summer i remembered how much I missed living in san francisco, running to catch a bus and feeling fog layer onto my face. i was reminded that the best way to survive a difficult job is to make sincere friends, which i did. i tried teaching seventh graders for seven weeks and was left only with exhaustion and utter awe for teachers. that there are people who want to teach is the greatest gift i know. i did yoga with students and tried to radicalize them through art. i danced in a (high school musical) flash mob and felt happy for a week afterwards. i tried two types of moscato and am convinced it’s the best type of alcohol, which is to say it doesn’t taste like alcohol. we waited an hour for a bowl of richly warm ramen, and drinking the soup felt the same as meditating. i baked salmon after lathering it in butter so, of course, it tasted delicious. i spooned mint chocolate chip ice cream into my mouth straight from the container. i read my old diaries from middle and high school, and i laughed and cringed endlessly. i used sheet masks with friends and tried not to smirk. i attended my cousin’s stunning wedding and was surprised to find myself dreaming for my own. spring i went bowling for the first time in years and had impossibly improved. i made art with friends, and we taped it to walls. i stood on a ferry heading towards block island after talking about it for two years. i felt so in awe of college dance groups that i auditioned for one. i drove to the beach with friends on a foggy day. i wrote a cathartically disparaging yelp review for ten prime steak and sushi (never eat there). i saw beautiful and colorful paintings of people who aren’t usually seen in this way. i attended a powwow that my friend organized. i wrote a paper about beauty. a school trip brought me to mississippi, where i met inspiring, community-driven people and was fed the best fried chicken of my life. i got stranded in charlotte for a night and was caught by the kindness of old friends. i watched best friends graduate; i felt nostalgia and earnestness. and this summer, while my job has been deeply overwhelming and challenging, i hope to carve out time to write and read and remember what has been good. winter i started to fall out of love with my hometown. i saw my brother again after a year and a half, and everything about him seemed the same. i saw my friend’s dog poop, with shaking legs and innocent eyes, and felt second hand embarrassed. i got an amazing pair of gray-pink slacks. i was twice betrayed by walmart’s grocery deliveries. i saw visual art and visual artists—tauba auerbach, luba lukova, and kambui olujimi. i cooked salmon, and my suite smelled of it for days. i cooked tangyuan for the full moon and shared it with friends. i rooted for the bengals and they lost. i went to a gym for the first time in three years! i bench pressed (the bar) and smith machine squatted. i watched student dance performances and felt so envious! i started buying four grapefruits a week instead of two. i bought fairy lights for my room which made everything better. i read no-no boy and corregidora. i referenced scenes from childhood books series, and my partner didn’t get it. we held hands in the cold and through the snow. i heard someone say, “if people are given warmth, they can respond with the fullness of who they are.” autumn I smelled the salt of the Atlantic Ocean. a gingko leaf stayed pressed between my phone and case. live music made me grin beneath my mask. I chatted with my professor in the produce section of a grocery store. I consumed a minimum of two grapefruits per week. I sang out loud. I skipped class. I took an Uber to the beach on a surprisingly sunny October day. I attended salsa lessons with my partner. we showed off what we learned, and one friend said, “it’s obvious you two are beginners.” I took a train across state lines for fried chicken. I found rice noodles in New Haven. I felt depressed and heartbroken but not at the same time. I cried five days in a row. I skipped therapy—my therapist can use a break, I justified. I discovered Carmen Maria Machado. I wrote! I bought art. I almost cried at a drag queen’s performance. I saw Kehinde Wiley’s work in a hotel. I bought a coat my mom approved of. I ate custard pie. I was called elitist for disliking McDonald’s. I told many people to visit the Philadelphia Art Museum. I came back to California and gas was over five dollars. I figured out what kind of drinks I like—citrus-y and sweet. I saw more stars than I ever conceived possible. I held my breath. summer a dragonfly landed on my knee. I swam in a lake I had not known was swimmable. I hiked a trail called poo poo point (I laughed out loud at the name) and it was so steep my calves burned for exactly a week afterwards. I met with a friend/teammate in his hometown after our lives converged for ten months and then diverged for two years. I walked through the weight of a waterfall and sat behind it, watching sheets of water thunder down. I used a bookstore bathroom whose walls were covered in bookmarks. a coworker gave me part of a tamale and laughed when my eyes teared up and I grabbed almond milk. I did not have an internship and felt bad about it until I felt less bad. a child I tutored mentioned his mom every time he used a vocab word in a sentence. I asked questions in french to people who were learning french and forgot to correct them because I liked listening to their answers. I ate ice cream in five different cities. I stayed in bed and used my friend’s hbo max account. I sometimes felt bad about the world or myself but being in nature helped soften this. I saw paragliders run off a mountain. I saw tulips at Stonewall. I saw the starry night, painting and sky. I told myself I would write, which I didn’t really, but I did write this
I started this series of ongoing seasonal reflections in the summer of 2021. They are listed here in reverse chronological order.