happy birthday, Ma!

wearing a hat that my mom made for me. John calls me blueberry.

I wish i could be home today to have cake with my mom. It seems like it's been a long while since any one of us has been home to celebrate our parents' birthdays. Next year, Ma!!!

Thanksgiving Day (last Thursday), we were on the phone with Ting, telling her how much she sucked for not being home with us that day. heh. just kidding, Ting. we just missed you. So my mom started tearing up the minute she got on the phone with her little baby, and it just about breaks my heart even now just thinking about it. It is so strange to have someone who could yell at you until you wish you were never even born and then the next moment, she is your light, your soul...

happy birthday, Ma! ♡ i love you.

getting there

So i am still working on that altered book. I was hoping to have it all done and posted up before i leave for my Thanksgiving trip home but that is just not happening. so much for thinking it will be a quick touch-up.

I spent one week laying down some fresh paint and drawings; the next week, removing, tearing up almost everything i did the week before, and then trying to reconstruct some new pages. And this week, repeating the same whole process again but finally feeling i am getting somewhere...



I had been trying to copy how i drew before and what i already have down, trying to capture the essence of what was done 4 years ago. But only to find that my lines are no longer the same; the pressure is heavier, the lines are awkward, anxious and the paint is too thick, too clunky. I am not the same person anymore. Regretted coming back to rework this book. The original mood of the book felt totally ruined, displaced...

But somehow with all that tearing and reconstructing of the pages, it is helping to reconnect and find the flow and focus of things. Slowly, i am not as afraid to make changes to what is already there, and let what is present with me show through. Either i am finding a way to bridge the gap between then and now, or coming to terms with the fact that the book is evolving and it is its own at this or any point in time, however it will become.


This here is a happy clutter.

tiny lovely

I was going to wait to post about this but i just can't wait. Finally caught some good daylight yesterday and got to take the pictures.

Look what i received in the mail last Monday!


...arrived just like that, so raw and delicate...love the little clasp on the box...

It is from *Erin*, whom i have yet to meet in person but whose presence has already touched me ever so deeply. Thank you, Erin, for this, and for magically appearing into my life. :).



[click for a closer peek]



I think of the hands that went into tearing these pieces and pieces of paper that look like fine leather and feathers...



and then underneath all that softness...



...a dragonfly i've been looking for, and a tiny tiny lovely blooming:



I saw it and it speaks to me ever so softly, echoing my thoughts.



and the dragonfly...like the one my dad had caught for me to fly with when i was little, because where i was born, there were no toy stores around at the time.


the dragonfly in silent prayers...

when i just want your heart to beat beside mine

Since last weekend i've been [re]working on this altered book. Thought that it would be a quick wrap-up with just a few pages to touch up here and there. But as it is often the case, you change one thing, something else becomes a bit off and you have to fix that, and then before you know it, it is a domino effect of things to tend to. So the book is still in progress.

In the midst of working on it while waiting for some pages to dry, this sketch came about:


acrylic on graph paper, 30.4 x 15 cm

The lines are from the humidity and temperature readings printed out on graph paper cardstock. Discarded stacks of these readings that i salvaged from work. Maybe i will bind them into a book to sketch in. I like how the lines make me think of the heartbeat.



Last night i caught a glance of the sketch and thought of John, of not being pissed at him anymore...the timeline in my head that i wanted him to live up to transformed into these two lines of heartbeats. I thought of us, of how these are like our hearts beating side by side, closely in sync and in tune with one another...

And i think of those that no longer have a pulse, of K's whose no longer in motion with the universe...but they have before, and maybe that is at least good enough to hold onto for now...

And i imagine how at one point or another, each of us must have our hearts beating at the same pace and rhythm as one other person in the world. maybe someone from the other side of the country or across oceans and seas...