Reach out for the stars...

i just needed to see them.

祝您 ⸺ wishing you ⸺ 新年快樂 a Happy New Year in good health 身体健康 and prosperity year after year 年年有餘 ‧₊˚❀༉‧₊˚.

ft. @lionheartdancers

Lunar New Year is upon us, and while I currently live in a place that does not give us weeks of PTO to celebrate accordingly, I've been eating pineapple cakes and sticky rice cakes for well over a week now. Yum. (Mooncakes are notably not consumed on LNY but during the Mid-Autumn Festival.)

I've not been feeling especially celebratory. Between the fires in my backyard and the current admin holding my passport hostage, the start of the solar calendar year has sent me spiraling into survival mode almost immediately. I am doing my best to draw from the well of my support systems, from kindred spirits to a very good (and expensive) therapist I've finally reached out to again.

Lunar New Year. Spring Festival. Chinese New Year. Whatever you and yours call it, the holiday is meant to be a hopeful time, when we anticipate the eventual transition from winter to spring. I will give hope where I'm able, and I will persist. I hope you will also hold onto yours and persist.

I am determined to hold hands with my anger, and to continue knowing it. We will go into the New Year together as allies. Still, I want to offer you this famous poem about hope, written by historical figure Yu Qian.

《除夜太原寒甚》 寄語天涯客，輕寒底用愁。 春風來不遠，只在屋東頭。