A Glimpse
The thin white Christmas lights hang beside your elevated dorm bed with strings attached onto the few pictures you have brought with you from home. The light serves solely for decorative purposes but also masks the unfamiliarity and emptiness of the room. You perceive things from what makes sense to you and how it relates to you and the rest of your surroundings. Others cannot read or see all there is inside that so called scatterbrain of yours, and its takes others by unexpected surprise since they believe that they know you so well. Voices echoing in your head speak louder and demand more than what you chose to show. What you called home for almost entirety of your life is far from where you are now. Childhood memories, friends, family, neighbors, favorite restaurants, familiar neighborhoods, remain thousands of miles away where you left them. Everything seems to be revolving in an never ending orbital pattern; everything shifts right when you have adjusted and adapted to everything, or anything at all. You were given options but the choices were limited, and you settled in a different environment that feels familiar yet foreign. In reality, you picked up your things and left, but it feels like everything has left you instead. Motivated but overwhelmed, anxious yet excited, you went along with a decision that would later bring the best attributes in you and maybe even the worst.
You remember the people who have made you strong, persistent, and diligent. Words of wisdom, acts of selflessness and humility remind you of loved ones that have taught you core values and motives you adopted as your own. Everything is continuously moving on on by its rhythmic waves, and the fast paced city shows little mercy, as the footsteps of local pedestrians echo louder and rapidly. You observe and learn from the busy and blinded world around you. The sheer walls you hold up show authentic transparency but also a distorted reflection of how you view yourself. You encounter the struggles of drowning in the amount of workload school throws at you but derivation from transparent inspiration help you stay afloat.
Brightness and optimism radiates when you voice your opinion and ideas that bring multifarious thoughts onto the table. Carrying positivity with high spirits, everyone around you is having a great time, and you are slowly beginning to be a part of a close circle of community. Long and dreadful walks back to your living space after a busy day of class become a time of recollection of your progress and a chance to form bonds and spark conversation with fellow classmates. A new day starts the second you walk onto the streets of the diverse and ever evolving New York City. You strive to live in the moment and soak up the life and experiences open to you in the city of dichotomies, exhausting and exhilarating, humbling and inspiring. It may be one of the hardest cities to live in but it may be the hardest place to leave once you survive and build a new life, a new chapter, and call it your home.
A Step Back
Warmth and infectious smiles. Full embraces and heartfelt goodbyes.
The days seem fazed but the best moments bring you back momentarily.
Eventful occasions when I slept at my aunt’s house with other family members and stayed up the entire night playing house friendly games
Gatherings where cheerful voices and cries of “how are you” and “I missed you” echo throughout the room
Long, intimate conversations that revealed sealed layers of those closest to me
The joy and laughter that radiated and diffused through kitchen to the small dining hall area whenever someone cracked a joke
The times my annoying little brother clung onto me for girl advice, and the times I rolled my eyes but helped him anyway
Flashbacks of minuscule incidents that bring back either waves of laughter, pure horror, or haunting embarrassment
Security that is locked in these memories and recollections of the past lie where home is, where family resides.
Canvas
Hours of layering paint.
Reds, oranges, pinks, to violets, yellows, and blues. Linear lines to curved and abstract forms
Careful strokes of the overused brush blend out the masterpiece lying in front of me
Texture and form, light and dark, I continually play around with
Layer by layer
Hours go by and the perfectionist in me does not turn away until the piece reaches my level of approval and satisfaction. I take a step back and squint at the creation as of result of my scattered thoughts and mixed expressions
I don’t want to start over. But I also want to.
What is motivation?
Where’s the inspiration?
Frustration and heavy defeat weigh on my shoulder as my work slowly makes it way to the lonely trash bin in the corner of my room
The smell of fresh paint and a mix of acetone pierce through my nose, making my senses sensitive to my surrounding and processing of my work
Like a magnetic force, my mother’s words bring me to retrace my steps, the canvas still in the grasp of my stained hands
I stare into my splattered canvas and my mind is blank. Nothing.
I stare at what was supposed to be my new work of art but it haunts me by staring back.
Time is ticking rapidly and impatiently. I become more hesitant as heat radiates off the sweaty palm of my right hand, clutching onto the paintbrush that is now crusted with dry paint.
A glimpse of what my piece can potentially look like flashes in my head. I can still make art out of trash. Right?
A new idea doesn’t have to start on a blank canvas. I pick up the brush that is now dried up with flaky paint. The direction of the newly stroked lines overlap the layers of paint that was previously there.
Layer over layer
I trust in the movements of my hand form as it moves swifty to reflect one in the thousands of ideas sprawled across my mind in its indefinite form of creating
I repeat until I cannot stand it, and I cannot bring myself to stop. Like a repelling and retracting relationship, I am drawn back to what I started off with.
A blank canvas
Grandmother
The gentle fine lines of her skin scrunch together when she smiles. Her almond shaped eyes that widen when she is intrigued or pleasantly surprised
Behind the fragile petite woman she appears, she wears a suit of wisdom and strength
One that cannot be surpassed by anyone around her. Not even the smartest in my family
Her sense of humor but also her intellect thoughts that speak words of affirmation
Moments when everyone turns to her for advice or validation
I listen to her speak and share her wild and adventurous stories
She speaks words of wisdom but manages to spew humor that makes anyone unattainable in topping her when it comes to being a better storyteller
Her words sharp and her remarks witty
Her motives clear and her beliefs deeply rooted
Her stance in situations and strength in consolidating when all else fails and crumbles under heavy weight
Her curiosity, thrive for life that keeps her in her youth even as the fine wrinkles of her skin seep deeper and deeper
She bring those around her in admiration and astonishment.
Wisdom that is curated over years of experience, more than what could be learned from school, but from simply living life
She is my role model
