hello world. it’s only been 5 months. i’m back, in a way.

i think after all of these months my brain is begging for a writing outlet. i use this space to vent and brain-vomit everything that i may feel and think in the hopes that someone out there might feel and think it too.

everything personal/creative has been on pause since school has started, and only half way through the semester i’m starting to burn out. bad. class for 8 hours a day, watching faces in small boxes made of pixels open and close their mouths with lagged dialogue. sometimes it seems like there are no breaks from the screen – we are fundamentally glued to our devices in an attempt to connect with each other like we used to. after almost 8 months of this all, i’m not sure if it’s still possible to communicate in this way with the same emotional and psychological attention as before. i know i can’t. i feel like i’m beginning to lose my short-attention span, and caring less about paying attention at all.

i told abby that this semester is the first one where i’ve turned in class assignments late with little intention or motivation to make it great. or even good. i’ve questioned to what extent i feel like i’m learning or gaining any experience in the things i want to learn. it feels like i’m just trying to get by day by day, doing only what is asked of me right now and moving on. starting tomorrow like i started today, just looking forward to that someday when life returns to some version of normalcy.

i’m struggling with some new mental health things. that’s been hard. it’s a new process that i’ve never had to deal with before, despite all that i’ve gone through in the past decade. i’ve realized that that process is ok. i’m not alone as much as sometimes my head tells me i am. i know that.

i needed the break

to just live

now i’m not living

so i need to write

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hello from the void.

first off. i’m starting a newsletter! it’ll have more little niblets than i include in blog posts so if you want to sign up for that, fill this out:

here are some random images that best summarize the past week or so.

1) a dark hallway devoid of fellow roommates

2) lots of hammocking, reading, and intermittent napping. i don’t mind.

3) late-night ice cream excursions

4) bakery runs galore to support the local businesses. here’s a beet/scallion sesame bagel from belle’s

5) 11:30pm self tuck-ins, usually accompanied by an episode of veep (that i’ve now finally finished in its entirety)

i’m still slowly adjusting to this new sense of “normal”. at this point it’s hard to envision a world where we no longer wear masks and wash our hands while we sing the ABCs (or for me, the chorus of harry style’s “watermelon sugar”). i’m starting to ease into the social lull a bit more; it seems more comfortable now that summer is finally coming around. i just pretend that i can’t see my friends because they’ve gone for the summer (i mean, that’s true).

it’s been that sort of week where i have to remind myself to count my blessings. otherwise, i find myself spinning in an existential loop of drifting “what if?”s. what if ____ in the future? what if i don’t do ____ now? what if the world ____? it’s been hard to stray away from those lines of thought, and i know that i’m not the only one spiraling through them often.

one thing i’ve been turning to is music. unfortunately, i don’t have my trombone with me or a piano, but i have spent the middays listening to some of my playlists on repeat. here’s the one i’ve been recently adding to that epitomizes the sort of happy-solemn sentiment that i’ve had these past few months (!).

some weird ones in there too. like these weird times, huh?

enjoy at your leisure.

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food means a lot to me. that’s not supposed to be an ironic or cliché sentence. food means a lot of different things to me.

this blog was once devoted entirely to food posts and recipes that i made up or adapted. in a time in middle and high school where i felt most alone, making food (and taking photos) was my way to sort of navigate new “spaces” of freedom and solitude. both cooking/baking and photography are equally as beneficial to me as social hobbies/arts as they are solo ones. a lot of the time, doing either on my own makes me feel not alone in some way that i can’t entirely explain as i’m writing this. i think it has to do with the fact that the end product of both is something i always want to share. photos. food. photos of food.

in quarantine, i’ve leaned back into my more creative side of cooking lately. i have the time and the patience – the “space” – to do so more comfortably now during this new context of reality. it feels good. i’m glad i have the drive to preserve my creative drive from film/photography/production/collaborative projects (which is on pause, unfortunately) to culinary/solo projects. i’m finding a lot of the same joy that i felt all those years ago when the solo-ness was less enforced but still self-imposed (i’ll get to that in a second). it’s a comfort that i’ve already cultivated for myself— it’s there, i just had to find it again.

again, back to the ‘food means a lot of different things to me’ topic. yes, food is all of these joyous things and solaces that i’ve mentioned. it also used to be an enemy for me. i honestly can’t remember if or when i’ve talked about food being a tangible fear/anxiety (i.e. eating disorder) for me (note: after a quick search, this is the only one i’ve found). being honest with myself here, it was during those same years of middle/high school that cooking was equally my consolation as it was my affliction. it was a dangerous creative game for me.

i’d like to say that i’m now at least 95% out of recovery from that past self. but, i’ve felt myself dipping into a similar mentality of cooking a lot again during quarantine. i’m stretching out the ends of the very positive and the very negative spectrum, again. does that make sense? echoing that consolation-and-affliction phenomenon: it’s the time and the overwhelming space to think that brings out both the best and the worst parts of my brain. i have caught myself slipping a bit — being overly conscious about food, labeling things ‘good’ and ‘bad’ subconsciously, feeling guilt, feeling defeated. feeling all those things amid all the good that i feel from it, too – productivity, creative flow, awesome tastes, pride, ease, peace. these past few weeks i’ve been in a little bit of a battle between these two orbits of thought. like the devil and angel on either shoulder.

i’ll be okay. writing this makes me feel accountable. i’ve never been super open about this stuff, but i feel like now is the time to share if people have ever or do feel similarly now. it’s something i’m still working on. i’m grateful to have support systems to help me through it.

okay, that was a tough one. thanks for hearing me out.

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