aging gracefully is out — aging with a continued sense of curiosity and clumsiness is in !

there is hope for more !

I recently met with an artist/professor (who I will not name) who very truly made me feel for the first time in my life, that I just had met someone I could see myself being when I’m older. She made me feel giddy about my 50s and about feeling continuously curious and intentional with my research, my work, and my relations.

It was like boom, boom, boom. She hit all of my checkmarks within 30 seconds of talking. Checkmarks I didn’t know I had. It also helped that she looked like me, Asian American, long hair & mulleted, someone who also looked up at the ceiling while trying to explain relationality and emotional masochism, and a little disorganized in thought but smiling nonetheless. It helped seeing vibrance in someone 30 years older than me. Someone who was so open to being in pursuit of questioning herself, her beliefs, her understanding of sex, life, and love. The ethics of kinship and performance.

Maybe it’s an over romanticization of an hour long interaction but still — it was a notable one. A warming one. She was eloquent and intelligent but not in a cold and isolating way but in a way that was imperfect, clumsy, and inviting. She cited people in a familiarity that parallels my own speaking habits. By acknowledging the theories and writings of people like they were close friends. With a casualness and also a reverence and respect. Because this network of academic work, for me, is a network of kinship. It’s not just books but people. And that’s what makes academia worth it.

Currently, I am in a little bit of a slump. With writing and with applying for PhDs. I have this big pressure to get something published in a journal before starting my apps to prove something. So I sit and look at my excel sheet of journals I need to submit to but I have nothing in my brain to write about. Nothing inspiring, nothing interesting, and nothing rich or complex. But after today, I do have a glimpse of what could be and that makes me hopeful. So for now, that is enough to not completely abandon my ability to produce a 7,000 word article for peer review.

last month i got to work an art fair for the gallery and that similarly made feel less downtrodden but more excited about the potential i had for the future

also at frieze la — but this is me and kim

with art and writing the fear is always making and producing something that is overdone, derivative, and unmoving. trying to view unoriginality as more of an opportunity of building upon something pre-existing, being in conversation with, and also whatever it doesn’t have to be that big of a deal. there will always be something similar and better lol.