for chartering things by which i am intrigued into a system. and also for the Aesthetics of having them on a blog
2018 projects
- start managing brain
- try to love him right this time
- start of masters
-write at least one thing that i'll be proud of
a brief note of paranoia and catharsis: if this letter gets intercepted by the Chinese or HK postal service because itâs from the US to HK and therefore automatically suspicious, fuck you. there arenât any intel or foreign tactical strategies here. just a girl crying over the state of her city.
on with the letter:
My dearest, John,
âThese are the times that try menâs souls.â
Thomas Paine wrote this as the opening sentence to his pamphlet series dedicated to inspiring troops of The American Revolution. Feel free to make any âUSAâ jokes about the fact that I quoted an American political activist/philosopher; this oneâs on me. But itâs been on my mind ever since 612, because itâs true and applicable. Unexpectedly, gut-wrenchingly real.
These are, indeed, times that try our souls. These are times that I never thought would belong to our history. Yet here they are, ready to become a wikipedia page.
I do not know what will happen between the time I write this letter and when it finally reaches on your desk. I was about to speculate on some possibilities, but I found myself hesitant; I do not want to imagine any sort of outcomes. Almost every week, something gets worse. The body of our city is rotting. Our homes, both past and present ones, are marked with blood and tear gas. What happens in the future is ever so elusive, but even more so right now.Â
Iâm aware that we will, eventually, be okay. We have to be, no matter what the manifestation of that word may be. But what of our city? South Koreans protested for over four months before successfully impeaching their president. Will we be able to last that long? Will we have the right, the chance, and the strength to carry on? Will we make an impact strong enough to rattle the foundation of a country, if not change something about our government too?
I hope the answer is âyes.â These are times that try our souls, and there are things that we canât control. But whether we break under these trials is up to us, I suppose.
Despite all of my crying and wistful words, I know I donât fully understand what it is like to be in Hong Kong right now. Iâm sorry for our fights. I know you care about me, but that also have a lot on your plate right now.
I hate that I canât immediately be there for you or my family. I hate that the first thought I have almost every morning is whether something has happened again. I hate that I breathed a sigh of relief when I learned that you were almost tear-gassed instead of being chased down by the police. How fucked up is that?
I miss you terribly, and I canât quite believe I decided to write you a letter as if you are at war and Iâm your distraught, powerless, homebound girlfriend.
Well. Parts of that are accurate. Iâm laughing as I draft this letter.
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I see planes fly past my window, sliding right above the skyline. I hear their mechanical roars as they soar above my building, whistling, as I lay in bed at night. they always remind me of you, and recently i realized that one of them will bring you over to me
the bubble tea at the tian ren in Chinatown is HK milk tea. that feels like home.
the libraries, specifically the Queens Library branch near my place. I go there roughly four times a month
sunsets behind the red brick buildings and fire escapes in my typical view of new york neighbourhoods. itâs romantic, i think. youâll see
Family. A lot closer than paternal family. We have fun during family gatherings, discovered that I have a lot to talk about with my youngest cousin. Will always have a cultural difference, but this is good
iâm closer to my family here than with my paternal side. iâm learning more about my oldest aunt, which is nice, because we werenât very close. i found out that i can talk comics with my oldest cousin, which is older than me by 20 years, and talk kpop with my youngest cousin, who is 7 years younger than me
Heating yes
Finally being able to see what I get myself into when I chose to pursue publishing as an idealist undergrad
really good char siu actually? cause the pork is really good? iâm sure I might not want to know the reason why, but yes. char siu is yummy here
I!!! have!!! my!!! own!!! room!! again!!!!
i have an excuse to daydream about you all the time because youâre literally not here
I didnât think to get you a valentineâs day card, which is why iâm sending this along with your birthday card haha, but i really like this one so yes hi happy belated valentineâs day, darling
Birthday Card
Although you say one of the reasons why you donât like books is because they require the murder of a tree...I can still blame the death of this tree on you because your amazing existence definitely needs to be celebrated...with the help of a card :DD
Happy birthday, darling. I hope someday Iâd be able to spend your birthday with you, preferably when itâs your actual birthday.
Below lies a sketch replica of the NBA gift card I got you so you can go to the NBA store right opposite of my school and get something to do with the Celtics.
...that I am special, and that I have something to offer to the internships I am applying to.
this is one of the most difficult things for me to achieve. I donât like to think that I am above mediocrity, even though I want to be. I just find it easier to accept that I can sometimes achieve more than I thought I can than under-achieving all the time.
what are the things that I should be proud of?
Iâm good at close reading. so many of my teachers comment on this
somewhat creative, with both fiction and perhaps interpretations of texts
I can use photoshop lmao
Iâm inclined to be kind
Iâm sincere
Iâm shrewd, which always borders on judgemental but i have good instincts
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looking over some of the fanfiction I wrote before...I wasnât an amazing writer or anything, and there were definitely sentences or just bits I could have written better but...they were good...I used to be good, I used to be able to do this instead of just staring down at my notebook, trying to rephrase the same sentence ten times but still feeling unsatisfied.
I used to be good
and I seemed so inspired by things? even though I know I still couldnât just conjure up stories, histories, or characters like some other people can...but I was at least inspired and motivated to do something about my ideas...
15 Minutes
covalent bonds
âwanna dance?â
love fairies
EnnoYachi (part 1) (part 2) (part 3)
scars
not fanfic but
ĺ
two years later
i donât think writing fanfiction again is necessarily the right idea. after all, i havenât watched anything that makes me want to write anything in some time now...
i have ideas in my head but i still canât figure them out
where is this creative energy? i know i can do it...but where has it gone?
oh the other hand i know i shouldnât wait for it show up again. itâs been more than a year since iâve really produced anything that iâm very very proud of, so waiting definitely does not work...
things i want to write
kpop photography
liminal space
seventeen/kpop study
enneagram reflections
all the secrets we hold
unconscious art piece
depression roommate
family business
game creator
that kawagoshi fanfic because i loved that character study plot
(starting a month ahead....this should be a record)
you know sometimes I have trouble falling asleep. a lot of times, though, I have trouble with going to sleep. itâs a very Eugenia problem because I know exactly why I donât want to go to sleep: it means another day has passed, and time is moving forward. I might be unsatisfied with what I managed to accomplish on that day, or I have things I didnât get to do during the day because I was trying so hard to finish other things. either way, itâs procrastination, itâs avoidance, itâs very Me.
whenever I stay up a little bit too late for no apparent reason I like to sit on my bed and write. I did it a lot while I was in Glasgow, when the deadlines were getting crazy and I was scared out of my mind of not being able to deliver final essays or my dissertation. I stay up, and I write that I am once again, âin a liminal space.â this idea was semi-inspired by something a figure skater I follow on Twitter (blame YOI) tweeted last year. he said that the ice rink at 6 in the morning, ice quiet and paved without a fault, is a sort of liminal space. it seems to exist on its own plain, a blurry of time, a slither away from reality. well, my liminal space is a bit more literal.
I try not to look at the time before I start writing. an instance of self-deception this time: if I donât know what time it is, who knows if itâs still today, or tomorrow, or even yesterday?
once I start writing, I pretend I am in a liminal space. I might not write about anything with substance at all. out of the many many entries I penned while in my liminal space, most of them were about the fears I have about my assignments and tomorrow and not much else. sometimes they include a plan of action, but of the time? itâs just worry etched on paper.
I realize Iâm not even writing your card at this point. Iâm just using you as an excuse to write something Iâve had in my head for a while now.
itâs not a bad way to get some stuff out.
I hope you donât mind, I hope you donât mind...that I put down some words.
this is gonna sound incredibly stupid. bear with me
I have something called my âliminal space.â itâs when I donât want today to become yesterday and tomorrow to become today, so I turn off some of the lights in my room and start writing in my journal. most of the time, I start writing just after midnight, but since I havenât gone to sleep yet, it doesnât quite feel like itâs a new day. therefore, I put a slash between the two numbers when I date my journal entry. For example, â29/30.â once I start writing, itâs like Iâm existing between days, existing as the slash, existing in a liminal space.
(I credit two sources behind this claim on what a liminal space is for me, which I will happily explain to you with a tremendous amount of embarrassment if you want to find out.)
I did this a lot during my final year in Glasgow, especially during the few weeks before the semester ended. sometimes itâs because Iâm unsatisfied with how much I managed to accomplish in the day, or because I want to get negative thoughts out of my head. either way, I stay up a little bit too late, just to avoid the passing of time.
recently though, I realized that I have another liminal space, one that doesnât quite involve my tendency for avoidance.
Itâs usually when I am at the promenade at night. itâll be quiet but still filled with the sound of life. there will be people running, planes flying overhead, and water swishing down below. Iâll forget when was the last time I did a life check, but that never matters because I would be too busy holding hands with you, talking, laughing, walking along the harbour despite my tired feet so we can avoid getting mosquito bites.
yes, I will always be aware that the night will soon become a new day. but before that. weâre still together, looking at each other in the same way as we did earlier in the day, like idiots.
--
I will be honest, I cannot remember whether I kissed you on the 29th or the 30th. my brain is telling me that it was the 29th, maybe because I still donât want to admit that I could have kissed you a lot earlier but couldnât work up the courage to do it. all I know is that we definitely parted on the 30th and then I got shamed by my parents at 2 am or something.
time melted for me that night
happy one-year anniversary, darling.
I know we didnât make it this far the last time we dated, but Iâm glad we did this time around. there were tough bits, for sure. not much flows as consistently and as smoothly as time does, if you donât count daylight savings and whatnot. thank you for sticking with me, for giving me another chance, for always understanding me, my needs, and my schedule.Â
thank you for spending your holidays with me (and on me)
second draft, more to the point, please.
I wonder if you thought it was strange that I specifically asked to spend either the 29th or the 30th with you. itâs okay if you didnât, because it means I get to surprise you with this card and see you get flustered. thatâs always fun ;)
but yes, I did have a reason for the request. So let me just be honest with you...
I cannot remember whether I kissed you on the 29th or the 30th when we got back together last year. my brain is telling me that it was the 29th, maybe because I still donât want to admit that I could have kissed you a lot earlier but couldnât work up the courage to do it. all I know is that we met up on the 29th and part parted on the 30th. and then I got shamed by my parents for coming home at 2am, but thatâs unimportant.
time melted for me that night, as it always does when I am with you. Itâs not a new concept;Â âtime flies when youâre having funâ and all.Â
[...]
happy one-year anniversary, darling.
I know we didnât make it this far the last time we dated, but Iâm glad we did this time around. there were tough bits, for sure. not much flows as consistently and as smoothly as time does, if you donât count daylight savings and whatnot. thank you for sticking with me, for giving me another chance, for always understanding me, my needs, and my schedule. thank you for spending your holidays with me (and on me).Â
Iâm type 9, wing 1. i donât like possessing the negative traits type 6 exhibits, which is the type i will disintegrate into. i want to possess the good in type 3s.
i subscribed to the enneagram instituteâs âEnneaThoughtÂŽ for the Dayâ newsletter two days ago and i think it was a good decision. you choose two types on the enneagram to receive their corresponding âEnneaThoughtâ every day. I chose type 9 and type 1 because type 9 is my main type, and type 1 because i realized i exhibit characteristics of type 1 more often than i think. both will certainly serve to enlighten me a little about the way i think.
the first email i received was about basic fears, which is more than appropriate for me because iâve always told people that if my brain worked like Inside Out, the emotions that would be at the helm of my thoughts are Fear and Sadness, hugging each other and screaming while Joy tries to comfort them. My basic fear as type 9 is âlosing your world, of being disconnected, cut off from everything,â and type 1 is âbeing bad, corrupt, unredeemable, condemnable, chaotic.â
both are incredibly true.
iâm terrified of change most of the time, even though i can fool myself into being optimistic and naive about them. i donât like being alone in the world. itâs lonely and scary and ungrounded and unknown. i want to keep my own space, my own peace, my own routines and everything.
on the other side, iâm also terrified of being arrogant, unkind, and hypocritical because theyâre among things i essentially condemn. i believe humans should be good and everyone should be kind to each other, but at times, âgoodâ is completely subjective to my standards. being âgoodâ can drive me insane because it might be at the expense of my feelings.
the conflict within me is essentially existing between these two types.
[...]
What made me really appreciate the newsletter is that the EnneaThought always ends with a question. For fear, it was, âHow is this deep, mostly unconscious fear affecting your interactions with people today?â For basic desires, it was whether those desires are affecting you or your relationships. They prompt self-reflection based on how your mind works, rather than telling you what or how you might be feeling today like horoscopes do. it tries to help you understand more about yourself and how you are living your life.
(...this was my fourth attempt at writing this letter)
quality stationery that isnât bic pens or sharpies. Clear fucking folders. A4 sized paper
fake siu mai. hong fok tong. MK street food. cheap but fresh sushi
seeing water outside my window. even my dorm in Glasgow overlooked River Clyde. when I looked out the window, and over the dark river, Iâd see the headquarters of BBC Scotland and the Science center in the distance, changing colors from red, to green, to blue...to red, to green, to blue
having a home thatâs away from the city
small streets. I donât know why and I know I shouldnât
being able to just look out to the promenade and recall the night we got back together. it was another instance of âdeliberate ease,â i now realize, how I decided to lean in without a word, faking nonchalance when I had to tell myself to kiss you three times before I did it. with what might have seemed to be determination, but was actually just nervousness, I kept my eyes on your lips as I closed into your space. your breath caught, your mouth fell open. I kissed you, soft and quick. it surprised me a little, that I remembered exactly how to do it, and that our lips slotted together so easily as though they were magnets.Â
ATMs in MTR stations so Iâm not always out of cash
MTR, obviously
okay, letâs be honest, virtually all public transportation. 681. 89D. death-minibus, 810. THE FERRY.
having distinct memories that are connected to certain places. like how Sha Tin has always been a place from my childhood. my family doctor was there. I got Morph from the Disney store thatâs now gone. Snoopy world, even though I was never that fond of snoopy. itâs also where we found out we liked each other, and where we kissed (very awkwardly) for the first time. it was your space, and you let me in.
my parents. my momâs stupid jokes, my dadâs smile.
summer. or rather, summer holidays. less guilt, less pressure. I can go swimming. spend hours and days with you.Â
familiarity, of course. I grew up in hong kong, even if I donât speak or act like I did sometimes.
did I mention you already?
black white milk
I had a lot of trouble with this letter, which is why you havenât received one from me in a month. that and also Iâm starting to get stressed, but yes.
I started planning what I want to put into this letter while I was still writing letter three, but when I actually came around doing it...it proved to be a lot more difficult than I realized.
home is a big concept, and itâs complicated because it can refer to different things. a physical location, a country, a feeling, a person. I tried to decipher what aspects I should encompass concerning the strand of idea I am pulling from my last letter, but I couldnât weave them together in a 700-word letter
Iâm still not sure about this fourth attempt, but I think the simplicity I have settled for here is better than trying to put in too much. The result, however, is quite self-indulgent. thereâs a lot about me in here, so I can only hope you find my thoughts amusing and whatnot.
Iâm curious though: what about you? what things did you miss about home whenever youâre away in Australia? I know you hated Sydney, so a handful of things should already arise in your mind.
write me back.
PS. this is probably the last letter youâll get from me in this year (whoa itâs almost 2019 whaaattt). wait for me, darling.
transcribed on 28 Nov 2019, added more items to the list
 ...is the list i set out to write, but like your first letter to me...nothing i put on the list felt like they accurately portrayed what i was feeling. i had a lot of trouble with this letter, which is why you havenât gotten a letter from me in a month. despite having outlined what i wanted to put on this list as i was writing letter three, i couldnât figure out why making a list didnât feel right. the obvious reason is, of course, that home is a big concept for me right now. although I tried to narrow that down to specific things i miss about home, they all sounded trivial (stationery, siu mai, MTR) or abstract (seeing water outside my home, small streets, summer) when i wrote them down.
i also wanted to make this letter a more âlight-heartedâ and âsimpleâ letter after two âheavyâ ones. what a topic to choose to be light about. perhaps this was a defense mechanism; if i could put my longings into clear little bullet points then i could try to look at them objectively instead of only swirling them around in my head.
the link, in case you were wondering, between my last letter to you and this one, is the statement, âyou and my home are inextricably linked.â the concept for this letter, therefore, is simple: missing you is missing home, and missing home is missing you. theyâve essentially become the same type of feeling, which is why one of the things i want to talk about is that you have successfully become part of my experience of Hong Kong.
yes, âof.â my Grammarly chrome-extension just informed me that i should change the proposition to âinâ when it comes to locations. But i insist on âofâ because i am referring âMy Hong Kong.â It is not simply the experience i had in the city itself, it is the way i interpret the city against everyone elseâs; it is the Hong Kong that I know and see. it is how i perceive the city as a whole.
one of my earlier drafts involved telling you about âMy Hong Kong.â The goal was to show you how childhood memories i hold in certain locations in the city are now tainted by new memories with you. Thereâs Kowloon Tong, which is where my primary school was and where my dadâs office is located. but it is also where Yew Chung is...which is where you put your arm around me during Resound and Iâve never felt more happy and sad at the same time. You know this; iâve wanted your embrace for a long time but i thought you were just being polite in a âneighbourly Christian fashion.â i know thatâs a ridiculous term but i stand by it.
Sha Tin is another one, because it used to consist of mainly five things from my childhood for me: doctorâs office, the late disney store that i got Morph from after a bad trip to the doctorâs, snoopy world, ikea, and the green tiles in phase three i pretended were crocodiles when i was younger (apparently thatâs sort of a collective memory which is quite cool!). But I literally cannot not think about you whenever Iâm in Sha Tin now. Itâs the (literal) space you decided to open up for me when we got together even though it was your space to chill. We spent so much time there under the sun I must have gotten super tanned that summer, simply from sitting there talking and playing dots. we also had a very awkward first kiss there, but for the sake of my--and possibly yours--dignity i will very easily refrain from going into more detailtf.
As you can see, the list would have been too detailed-heavy and location-based to flow smoothly as a list. but it has some of the heart that i wanted to encapsulate in this letter, that are you embedded in my home now. one ofÂ
[i seem to have written myself into a semantic corner.]
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I told you youâd never keep up with my pace. Sorry darling :D
I love your letter if you donât mind me telling you again. I think about it and canât help but smile. The words that made me collapse onto your chest on the night you first said them four years ago still hold the same power today. Iâm also very honored that you used what I assume to be your infamous light blue pen? the one you somehow used in your exam and your university exam board didnât automatically fail you?
I think I recall you telling me about âthe sum of partsâ before, but I donât remember what my response was. And whatâs my âcanât argue, donât argueâ face?? you have to describe it to me now!
When I told you I received your letter you were so on point about sharing my views on writing letters that I feel somewhat embarrassed about my last letter to you. We were already on the same page so i didnât need to go all meta about the entire thing. Iâm glad you still liked it though and knowing that you know exactly how I feel and want to achieve the same thing is, um, heartwarming.
For my lack of a âsmoothâ transition from my response to your letter and whatever i planned for this letter...hereâs a sticker.
So, the playlist I made mainly derived from two things. One, my intense love/homesickness. Two, some songs that essentially represent my recent feelings, namely âI Like Me Better,â âĺćĄä¸ĺäşş,â âNew Orleans,â and âGolden Slumbers.â They were about you, about home, about the future...Thus began my search for other songs because I miss home and...well for the same reason i mentioned last time: it helps me cope with the distance between us. You are inextricably linked with my home, so it is only natural that this playlist is about you both.
Believe it not (you probably can actually) I did (more!) research for the playlist. I found a Long Distance playlist made by Spotify. They recently updated it again so i canât speak for the new ones, but when I first came across it the playlist was so sad and about breakups so I was like nope. There were good ones that came out it though, like âComing Homeâ and âAlready Home.
My research for songs about homesickness led me to a lot of country songs, probably because of that Romantic country star life image? I am not, however, a big fan of country songs. So, I went to my Korean songs and Korean drama soundtracks because, unsurprisingly, there is a lot of material to work from. My favorites are âSeattleâ and âSmile Flower.â When I left Glasgow in April, I looped âSmile Flowerâ for hours. Itâs a sweet song, but it has a kind of quiet bittersweetness to it that just seemed to capture my unwillingness to leave Glasgow. Look up the lyrics to both of them if youâre interested.
My original conclusion to this research adventure was that a lot of the songs I found initially were from the perspectives of the person who was âleft behindâ and that I would counter them with my perspective. But as I started drafting this letter I realize that itâs no longer the case. Iâve found ones that speak from my perspective, ones that coincide with homesickness. Some of them are just about distance, whether itâs a more literal distance with separated love (I Will Go To You Like The First Snow), or somewhat metaphorical about taking a chance in love (Walking the Wire), or just a spatial emphasis to highlight acts of love (Next To You, By Your Side). âGoingâ to the other person and all.
This reminds me of what I learned in an English Language course during my second year of university. We talked about conceptual metaphors and one example we discussed was âlove is a journey.â (I later wrote my midterm essay on conceptual metaphors and scored an A3! yaaaayy). We often say things like âwe fell in love,â âlook how far weâve come,â and âletâs take the next step in our relationship.â
If love is understood as a journey and distance is therefore inherently present...then the distance between us doesnât matter much, does it? Yes, we can definitely do without the literal 12,951 kilometers between us, but the real distance lies with experience and emotions.Â
and right now, despite the Pacific Ocean between us? i feel very close to you. it took me time to go back to you but here i am. there might be crossroads ahead of us but weâre on this route together. i think weâre on right track.
I hope my last letter to you gave you a good sample of how Iâve been feeling lately. Iâm stupidly in love with you and itâs 100% your fault, so frankly, you deserve these letters.
After I mailed your last letter I immediately wanted to write this one...so I did; this opening (and some bits down below) was written on the 25th of September.
I planned this letter to be more of an impromptu rambling letter, which I now realize is quite oxymoronic. Perhaps I am disregarding the fun in snail mail by planning these letters in advance. There is this rush of spontaneity after you receive and read a letter, one that compels you to either write back or thank the person who wrote to you. I havenât even received your first letter to me yet, but I already keep a list of what I want to write to you. My desire to write you letters must originate from somewhere else.
Of course, I still long to read your letters. I reread the ones you wrote me when we first dated from time to time. As you said to me the night you received my second letter, holding one from you makes me feel like almost nothing else matters as well. To have you in writing when youâre not here is, and will be, much treasured.
But I also want to give you stories, stories that are loosely linked together. Stories that are structured into holding more significance and written on paper so theyâll last longer. I have so much to say to you in ink and scrawling, things that are undoubtedly too embarrassing and too...much to tell you in person.Â
The idea of writing love letters always reminds me of wartime. According to the Imperial War Museum (yes, I actually did research for this shut up), the British Army Postal Service delivered around 2 billion letters during the war. They hold a collection of correspondences in the museum, some of which I read when I was there in June. Wilfred Owen, the poet we studied during the IB, wrote love letters to his mother and his mentor, Siegfried Sassoon. To the latter, Owen writes,
I love you, dispassionately, so much, so very much, dear Fellow, that the blasting little smile you wear on reading this can't hurt me in the least.
Your smile canât hurt me in the least, indeed.
A love letter, then, can be a simple proclamation of love. It can remind the recipient that they are missed and will be missed, that they are loved and will continue to be loved. This is an apparent view as to why people write love letters, but it is one to which I wholeheartedly agree and hope I can achieve. It is the purpose and the effect of the letter that is profound.
For another interpretation, I think of a Young Adult novel I read recently features a protagonist who wrote love letters to all the boys she loved before. She wrote the letters not to confess, but to purge her feelings so she can (attempt to) move on. She writes of how and why she fell in love, even when if it meant admitting something embarrassing about herself.
I think Iâm doing some kind of purging too. You told me on the last day of September that sometimes you feel like youâre suffering withdrawal from not talking to me for too long and I said I feel the same. Maybe my way of coping with this, aside from listening to the playlist I made and replaying your voice messages over and over again, is by writing you in my head.Â
Writing these love letters to you feels so natural, John. Words pour out of me, and all I want to do is write and edit and make these letters more than just ramblings while still retaining a âtrain-of-thoughtâ style. Like deliberate ease. (I didnât plan on linking it back to my first letter to you but that certainly worked out! After some tweaking. Ssshhh.)
A point that intersects between these two interpretations is the vulnerability each writer exhibits by achieving their letterâs effect, that of a reminder of love and catharsis. Granted, one always expects the narrator of any text to expose themselves in one way or the other, deliberate or not, but this is on another level for me. My first letter to you, after all, was a response to a question you asked me at least a month ago now. But letter writing grants you special privilege. Youâre meant to be romantic and cheesy in a letter because itâs in the very form. Vulnerability, in this case, becomes...easy.
This letter is getting really long. Itâs literally an essay at this point, so I think Iâll just sign off here. Have a good day or good sleep. I love you, in case that wasnât clear.Â
Written on the night of October 4th, transcribed on xxx
stupid things iâve done in september (and late august)
look at the few photos we took together periodically, even when iâm on the subway and i canât help but smile at them
think of you every time a plane passes by our window, and there are a lot of planes. so many planes
took out the totoro box you gave me so i can put it next to my pillow, but then worry about crushing it or whipping it off the bed in the middle of the nightâŚso i put it back into my suitcase (for now)
update on that. itâs now on my bedside table. but you know about that anyway
almost messaged you multiple times about how many things i want to do with you in NY
remember how i replied âhi hi hiâ almost immediately after you sent a message to me? yeah that
stick your face onto my notebook lol. my mom saw me do it. I think she was judging me with amusement
think of you to help me fall asleep. but end up staying up because iâm thinking of you
use you as an excuse to not do work because iâm too distracted thinking about you but also as motivation to actually do work because i want to make you proud
listen to your voice messages over and over again. needless to say that the number is definitely past 28 now
make you that damn playlist and even let you listen to said playlist
almost told you that all I want to do is write you love letters that one time we facetimed. i want to write you all the time.
and so i plan out what letters i want to send to you next
I like gentle kisses more. I like the pause between shared breaths, the slow press of our mouths against our sprinting hearts. I like holding your face in my hands and kissing you in waves, in afternoon tides, as if I have all the time in the world. It feels effortless, kissing you in quiet intervals, like leaning against a wall, yet it also requires concentration. Kissing resembles dancing, and, though I seem to have two left feet, I like myself a waltz. Thereâs a deliberate ease to each step and move, the same type of ease you hold when I ask you âwhatâs upâ and you always simply answer, âyou.â
So yes, to answer your question, I do like gentle kisses. I miss them a lot. I miss you in general. But thatâs not unknown to you, so since, for now, all I can give you are my words, here are some other things I like:
I like it when you curve one hand around the side of my neck so I can lean into your touch, cat-like and comfortable. I like how when you tuck a strand of my hair behind my ear, your eyes would follow the movement of your hand. I am always fascinated by the careful look on your face. You make me feel soft, like Iâm delicate for a second.
I smile when our hands find each other even when neither of us are looking. I appreciate you matching my pace when I slow down our kiss. Iâm touched when you slot your chin onto my shoulder from behind and look at those dreaded books that interest me. I like how when weâre reading together you would automatically place a hand over my head. As your mind tick-tocks around airports, airplanes, and the weather, you caress my hair.
I like all of that; I like you.
You are more than your shoulders, believe me. And despite my conscious effort to write all of this, you are more than your kisses, touches, proximity, and your gentleness. Theyâre wonderful, donât get me wrong, but itâs the thought behind the actions that mean even more.
If I actually do end up copying all of this into a letter and then mailing it to you...forgive me for being embarrassed when you first asked me about kissing and that I am being this honest all at once. This took me longer to write than you would imagine.Â
she became interested in photography from taking photos of her favorite k-pop idols.
as someone from jeju, her only opportunities to attend big concerts were when she visited her maternal extended family in seoul during her summer and winter holidays, which was why she would never let those opportunities go to waste.
every time there was a concert sheâd lug her xxkg camera with her on board the plane, complete with a lens that enabled her to take the best photos depending on where she would sit in the upcoming concert, no matter how heavy they were. she took care of her camera more than her phone, something her mother always berated her about after the time she lost her phone in seoul two years ago.
still, losing her camera was more serious than losing her phone. although she always kept her SD cards in her wallet when she traveled, buying a new camera and new lenses cost a lot more than a new phone. all the data and photos on her phone were backed up on google anyway.
she bought her camera with her own hard-earned money, and she wasnât about to lose this method of viewing her idols up close.
âyour photos are really pretty!â
âxxx has never looked so good OTLâ
âa little too white-washed but damn that bokeh bg thoâ
âthese make me want to see xxx so badlyâ
she couldnât help but smile whenever she saw these types of replies on her photos.Â
like many other, she took careful time to choose her favorite photos out of the hundreds she took in the span of a three-hour concert, edit them, and then post them on twitter.Â
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