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On my current list: 1. TASTE  a bitter oat flat white 2. SIGHT  the sun is out and the trees are dancing 3. SOUND  around the sun – poolside, amo amo “another year around the sun guess i’ve just been having fun just another year around the sun making it through” 4. SMELL  nail polish 5. FEELING  it’s been a gloomy start to the year, but you’ve got this

The drive to York is about an hour and a half. We’re on that last stretch where you’re in complete darkness––20 minutes with the street lights out; you see as far as the high-beams allow you to. I pray that a rabbit doesn’t try to cross the road. So far so good.

It's a little past midnight. The dog is in my lap and I watch the trees go by. How else do you pass the time on a road trip? The car rolls to a stop and the engine goes silent. “Now look,” he says. I throw my head back, wedging it into the crevice between car seat and window, face pressed against the cold glass. 

We sit there in silence until a word escapes. It’s a swear word but in a good way.

(i’ll squeal said she

just once said he)

it’s fun said she

This time, last year

If you want to make God laugh you should tell him your plans

For various reasons, I’ve found myself getting lost in pages and pages of Iceland in the past weeks or so

Every once in a while, someone will talk about the places that they’ve visited. But nothing triggers me quite as much as conversations about Iceland or Sweden or Finland or Copenhagen. I have a Scandi/ Nordic hole in my being. My heart aches to be back, to drive through snow flurries, into vast spaces where sky and horizon never meet, climb up mountains and roll down hills a couple thousand feet above the sea, to go out into the cold (full of regret yet with no regrets) and return to shelter to thaw my frozen hands and feet against the warmth of an engine. 

Shánghai

Every time I step back into this city, I’m dressed differently. Because the last time I was here, it was winter, summer, spring. I breathe in familiar air, stumble into new faces, taste new flavours on my mala-numbed lips. I am charmed by this city, all over again.

But my mother-tongue is rusty and I’m on my toes to keep up in conversations. I am Chinese but tarnished. Been exposed. Lost my lustre. I say – I’m sorry that my mandarin is so bad. It’s embarrassing.

You tell me that it’s good.

You don’t understand. I’m not a good example of my people. Or my great-grandmother’s people.

Your people.

Our broken conversations dip into education and revolutions, culture and nationalism. I’m barely surviving, scraping up what I can find of my formal education. And when the evening is over, I retreat back to my room of crisp white sheets. I draw a bath to soak my feet in.

It’s hardly a battle half won. The next time I step back into this city, I must speak differently.

NIRVANA #MOLDINVASION Everyone was a little drunk on beer and gin and whisky and more beer and the guy in dreads was a splitting image of Snoop Dogg so we told him that and rapped on the boat ride back together.

Sunday Supper Founder Laila Gohar Invites Us Into Her Home

"I just realized I have a little bit of a mushroom collection going on."

Posted by Refinery29 on Friday, 25 March 2016