' art exhibit, for chrissakes! How awesome/fantastical/amazing/brilliant/spectaculicious is that?! I hadn't been to a true art exhibit in years, unless you count that one time that that guy who was really into this scathingly bad art forced me to go to this tattoo-parlor-turned-art-studio with lots of men and women dressed in fancy clothes, drinking cheap champagne out of plastic wine glasses while walking around staring at photos of girls in their underwear with gag balls in their mouths and said "How extraordinary and deep! I'll buy FIVE!" ...so I hadn't really been to an art exhibit at all... in a LONG time.

4. This would ultimately be my (Count it!) 2nd time driving to DC by myself, in the daylight. You know, that little thing called sunshine where you're able to see your hand in front of your face without squinting really hard beyond the laser lights and the darkness and whatever trippy lighting effects you can think of? It was fantastic to be driving, especially on a random day where the weather was perfect 60 degrees outside! I literally rolled my windows down as soon as I hit 295, and turned the air conditioning on because the sun was so warm and delicious. I was excited to finally be getting out of the house, and driving to DC for a quick adventure. Not that I haven't been out of the house at all in the past few months (if you've been reading this and other blogs, you'll notice I have!) but this was just a little different. No familiar faces, no particular event that I was time-constrained to. I just knew eventually LP2 and I would go to the National Portrait and eventually we'd get so annoyed with the growling of our stomachs that we would succumb and gobble food to tell it to shut up.

Once I got into DC off New York Ave, I recognized where I was completely - it seems like anywhere and everywhere that I have spent oodles and oodles of my time has been off of New York Ave. The only thing about heading that way was worrying about the traffic, which wasn't as bad as I had expected it to be - possibly because I kept forgetting that it was a government holiday, and literally everything, save for the galleries and exhibits, on Pennsylvania Avenue was shut down for the day.

I just had to find parking. Ugh. If there is one thing that I have to say that I hate about having a car is getting to the place and then having to roam around for an hour to find parking. Because every one knows that all the cool places; ie: the only places that you and your friends want to go, are located in areas where there is NO PARKING and you have to find parking on some back alley or do "creative" parking - like parking just past the sign that is marked "No Parking ---> This Way Between 4-7 pm" claiming later when you get the ticket, "Well, half of my car was in the safe parking zone, doesn't that count?"

So I drove around. And around. I finally called Oppa out of desperation.

"Oppa, I am on Pennsylvania Avenue and I can't find parking anywhere."

"Uh? It's a holiday, EJ - you should be able to find parking easily. I suggest you try to park around the mall," my brother said over the phone, "How long are you here for? Will you call to have dinner with me and Esther later?"

"I'll try, I don't know how long I'll be here. I am checking out that new art exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery. I'll call you later regardless, though."

After driving around several times in a square-shaped circle, and finding absolutely no free parking spaces, I finally gave in and turned into the nearest "Parking Garage Here" sign I saw. Thankfully it was at the International Trade Center, where they are equipped to deal with idiots like me who for the life of me even though the parking lot probably has fifty-seven signs showing me that I parked on C-2, when I finally go to get back to my car, I walk around aimlessly for fifty minutes, going on every single level and not having a damned clue where I parked.

But this parking lot was awesome. Instead of numbers, it had countries to designate what floor you parked on. How could I forget that I parked on Floor Russia? I could easily forget something arbitrary like C-3 or D-4, but Russia? Hell no. I'll remember that sucker.

I finally met up with LP2 after walking to the wrong damned gallery and having to turn around. There was some kind of mad-hatter accident or something, and halfway along my walk they had to detour across three more blocks just to get to a block I was originally only a few steps away from. Bah.

But ReCoGnIzE! was awesome. One of the most amazing things were the paintings by Kehinde Wiley. Absolutely off-the-CHAIN! Take a portrait of Napoleon, add a little Ice-T to the mix, and Boom! What a masterpiece. The depth of the colors and the shadows, and just the entire composition was breath-taking, and something that I can't wait to go back to and check out again (I am going again in March if anyone is interested).

LP2 and I had a great time, overall. We perused the gift shop, and gave in to temptation by purchasing the photo booklet of the exhibit (It was only $10!!! C'mon!!) and then headed towards Chinatown to pick up some grub.

That was around the time that it started to rain. And LP2, being the street-stepper and "urban-dweller" that she is, came prepared with an umbrella. My stupid ass, had not.

So after grabbing some grub and some MUCH NEEDED intelligent conversation (LP2, you astound me with your little book of what you have to do's and whatnots, you go girl!) we escaped over to Urban Outfitters so I could buy a hat to shield me from the rain.)

While there, we started talking about music. Mainly because when we first walked into the store, LP2 remarked that the singer they had playing in the background sounded like Rachel Yamagata. Which is exactly what I thought to. And then we started to say, I can't believe you know that person, and oh my gosh, yes, I have my MP3 player right here with me, let's stand in front of the aisle and play music for each other despite people walking all around us!!!

Good times, I tell you.

Alas, the day had to come to a close, and LP2 gave me a big hug and off I went to go and try to find the International Trade Center. Remember how I mentioned that I would not forget what floor I parked on? Well, I didn't, I wouldn't have lied to you. But what I did manage to forget, or rather, lose somehow was my parking ticket. And with that, my ability to find my sense of direction as to where I had come from in the first place. Fantastic. I spent an hour just walking in the rain, asking mothers ushering their children under big umbrellas, "Which way to 13th St?" and men who were jogging with their visors on to catch the raindrops, "Do you know how far it is to Pennsylvania Ave from here?" Thank God people in DC tend to be pretty friendly.

Thanks for making my day off an exciting one, LP2, and we'll definitely have to do this again, real soon.

I promise to have more posts up soon, particularly two involving a special person's birthday, and a "terrible schmelting accident".

The Most Beautiful View In The World

This has been my view of the world for the past week and a half. And what a gorgeous sight it is -- the dashboard of my 2008 Toyota Corolla.

For this Thanksgiving, I have been most thankful more than anything for the most amazing people that I have been blessed to have in my life. Friends who love me, care for me, and make sure that I am taken care of....Friends who made this possible this year:

So thank You for friends (family):

for cars, for left foot accelerators, for poetry, for blogs, for freedom, for crummy jobs that help pay the rent and put food on the table, and for sunsets:

Early Mornings

I woke up at 4:30 am this morning, wrapped in my sheets, my legs coiled over the side of the bed, and my head buried between my two pillows.

When my eyelids finally pushed past the sleepy-crusts that were dried along the edges of my face, I noticed that it was still dark out - and my TV was still running.

It was on some old drama/action flick. Some unknown piece of cinematic junk but regardless, I have a feeling that whatever dialogue or plot that was going on in that movie affected what was happening in my dream.

Now I don't dream too often. And I usually dream in sequences - meaning I will go sleeping for a while without dreams and then within one week, all of a sudden, I will have three or four dreams in consecutive nights.

I had this dream that I climbed into this black Scion, and it was mine, of course. I had the feeling that I wasn't supposed to be driving, so I realized that it is a present time dream - I have a license but I am still not able to drive by myself yet.

Anyways, so I find myself on this dirt road path. It's windy, and misshapened, and headed into this wooded area. Rather than be scary, it's almost peaceful and serene, and calming. I have the feeling that I have been here before, and there are bits and pieces of the scenery around me that I recognize from other dreams.

Finally, I reach my destination. I walk out of my car and towards this huge structure. Let me try to explain it to you - never at any one time am I able to see the entire structure for its full being - possibly because it represents a lot of different things for me. What I do know is that it is dark, but well lit when it needs to be by candlelight, or dim mood lighting - like in a theatre.

I get the sense that the building is very organic. Made of trees, dirt, water - completely one with the earth. And as I am walking through the hallways of this place (that seem to be made of dirt tunnels) I am passing by hundreds of people. People in groups, people in classes, people making art, people reading poetry out loud to each other. Everybody is dressed in this neo-bohemian chic kind of style. The kind of clothes I remember wearing in high school.

I am wandering through the halls, and I feel at home, and at ease - but I also don't know where I am headed. Suddenly, I find this lady. Her name is Grace, or Tanya...I can't really remember her name. But it sounded sweet, and it sounded familiar. She is a few years older than me, possibly in her 30's. She has long brown hair that is naturally wavy, and she has a head band keeping her bangs from her forehead. She has a gentle face.

There was something about the way our conversation was going that made me feel that she was an old friend. The way she spoke with me was as if she had known me for years. She would smile, and touch her hand to my cheek and nod for emphasis as I continued to speak.

I don't know the entire conversation, in fact, I only remember bits here and there of what we were saying. I remember telling her that I was having trouble falling asleep and staying asleep. I told her I was having trouble finding myself through my dreams, finding myself through my day-to-day routine. Not "finding myself" as in my sanity - as in finding myself on a deeper scale. On an emotional and spiritual scale, the confidence that I used to have in that part of my soul that I have long become a stranger to. But I didn't have to explain all of that to her. She already knew exactly where I was coming from.

She told me to sit and to wait for her to come back. So I sat propped up against one of the dirt covered tunnel walls and waited patiently. It didn't seem like she was gone for long. When she returned, she had a pile of papers.

"These are you, E," she said offering me the pile of papers, "I have known you all your life. Remember the first handmade card you sent me from school?"

On top was a construction paper handmade card that I had made for Fourth of July when I was in preschool. It was tied with red ribbons on one side to keep the pages together. It was white on the front and had the American flag on the front.

"Yes, I remember now. I remember...but it just seems so long ago, and I don't know if my mind and my soul can remember who I am," I said feeling tears come to my eyes as I sat running my hands through the pages in the pile, realizing that they were every single short story, every single poem and art project that I had ever written or created since a little girl.

She put her hand on my shoulder and crept down to me.

"No matter what, these are you. They were you, and they are you. You never left your soul - you just took different roads - different paths- but they are all paths and roads within the same place that you have always known. You just need to patient to get back to the main road and the main journey."

She gripped my hand and bade me to follow her down the dark tunnels. We passed by people that looked familiar to me: people I had met in workshops in New York, in Philly, people who I had taken writing classes with, people from my high school, people that I had encountered through all my artistic journeys and endeavors. They were selling wares - their art, their poetry, or they were reciting poetry, and writing. The whole world in these tunnels was extremely comforting to me, and I felt like I never wanted to leave this place - or at least make sure that I came back more often than it seemed I had been going.

Finally, we reached one of the little kiosks that were within the tunnels. It was close to the main front entrance of the place because I saw a ray of light in front of us. She smiled and went through this kiosk of books, rummaging to try to find for me what she thought was exactly what I needed to get out of this slump.

She pulled out a book full of pages and pages of stories and pictures of crowds. Paintings, photos, artwork of people's faces, and groups of people in one place.

"If you read these stories, and these poems that are inside here, you will find that they are filled with a message and feeling and sense of hope and calmness. You will find the words are soft to the sound - soft to the lips as you pronounce them...and you won't have problems sleeping ever again. These will give you peace of mind. If you stare at the pictures of the people long enough - you will find that you know each and every single one of them by heart. They are your friends, they are people who love you, they are your family. They are here for you, as much as I am."

With that, she placed the things into a sack for me and handed it to me. She grabbed me into a big hug and held onto me tightly, kissing my face on the forehead and both of my cheeks twice.

That's when I woke up. That's when I started writing this blog and going through the massive piles of poetry and prose books all over my room.

The first book I picked up was a Pablo Neruda book of poetry and as I flipped through the pages, the first page I stopped to was this one:

Too Many Names

Monday is tangled up with Tuesday
and the week with the year:
time can't be cut
with your tired scissors,
and all the names of the day
are rubbed out by the water of the night.

No one can be named Pedro,
no one is Rosa or Maria,
all of us are dust or sand,
all of us are rain in the rain.
They have talked to me of Venezuelas,
of Paraguays and Chiles,
I don't know what they're talking about:
I'm aware of the earth's skin
and I know that it doesn't have a name.

When I lived with the roots
I liked them more than the flowers,
and when I talked with a stone
it rang like a bell.

The spring is so long
that it lasts all winter:
time lost its shoes:
a year contains four centuries.

When I sleep all these nights,
what am I named or not named?
And when I wake up who am I
if I wasn't I when I slept?

This means that we have barely
disembarked into life,
that we've only now just been born,
let's not fill our mouths
with so many uncertain names,
with so many sad labels,
with so many pompous letters,
with so much yours and mine,
with so much signing of papers.

I intend to confuse things,
to unite them, make them new-born,
intermingle them, undress them,
until the light of the world
has the unity of the ocean,
a generous wholeness,
a fragrance alive and crackling.

Post #99: Freedom Sestinas

My second year of Literary Arts at Carver was spent studying the different forms of poetry and the different disciplines of other genres of writing such as scriptwriting and fiction.

I hate(d) scriptwriting. I feel so confined by all the rules; the format alone is enough to make someone like me (the messy, piles of paper and clothes on the floor type of gal) go insane. I ultimately allowed myself to soak up enough of the formatting to get an A on my final presentation but to this day, if you ask me how many spaces are needed from the indentation of the left in order to begin a character's dialogue as opposed to the fade-in opening description...yeah, well, you've shit outta luck buddy.

But what I hated even more were sonnets...iambic pentameters were the Desert Storm of my sophomore year. You went in thinking you'd only be there for a little bit (because how hard is it to rhyme some words?) and blinked only to realize you had been sucked into a Shakespearean vortex of hell - iambic pentameter beats throbbing in your eardrums - your nightmares surrounding you with clouds of triolets, couplets, stanzas, quatrains all suspended in the air ramming into the side of your head with their perfect rhythmic structures, their deliberate forms and rhyme schemes. Once in a while shocking you into resilence with a volta here and there.

Just when I began a deathly suffocation into the further restrictive poetic forms, Mrs. BBB threw us all a curve ball: the sestina.

"The sestina is said to have been invented by the troubadour poet Arnaut
Daniel. It was widely used by his followers, as well as by Dante and
Petrarch in Italy. The word troubadour comes from the Provencal word
trobar, meaning "to find" or "to invent in verse." The troubadours were
travelling French poet-musicians, some of them noblemen or
crusader-knights, who flourished from the end of the eleventh century
through the thirteenth century."

-from "The Handbook of Poetic Forms"

I fell in love. NO iambic pentameters. NO rhyming words. Freedom. FREEDOM in
poetic form.

So without further ado:

At night my birthmother's spirit teaches me her language
and most times my tongue twists itself into knots, other times it dances
over the rhythm of the words. This is when I become one with my culture
and spill my worries into the "yah" and "yo" endings of
the Korean proverbs my birthmother tries to teach me. And
I pray that if the words posess me enough they will make me beautiful.

It is from my birthmother's womb that I first prayed to be beautiful
like her. To have hair like hers, so soft and smooth like the language
that poured from her lips to soothe me at night. I frustrate and
chide myself for being unable to remember the songs she sang so I might dance
as she did in fine Hanbok silks, fans flutering against her gentle face to songs of
hope - that each step might help me remember more of the culture.

I was forced to leave behind in that tiny village in Seoul where culture
runs through the market streets and invades the air with the beautiful
sounds of the Han street drums. My blood rushes to these sounds in search of
finding myself locked in the beat and the shouts of the language
filling my ears. Maybe with them will come whispers that I can dance
too; forgetting that my legs were not fit for dancing and

stomping my lame foot as hard as I can on solids ground, my heart and
soul will pour into this world. Into these people that are my culture
and are the closest I get to breathing my mother's scent and dancing
with her in the streets. I hope I look somewhat beautiful
for my birthmother when we clutch hand-in-hand, and share secrets in our language
that I can finally understand. Like how both our legs seem to be made of

the devil posts stuck in the mud outside each village. And of
how our eyes close when we lift our lips to smile and
she will tell me why the lnie in my palm stops halfway. Her language
is now mine as well. I no longer doubt that this is my culture
or that my body, with my small eyes and devil post legs, is anything less than beautiful
compared to hers. I admire how we both look in the light as we dance.

I want to be like my birthmother, and own her hps when she dances
so gracefully, shifting her weight from side to side in hopes of
catching a glimpse from my father whose eyes are just as beautiful
as hers. I wish to be there when he takes her in his arms and
they remind me how much I am a part of this culture
because I now share these secrets, share their blood, in our language.

And this is how I dream for it to end; hangul pouring from my lips so that my child may dance
to the rhythm of the culture that I learned of from the soils of my beautiful home country
and the soils of my birth.

Poem Draft #1

The homeless man wedged up against the plastic seat
on the subway car's floor has become her distant family member.

She finds a strange comfort in her night rides through
the city's dark tunnels, the lights flashing
against the crusted pexi glass windows.
It is her sanctuary to be so close to
people who are breathing the same air,
living the life.

For at home, she is alone.

Living as a work of art

Last night, for whatever reason, I popped "Memoirs of a Geisha" into my DVD player while I was studying for class.

As many times as I have seen this movie, something about watching it last night, maybe the fact that I was at first half-listening, and half-reading my textbook, or the fact that I have been completely exhausted emotionally lately, made me recognize a lot of things in the movie that have transcended into the stereotypes that haunt (or drive) Asian women or women in general today.

In the movie, the voice over for Saiyuri says: "To be a geisha is to sell your talents, not to sell your body. You are to present yourself as a living work of art."

I guess I have lived most of my life trying to be my own living work of art. The idea of doing it just for the sake of one man's (or several men's) happiness is overwhelming to me. I couldn't imagine what pressure it must bring to a woman to be in a society centered around a woman being beautiful and "skilled". In high school, I used to parade around in my baggy jeans or my overalls and bright colored sweaters, writing about my life, and pieces of life in poems and prose, and essays. I'd spend hours in my parents' basement late at night, with a paintbrush in my hand and an empty canvas in front of me, starting to find myself as an artist. I defined myself by the art that I was passionate to create. That was me living as my works of art.

As I got older, (and I am thinking this as I am writing) perhaps I have succumbed to living as a work of art. I traded in my paintbrush for clothes, and make-up. I haven't traded in my pen yet though. I like knowing that the little writing that I urge myself to complete, I can share with that special person one day - hoping that for even just a brief moment he'll try to understand where it all came from, and what part of me it is.

Late (or Early) Poetry Feed

I woke up in the middle of the night from out of a deep sleep. It was weird, and I felt unsure of where I was. I think I had a dream that I was in a jail cell somewhere, that I was in holding...that I was hiding from someone or something. I can't really remember. But I just woke up, sat up and grabbed my journal and started writing. That's the first time in a very long time that I have immediately gone to my journal like that. It felt like I had never left.

I got this idea that I would find some poetry I wrote during high school in my freshman year and try to see how much I have grown (if any) as a writer through the years.

Here's the first poem that we ever had assigned. It was a memory poem. We were told that we had to create a memory poem based on the earliest childhood memory that we had. The only requirement was that at the end, the last stanza should leave the reader with an everlasting impression of what we remember that memory as. Basically, a summary. So here it is, final draft written October 19, 2000:

Hiccups

I hardly knew my Grandmother
before she died of cancer.
I was six at the time.
After she left, my only memory of her
was set in a small house with its
dark and muggy yellowed walls
that surrounded my frail five-year-old body.
My Grandmother stood in her living room,
the faded flowers in her nightgown
her white hair thinned,
and the coke-bottle glasses magnifying her eyes
that shone so joyously with life.
That afternoon,
I stood in her living room,
my chest heaving with hiccups.
My Grandmother accompanied me
with her own forced hiccups
between soft words of comfort.
A year later, when in her eyes I saw death,
her body lay limp in the hospital bed,
I could still hear her faint laughter,
droning with the monitors and machines around her.
Her soft hiccups remain with me today
as echoes in my heart.

This next poem was the first time I had ever written about the earliest abusive confrontation I had had with a boy. I was 12 1/2, almost 13. When I wrote it as a metaphor poem, it made it easier to get a lot of the things off of my chest. I felt like I could hide the truths and the emotions behind this screen of a metaphor. That way my personal experience was still left in the poem, but the metaphor helped allow someone else to read it and understand what it meant to me to go through that. This is the 11th draft.

The Snowstorm

His love was the snowstorm.
The first snowflakes fell,
pressing against my cheeks, eyelids, and
lips so softly
they swirled about my body,
blanketing me with warmth and adorning me
with crystal coool imprints of sweet nothings and
affectionate words.
The pleasantly chilled winds
brushed against my flesh tenderly.

Days went by, harsh winds arose,
pushed forcefully along my spine, whipped across my body,
leaving aches and small bruises
like fingerprints across my skin
as the snow continued to descend harder-
the signs of a treacherous blizzard
moving across the maps of my soul.

It has been a week,
the storm has progressed to sleet and hail,
my salty tears have turned to blood,
painting my cheeks dark crimson
stones pound hard against the blood covered landscape,
freezing the blades of my fragile spirit,
until they break apart.
Now the wind whistled rapidly, cursing as it spun
sputtering loud screeches in the dark.
Chunks of lies and shattered dreams
begin to pelt everything in their path
leaving eternal welts on the trees' limbs
and scars that could only be seen
after the frost melted.

Soon, the blizzard softens,
winds slowly die away
the sleet and hail fall distant and
snow is left to drift silently
upon the thawing ice,
ripples enveloping each flake
until every last one disappeared
yet my splattered blood
was bequeathed by the soil,
making it strong, rich and fertile
once again.

Thanks for reading!