watching water

I’m writing this aboard a ship cruising in the waters around Alaska. I’m on this trip with my parents, oldest brother, sister-in-law and nephew (almost two and already a terror, a beautiful one). It has been less traveling and more bumming around, which has been perfect for me. We sleep a lot, we eat a lot, we play a lot of Scrabble, we laugh a lot at the little one, we sit at window-side tables for hours and watch water that stretches on and on. The latter is my dad nad me; we alternately talk and sit in silence. I’m grateful for the quality quiet time I’ve had with my family. Usually our time is wrapped up in the bustle of the holidays, and while I always love that, this is a different kind of shared time. There is a sense of just living the basics together, and it has been good to live slowly.

This is also the longest time I’ve been able to spend with my nephew, enough so that he has formed an attachment to me. I know that will fade quickly enough after the trip, but it is nice while it lasts. His only words are mommy, daddy, and uh-oh. He uses mommy and daddy to refer to pretty much anything he likes, and sometimes he will chant the words over and over for no apparent reason. Because I call him baby, he has a new word now, “bobby,” or sometimes “bah-bee,” and that’s what he calls me. He still speaks in streams of baby babble, but can understand pretty much anything you tell him. He will also kiss you on command, and he loves holding hands and being held. When he gets excited he’ll holler repeatedly with some laughs in-between, and it is so funny. He’ll climb anything, and he’s at that age where he is so eager to use every sense he has. Being with him makes almost everything a sensory experience. Watching him chew with effort, I feel more strongly the stringy peel of orange slices; watching him fall back with delight after pushing himself forward to complete double high-five, I feel more strongly his little weight and how compactly he fits in my arms.

Outside of being with family, the cruise itself isn’t particularly my thing. It’s crowded, and cheesy, and centered around consumption. There is too much service; we’re constantly being asked how things are and if we need anything and what did we do today and what would we like to do tomorrow. Even though I have nothing to be private about, I miss my privacy. I have yet to find a reliably solitary place, especially on days we’re at sea and not landed anywhere, and everyone is inside. I’m not sure if I enjoy microcosms; as big as the ship is, I feel like I’m experiencing everything in miniature. But the wide-open of the seas does compensate for this. Spending long minutes watching the blue and white, with nothing but music for company, has been a welcome conduit for breathing. It has also been incredibly nice to run everyday in front of sea spilling through windows. I will miss that.

Mostly it has been nice to indulge in nothingness. I sleep without thinking about when to wake up, and that simple sensation makes me consciously happy when I get into bed at night. There is no need to do anything; we do things because of simple urges to do so. I would’ve liked to do more outdoorsy things, but my parents can’t do those things and also it has been raining quite a bit. After ending the most intense year of my life thus far, taking it easy has been welcome. This wasn’t something I planned or thought about; it just happened. The serendipitous gift of being able to do almost everything with a view of water is something to take back with me; I think even after the sight is gone the sort of stillness carried in perpetual movement stays.

genius

 There is much to say about my dad who is amazing, some of which I hope to share in the future. For now, this earned an entry all to itself. What is this? I asked the same thing of my dad, the maker of this mighty contraption. It's a book-binder.

My dad builds a lot of things. Without any prior experience for any of his projects, he browses Home Depot, buys what he thinks he needs, and builds. An outdoor stove, a storage house, the stone landscape leading to our front door. But I think this one most sums up why I am so crazy about my dad. My dad reads a lot of Vietnamese books. He decided that instead of buying them, he'd make them. He finds them online, copies them into word documents, and proofreads and edits them (he also proofreads books he already owns). Because he prints four pages on a piece of paper (two on each side), so that they can be folded and read like a normal book, he must first place them in Word accordingly. This is a bit hard to describe, but what it means is that from left to right, pages 4 and 1 are printed on one side of a paper, and pages 2 and 3 are printed on the other, so that when it's folded it reads 1, 2, 3, and 4.

He built the above with some slabs of wood, and this other silver and black device seen that was designed for another purpose (I don't know what), which allows him to change the length of the contraption and keeps the pages bound in the width that he wants. He places glue across the binding, waits for it to dry, and gets to work on the covers...the end product is this:
 
The zoom of my camera lens was too high for me to hold a book open with one hand and take an adequate photograph with the other, so I used a stapler to showcase it. My dad would've come up with a better solution but I ended up liking this aesthetic. After I asked a million questions about this meticulous process and commented on the many details this entails, he laughed and said, "When you actually do it the details keep arising!" When I told him I was impressed, he laughed and said, "If you can think up something, you can do it." These sorts of things have always sounded more right to me in foreign languages.

my mom

 

My mom turns 67 today. It was only recently that I realized that she was three years older than her officially documented age (this changed her age to me by two, since I'd previously thought she was only one year older than her official age). Growing up in Northern Vietnam while the Communists were fighting to oust the French, she stopped going to school for a few years during the fighting. When it was time to return, they tried to put people back in the grades corresponding to their age, but they were all behind. My grandparents lowered my mom's age, so she could be in the grade in which she belonged. Growing up, she was a daddy's girl, and later, she tells me, she had many suitors (I believe her). She worked as an accountant for the government for awhile and married my dad, and then taught high school history, and somewhere in there gave birth to four boys in seven years. She took them, carrying the baby whom she fed powdered milk, through fields and marshes and sea to Thailand and to Germany and eventually to here. Her dad passed away in Vietnam before she left, and her mom passed away there too, but when my mom was in America, when I was five and remember her crying in the hallway. In California she made clothes, helped my dad run the bakery and then the convenience store and then the wine store, was and is still a receptionist at my aunt's pediatric office, and gave birth to me. When I was a kid she worried I'd never grow much hair. Once when I was in elementary school and she found out about something really bad I'd done, she didn't yell with anger; she cried with disappointment. In high school before I could drive and I wanted to volunteer at a hospital 40 minutes from home, she'd take me there after school and wait there for three hours until I was done, to take me home. When she saw me off for college, she wouldn't leave to go to the bathroom until after I passed the security gate. In med school when we had to interview a relative with an illness I talked to her about the heart surgery she had when I was thirteen, when she stayed home for a few months and we gave her a bell to call us if she needed anything. She doesn't like chocolate, butter, sweet things or any non-Vietnamese food. She likes jewelry, watching National Geographic and Animal Planet, posing for pictures, and talking to anyone. I don't know that many concrete details about her life before the time that I noticed details, and it took a long time after noticing before I started asking. I hope to know.

my brother's wedding

My oldest brother got married. The event drove several very obvious things home: marriage is a big deal, life's hard, I've gained a sister and I am still a kid.

Back when they thought they'd have more time to plan the wedding, they took me to look at dresses and rings, and I couldn't really get into that. Flying to New Mexico, I felt little anticipation; I had a sense of going through the motions because of the practicality of the ceremony and its haste. This lasted until the moment I saw my brother and his bride, dressed--he in something other than his normal sweats and she with a winter coat covering the white but still instantly beautiful. He was so happy to see us, kept thanking us for coming; it's been a long time since someone has been that happy for my presence and I felt so lucky to be able to give it to him.

The mass was in Vietnamese, and I couldn't quite get into those formalities either but somehow I found myself near tears anyway. I almost felt like the older sibling--the one who's proud and weepy. Things that are of value are continual; they don't happen in a moment, but there are moments where these things concentrate and come to a point and make you hyperaware of them. You always wish for the happiness of those you care about, but during certain parts of the mass I could feel the strain of me physically asking for it. I'm not going to pretend that I feel that as often as I should, and the tug was like the loving ache a muscle makes after a long time in disuse.

The circumstances of the event weren't ideal, and I so wish that it had been better for the both of them. His wife is balancing school, of which she's missed much lately, their new life together coming into being and something in her old life passing away. I honestly don't know how she finds the strength to do it, and I wonder at how I get overwhelmed with my own life when it is so much easier. The happiness that day should be will always be overshadowed by the sorrow that it was. For me, so invested in memory and story, that would be so hard to accept. Without having any tangible evidence, I sense that she will and gracefully so. She and I get along, but we don't have too much in common and haven't really talked at length about many things. But it's easy to see there is much to look up to and learn from in her, and it hit me for the first time that it will be very different to finally have a sister in the family, and one who isn't actively trying to take care of me but is just showing me by being.

So it happened that marriage, birth, and death--the events of a lifetime--were crowded into the space of one day. I thought about how none of my days in twenty-three years has been quite like that day for her, and I can clearly recall being fazed by the sudden realization that I am a child. And that all the experience I hope for, the majority of it lies ahead and that I shouldn't want to hurry it. It comes hard and fast, and you need all the time before it to brace yourself (uselessly, probably) against the parts that don't fit.

Though he didn't show it, I know it was hard for him too, to have things done this way, having to cut so many corners for something he's wanted for a long time. Yet he adjusted so well, and found happiness in it all. And it made me very glad to have had the opportunity to speak about his selflessness in the speech he asked me to write. Sometimes I forget how much my oldest brother cares about me (much more than I actively deserve), because we only see each other once or twice a year, and neither of us have time to have the frequent conversations we used to have. When he first asked me to make a speech for the wedding, I was a little overwhelmed, because things have been so incredibly busy. In my semi-exploded state, to write something meaningful in a few days about an event we only knew was coming a week in advance seemed like too much to ask, when of course it wasn't and I was just being self-absorbed. As short as it is, it took a long time to write but like with most words that take time, I learned a lot about how I felt in the process of writing. After, I was really thankful and honored that he'd asked me to do it. He so rarely asks me to do anything and it was nice to contribute something concrete to his moment.

So here's what I said.
*
This is the first wedding speech I've ever made, and at first I thought it would be really difficult to write. And well, it was. When I asked Hoang what I was supposed to say, he said to me, "What else is there to talk about? Me and Vy!"...And while that seems obvious, it was helpful to hear.

Because as much as a marriage is about the union between two people, it's about the two individuals themselves. So in thinking about this, I thought about these individuals. One who has always been family, and one who has become family.

While I was growing up, Hoang always felt like a parent to me. Not just because he set my bedtime and wouldn't let me eat too much candy, but because he gave without expecting anything in return. As a child I found this to be natural. But when I got older I realized how rare it is for a person to give more than they take.

So when I met Vy and saw the same generous spirit in her, I knew it was something special. She extended her full self towards our crazy family, and with Hoang, she was unquestionably selfless. And so Vy reminded me as an adult of what Hoang taught me as a child: that a true connection between people is not about, like they say, give and take, but about give and give.

With their marriage, Hoang and Vy give not only to each other. They also give all of us faith that two such caring people do exist, and can find each other. For that and much more, we wish you many blessings, happiness, and much more.
*

The actual speech went about 82% the way I had practiced it--had to give some pause for laughs (I was struck slightly ajar by actual laughter), for having to talk louder because there was no microphone, for a couple slight misphrasings, and for how people started clapping and making noise at "many blessings," leaving the "happiness and much more" drowned in chopsticks against glass. I'm glad that part went 82%. For all the quiet steadiness of life thus far, it's the noise you often remember and you often look forward to.

the family you choose

Last week, late Saturday night, I brought some cookies to Bibhav's room and we were chatting when Don came by and told us that there was free food downstairs at Marigold's. We were enticed by his plate of rice and chicken, so we got Guson and went to get some. There were three long foil trays filled with rice, pork and chicken. I started eating and thought I'd bring back a plate of leftovers for the next day. Guson then says, why don't we take all the trays back. I ask him where we're going to put all this food. He thinks we can fit it in my fridge. My microfridge which can't hold a carton of milk unless it's lying sideways. He's convinced. We each take a tray up to my room. For the next hour we take apart the shelves in my fridge, fold the trays every which way, take out some rice, put the tray back in to see it not fit, take out some more rice. Guson works at this patiently and oblivious to the ridiculous nature of his effort, while Bibhav grows tired and curls up on the linoleum floor to nap, and I stare in wonder at the whole episode.

Somehow it fits, and the boys promptly arrive for lunch the next day with Jen to help us out. We eat the leftovers for four meals: take out the foil trays, scoop heaps of food onto plastic plates, stuff the trays back in, clean the rice that's spilled onto the floor, transfer food from plate to plate since only one of them is microwaveable, heat them until our plastic plate cracks, wash the disposable ones that still work, divide the heaps, pick at the bones, finish each other's food. Sometimes we supplement the meal with tea whose leaves occupy most of the cup volume because we don't use a strainer, or maple candy, or burnt cookies. Somewhere along the continuum of this ritual, we form a family in which I am the mom, Bibhav is the silly kid, Guson is the grumpy grandpa, and Jen is the auntie.



***
A representative conversation:

B: When's dinner?
G: I'm eating Marigold's.
K: Haha, I TOLD you you wouldn't finish the leftovers. If other people want leftovers let me know but otherwise maybe it'd be good to save for when we have everyone since it takes work to heat and wash. Is that okay Grandpa? Whoever Grandpa is.
B: Doesn't look like there is much choice Mommy. Fine. Eating with Grandpa it is. Stupid Grandpa.
G: Don't disrespect your elders, whippersnapper.
B: Sorry. Nice to see you have accepted your position though.
G: I was telling Kim the other day that, technically, this means I'm her daddy (ooo)
J: You could be the paternal grandfather, you know.
K: I told Jen you all are adopted. I don't know where the grandpa came from. He just arrived one day and stayed.
G: There is no father in this family. Bibhav is a bastard.
B: Adopted bastards are cool. Uninvited grandpas who won't leave and moreover, are Korean, are not cool.
G: Grandpas who steal booze and trays of Indian food are cool.
B: Shut up Guson.
Blogger: synaesthesia - Create Post

***
I love my family.

father's day

father's day

The Godfather Part II was on television yesterday, and I watched the last hour with my dad, which is so odd because an incident occurred on Father's Day that reminded me of the movie. This led to a chain of memories, traversing through last Christmas, our family photograph adventure, my brother, and this picture of my dad and Al Pacino. The connections, both natural and self-created, have occupied my thoughts for the past week. My brothers and I got this poster for my youngest brother for Christmas because he mistakenly believes that Scarface is the best gangster movie (and the second best Pacino movie; he wasn't ashamed to admit that Scent of a Woman was his number one). I like this picture because of the parallel between Tony Montana and my dad. My dad's nothing like him, and our family is not affiliated with the mafia. But it's like playing six degrees of separation with the characters Pacino has played. Tony Montana reminds me of Michael Corleone, which then reminds me of the conversation my family had likening ourselves to the Corleone family. I took this picture during Christmas, which is also when we went to take our first family photograph in which every member was present. It was amidst the attempts to coordinate seven (at least somewhat genuine) smiles that we had this discussion. Obviously, my dad had to be Vito, the original head of the family, my mom was...the mother, and being the only girl I was relegated to the least interesting character of the sister, Connie. No one wanted to be dim-witted (but lovable, I feel) Fredo; everyone wanted to be cool-headed Michael even though I insisted that they were all different versions of hot-tempered Sonny. I love the memory of this argument because it is one of the few we've had in pure jest and fun, and because besides Christmas presents and the Lakers, the Godfather is the only interest my family shares.

But one of the things I love about the films are how honestly and accurately they show that a strong familial structure can actually contribute to barriers between the individuals in the family. When the family as a unit protects itself from everything else, it seems that all that's left to fight is itself. Not that my family is immune to whatever "everything else" may be, but sometimes our dynamic is so reminiscent of the way the movie depicts family--stronger in concept than in practice. As for how this relates to what happened on Father's Day, I was ready to write this after the incident, when I was still angry about it. It is harder, but probably better, to write now because I'm less angry and more hurt. So, my parents, my brother and I drove to San Francisco for dinner. The fight between my brother and me began over air conditioning. As usual, this exploded into larger issues, issues that I've never been naive enough to think were resolved but I did think they were at the very least forgiven. I was sitting in the back seat, he was driving. He was wearing a coat and blasting the air conditioner, so I asked him to turn it down. He told me to put on my jacket. I told him to take off his jacket, which he understandably felt was an unreasonable request since he was driving. But it was just so typical of him to wear a winter coat during a California summer and then to expect me to accommodate his thoughtlessness. Somehow this made him so angry that he turned a fight about air conditioning into a tirade on how I always get what I want (all the while it was still freezing). The least profane but most hurtful thing he called me was a selfish, spoiled brat. I've been called spoiled all my life, mostly as a joke when people discover that I'm the youngest and only girl in a family of five kids and often as a real accusation during arguments like this one. It bothers me because I see two interpretations of the word and most people only see one. There's a difference between being given a lot and expecting to be given a lot without reciprocation, without cause, or without awareness of what's being given. In some ways the former is true about me. The support, friendship and company that my other brothers have given me are not things everyone is lucky enough to have. But I hope that I've grown to deserve all of that and that I provide the same things rather than just blindly accepting them. And to be fair to my family, they have always known the importance of being well-grounded even during the rare opportunities to betray that virtue. So I can honestly say that the double faults involved in being spoiled--the one on the part of the people who perpetuate the act and the other on the part of the person being spoiled--are, for the most part, lacking. Still--deep down, I can understand why he resents that he didn't receive the same, and I can't claim to know exactly how it would feel if I hadn't been raised this way and how I would then act towards a sibling who had been.

As far as hurtful adjectives go, spoiled is only second to selfish. For awhile I was just in shock that he could so easily call me that. Not because I'm selfless; I'm as far from that as anyone. But he's the one who made me so afraid of being a selfish person in the first place. All this time I've been thinking that I was a horrible sister because I couldn't forgive him enough to build a strong relationship with him. But really, he doesn't think he needs my forgiveness or that there's anything to forgive; he thinks it's the other way around, that there's something I should apologize for. Even if he's right to some degree (not about his lack of fault but about the presence of mine), I still feel that so much of his anger is unfairly misplaced upon me. Though, as I'm writing this, I realize--people naturally want to associate emotions with concrete people, incidents or situations, if only to make them a bit easier to understand, a bit easier to cope with, a bit easier to express. I can empathize with that, and this was never intended to be a complaint or an accusation though it might resemble one or the other.

Yesterday I told Audrey I'd gotten into a big fight with my brother; she asked me what it was about. When I replied, "Air conditioning," we both cracked up. Somehow just talking about it in passing put it in better pespective, and I'm past it now. I also think that when arguments arise past resentments will always resurface, and maybe I shouldn't take that as a sign that they still persist. After all, I do feel that we've come to appreciate each other more as siblings; it will just be a long way before we can understand each other as different people.