Stay Soft, Stay Open

This epsiode is about 인연. On Friday, I ran into my new friend June at Trader Joe’s after returning our stroller in the Upper West Side, and she told me she’s going to Korea for the summer. I never go to the Upper West Side. On Sunday, I went to an incredible Mother’s Day event called Mothers in the Arts, curated by Asian American Arts Alliance and Storm Books + Candy. It was a panel of four Asian American mothers and artists. I reconnected with a artist/mother named Sugar, I connected with a mother and artist named Jane from my literal hometown in Virginia whose mother died a year after 아빠. Our stories were 인연-ly so aligned. I watched the final episodes of 폭싹 속았수다 and wept. On Mother’s Day, I walked the park.

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This episode is about how failures lead us to where we want to go. Prospect Park Walk Club was a fail, but people are interested in being a part of Asian American Art Club.

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This episode is about leading my first and last Prospect Park Walk Club. It’s about the difficulty of walking with problematic white people; my struggle to say no, state my needs, and stick to my boundaries; and the mental paralysis and frozenness I experience when I don’t feel safe. My time is valuable. I wish I didn’t spend my time with these people. I wish I spent my time in a different way. I wish I could have walked away.

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This episode is about lessons I learned from my rainy walk. The rain will fall, the rain will stop, and the sun will shine again. We need more in-person connection, more outside time, and more time with ourselves.

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This episode is about my thoughts, feelings, and reflections about 어린이날 (Children’s Day).

Read along here:

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This episode is about my grief feeling very loud these days and how the seasons really amplify my grief. The seasons changing triggers grief — the hotter temperatures, the visual changes from dull to vibrant, the time changes from short to long days, the city mood-shifts from introversion to extroversion.

I carry around so much regret — about 아빠, about 엄마. When things are goo

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This episode is about my Asian American Art Club gathering, meeting with David, and talking about the 50-year anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War, the similarities between Korea and the Korean War and Vietnam and the Vietnam War, and the reverberations and lasting impacts of colonization and occupation. Why does war keep happening? Why do humans keep creating weapons of mass destruction? Why do humans keep killing other humans?

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This episode is about the anticipatory anxiety I feel leading up to AANHPI Heritage Month. May feels like the only month that I’m valid. It feels like the only month that I’m allowed to promote myself and my work. None of this is true, but the feelings are real. Why can’t art make us money? Why do people expect art to be free? How do artists make a sustainable living while making art? Art is work. Art should make artists money.

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This episode is about going on our monthly trip to 한아름 on Saturday, April 26 — the 19-month anniversary of 아빠’s death. It’s about going to Kakyoung Lee and Seongmin Moon’s artist talk and closing reception, Layers of Invisibility, and how moved I was by the experience. It was so hard to get there — it’s so hard to prioritize myself and the things I want to do, as an artist and a new mother. I was really moved by Seongmin Moon’s 제사 paintings. But the 제사 is deeply patriarchal and excludes women, while it only exists because of the labor of women — cooking, setup, and clean-up.

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This episode is about my morning walk in the park with 해준, my psychiatry appointment, my post-appointment treat, my conversations with 엄마, and my conversation with my friend Sonny.

*Apologies for sounding like I’m calling from the inside of a toilet. I think I recorded this episode from the bathroom, hence the massive amount of natural reverb.

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