Salut salut! It's been a hot minute! How are you? How are things holding up for you? Do people still read blogs? Curious. That being said, thank you for being here. Here's a short list of things to bridge a three-year gap before I write so hard about a movie I just watched:
* First off, I'm married! To the actual love of my life, no less. Johnny proposed with a minimalist diamond ring from the Victorian era. After a conversation with the curator, I found it came specifically from 1880! I can only imagine it being pried clean off Beatrix Potter's gardening hands. Anyway, we’re having our official city hall wedding à la Bob and Linda on October, a day before dia de los muertos defying all wedding superstitions. I'm keeping my last name though. How exciting and totally nerve-wracking! Now I've gracefully exited the maiden phase, and with no plans to reproduce (because messed up world, 140 million orphans, climate crisis, all that good stuff), our only long term goal is to "mother" our own space where we can grow our own food, restore biodiversity where we live (like our inspiration power couple Sebastião and Lélia Salgado) and create a community where we can share our abundance and live seasonally and consciously. Along the way, we hope to learn more about regenerative growing and soil health from local farmers and mentors and then create an educational space for urban youth so we can pass down the knowledge and help improve their quality of life. Still years and years from now but it's my pleasant daydream...
* I am now a level 5 vegan, "I don't eat anything that casts a shadow". For two years now, I've decided to ditch meat, dairy and products with animal derivatives in them and I brought Johnny along for the ride. Ever since I was a kid I've been toying with the idea and after watching documentaries as one does, we went vegan cold vegan-turkey. I take my B12, D3, omega 3s, etc., make my own milk, learn about how to communicate climate change (especially to kids) and how it's driven by animal agriculture, obsess over mushrooms (lion's mane is my bitch in coconut butter), steer clear of mock meat, and in true vegan fashion, slave in the kitchen on good days and give up on life eating vegan junk food on bad. It's an endless ride of making mistakes but trying over and over again because we only want to do better. It changed my life, my perspective, my relationship with my body and food and the contents of my purse (nooch in my compact instead of powder).
* Since you've been in a 3-year coma, I think it's time I talk to you about the pandemic. It's wild! We're living an actual Perfect Sense reality and I haven't even thought of it when the pandemic started last year but now that we're seeing mutation after mutation, losing our sense of smell, taste and now sight, here we are! It's an entire year cooped up in a room but a lot of things a-brewin': we've had uncomfortable conversations about racism, cried and bickered over the government's poor response to the pandemic, understood the need for hand creams, reflected on the comforts of ignorance, been socially active every minute of every day to no social interactions at all, attended a stream of online events, because we all just really need to be a part of something: Lou Doillon's live poetry reading at midnight to Questlove's live DJ sesh at breakfast, trying all forms of self-care (from sun salutations to tarot readings to shadow work to yoga), Ruth Bader Ginsburg died and the world refused to mourn, I read so many books last year some of them really good (Circe by Madeline Miller, A Separate Reality by Carlos Castaneda, My Inventions and Other Writings by Nikola Tesla, I Called Him Necktie by Milena Michiko Flasar, Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde, The Magic Orange Tree and other Haitian Folktales by Diane Wolkstein), I watched so many movies last year some of them really good (The Breadwinner, Portrait of Jason, Nanook of the North, Aluna) and watched so many tv shows last year some of them really good (Outlander, The Midnight Gospel, Solar Opposites), I've had random yet surprising celebrity interactions online that I refuse to forget (waking up to Billy Porter's bisou, exchanging poetry with Pamela des Barres, a thank you note from Elektra (Pose), a few hello's with Sha'an D'anthes and sharing music with Flore Benguingui), our first inhale of the outside world when the city loosened its grip, empty parks, online food deliveries, online school, online everything I developed astigmatism, a lot of dancing, a lot of turmeric shots to boost our immunity, reunion with friends, drinking amidst the pandemic, cried so much we laughed, waged ridiculous wars with the tines of our forks, losing our sanity that we had to see our therapist again, Johnny and I in the same square room mad at each other and not speaking, the terrible news I got from my dad one October night that my mom had a stroke and needed to undergo surgery and feeling so helpless but hopeful and my family stretched in different parts of the world, crying, holding onto each other through a screen and I still can't think about it without triggering my existential dread but getting through it and my mom still being here with us is just magic, people are magic, humanity is magic, warmth is magic
* Whilst in isolation, I decided to study herbalism and basic traditional Chinese medicine. I signed up for classes with The Herbal Academy of New England. However, I do feel horrible for learning folk medicine from a white institution with no native representation especially considering the diversity in Asian herbal culture, which is another topic they hastily touch up on without much thought. I didn't feel super comfortable learning ceremonial tea from a white woman and it's a learning experience I regularly meditate on and I really try to focus on the thought that ultimately, herbalism brings me so much joy, kitchen witchery and a cupboard of herbs in jars. And for the first 3 months I've read every book on herbs I could get my hands on, grew my own tea leaves, dried them myself and made my own wellness blends, filled the fridge with compote, brewed tinctures and even started on writing my book in the form of a personal materia medica that I plan to distribute to close friends. But after a while, when I've been asking too many questions and getting no answers, I signed up with the School of Evolutionary Herbalism which connects herbalism to medical astrology and planetary health and it finally felt like I found the resource for the spiritual plant path I wanted to explore. Healing with herbalism is more than just physical for me and a lot more spiritual! I loved that the conversation went beyond natural health and into how to heal trauma, how to improve our meditation, how to process jealousy, grief, depression, etc. with herbs and overall this journey has been a gateway into my own personal ethos/ connection with the Earth. I am determined. My grandma was a witch doctor and I feel connected to her this way.
* In this world of chaos, I've created an almost Wonderland bubble with another green witch fairy, my brujita, Monique, who runs a blog teaching zero waste and sustainability practices with her husband, Rocco. During the pandemic, she's been doing online talks about composting and urban farming and initiated a national discussion on going child-free which caused a stir. She's a fearless rebel druid and I'm in love with our little snow globe where we virtually watch Outlander and Practical Magic, write each other letters on facebook, create our own grimoire, share recipes and husband vasectomy procedure stories, save each other's plants when they're sick, exchange care packages (I ran out of lion's mane and she ran out of chanca piedra) and dream of visiting each other to live in a glass treehouse for a while. We plan to one day live off grid, lying in our sea of cabbages making shapes out of clouds. One day, some day! The world doesn't seem so scary.
* Before the pandemic, I had a transformative experience traveling alone to Taipei on a mission to challenge myself by establishing a yes-man rule, meet people but stay with locals, learn their histories, try local vegan food, visit Buddhist temples and have my own Taipei Story motorcycle moment of strange magic. I remembered it started rough, journaling extensively on how scared I was and how my spontaneity paired with my naïveté only piggyback carried me to danger. There was an episode of assault and the acute trauma that resulted to being so scared of everyone and feeling completely alone and so, for the first two days, I was exhausted, scared and cried hard to Johnny online without care that the poor connection would only make screenshots of my face swollen and ugly. I felt like such a dud. And I refuse to feel like such a dud, crushed by the weight of my fear and anxiety once again! So I chose to carry on and really force myself to have fun. And I fucking did!!! I had a turning point where I've decided to not think and just do and everything became an explosion of extraordinary fun that I couldn't begin to talk nor write about because I'm afraid it'll shrivel into just another boring story (but maybe some day). To watching the Local Natives live, to bathing naked with women in a bathhouse, to singing in a jazz club, to hitchhiking to Jiufen aka Spirited Away land and eating like Chihiro's parents, it was all too much, and towards the conclusion of my trip, I felt like I've shed skin that's been weighing me down for years and I came home undaunted, renewed and feeling like my purpose, or at least the purpose I've decided for myself, is to continue to go places, meet people, truly listen to their stories and grow graceful and compassionate with these experiences of human interaction and connection in my arsenal. In this world of uncertainty, mediocrity and isolation, it's nice that I have this thing, this memory, this ball of memory, my one ball of memory that's mine, my oh so holy memory to relive over and over in my mind.
* Finalement en ce moment je prends des cours de français avec Lingoda (sous mon nom français Paloma!) et un cours de Damon Dominique (qui perso m'inspire beaucoup) dans la foulée. C'est du gateau et je m'amuse avec eux, mais la conjugaison est toujours le fléau de ma vie. Jsuis à mon niveau B1 et mon objectif est de passer l'examen B2 afin que je puisse probablement aller en Indochine pour enseigner l'anglais. Jsuis très très heureuse que Johnny me soutien parce que je pas avoir un radis mdr donc je l'apprécie évidemment. Je me suis fait aussi des amis partout dans le monde en ligne et on est parle via Zoom. On regarde des films ensemble et en parle après et on joue à des jeux comme 2 truths and a lie, We're Not Really Strangers, bingo, 5-second rule, etc. etc. et c'est un truc que j'attends avec impatience chaque semaine.
These are all the relevant things I really wanna share before I move on. Crossing my fingers I'd write here (or anywhere!) more often. I have this ambitious plan to write about my witchcraft, notes on herbalism, observations on film, books, music and the usual random list of things. But then again, I'm a complex person with a complex schedule and a complex habit of watching cartoons all day so I'll forgive myself always always always
For the meantime, if you're into 70s erotica midnight dancing to spacey funk, green witch hippie folk, creature of the sea rohmeresque music, come vibe with me on spotify! I'm also more active on listography for no reason
