“Be patient, Dear. Be patient...”

Some nights does intense look of Death scare me a lot as he is so close but I could not reach. Or if I want to reach out to his hand, I have to face with unbearable pain. And then, that fear calms me down. There’s still hope, that there’s still something human in me that’s holding on, that part that fears pain is also the part that reminds me I still want to live, that I’m not completely ready to give up, that I’m not completely dead inside and pain is not even a concept anymore let alone a fear. 

Our body has a subtle, silent way of telling us something we need to hear to save ourselves when our minds and souls are so exhausted and seemingly ready to give up on us. And I realize that maybe thinking of death is just a way (although an unhealthy way) our mind invented to cope with the unbearable pain inside, to somehow show us that the exit is near, the exit is just around the corner at our choosing at any moment, the thought of the exit available to us is enough comforting to keep on fighting and transform the pain to something more bearable and heighten our limits of tolerance.

While everything in this life is relative, death is the only absolute truth. Nobody can deny death. Death is the only obvious thing that makes all humans the same. Death is what makes us human. Death is not a part of life- death is life. When we feel numb towards life and feel trapped in the dead end, the thought of death brings us back closer to the breath of life, the vulnerability, fragility and ephemeral absurdity of life so that our body could be shocked back to the clarity of what life is and what we want out of it.

He is still staring at us, whispering “Be patient, Dear. Be patient...”

“Every act of communication is an act of tremendous courage in which we give ourselves over to two parallel possibilities: the possibility of planting into another mind a seed sprouted in ours and watching it blossom into a breathtaking flower of mutual understanding; and the possibility of being wholly misunderstood, reduced to a withering weed. Candor and clarity go a long way in fertilizing the soil, but in the end there is always a degree of unpredictability in the climate of communication — even the warmest intention can be met with frost. Yet something impels us to hold these possibilities in both hands and go on surrendering to the beauty and terror of conversation, that ancient and abiding human gift. And the most magical thing, the most sacred thing, is that whichever the outcome, we end up having transformed one another in this vulnerable-making process of speaking and listening.”

This is the civil war that we created. Maybe we’re losing this battle. Maybe we’re out of breath. Maybe this storm is drowning every ounce of living breath.

“Just some first-world-problem ramblings. - - - Earlier today my dad came to me and said, “This time when you go to the US, don’t get any more tattoos ok, it’s a genuine advice from me. It won’t look beautiful on you. There are a lot of pretty features on your face that you might not realize yet, so don’t ruin what you have. If you want to and when you have money, you can fixed your teeth or do whatever you want to your face, just don’t get more tattoos…” and when he was saying that, I immediately thought “I don’t have any face tattoos, nor have I ever mentioned of intending to get face tattoos, so what do the tattoos on my body get to do with my face?” Maybe he was trying to find a way not to hurt my feelings but it just didn’t make sense to me. I don’t know what hurts more, frank, honest words or circling around the fire but got burned and lost in translation along the way? Maybe I wasn’t supposed to take his words in such literal approach. He told me there were a lot of choices he made in his youth that he regrets now - which I understand, as a father, all he wants is to protect his children and prevent us from going down the dark paths that could be foreseen. What I think is, regrets are parts of life. Life is but a by-product of an accumulation of compromises. When we make a choice, we also, in turn, make a compromise. What he regret, I might not have and vice versa. All choices require a certain degree of sacrifice. - - - Flash back to 6th grade, when I first entered middle school, I started to have some awareness about my appearance as the girls around me wore different colorful skirts and hairstyles, not just “mushroom” hair or boyish handed-down clothes anymore. Boys started to flirt. I started to learn it the hard way that people can treat you differently base on just looks. For 5 years of primary school, being the smartest kid in class, I was always treated with love and respect even though I was just a little kid. Then for 4 years of middle school, I struggled with severe acne and suddenly intelligence didn’t save me anymore.At first I didn’t care. My mom said it’s a natural part of growing up, it would pass. Then I started to get bullied at school by boys, sometimes it was even physical bullying, at one point I was slapped at spitted on by the boys my age, while watching other pretty girls in class being praised. Of course I kept everything to myself. I waited and waited for the ugly part of growing up to pass. But it never did. I continued to suffer from severe acne up until I was in college, and if anything, it just seemed to get worse. I was afraid to look at myself in the mirror every morning. The only time I didn’t hate myself was when the light in the room was dimmed enough I couldn’t see my face clearly. I found a mental safety in the physical darkness. Overtime it developed into a habit that still exists now, mostly in my subconsciousness: I shower in the dark so I don’t have to occasionally catch my own flawed reflection in the mirror, I pull all the curtains in the room for a perfect darkness, I never sit where there is a lot of sunlight for the fear of exposing my blemished skin, I read in the dark, I listen to music in the dark, I live in the shadow. Back then, there were two animals in me. One was a strong, independent eagle who entertained the idea of freedom - the eagle that didn’t care whether she looked different from other birds. Girls were supposed to wear pink, long hair, soft and elegant, pale skin, all types of ideals I didn’t identify myself with. The girl in the mirror was someone whose skin was dark as chocolate, full of scars, crooked teeth, bowed legs, big nose, gigantic forehead, with a pixie cut and clumsy hands. The other one was that hummingbird, that frail soul of a 13-year-old girl craving for attention and peers approval. I was always sensitive to aesthetic, artful matters, so to me, beauty means even more, in the way that every painting I made was a translation of life’s rhythms in colors. I saw beauty in everything but myself. I felt hopeless for being constantly criticized for something outside of my control, something I did not created, something I did not paint: my face, my body, my existence. I studied aesthetic and attempted to give back something beautiful to life through my art, knowing it’s also the one thing I could never give myself. Sophomore year of college, I realized how acne wasn’t just some red dots on my face that would (hopefully) disappear one day anymore when all of my actions started to become reactions to acne. I cut my hair and grew a bang so I could have something to hide my face behind. I didn’t want to date anyone. Whenever in a conversation, I could barely form a sentence because I was too paranoid that the other person was staring at my flaws. Non-existent self-esteem and loneliness ate me alive, bit by bit.One day, I went online, did some research and learned about a drugs called Accutane. The side effects were ranging from migraine, skin rash, extreme dry skin, peeling, joint pain, back pain, drowsiness, all the way to depression. Accutane was available only under a special program called iPLEDGE. You must be registered in the program and sign documents stating that you understand the dangers of this medication and that you agree to use birth control as required by the program. In return, it MIGHT help your acne to stop acting. It might.I took it anyway.After 3 months, not only that the acne condition didn’t improve, my existed depression got worse despite me trying not to acknowledge the effects of the drugs on me until months later when I looked back. Those years my body felt more like a cheap rented house where the last tenant forgot to pay the rent so now I would have to pay her dues, and everyday there would be people shouting outside the window telling me to fix the rusted doors, the broken windows, the missing lightbulbs… just so it could make the block look nice, not knowing all the while I was trying to hold up the columns from the inside to keep the house from collapsing. Also, there was a fire in the middle of the house. And I was the fire.- - -So, then, why did the conversation with my dad earlier brought all of these memories back? Because I thought since those dark days have passed, that I could, that I have indeed made peace with my body, that I have paid all the dues and could even buy back the house to call it my own. Perhaps I was wrong. The fire had stopped burning but the burn marks are still embedded on the wooden floors. I never fixed the rusted doors or the broken windows, but the first time I felt like I ever had the ownership to the house I lived in was when I put a permanent coat of paint on it. 19th birthday, I got my first tattoo - a line of a poem that I kept in my notebook to helped me through the days where a full stop promised more joy than reality. I have always found collarbones the most beautiful, most feminine, most elegantly poetic parts of a woman’s body, so I had the line inked on my left collarbone in a soft scripted font. I thought, if all else people think my skin-deep appearance, the part which I did not create, was not beautiful, then I could at least take it from there and build something beautiful on top of it, just like my art.It was the first time I looked at the civil war inside me to find a path for peace. It was the first time I looked at my body as a landscape to be explored and discovered. It was the first time I treated my skin not as a post-war minefield but as a blank canvas, a first ground for more beautiful things to bloom on. I didn’t want my body turning into a battle to be fought on anymore, and if anything, I wanted to declare my rights to express what I deem beautiful to those people shouting outside my house. I didn’t, and probably could never, understand the very simple fact that if a flower is painted beautifully on a piece of paper, it is called Fine Art, and the same flower painted on my body is called Body Art, but if that paint job is done in permanent ink then it automatically translate my skin into something I should hide and be shameful of? It’s always easier to label something than to understand it. So my father’s “genuine advice” brought me back to feeling like I am paying rent for a house I borrowed from him. It was a choice I made one year ago to have my whole left shoulder and arm covered in more tattoos, each one by a different artist. I admire their talents, their skills, their craft, and I respect them just as much as any other occupation out there. To have someone put so much trust in you that they would let you ink an artwork on their body forever is a lot of pressure. And to me, it’s a symbolization of how a chance encounter, no matter how fleeting, between two human beings could impact one another permanently. I knew the reality of societal judgements when I came back to Vietnam with the choices I made, but I also believed I could grow a more beautiful belief out of the situation with my actions. Since I have these tattoos, I have worked at 3 different companies, have met countless people from different backgrounds and age groups, but never have I ever heard a single insult or received a side-eye look. I thought by having a job, having a boyfriend, having people respecting me for who I am would be enough to prove my dad that the tattoos don’t always mean something negative, let alone ruining my life.Sorry, father, if I failed you.Thank you for giving me this body, but I didn’t choose to fix my crooked teeth and probably never will. This body is my canvas now. This body is my history book. This scar is a story. This skin is my own tale of the long road trips I took under the sun. This is what time does to mortal human: we get old, our skin ages. These images are not just something paste on me anymore. They are me. They are my skin. They make my identity but they are not my identity. To take control of the body that I was given at birth means nothing but to whisper to the world the truth: nobody lives under my skin but me. And I made a choice to believe in the Art of Time and Freedom.—”

 I know she would delete it anyway. So I keep this for myself. And for her.

If you can keep your head when all about you      Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,    But make allowance for their doubting too;   If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise: If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;      If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster    And treat those two impostors just the same;   If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools; If you can make one heap of all your winnings    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings    And never breathe a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew    To serve your turn long after they are gone,   And so hold on when there is nothing in you    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’ If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,      Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,    If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,      And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

Rudyard Kipling

My Anatomy professor, who’s one of my most favorite and influential teachers, sent us off with this poem and I have read it everyday since.

(via diembui)

The original demo for “Everything Stays”

I was so glad to get to write this song for the Adventure Time miniseries Stakes, and so honored to be cast as Marceline’s mother!

This song is based off an early memory of losing a stuffed animal, a black rabbit. I found it a year later, laying on it’s back in the garden. The sun had faded it’s underside, so that it now had a white belly. It wasn’t better, or worse, just different. It was the first time I realized that things will change no matter what, even if they’re left alone, and stay completely still. 

Thanks so much to Adam Muto for thinking of me for this! And to Tim Kiefer for his wonderful final arrangement!

You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -- over and over announcing your place in the family of things.

- Mary Oliver

God speaks to each of us as he makes us, then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall, go to the limits of your longing. Embody me.

Flare up like a flame and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final. Don't let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life. You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

- Rainer Maria Rilke 

Ever since they decided to separate, I noticed that a light seemed to dim in my dad. But a light seemed to grow in my mom.

To see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls, to draw closer, to find each other, and to feel. That is the purpose of life.

"Tình yêu không phải chuyện đưa cho nhau ngày một bó hoa Nó là chuyện những đêm ròng không ngủ tóc tai bù như những rặng cây to nó vật vã những đêm trời động gió"

- Trần Dần.