Teeth, Love, and Growing Up

Alternative titles: school is kicking my ass, all my friends are punk rock guitar players, offseason life, the birds are singing -- Packed powder in winter turns to ice in the spring mummontappokeli – grandma-killing weather, I’m told as we gingerly pick our way down the sidewalk laugh so hard I slip this season does not discriminate by age. -- Mist lay thick in the trees under glowing grey sky I walk to school in this weather March entwines October ghosts of fall resurface in spring and versions of myself from past seasons come closer, I remember iterated and reiterated -- Woke up this morning to stiff muscles and popping joints Yesterday at the skate park learning how to drop in feet on board on lip of halfpipe Ose tells me falling forward is infinitely better than falling backward Take his hands, stomp down jumbled limbs and board and twisting and air and ground coming up behind me Ose towards me a moment of oh god infinite millisecond later we loo...

         I'm sitting on the couch in my very messy living room in LA, mourning my long and restful winter break. I'm supposed to be tidying up right now so that I can start the new semester with a clean slate in a couple of days. Syllabi, Google forms, and meeting agendas already sit untouched in each of my three (soon to be four, maybe even five) school-related inboxes. Why does so much of adult life involve creating new email accounts? I resent this deeply.     Next to me on the couch are the "2026" balloons from New Years Eve that we've taken off the wall but still don't know what to do with. I'd suggested we save the two and the six for my roommate's next birthday, but was immediately hit with the realization that we won't still be living together then.  Directly in front of me is a small easel propping up a half-painted portrait of Nori, one of my roommate's cats, that my roommate started a couple of nights ago. Strewn around it are an a...

In recent weeks, temperatures have finally plummeted as wind and snow swirl on the roads and in the forests. The sun makes an appearance for 5 hours each day, tracing a short, low arc across the horizon before re-entering its 19-hour slumber. Daylight in December became a perpetual sunrise-sunset; the sun so low in the sky I can almost look at it with the naked eye, the city awash in golden hour, the sky pink-tinged.  For the most part, though, I live in an eternal night. The darkness is pervasive, consistent, a constant companion. It’s a time for rest, hibernation, and rejuvenation. After the semester ended I spent my days inside, catching up on all the slow activities I didn’t have time to do during these first frantic months in Finland. Cooking, baking, knitting, painting, listening to music, podcasts.  Spending winter break freely and peacefully ...

I ’m writing as I sip on a strong latte at 1369 Coffee Shop in Central Square, admiring the snow fall outside and feeling the shock of the cold air each time the door opens and closes. As frigid temperatures have slid into the Northeast over the past month, life has felt numbed. A physical numbness spread from my nose to my chin, as I brave the headwinds on Comm Ave during my walks home from work. A mental numbness burrowed behind my eyes, as I type run-on sentences with disappointment that my writing skills have atrophied. A spiritual numbness sprawled across my chest, as I sit on my meditation cushion searching for a connection with myself that I can no longer access. This morning, as I peer at the glowing faces filling the coffee shop and scan the community board that showcases hundreds of local events and support groups and services, I feel a familiar sadness: a grief for college. It’s been two and a half years since we graduated, and while I long ago accepted the reality that I’m ...

I arrived in Finland in the beginning of August – Elokuu , harvest month – as summer began to wind down. August was clear blue skies and a 9:30pm sunset. I unpacked my bags, scoured second-hand stores for furniture, and bought a bike. Each morning I woke with the sun on my face and a gentle breeze coming through the window. In August, I had an abundance of free time. I took the train to Helsinki for a weekend to go to a music festival. I spent an afternoon in a national park, eating bilberries off the bush in the deep, lush forest, walked barefoot through soft reindeer lichen. I was alone again, but alone by my choosing. I had infinite possibilities laid out in front of me, a banquet of delicacies to choose from and experience. I can be who I want, make this place whatever I want. I imagined myself here for two full years and couldn’t believe my luck. September – Syyskuu , autumn month – brought foggy mornings and vibrant foliage, the leaves of birch trees illuminated with a thou...

I haven't written for the blog since January. (Prof. Walsh's email about his perfectionism/procrastination loop resonated with me deeply.) Without writing except in my journal, I've felt unmoored these past months.  Working as a clinical student in immigration defense right now in LA feels like putting band aids on bullet wounds. Forcing my client to divulge her life's most traumatic and shameful events to me week after week as I build her case, knowing the likely negative outcome, feels like a betrayal---of her, of myself, of any sense of human decency.  My clinic partner, a white Evangelical Christian from Fresno whose husband is a secret service agent, keeps saying our client "doesn't deserve this." I don't think anyone  deserves this. I don't understand how she can't see the contradiction of arguing a case against the Department of Homeland Security when her husband's boss is Kristi Noem herself. (My partner even brought a secret servic...

Last year, before I went to China for the summer, my biggest fear was that my language abilities would betray me. I may speak Chinese fluently, but I’m limited in my vocabulary. For example, my exposure to political and scientific vocabulary were in English, used and refined in English speaking settings. In more complex conversations in Chinese centered around academia or expressing opinion, I can’t hold my own. I spent a lot of time in last summer in China staying quiet, thinking about things I wanted to say but not having the adequate vocabulary to express it. As a result, I felt unable to connect at a deeper level with others. It took longer for me to determine if a response was a person-specific quirk or a wider cultural trait. I didn’t have enough experience with pop culture to understand what parts of society are shaped by it and how. When I speak Chinese, my personality feels trapped, straining to break out of the confines of my vocabulary. How can I feel known or understood...

On a hot summer day, the hardest part about jumping off a bridge into the river below is taking the leap itself. The footbridge downtown that spans the river is an adrenaline seeker’s dream (and a law enforcer’s nightmare). The river slows into a deep, mellow current right under the bridge and flat, rocky banks make it a perfect place to swim to shore. As summer temperatures climb steadily into the nineties, there is no better way to escape the sun’s scorching intensity than to submerge into the cool river. So, on a day so hot that moisture seems to get sucked right out of the air, a friend calls to invite me to go swimming, and saying yes is easy. The beach is crowded by the time we get there in the evening, a throng of people clustering against the bridge railing as one after the other dives into the water. The sun is low in the sky, gleaming on the river and casting everyone in a mild glow. I haven’t jumped off this bridge since high school, and as I clamber over the railing, line m...

1. Gritty teeth, cold morning Dentist tells me as she polishes that they’re beautiful (my teeth, she means). Take comfort that dentists nationwide agree I have excellent teeth. Later, hand off my chewed-up boots to Lloyd the cobbler looking skeptical, come back in three weeks, he’ll try his best. Sun is out, weather warming, I dream of hot summer days on the river gritty sunscreen sticking to  skin sticking to dirt. 2.  His hands wide, angular clicking the lighter, needs almost a stronger word to describe the action, striking perhaps two objects creating friction an act of small violence, release sparking flame. A friend, tentative, hesitant familiarity, too familiar but I took it anyway the leap from structured activity now reasons not to say goodbye together beside the river. To have made a good friend, I worry I’ll lose it. 3. Soft setting sun I asked after practice if he thinks Russia will invade Finland. Only pausing briefly to think definitively he says no tells me of hi...

This time last year I was in Seattle, had just stepped out of my house, pushed my bike out onto the sidewalk, triple checked that I’d shut the garage door behind me, and started my ride towards downtown Seattle for my tattoo appointment. The lead up to the appointment was a series of unfortunate events; the artist wanted cash, of which I had none, and the first several ATMs I visited were all closed. Finally I arrived, breathless, late, anxious, and we started talking about size and placement. She showed me the design, two Chinese-style dragons facing each other, printed out big enough to span the length of both shoulders. “Can we make it smaller?” I asked. The artist paused. Gave a sidelong glance at me. “Okay,” she said. It didn’t feel like it was okay. My heart started to race; the walls closed in. “I was thinking that I’d also like it in black ink,” I whispered. “I’d really prefer if we kept it in color,” she replied. Three hours later, I walked out of the studio, u...

  “She really wants to meet you,” he said one night. “She asked if you’d want to go down to Florida, just the three of us.” “Oh,” I replied in mild shock. Meeting my boyfriend’s mother for the first time on a trip? In Florida? A fun idea in theory, especially when posed against the backdrop of Boston’s blustering wind rattling against my apartment‘s windows.  But what if she hates me? I could envision it perfectly, rolling my suitcase and failing to meet her expectations upon first glance, answering her questions with ineloquent responses as my sweaty palms rested in my lap below the dinner table, deflating the hopes of my [inevitably future ex-] boyfriend with each rambling sentence, disappointing myself, fighting back tears, a sip of wine, a tightness in my throat. “I’d love to!” So there I was, standing in a stall of the Fort Myers airport bathroom to take a few deep breaths and pray to some higher power that the weekend would not unravel into the personal hell I envisioned...