a slip of the brain

there was an exhausting period of several weeks early in the summer when i was churning through every major doubt and insecurity i have. it felt involuntary, like i had no control over where my mind was going as it yanked me into every deep corner in my psyche and forced me to look at every ugliness in my being. i was questioning my job and my future, wondering about my sexuality and doubting my relationship with kevin and my basic self-worth. i hijacked dinners with girlfriends and turned them into therapy sessions about my job, which i was unable to bring myself to care about. i wrote kevin pages-long emails, desperate missives, while he was trying to move his mom out of their old home and certainly dealing with plenty on his own. i remember that day crying in the shower as i tried to accept what felt inevitable–he and i wouldn’t work out and i had to break up with him. the panic certainly felt real at the time, and i’d spent so much time in my last relationship lying to myself and to my ex that i was willing to do whatever i needed to to shake off those doubts. i remember begging becca to make my brain just stay still for a minute, i wanted to give myself a break so badly. when my brain wasn’t working in overdrive i felt immobilized by something i wanted to call depression.

“chugga chugga chugga chugga. do you know what that’s the sound of?” kevin asked me a few weeks later when i interrupted a quiet moment with another stream of worries. i shook my head. “it’s your brain moving…”

i’m still not sure what was going on then. most of those big psychological battles have retreated–i am not beating myself up so much anymore. i am not breaking up with kevin. he’d never replied to an email so fast. his response that morning was long and thoughtful and measured and calm. i read portions of it to becca out loud over lunch and she told me to save that email and refer to it anytime i felt similar doubts creeping in again.

it turns out that the analytical skills that serve me so well in my work are a detriment to my well-being and personal peace of mind elsewhere. it turns out that the command to “chill out” is actually the quickest way to make me freak out; i’m super sensitive to being told that i’m on edge, for one. and clearing my mind and keeping my brain still are things that takes a great deal of discipline.

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it’s still a little odd to me to be so in love, to call a new person the pet names i used to call another. really vivid memories from my old relationship will occasionally pop up in the middle of a conversation or while i’m passing by a store–somehow it’s only the happy that remains. i take that as a good thing. but occasionally jack’s name will be on the tip of my tongue when i mean to say kevin’s and that is a little disconcerting. sometimes i feel like i live in the past and the future and the present simultaneously.

Filed under: figuring it out, friends, love, work

warm and wheezy

high up in the hills above laguna beach there’s a park at the very top of a mountain that overlooks the beach to the west and a canyon to the east. it’s easily one of my favorite places in orange county. i think it was night when i first went; diego brought us when we were freshmen. he had borrowed his dad’s bmw and sped mario, kristen and i up the mountain past all the multi-million dollar homes. it’s a steep climb, and i remember the ride being wildy hery jerky. none of us had a car then, so just riding in one and being off campus was adventure enough. but we got up there and it was beautiful. lovely views everywhere we turned, even in the dark of night. we stared out into the black horizon and told each other our secrets and held each other tight.

when i got a car in my third year i made a habit of driving up there at all hours of the day and night. i went up there when i was feeling grateful and joyous, i went up there with friends–had a lot of great conversations up there, skirts billowing in the wind and toes dusty from the trails. i’d visit when i was feeling lonely and very sorry for myself which of course only made me feel lonelier, but was still terribly romantic. anyone of any import, i’d haul up to the mountain. i brought friends, boys, sharon. years after i graduated, i’d still make pilgrimages any chance i got. at night the town lights made the coast glow. in the daytime the blue water stretching till it touched the sky was the most impressive part of the view.

but it was the climb that made it so worth it. that i was never able to remember the turn off from the main street, blackbird or blueberry or one of those names, added to the secrecy of it. and there’s no one route to take to get up there; the only rule is to keep climbing. when you hit an intersection, choose the street that forces you up higher and higher, and sooner or later you’ll reach the top of the mountain. my little civic would huff and puff up the narrow two-lane roads, timidly hugging the rocks against the cliffs and always arrive at the peak warm and wheezy.

i was remembering all of this this morning while i was taking in the view from atop another mountain, this one in san francisco. i’d been up there before with jack one foggy sunday afternoon. he was afraid of heights but still let me lead him up dozens of stairs so we could take in the view. i set out this morning to try to go find the mountain again. it’s not too far from my parents’ house and i sometimes catch peeks of it while i’m driving home. this time i was on foot, trying to find some new route around the neighborhood that i’ve lived in since i was 8. it actually wasn’t that hard. i ran toward the mountain but overshot it by a few blocks, and then decided i’d just start climbing up the hills away from the orderly alphabetized blocks. i found a few hidden staircases–they are my favorite san francisco discoveries. such generous additions from thoughtful city planners, and turned to see the mountaintop was actually behind me. just halfway up the back of the mountain the view was already amazing. i had never seen the sunset quite that way. i could make out the chase bank on 19th an noriega, i could make out the coral and white catholic school, i could make out lincoln high school, and the cement-topped reservoir near andy’s house out on rivera, and beyond that, the ocean. at the very top of the mountain i could see all the way down to the golden gate bridge, the presidio, the baseball green on 7th and lawton, the transamerica building, children’s hospital, that big domed building near california and fillmore.

my city, my home, a place i’ve been wanting to escape for a long time.

i had an honest conversation wtih my mom a week ago, about buddhism and family and the family’s work and san francisco and the future, and what we want for each other, for ourselves. she gave me permission to go live my life, to decide for myself the relationship that i want to have with this city, even if it means the work of my family is not at the center of it. i’m not sure if she knows how significant the conversation was for me, we have not discussed it together since. i was thinking about my mom and my laguna beach mountain up there this morning, and about how beautiful the city looked, at once familiar and with so much still left to discover.

Filed under: figuring it out, home, los angeles, mommy, mommy, running, san francisco

a sewing workshop, my home

i’m not sure why this is so hard to write, or why the story sometimes feels like it doesn’t need to be told, or why i’ve given up this piece that i’ve been trying to write right now a good 7 or 8 times before. maybe i should start there, then.

i’ve opened this wordpress page many times this week, and each time been drawn away by exhaustion, something in my google reader, a new young holt unlimited song, the national conversations i’m supposed to track for my job. everything else seems more urgent than writing this, even though when i’m not able to write, i feel all of this burning a hole through my brain. the weight of experiences begging to be documented.

what makes a story hard to tell? when there’s some truth hidden inside it that we don’t want to face? when we’ve told versions of it so many times to so many acquaintances, that we can’t tell where to start when it’s time to tell it for real? when the story is bigger than we are?

i grew up in a sewing workshop, a sewing circle that operates steadily from january to july. it’s june now, which means the workshop is open 7 days a week, round the clock, and i basically live there when i’m not at work. i sew in an apartment building with many of my aunties and cousins. it is home, even though i’ve often resisted that truth.

i’ve been back three years now, and the first year, after four years away, was rough. i had plenty of ideas about where i wanted to spend my time, about what my priorities were. i chafed against the idea that my time was not my own, partially because the sewing workshop is run by my mother, who’s notoriously tough. a boss who works as many hours as you will (and longer), who has high standards and no problems telling you to re-do your work so it meets them.

becoming comfortable with my many hours in the sewing room was a process of coming to terms with who i was as an adult next to my mom, who’s still very much my mother. but it happened. i gave in, not unwillingly. i get it now, and make the choice regularly to give up a lot of other things so that i can be with my family. it’s tough to explain to people. i make my own choices about my time, and also am not completely in control. i want to put in all the time i can for my family, but it’s also a very demanding life. my family is much more than just a collection of people who happen to be related.

but these days, a side benefit to sewing 30 hours a week is that i’m also a fairly decent seamstress. passable pleats, gathered sleeves, shirt collars, zippers of all kinds, i can do them. and i’m not bad with just a needle and thread; my grand aunties have taught me a lot.

this weekend i made two leotards, one a two-toned one-sleeved thing that looks straight out of an american apparel catalog (that my cousins and i’ll be wearing underneath handmade silk dresses this summer), another with sequined arms for my cousin, who will play a star. i helped make a padded muscle shirt for my uncle, who will play a centaur this summer. he is sagittarius, of course. one auntie cut the fabric for a dress for my cousin who will be libra. another auntie sewed individual seed beads and sequins onto straps that will be attached to our dancing dresses next to another team of cousins who sewed ruffled blossoms that will be sewn onto the shoulders of our dresses. and someone else hammered studs into the sleeves of a shirt that will be worn by celestial guards.

we talk, we laugh, we sew, very often late into the night.

the sewing room is a converted two-room apartment, where beginner sewers sit in an annex–a storage room crammed with one sewing table, one ironing board, and one serger. some of my teenage cousins were in that side room, giggling their way through the night, and veteran sewers who’ve been around long enough know that when it gets that late, you’d better save your energy for your work instead of for your conversation. my mom also hates chatting, it distracts her from her rapid thinking and problem solving. but even she couldn’t resist marveling at how giggly the girls were; they’d been at it for hours. my mom asked our side of the room: “is any work happening over there? are they working their hands too?” my auntie margie, chuckling to herself, said: “they’re not working their hands, they’re working their mouths.”

more laughter, but also many sighs. the rhythm of work in the workshop is punctuated by yawns and slow stretches and quick gasps when fingers are pricked by sharp needles. the work is hard on the eyes and hands, many of my aunties wear two glasses at a time so they can see their work close up and among the crew, back and neck problems abound. yesterday, sometime after midnight my young cousin asked no one in particular: “when does this sweatshop close?” and without anyone raising their heads from their sewing machines and cutting tables, a chorus of voices said in unison: “never.” and then everyone burst into laughter again, both from the truth and the absurdity of it.

it is home. it is security, it also makes a lot of sense to me.

my family cooks together, cooks for each other–i often go to the building straight from work and always know that i can knock on someone’s door and there will be hot food for me. my family babysits each others’ kids, drives each other to doctor’s appointments and karate lessons. my auntie, her own two children all grown, tutors her 14-year-old nephew in history. her husband tutors my cousin in geometry and chemistry. people reach out their arms to carry each other. there are also many things that are never discussed, but getting help to make it through the day to day is not something people question, ever.

so i’m teaching my 7-year-old cousin to read. we make paper airplanes together; he reads the directions to me and we fold and fly the airplanes together. but his reading skills are behind for his grade level, and he speeds through words, confusing “each” with “edges,” cycling through lots of guesses for what “crease” could be, instead of trying to really read the letters in front of him. he, like me, has many mothers and fathers. there are many people who step in to look out for him, shuttle him to and from school and home, make sure he’s getting what he needs to be grow up healthy.

this weekend my brother also taught him how to play crazy 8′s, which also meant he had to teach him the four suits. he had a lot of trouble telling diamonds apart from triangles, but he eventually got it. next, i want to teach him how to play speed. life lessons, you know?

why would i ever want to leave this?

there are moments when i get glimpses of the future and of a life beyond the one in front of me right now. it’s enticing. i see that there’s room yet for pleasure and good conversation and new adventures, maybe even those that are accompanied by a lot of heartbreak and hard times. i know there’s a life beyond this sewing workshop, and it’s a life that asks to be attended to. but it feels like if i stay with my family i can hold all of that struggle at bay. it feels like my family could keep me safe forever, if i just stay close to the sewing room.

Filed under: family, figuring it out, home, sewing, paper airplanes, sewing