interned

so i realized the other day as i was sitting in lisa lowe's intro to asian am lit class that if not for internment i would not exist. i realize that if not for a lot of things i would not have been the product of my parents, like if my mom had said no to my dad in december 1971 when he asked her to be his girlfriend, but it had never occurred to me that my maternal grandparent's entire relationship is so richly and unquestionably entangled in the barracks, despair, loss, shame, and dust of japanese/ja internment.
my grandfather is 6 years my grandmother's senior, i still have his jr. high yearbooks from topaz. my grandmother left for topaz on her 9th birthday, her head cocked to the right because of a childhood illness. 6 years is a big difference when you are nine. my grandma was in elementary school and my grandfather in jr. high. they never really crossed paths, her still unquestionably a child with only vague memories of the stuffing blankets and clothes in all the cracks in futile attempts to keep out the dust and seeing a ghost in the fire of the little black potbellied stove; and him being class president and voted "most likely to succeed" by his peers, thinking himself almost a man. my grandmother had met my grandfather's sister at camp but my grandmother never mentioned having ever met my grandfather before they were in richmond housing.
after getting out of camp my grandmother, along with my great-grandparents matsumoto and her 4 sisters, settled in salt lake city for a while, my great-grandfather attempting to buy a house there. somehow they got clearance to move into the richmond housing back in california, which was mostly reserved for JA WWII veterans and their famililes. it was there, at the age of 19, that my grandmother became pregnant with my uncle joey, my grandfather joe's first son. they were quickly married and 5 months after her 20th birthday, my grandmother gave birth to my mother on oct. 27th, 1953. just 3 weeks shy of exactly 33 years later, i was born.
so you see, without the racism and war hysteria that fueled internment, richmond housing would have never been set up and my grandparents would have never met. i guess that makes me a product of racism and war. it is of little wonder to me that my grandparents relationship was as battle-ridden, torn by razored tears and riddled with pain and fears as it was. what is amazing to me is how that violence ended there, how the razor wire rusted and shattered when my parents were just over 18- almost the same age as my grandmother when she married my grandfather- when another war raged for the ego and arrogance of the U.S. it is true then that war, family, and love are intertwined like the gnarled limbs of an old tree, the years' battles and triumphs as evident on the trunk as the newest green leaves are from this year's spring.

tuesday night/wednesday morning epiphany

vulnerability is intimate and when someone is hurting we want to show them that we care. intimacy is a deep connection with someone else, an unpalpable binding. care can be shown through affection. affection can manifest physically. if one has been socialized to believe that care is affection, that affection must be shown physically, physical affection is sexual, and intimacy is played out through physical and sexual connection rather than the emotional, vulnerability can be met with sexual advances. vulnerability can be met with the violence of unwanted sexual advances. vulnerability does not invite violence. this socialization does not excuse this violence, it may be a factor in why it happens but ABSOLUTELY NOTHING excuses the taking advantage of someone's vulnerability. it does not excuse what they did to you, the pain, the confusion, the break of trust.
there is no wonder why vulnerability is so scary, why so many throw up barriers to intimacy. there is also no wonder why so much stregth can be found when one is vulnerable, when one can be completely open and at the mercy of another, at the mercy of the unknown, and thrive.
and damn, you're shining.

"shine' -estelle

obama street

bush street was changed to obama street in sf from presidio to battery!!!!! :D

tonight's lullaby

"And sometimes I worry because we women learn how to love so hard."
- ruby

love lists

so people keep telling me that i should create a list of things i want to do before i die. it hurts that i feel like i can't do it, that i don't have any goals. for now my goal is to finish reading all about love. each chapter is like taking a deep breath, an inhale until my lungs feel as if they are going to burst and a release that leads to moments of emptiness. i need it but my asthmatic lungs make it laborious. i think i have come up with one thing for my life to do list though, to make a school of love. it sounds like a lame pick-up line out of context but for reals, we seem to have schools for everything else but none to teach how to love. i used to think that love was innate. i was wrong. love is learned. love is an ability, a skill. one like any other that must be practiced.

why does the word love seem so cliche? its name is over-used and it is under-practiced. how can a word be simultaneously constricting and freeing? ever-present and elusive?

goal: use less, practice often

"I, on the other hand, thought all my grown-up attempts to write love poems were mushy and pathetic. Words failed me when I tried to write about love. My thoughts seemed sentimental, silly, and superficial. When writing poetry in my girlhood, I had felt the same confidence I would come to see in my adult life only in male writers. When I first began to write poetry in girlhood, I thought love was the only topic, the most important passion..."

i think i got it

Fear of love
talking about love is revolutionary because it calls attention to the ways we are and are not loved. it calls attention to the violence and the pain. revealing those wounds reveals the ways in which we (womyn of color, queer etc) suffer from oppressions.
Lovelessness is the lack of understanding, care, affection, respect, communication (being heard/seen, not gazed at) and thus talking about love brings these voids under scrutiny, it challenges structures of power that cut us deeply and irrevocably change, create, and destroy us. talking about love is revolutionary because true love transforms, it too can forever change us, build us, and heal us. "we want to know love...We want to know what it means to love and to be loved"

sunny winters

at first i was upset that foggy days were eluding san diego but now i think i just resented the sun because i was stuck inside until it set behind all the buildings and trees of UCSD. most of my blogs so far have been quite melancholy. when i'm happy and busy i don't find time to blog whereas when i am depressed all i can seem to do is sit on my ass in front of the computer and get all my shit out in text so i can breathe again. so i guess a lag in blogging is a sign that i've been happy lately. i really have. this past week i have felt myself looking up more, smiling, playing. new blogs, hw not seeming too much like work, wit. bear garden, sushi ki, ESTELLE and JOHN LEGEND, ice skate queen cup fun, and late night skip it. pao pao PB photoshooting, yogurt and burger goodness. a sunlit home filled with chill friends relaxing. my life is glowing and i like the light.

offerings

"...
And really, a lot of this poem is for me.

Who can't seem to learn how to be happy
But be willing to offer my deficiency to fill those who only feel half full

Cause this is all that I got
And my arms is all I got to offer
I know It's cliche as hell
But I can be here to catch you

So if you're falling,
Don't trip
Love,
I swear,
I got you."

- ruby excerpt "For the Fallen"

rest in power

i don't know what i'm thinking or even what i'm feeling. violence in oakland is in the news again, though still now important enough to air outside of the bay area apparently. peaceful protests out of love, anger,ourage, sorrow over the shooting of 22-year old oscar grant III by recently resigned BART police officer johannes mehserle on new year's day at the fruitvale bart station and the failure of murder charges being filed against mehserle. some news stations are reporting a "fraction of protestors" have turned violent and others that it was a "splinter group." the violence and vandalism is now taking center stage in discussion of oscar grant's death not the lack of charges being brought against mehserle for shooting an unarmed man in the back at close range who, according to some witnesses, was lying down and pleading not to be tased.the news reports keep mentioning that no police officers were hurt but fail to say if any civilians have been injured.
there is just so much that needs to be talked about and i don't know where to begin. a young black man was shot by a BART police officer. grant was unarmed. he was cooperating with the police. his body was racialized as violent and dangerous. the lack of charges being brought against the officer renders his life expendable, his death justified. what if he were white? what if he was a woman? he was killed on the fruitvale BART station platform at night, in oakland. what if it was dublin/pleasanton? what if it were during the day? what if it wasn't new years?would it have turned out the same way? what if the call about the fight on the crowed train was between two middle aged white men, would it have ended the same? why did people need to mobilize to bring attention to his murder? what if???? why wasn't the public outcry at the loss of another young life listened to? a father's life? a son's life? a friend's life? why did ppl become violent? is that the only way despair and anger could be actualized? recognized? legitimized? can violence arise out of love? there are so many things and the white box i am writing isn't giving me answers. i don't know what to say, what to do. can i do anything? helpless. i hope. i hope for peace. it sounds so lame but i don't know another word. justice. violence to end. clarity of mind. acceptance. love. an avenue.

murky

the brightness of becoming is fading like the purple is to pink. ugh.

blurry horizons- morose- i feel ya

full break, full tummy, full of friends/family, fulfilled

i've never done so much in a winter break. they are usually spent lying around with mom and trish watchin re-runs of law and order svu and watching endless movies hiding from the bay area rain. this time around, dec. 20-jan. 1, necessitated that i change out of my pjs and don my peacoat.

20th: clubbin in the city, getting stuck on treasure island, sleep at 6:30am
21st: sleeping in until 3:30, rainy drive to san jo, pho hunting, eggrolls, almost hydroplaning on the way back to cv, late night convo with the family
22nd: lunch with my jr. 1st teacher (it's in between kindergarten and 1st), errands in berkeley for gma yoshiko, being asked if i was a lawyer (do i look like a lawyer??), thalassa with my lil stister (a win!) and denny's after (damn top dog for being closed!)
23rd: kickboxing, mimi's/barnes conversation/realization/exhalation, exhaustion, sleep
24th: kickboxing, putting together a popcorn machine, putting up the tree (hey it got up for xmas and that's what counts), other preparations for the mah side of the family xmas, driving gma home and being flipped off (that biker was really feeling the holiday spirit), rainy late night conversation
25th: XMAS!!! wrapping paper, tissue paper, baked brie, turkey, ham, great gma's cranberry sauce, kiddies, more wrapping paper and tissue paper, say cheese!, more kiddles, phone calls from a friend, SLEEP!
26th: kickboxing, major cleaning of the room, pao pao arrives!!, airport, getting dolled up, more presents, take-out chinese food, reclaiming the night, result: new friends and a a bruised/hopefully not broken little toe
27th: EMERALD BOWL!!!, VICTORY!!, la pinata (sf pt. I, well minus la pinata- that was hayward, see i kept my promise)
28th: see previous post: city on my face
29th: VEGAS!
30TH: VEGAS!= shopping and shows with the family
31ST:flight home, san jo, a delectible spread at janice's, courtesy of her momma (the almost bday girl), karaoke :D, puttin our clubness on, rainy drive to sf (thanks willard!), asia sf baby!!, champagne, dancing, more food <3, sleep @ 5??
1st: HAPPY NEW YEAR!!, filipino dramas :D, food, auntie's house, kiddies, more food, more kiddies, bingo, home
2nd:laziness ensues
3rd: laziness persists
4th: momma's stuffed french toast, DRIVE, avoiding the fact that school starts manana

AY-YAH!!