So I haven’t posted in a while. There have been drafts and attempts to share thoughtful book reviews but everything gets boring the exact minute I decide on doing it. Something called pathological demand avoidance, apparently (thanks TikTok for more pop psych than I know what to do with). Since I last wrote on here, I’ve been chasing dopamine hits, which all things considered, are pretty tame given the current state of the world, and have left the GVA, possibly for good. I wanted to be a West Coast girlie so so bad but alas, cost of living, drug crisis, yaddi yadda. I talked about the sad state of the Canadian dream as well as navigating multiple identities with the ever so thoughtful Sherry-Lynn who runs the excellent nuances podcast. Give it a listen for all manner of stereotype-defying AAPI conversations!
In leaving the West Coast, I found myself back to square one, so to speak. Literally my very first square. I was skeptical. When I left Montreal in 2017, I was so done. A job that made me physically ill, mindless consumerism, friendships that felt shallow, and the winters, gosh the winters. Sometime between then and now, I rebranded. No more insane “I love the cold” pick me shit. I’m an island, heat-seeking girl through and through, I want year-round savat dodo and bol 5 by the beach kinda weather. This absurd September heat wave has felt like the coziest dream, you know, minus the impending doom.
I got to be in my birth city during my birth month for the first time in six years. I expected to feel a sort of tranquil reverence, a deep gratitude, an unparalleled sense of homecoming after being away for so long. But the first week was a fever dream. I found myself navigating an entirely new wave of grief, holding young versions of me and all their sadness and telling them it’s all going to be fine while barely believing it myself. So there's been a lot of crying, happy tears, when I notice something tragically beautiful, and when I’m overcome with an ache ten years in the making, something eviscerating. Three months later, I can see beauty and softness where I used to not be able to see it, I notice the shades of green in the trees, the happy children at the splash pad, the couples scratching each other’s backs on park benches, which tells me I’ve healed at least in part. For the first time, it’s all coming together, it all makes sense and there’s no splitting happening, at least for now.
Some book thoughts
What My Bones Know by Stephanie Foo (May 2023)
Although I’ve barely flipped through a physical book this month, I’ve been sa-vo-ring Stephanie Foo's acclaimed memoir What My Bones Know in audiobook format while going on Pokemon Go walks. I just reinstalled the app for the first time in 6 ish years and that's been giving me the extra incentive to go out in my neighborhood (which is a great low impact activity for my chronically hurting body). Discovering hordes of new Pokemon has been filling me with childlike wonder I can rarely sustain but having something to do with my hands while I listen works magic for my easily understimulated brain. Except that I’ve been having to take breaks to take notes. So many notes!
Stephanie Foo really takes us on one of the most intimate, personal journeys through trauma and its very persistent consequences. She explicitly charts her trajectory through diagnosis, theory and experimental methods of healing, as she tries to figure out how to rewire a traumatized brain. There were so many juicy tidbits - gosh I have documents full of notes - so many atrocious recollections and scientific revelations that were often a familiar punch to the gut.
I loved this important piece of work and it begs repeating that there is so much we don't know still, so many mental illnesses that have no real workaround, so much red tape to work through before even getting close to getting help. It's rough, it's tough, and the only certainty I have in this life so far is that it takes good people around you to get by, it takes affordable healthcare, non exploitative work, it takes a village of care work and we are oh so lacking.
"Healing is never final. It is never perfection but along with the losses are the triumphs." (Chapter 43)
Roaming by Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki
A comic by Asian-Canadian authors set in NYC? Say less! After seeing about a gazillion promo posts on Drawn and Quarterly’s IG, I had an immovable awareness of it (Aisha Franz’s Work Life Balance is next). I sat down at an Indigo for what I thought would be one of several reading sessions (the book is 400 pages +) but read it in one tranced sitting! High school besties Zoe and Dani, and Dani’s opinionated college friend Fiona, take on the city and try to take everything in but tension brews as their ideas of exploration and adventure begin to clash. I entered their world so fully and was completely taken by the subtle rendition of competitiveness, jealousy and pettiness of twenty-somethings exhibiting varying degrees of conventional cool. The artwork is stunning, and incredibly pleasing to my eye and was a sweet little throwback to Skim (from the same authors) which I read during my undergrad in this very city, many moons ago. The comic is also set exactly when I started college and Fiona reminded me so much of Girls‘ Jessa which made me perfectly nostalgic for my early twenties. I longed for pizzas by the slice and late nights in a new city with people I half know.
Personal Attention Roleplay by H. Felix Chau Bradley
You know the kind of book that really makes you wanna write? This was one of those for me. It had a bit of everything. H. Felix Chau Bradley's short stories are full of quirks and walking contradictions. They take us on a journey through the lives of a number of queer characters who experience longing and limerence in complicated, surprising ways. Many of the stories are set in and to an extent about Montreal which I’ll always be a sucker for. I loved being able to read about nights at Club 737 (which is a café now apparently?!) and references to specific bumpy bus routes. I especially loved Finisterre, a short story following two cousins who, for different reasons and with different motives, take a trip to Europe together. A sex scene with an older Spanish man is described in such precise, haunting language I felt like a fly on the wall of that sweaty European room. I adored the imagery the author employed and saw my younger self in many of the anti-heroic, borderline pathetic protagonists. An excellent meditation on unrequited queer love and wanting to belong yet be different from everyone else. I want to read more of this exact kind of stuff! Fittingly, here's their review of Roaming.
That's all for now, happy September folks! 🍁
girl, so happy de te lire ! take good care <3
I enjoyed reading this, looking forward to spending fall and winter with you. :*