Essay

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Halcyon days

Arisse, In my memory of you, we were on the fifth floor in gilded light. The nursing building with the baby-peach hallways, our old university. We were on our third year in college and February was just about to take its plunge into summer; we could feel it in the air. I was looking down >
Greetings from middle-age

35 finds me with my feet in the water. Pristine, glass-blue, freezing water. An alpine lake in the middle of the Enchantments, in the middle of Washington. My Big Apple-red toenails dipped in the snowmelt from the glaciers of the enclosing mountains. Swimmers more courageous than I am include my family and some younger ones >
Lost and found

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone. Silence the pianos and with muffled drum, Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead Scribbling on the sky the message: “He is dead.” Put crêpe bows round the white necks of >
We must risk delight

It’s 34°F on the side of the road so we board the first bus that comes. It’s the wrong one but it’s already here, and we’re eager to get out of the cold. The sun has set too early, the temperature has dropped. All the tourists have gone. The curve of the lake where the >
Tadaima

For a week or two every autumn, like right now, the tree outside our living room turns the color of a blood orange. I have been leaving my blinds fully open as usual, for as long as there’s daylight, the reflecting color from the tree bathing the walls a soft grey-pink. In due time, the leaves >
A biased guide to L.A.

(Before all else, I need to take the time to rejoice on M2M getting back together again.) Happiness is TFC that shows Filipino movies that are so cringey, so cheesy, I can barely look away. My Ex and Whys plays from start to finish, and I am exceedingly invested on something I’ve never heard of before, while we >
Split-ends

The last time I saw John Vincent in person, we were meeting for dinner at International District in a now-defunct restaurant that served teppanyaki — cheap steak cuts on sizzling iron plates with a mound of rice in the middle. My clothes always smelled like smoked meat whenever I ate there, a smell that is >
Tiis-ganda, part 2

Alicia Keys is on TV, in a video my husband plays from YouTube. She is performing live in the middle of New York City, and the song is “If I Ain’t Got You” — a classic. Briefly I watch with awe at her commendably mad skills on the piano and her singing, but soon the >
Tiis-ganda, part 1

The salon itself is a large, open space with tiled floors and the smell of someone’s lunch mingling with the air-conditioner, occupying half the floor of a rundown business building along the highway. Up the stairs, through a heavy glass door, and this unique olfactory blend made up of chemicals and burning hair assaults the >
Chasing hanami

Spring is late, at least for the sakura. It’s already the end of March, well into the season, and we’ve been enduring our fellow hanami crowds that are equally hopeful, going as far west as Fukuoka with a diligent stop at Kyōto, to walking the waterfront streets along the Nakameguro River that’s supposed to be >