Ramblings

April 5, 2022: I had the urge to let this rest for good (after being placed on-hold for a year), because the energy for this one went rogue in the months that followed, then softened in a quiet season of healing.

I had picked up the term "limit experience" from an anthropology course, probably along with the mention of Foucault. Without knowing too well what it really means, it made me reflect on the categories I and my close friends here—international students who might call more than one place as "home", and are never too sure when they will return "home"—are placed in, though we are bound to transgress them anyway. Filipino. International student in Japan. 20-something. Writer.

Young people are often made to reflect on the various positions and identities we take up, increasingly questioned to fit into categories as we are appraised for different spaces and roles. These categories, or limits, threaten to exhaust the depth of being young. This is the period we are most malleable, never already-this and always yet-to-be, a liminal state of being that we should romanticize a little more.

We move from a day binge-watching a trashy series to another day trying a new workout quite quickly. We create, in more ways than we acknowledge. It was an idea two months ago, now it has its own Discord channel, or it's sitting in drafts, a 'yet-to-be' from 'nothing'. I am continuously inspired by the energy of the young people I have the chance to meet and work with, and even though it is a joke that there may be way too many youth organizations, at least we are still pushing to change the world to see. We are making sense of a world that shakes more violently the more we doomscroll through Twitter, and slowly, we are learning to move parts of ourselves into new spaces. The "limit experience" moments, those ecstatic highs (like lasting a whole workday in karaoke) and hollowing lows (like getting dehydrated from yet another day of crying over a breakup), make us realize this boundlessness of ourselves in a fairly terrific way. But wherever we are at the moment—whether we're there touching the sky off the top of the wave, or having our heads dunked below the force of the sea—the fact that we are, challenging whatever is, in the in-between seas of adulting, deserves celebration. I drink this yakult soju shot as cheers to you!

March 7, 2021:
I still can't believe my friends and I spent almost 9 hours karaoke-ing the other week. (Yes, we were paranoid enough to disinfect the mikes.)

—On repeat for the "all-to-myself" evenings, and mornings too: Kabilugan ng Buwan - Drip
—On repeat for the last stretch of final-paper-writing: Hypotheticals - Lake Street Dive

Direction in the wake of the past year is a privilege. This is not a wistful reflection, but a palpable fact, especially when much has been lost and the headlines still run in ever-threatening scales of corruption and misogyny. Yet we have little choice but to make do. And make do we shall, working with even the littlest of hope! Thus I am letting myself manifest this virtue in my vision board (which is really just similar in theme with my 2020 one, #continuity #timeisasocialconstruct).

Hope is a funny thing, and the word is not as often believed in as much as it is uttered. Last month, on the topic of today’s precarity, I added to the class discussion how the next five years of my life were a totally blank page. As in darkness, nil, nothing, please-stop-asking-me-about-it kind of blank page. Yet a few days after, I was required to expound on my hopes for college and after it; out came the word, in sparkling heaps. The first leap is blind, but bright in its motion.

The aforementioned class discussion was on Anna Tsing’s book, The Mushroom at the End of the World. I have yet to read it in full, but I will happily gush to you about it (as I have this whole past week). It is a brilliant anthropological work that follows the worlds of the matsutake mushroom – how it grows in capitalism’s disturbed forests and crosses life paths with pine, scientists, hunters (to name a few collaborators), all of which make this world even a little more livable for everyone. The book celebrates hope and progress in lowercase p, when charting Progress in uppercase P leaves us wandering. For now, Tsing teaches, we need to practice an “arts of noticing” (Tsing, 2015, p.10) – and maybe we’ll find the mushroom trails that lead elsewhere other than where we stand paralyzed. I’ve found that I’ve been following some mushroom trails, even as I run from 2020: a shareable love of learning in classes I excitedly picked, continuous home-making of an apartment by beginner-Japanese speakers, an energizing journey of working daily (though remotely!) with people who focus on what can be done about monstrous climate change and mouthpieces for government officials… the trails lead on, gratefully. Turns out that hope can be found when you look for it.

I’ve been keeping a commonplace book for over a year, and have found that it is one of the handiest tools for the creative who wants to appear like they have everything put together. A commonplace book is a portable notebook to jot down random Eurekas, collect quotes of interest, or tape Post-its that will one day be significant. One quote I’ve collected, which has moved from my book to my whiteboard, then to my tumbler- which now sits beside my online classes setup- is from a Filipina poet I admire, Conchitina Cruz. In an interview that changed my goals for poetry-writing when I read it, she proclaims how “hope… is embedded in resistance”. Hope, like this whopper of a quote, can be serendipitous—and can be fleeting. Hold on to it. Drag it places. Watch it grow.

And before it can even slip away—share it. So even if you do lose it afterward, it’s likely to cross paths with you sooner or later.

Here’s hoping!

—Wish I was nibbling on: Kraft processed cheese (A pre-sliced block perfect for taking slabs to snack on)
—Now playing: HAIM’s Women In Music Pt III Live Shows (June 27, 2020)
A performance that keeps my desire for sleep in check. I never tire of their spunk. I want it, and I want it for us all. This 2021, may we all create in the spirit of their charged riffs and defiant walking.
—Collage materials:
Mary Engelbreit stamp | Cutting from a zine by @sabajaco on Twitter | Tully’s Coffee promotional leaflet | Folklore Okayama restaurant card | Mesta 2019 wine bottle label | Art by Akiyama Masami as featured in The Paper no, 02 2019 | DIY-Fenders sticker by Mako Micropress | Map sticker by Abbey Sy | Cover of Blue + Green Journal, Toshiyuki Hirano | Washi tape from Seria and Cando | Some bus ticket to Cavite
—Thank you Muji LOTZ Okayama for having the best free paper for taking!!