Wren > Recent Status Updates

What is lifted??

“Even if the danger topics were avoided […] the uncomfortable feeling could still be there because it really has to do with something beneath these topics”

“And wondered what it might be like to have found a home and yet to know that your child didn’t want you”

“‘The people who love us the most have the power to hurt us the most, too.’”

Reading this book in a different place in life. We’ll see how it lands

“What was it about my mom that turned me into the worst version of myself?”

“All I could think about was that my gonggong wasn’t alive anymore, and I didn’t even have memories to treasure, and that was entirely my fault”

The logic-ing of loss is something I’m too familiar with

“‘They’re getting old.’ […]
‘Yes. […] That’s what parents do.’”

“The capacity for all of this was in my DNA. But the transformation was incomplete; as it was, I felt trapped inside my skin, and all my irritations simmered underneath with nowhere to go “

“This was the problem with having access to only simple grammar. It made your thinking simple too.”
Yes and no. I feel like simple grammar and vocab means you can cobble stuff together that semi works and is creative to find ways to describe basic things. But yes it feels a bit frustrating when you have ideas but cant express them

I feel my page by page commentary says more about me than it does about the book

“Did the locals tolerate us? Did they despise us? Did they think about us at all?”
As someone who grew up in a big touristy place, I’ve had complicated relationships with tourists. When I visit places, I hate being a tourist and rather immerse myself, but when have I actually done that? I rarely speak the language and exude American from every lean

“Chinese restaurants were where Chinese Americans went to feel shame.”
I agree and disagree. A memory I can’t forget is ordering for a bunch of white friends being the only Asian at the table. But then I feel proud using Cantonese to order at dim sum places

“I had a right to this place, and [the tourists] didn’t”

I don’t know what it says about me that I so deeply identify with Lily: someone who desires to feel connection to heritage and culture and thinks a trip will fix all that

“Whoever gets to write it most gets to erase it best”

“I’m not a war but someone is saying my mind, canonized and colonized, is out of sync with the freedom of your body”

“‘quit pondering how I might have harmed [my oppressor] in my sleep, might harm them still’”

“All disasters are natural including this one because humans are natural”

“Fuck museums. Winter belongs to all”

“‘Just because they were rich doesn’t mean they were kind.’”

“‘Honey, I lived. I’d do it all again in a heartbeat. For a good long while, I got to live!’”

“I observed that a great many people died all over the planet to make a few Europeans very rich.”

“‘I think you’re very brave to try to seek happiness in the middle of everything you’ve been through.’l

It might be because I’ve been watching a lot of waitress the musical content but waitress vibes?

This is starting to feel like random vignettes

“Likely he would’ve been something grand had he been allowed to grow up”

Geez I wish there was an ableism warning. This is rough

Nothing has happened. Please something happen