alone to write

r left for an out-of-town job a couple of weeks ago. while i cherish my time alone, i miss r immensely. a friend, whose boyfriend left town for a few months to finish his degree, came over for brunch today. no one else would have listened to our anguish with the same sympathetic ears.

i made a tofu-based vegan frittata with swiss chard which turned out deliciously. i stole the recipe from a copy of isa chandra moskowitz's vegan brunch at borders. fruit and french-pressed coffee were served on the side. it felt really wonderful to cook for someone.

as a joke, we had planned to commiserate. in actuality, we ended up doing just so. my friend is quite a few years younger than me so their relationship is at a different stage than r and me. they had just started living together and have a good few years to be by themselves before their biological clocks start ticking. r and i are getting really close to settling down and starting to plan a family. in fact, we are in the midst of procuring a loan to purchase a condo in boerum hill, brooklyn. but we miss our respective men just the same.

after we ate and caught up, we met another friend of mine in central park. d and i had discovered crossing the line festival was happening today, and bento boxes made by some of our favorite chefs would be available. unfortunately, the weather was dreary with misting rain, and the distribution of bento boxes was terribly organized. the festival workers were made to wear these food trays, like the ones you'd see the popcorn guy wear at the baseball stands, and walk around the field to pass out the boxes. the notion of free food (or free anything), however, unleashed everyone's primal instinct. people savagely rushed to the workers and extended their hands like the beggars they would normally abhor and shirk from. my friends and i stood in our little huddle, merely hoping the workers would find us as the only civilized human beings left in the crowd and award us with the precious bento box. but as soon as one of them was just steps from reaching us, the other people would immediately surround the poor worker. we ended up with no bento box to taste but managed to enjoy a piece of chocolate (too sweet for my taste although understandably delectable), and as the crowd dispersed, we saw the bento box in all its glory on one of the tables, on display for photographers.

satisfied with a glimpse of what we had missed, we parted ways. i walked downtown along the eastern edge of the park and passed one art museum after another that reminded me of r. first, it was the cooper hewitt where we had our second date, and after the museum that day, we had our first kiss. then, it was the guggenheim where we went over the summer for the 50th anniversary celebratory exhibition of frank lloyd wright's achievements, from within outward, on a pay-as-you-wish afternoon. it had been my first visit to that museum. lastly, i passed the met. we were heading for it, by cutting through central park, on the day r proposed to me. i kept ducking under my umbrella to hide my face as it kept reaching the brink of bursting into tears. i cut across the park at 72nd street and popped into whole foods in the time warner building for a bit of distraction before ending up at home, alone.

i'm a good loner. i enjoy having time to myself. it doesn't take much to keep me away from boredom and nonsense. but ever since r, being alone gets harder and harder each time he takes an out-of-town job. it's not that i need to be around people now. i just need him in my presence. i haven't been sleeping well because of him. it feels strange to sleep in a bed meant for two when only one side is occupied. but he has booked his flight to return to new york for a weekend at the end of this month, which is just a couple of weeks away. i can't wait.

tragic loss

while at work, one of my supervisor informed me that one of our co-worker's father passed away last night. i was saddened but only later in the day did it hit me. in the afternoon, as a reprieve from the maddening busy day, i checked facebook. someone i know posted something about ronald takaki passing away. only when i saw takaki then did i realize that he might be our co-worker's father. i looked up ronald takaki and saw our co-worker listed as one of the surviving children in an article. then, my memories of ronald takaki slowly resurfaced.

i think he was a keynote speaker at an asian american conference one of my best friends put together in college. either i was taking a course in asian american history that semester or had just finished it in the previous semester. ronald takaki wrote what is considered a bible on asian american history, strangers on a distant shore. as one of our textbooks, i read it cover to cover, probably the only textbook i read so thoroughly. i remember admiring the way he wasn't angry with the establishment but simply laying out the information, not disguising the injustice, and giving dignity to those who endured the tough times. it definitely had an effect on my decision to make a documentary about angel island for my senior thesis. wherever it was i remember him from, he was so jovial and easy-going. he talked about having grown up in hawaii and hanging ten on the waves. i think i stood in line and got his autograph for my book.

having realized this personal connection, my day grew sadder. i am sad that such a monumental figure on an inclusive version of american history has passed away. i am sad for my co-worker, whom i have yet to meet, to lose a father whom i imagine had been fun to grow up with.

sadness

today, while waiting for my flight at the denver airport, i came across the obituary for nicholas hughes in the new york times. he had hung himself. i was surprised to find myself on the verge of tears reading about his life. having grown up surrounded by so much tragedy (his mother, sylvia plath, the famous poet committed suicide, and his stepmother committed murder suicide with his stepsister), it made me wonder if he had ever lived a moment of his life without pain. maybe that was why he was attracted to fishery, having been a fisheries biologist in alaska. creatures so simple and beautiful, not having to endure sadness, an instinctive bond to travel and stay with others in schools, it's poetic to have chosen that field of work and life, a life of being in and near water, the tranquility of nature. he left behind his sister, frieda. i hope she has found or will continue to find something to live for and hold onto it.

old year, new year

2008 had been a very eventful year: the first year of my life to share with a boyfriend, having moved twice, becoming a u.s. citizen, casting my first ballot in arguably the most historically groundbreaking presidential election ever (even though it still hasn't hit me how important obama's victory is; maybe it'll finally come to me when i have kids, and they ask me about the election when they study it in history class), gaining an official brother-in-law, having flown 5 times around the country for jobs, vacations, and holidays. i'm not sure if i can really catch up on everything.

becoming a u.s. citizen had brought up some questions within myself. i took the naturalization oath in a brooklyn courthouse. the room was filled with about 400 people, all there to become citizens that day. a man next to me got excited when someone started telling us about how we could still register to vote that day in the presidential election. like me, he wanted to have a say in the government he has to abide. most of the 4 hours were spent waiting for the judge to arrive. finally, she came and spoke nice words about how momentous this occasion was and how honored she was to preside over the ceremony. we had been given a flier with the oath of allegiance on it, and i looked over it before we actually did the oath taking. it starts off as such:

i hereby declare on oath, that i absolutely, and entirely, renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereignty of whom or which i have heretofore been a subject or citizen...

it didn't affect me upon reading it in silence in my head. but when i had to say these words out loud, i found myself unable to make a sound; i froze. i felt my heartbreak, in having to voice my renouncement to what was once my home, the only i had known for the first eight years of my life, a place that had become part of my identity. i felt like i was being asked to betray myself.

there was no doubt that i wanted to become a u.s. citizen. i had no problem reading the rest of the oath. i just didn't realize how much it would hurt to have to give up my ties (albeit only in a governmental sense) when the time came. i felt hong kong ripped from me once, when it was handed back to china after almost a century of british governance. then, the pop stars i grew up idolizing (in a tween obsessed manner that evolved into a mature admiration as their careers took on a more serious direction) started to pass away. they had all been little chips in the core of me that i wasn't even aware of. having to vocally give it up cracked that core.

i know there's still a lot of hong kong that will always be a part of me, but this superficial identification wasn't as superficial as i thought it was. one's citizenship only defines their home according to a map, the invisible boundaries that certain people have created. but there really is no border; there are no edges; the planet is round.

so today, i went to the post office and applied for a u.s. passport. having to hand over my certificate of naturalization unnerves me only because i am afraid it might get lost. the post officer who helped me put through this application warned that it now can take up to three years to replace the document. but i just let it go.

i didn't know of true unhappiness until we immigrated to the u.s. i think this explains why i feel so strongly tied to hong kong while my feelings towards the u.s. is more ambivalent even though i've spent more of my life in the u.s. hong kong has been my childhood fantasy land. and i'm sure it has to do with my age at the time of immigrating as well. i was just about to turn eight. most people probably experience their first true moment of sadness right around then as children become more cognizant of their surroundings at that age. i am certain that i would've had to experience something devastating soon had we stayed in hong kong. but the way things have turned out, i associate happiness with hong kong and heartbreaks with the u.s. but as tough as it is to get over the heartbreaks, i persist.

so there's more...

this afternoon, i received in the mail a notification to take my naturalization oath just days before an extended deadline for new citizens to register to vote. theoretically, i should be able to fully participate in this year's presidential elections.

but minutes later, r called me to congratulate on the good news and to deliver some bad news: his grandfather has been hospitalized for a heart aneurysm. his mother and grandparents live in florida so it must be tough for him to not be there with them.

hasn't autumn already settled? no more things popping up for a while. it'd be nice to have an uneventful rest of the year.