Rhena Writes

Tag: Cancer

  • Brain fog, bills, and breath.

    I would have liked to have gotten here, to blogging earlier today but I’ve been on the phone with insurance, e-mailing and leaving voicemails with cancer center billing departments. It seems that at least one place is trying to bill me a second time. I triple checked my credit card statements. Brain fog from chemotherapy is a very real thing, my doctor (whose office sent me a bill for a payment I already made) assures me. So triple checks it is. I pulled out my calendar to make sure the dates of the payments and appointments lined up, that I didn’t just mis-remember everything through the brain fog. Sure enough, they charged my credit card.

    I didn’t sleep well last night — another side effect of one of my medications, apparently — and so I really would rather have been taking a cat nap or even just reading. OK, let’s be honest, even if I’d slept well last night, I would not have wanted to have to spend my morning dealing with medical bills.

    And the other one, well, I guess it’s my fault for not reading the fine print before receiving radiation treatment. Or not asking questions like, “how much is this going to cost me?” ahead of time. I guess I have too much faith in insurance companies to do the right thing and for providers to be up front about how things are going to be billed.

    It’s exhausting. A good chunk of my time, I was on the phone just trying to get to a live person, inputting the same information over and over and then when I finally got a live person, it was someone from a pharmacy, not billing. TWICE. Plus, the line was all crackly and there was some sort of lag time in our conversation. As if we were all in 1979, trying to make an overseas phone call. And, yes, part of me did think that this was by design, that the insurance company makes all of this as unpleasant as possible, hoping that you’ll give up. And I guess eventually I did.

    This is hard. Really, really hard.

    And, yes, I can turn to my breathing and meditation and all the rest of it to get through these moments, but the bills are still there. I can’t breathe the bills away. If I’d known how expensive cancer was, I wouldn’t have asked for it. Oh, that’s right. I didn’t.

    Still, there’s something about not receiving bills until all of the treatment is done that feels kind of gross. It would have been easier to swallow had I been told that I was going to be billed this way ahead of time.

    And right now, I just kind of need to write through all of this, just get it out and into the world. I wish I could be using this time and energy to write something beautiful and creative, to escape into something else. But right now it’s more helpful to me to write something real. And to try to be grateful that I have some place to at least do that.

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    If you enjoyed what you’ve read here, please check out other posts. Likes, shares, and reposts help get my writing out to where it needs to be. I’m also grateful for financial support. Even though I post daily, I only send out a once a week summary email to subscribers. Thank you!

  • Those who ignored, disregarded,counted me out

    Daily writing prompt
    Share a story about someone who had a positive impact on your life.
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    Many upon a many a time … I was sharing something that I was excited and passionate about. Many upon a many a time, I was ignored. Or disregarded. Or told I was wrong and told that I’d never get it right. Maybe there was laughter, the cold kind. Sometimes there was a simple turning away. Sometimes there was a red pen, the words, “no it doesn’t”, an interruption.

    I’m not going to pretend that those moments didn’t hurt. They did. A chilly shot of the realization that this person couldn’t give me what I needed in that moment. But brief hurts were necessary to learn what I needed, to learn how to ease the pain or, better, replace it with joy. I had to learn how to warm myself up.

    Now I’ve learned that it’s those people who missed out.

    I learned, from them, how to care for myself, how to validate myself. And perhaps most importantly: how to see myself.

    The idea that “I can’t rely on anyone else” sounds cynical without the follow up of, “I can rely on myself.” And that’s what I’ve learned to be able to do. It’s not just relying on myself for material needs but for emotional needs too. I can’t harbor ill will towards these people. It was their actions that revealed to me just how awesome I am, after all.

    One day last, I was in the waiting room of the cancer center not too long after I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I knew that a mastectomy was possibly in the cards for me. Another woman, a bit older than me, walked past me to her seat and I noticed that she had one breast. The top she was wearing made it very obvious: it was a stretchy knit with horizontal stripes. In other words, she wasn’t doing anything to disguise her mastectomy. She looked healthy and strong. She looked like she was just going about her daily business.

    Over the months since then, I’ve thought about that woman often. And I still feel, at times, a little bit uncomfortable with my new body. I worry that I’m going to make other people uncomfortable or that someone is going to ask me questions that I don’t feel prepared to answer. Still, I have to go out in the world. And so I think about that woman in the waiting room and how I didn’t even have to exchange words with her. Just her presence, being out in the world without apology makes me feel like I can do it too.

    Today, as I was walking my son to school, I noticed another woman doing a double take when she saw my chest. I started to reach for my shirt to straighten it out and make it less obvious. But then I remembered the woman in the waiting room, just going about her business and also that I had more important things, like chatting with my son to do. Thinking about the woman who was surprised by my uneven chest as I was walking home, I thought that the look on her face probably mirrored mine when I saw the woman wearing the striped shirt in the waiting room. And so I decided that perhaps the woman who was looking at my chest this morning maybe also was recently diagnosed or has a loved one who was diagnosed. Maybe me being out in the world without a breast reconstruction, without really trying to hide my lopsidedness, looking relatively healthy and strong … maybe my presence gave her a little spark of hope in a dark time. Just as the woman in the waiting room passed her candle flame on to me, I hope that I’m able to pass it on to other women.

    And so we carry on. One light at a time.

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    If you enjoyed what you’ve read here, please check out other posts. Likes, shares, and reposts help get my writing out to where it needs to be. I’m also grateful for financial support. 

  • Celebrate this breath. And then the next.

    Daily writing prompt
    What is your favorite holiday? Why is it your favorite?
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    The trunks of banana trees, sliced into thick rounds, make for the perfect floating lantern. The bigger ones can be loaded up with flowers, incense, a candle, coins, and candy, (along with any manner of spiritual detritus that one might want to send away) and still remain buoyant once they are placed on the surface of the water. These gifts are for the Water Goddess. Children wait further down river to retrieve the money and sweets perhaps in her stead. My guess is that witnessing the joy and exuberance the children experience in the water is the real gift to the Goddess. Well, it was a gift to me anyway when I got to partake in Loy Krathong in my father’s hometown many years ago.

    The paper lanterns, the ones that float upward into the sky are lifted by the heat of the candle inside. They cannot bear the weight of so many offerings, but wishes and blessings in the form of words can be written on the paper before launching them into the night sky. And the hope, of course, is that they do not land in a dry patch of forest or a thatch rooftop and cause a fire. Unlikely, of course, as this of Loy Krathong is celebrated at the end of rainy season in Thailand while everything is still wet.

    During the day, there are performances, dancing and singing, likely a parade. There is a fair, too, with food and vendors.

    Or at least, that was what I remember from the year that I got to celebrate Loy Krathong in Thailand. The floating lanterns — both in the sky and on the river — are beautiful. I think now the whole thing would be considered very instragram-able. I feel lucky to have been able to partake before instagram, to have the memory of launching my own floating lantern into the river that used to come all the way up to the very back door of where my grandparents lived. I can’t really say why it’s important to me or significant that my memories of this holiday are from before Instagram but somehow it is.

    One year, as a child growing up in DC, we went down to float lanterns on the reflecting pool between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument. Of course, they weren’t carried away on the current. That we had to retrieve them made the purpose of the ritual — to send away our bad luck — a little less poignant. And it was much colder in DC in November than in Thailand. Trust me: no children were wading into the reflecting pool to retrieve floating coins and candy. Still, it was lovely. And perhaps, in retrospect, it brought home to me the sacrifices that immigrant communities make especially when attempting to hold on to something of our ancestral homes.

    One of the things I love most about holidays like Loy Krathong is that they are tied to the seasons and the earth. Although I haven’t really lived in a culture that celebrates it as its own holiday, I love winter solstice. I love summer solstice too. Many years ago, I visited Norway in June. The long hours of sunlight were beautiful. (And, also, yes, at times a little eerie and disconcerting.) On the flip side, every year, I find winter solstice unexpectedly cozy. Something inside of me (maybe my Norwegian ancestry?) wants me to acknowledge each of these special dates, turning points on our solar calendars. Is it possible to celebrate a holiday alone or is this something that must be done communally?

    This question of what is my favorite holiday called forth these vivid memories of the few times I got to celebrate Loy Krathong. Still, I didn’t get to writing this blog post until rather late in the day compared to when I usually respond the daily prompt. My normal routine was disrupted by a doctor’s appointment and other parenting and household tasks in addition to the fatigue of radiation that I’m still experiencing. I’m glad that in between these chores, I had the memories of lanterns, bobbing along the river current and floating on the night air, to call upon. At the same time, I cannot say that Loy Krathong is my favorite holiday. Certainly, some of my favorite holiday memories are of this festival of water and light, but I do not celebrate this regularly enough in my current life to call it my favorite.

    And I feel this ambiguity particularly on a day like today when I was busy but also very much felt like a patient, very much still in the midst of dealing with cancer. A blood draw. Drugs. Pain. Fatigue. I’m painting a miserable picture here. But that’s not my intent. Or it’s only part of my intent. Because in between these moments of being poked and prodded and even within the pain and discomfort, I have to find a reason and a way to celebrate. I cannot wait for the full moon of the twelfth lunar month. I cannot wait for summer solstice. I cannot even wait for this weekend. I have to find the holiday, the reason to celebrate in each moment. Each breath. And so I do.

  • Yes. I’ve been camping.

    Daily writing prompt
    Have you ever been camping?
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    … and I’d do it again, but only if my kids really wanted to go camping with me. I enjoy the comforts of my bed, a nearby bathroom and toilet, the climate control, the absence of bugs.

    Don’t get me wrong, there are certain things about camping that I still really enjoy: the simplicity, all the little gadgets and gear, a camp fire, setting up a little patch of space to make it your own, even if it’s just as big as a sleeping bag, the night sky.

    I mentioned before that I went to some very bougie schools. One of them had an outdoor education program on a few acres of land next to Shenandoah National Park. It was pretty bare bones: platform tents with cots, outhouses, a basic shower house. But there was a fully functional kitchen and a classroom building both of which had electricity and running water. Each year, we’d go stay there for up to a week with our classmates and teachers. I spent a few summers there working as a counselor.

    Once, much later on, I went camping for one night with a group of friends. It was much more rustic than that. We basically carried some blankets and beer through a stream and into the woods not too far from where some of them lived. It was nice, but in the morning, I was aching and sore, maybe even slightly feverish. One of the friends we were with had spent a good portion of time living in a jungle in Southeast Asia. He was a refugee and his life was less “camping” and more “surviving” and I assume that this version of staying out overnight in the forest probably looked pretty cushy from his point of view. My whole body ached. “You’re not used to this,” he said by way of explanation as to why I felt sick. And he was right.

    The one time I had come even close to the way he had lived in the jungle, I went to visit an army camp in the jungle on the Thai-Burmese border. For me, the hike up the mountain was difficult. At the top, there were a few bamboo and wood buildings, similar to the ones in the refugee camp where I’d been teaching. I was given a room to myself while the soldiers shared a communal one. I was the only woman at the base at the time. Tired from the walk, I slept well even with just the bare-bones accommodations of a few blankets on the floor. But that wasn’t really camping.

    I’ve taken my kids car camping. They enjoy all the coziness of sleeping together in a family tent where they can explore the myriad zippers and pockets, consider how best to set up their own spaces. And the s’mores too. One time, my daughter carried around the bag of marshmallows the whole time, as if it was a comforting stuffed animal. I think she was rather shocked when we eventually ripped open the bag and roasted the contents over the fire.

    No matter how flat the ground, it always seemed like the few times we went camping with the kids, we’d end up having shifted, rolled, and slid through the night. I felt like the princess and the pea, only it would be a rock or two that I inevitable end up on top of and would feel even through the camping mats. I suppose that enough of these sore and achy mornings and the idea of camping has lost its appeal. Or maybe I am a bit of a princess.

    Over the past year, I’ve had many nights when aches and pains from chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation have disrupted my sleep. I’ve been grateful to have a bathroom (and painkillers) so close by. I spent a small fortune on various pillows and bedding in different shapes and sizes for maximum nighttime comfort. So for right now, I’m glad I’m not sleeping on a forest floor.

    But maybe, JUST maybe… I can begin to imagine a time when my body feels well enough that sleeping directly under the stars, even with a rock in my back, will be all the comfort it needs.

  • Running piglets and cancer

    Daily writing prompt
    What makes you nervous?
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    Looking back to how I was before I had cancer, I would say that what made me nervous was everything. What makes me nervous a year post diagnosis? Nothing. 

    That answer is obviously too absolute for reality. But it’s a starting point. 

    I first learned the phrase “running piglet” from the book Chinese Medicine for the Mind: A Science-Backed Guide to Improving Mental Health with Traditional Chinese Medicine by Nina Cheng. “Running piglet defines a sudden rushing sensation that ascends to the chest and throat and a panicky feeling.” (P.89.) This very clearly describes how I experience nervousness or anxiety. The book even has an illustration of a distressed person with three yellow piglets in their stomach, ready to scamper upwards and into a pink trail leading up to the throat at any moment. I find this image to be very helpful in that it both contradicts the idea that nervousness is “all in my head” but also that it makes it seem so concrete and innocuous. I have little piglets running in my gut. I can deal with that. It was also a comfort to know that Chinese Medicine had a phrase and image that directly described what I was feeling. Meaning, in other words, that it was common enough to merit such a phrase. My chi might have been as chaotic as porcine babies  but at least I wasn’t the only one. 

    Perhaps if I lived in China, I would have visited an herbalist to help me getting my chi under control. But here, in the United States, instead, I got cancer. I know that this is a scientifically inaccurate way of looking at what’s happened to me over the last year. But I’m a writer, not a scientist. And I’m a human. I’ve needed to find the story that would best bring wholeness and unity to my person: body, mind and soul. So here it is. 

    Those little pigs were trauma and nerves and unexpressed, well, everything that I had been living with. They’d been gathering in my stomach over many decades. From time to time, I’d be able to settle and quiet them by getting them drunk, or overfeeding them, or distracting them in myriad ways like overworking or overworrying. But the little pigs were still there, unexpressed, unacknowledged and just aching at the chance to run all through my body, disrupting the flow and balance of my chi. 

    In the western scientific way of thinking about cancer, it’s considered a disfunction of the body. My cells were growing out of control. Somehow my genes were expressing themselves poorly or incorrectly. Which, honestly, shouldn’t come as a surprise in a western world where honest self expression and communication is discouraged. I know I’ve often felt disconnected from my body. I am not I’m getting anything particularly bold or unknown when I say that women’s bodies (and specifically Asian women’s bodies and biracial bodies) are continuously objectified in our culture. It takes its toll on us mentally and physically. 

    But you know what is also true underneath all of that surface-level objectification and mistrust of the human body? My body is incredible. My mind had been completely cut off from understanding my body and yet it still managed to take care of itself. To take care of me. 

    The cancer was my body, after all. 

    My body was creating cancer cells to mop up all those running pigs that were disrupting my chi and balance and life. All that trauma and unexpressed emotion had been running rampant for too long and my body had enough. The cancer gathered it all up and dumped it into my breast. Why there? One of the first things I said after my diagnosis was, “at least I’m done with using my breasts.” I’d already used them to nurse my babies. It’s not coincidence that my breasts have always been the most objectified part of my body. 

    When I first had my mastectomy (which was unilateral), I spent a fair amount of time thinking about how I would look with only one breast. I had already made the decision that I didn’t want to have reconstruction. More surgery and then the maintenance involved just seemed like, well, a lot to deal with. I did end up buying a few tops and a bathing suit that would de-emphasize the lopsidedness of my chest. And I’m still not one hundred percent happy with my bra situation. (I was offered to go to get fitted for a prosthetic but I wasn’t interested.) Still, I was kind of fiddling around with what shirts to wear. But the more I looked in the mirror and got used to how I look with one breast, the less and less concerned about it I’ve been. I realized that what was going on what that I was considering things like what top to wear to de-emphasize my lopsidedness because I was concerned that my body might make other people uncomfortable. Imagine that? I just went through one of the toughest years of my life, and I’m STILL overly fixated on what my body does to other people. Dang. Such is the power of misogyny. Fortunately, as soon as I realized that this was part of my thinking, I was able to shift it. Because the truth is: I’m a total badass and I have the scars and body to show it. 

    There are other aspects of cancer that have helped me cope with nervousness over the past year. Leading up to my surgery, I was very anxious and nervous. By going through it, though, I learned to ways to deal with that. Talk about it. Write through it. Return to focusing on my breath. I gained a mantra coming out of surgery: I am alive. And perhaps most of all, I learned the incredible power of my body and that I can trust it to take care of me. I’d long thought that the mind-body relationship was unidirectional, with the mind controlling the body. I woke up from surgery marveling that it’s a two-way street. 

    So am I really done with being nervous? Of course not. Each emotion along the whole spectrum serves its purpose. Just yesterday, the piglets woke in my belly as I watched my son run precariously close to the edge of the water at the Baltimore Harbor. But the sound of my voice calling his name lulled them back to sleep. se to the edge of the water at the Baltimore Harbor. But the sound of my voice calling his name lulled them back to sleep. 

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    If you enjoyed what you’ve read here, please check out other posts. Likes, shares, and reposts help get my writing out to where it needs to be. I’m also grateful for financial support. 

  • To rest or not to rest.

    Daily writing prompt
    Jot down the first thing that comes to your mind.
    View all responses

    I’ve been thinking about rest a lot this week. Maybe it’s because the kids are on spring break and I feel like this is my opportunity to also take a rest. I’m conflicted between going out and doing and sitting around and not doing. I’m plagued by the idea that I might use my time poorly. And I suspect that this has something to do with the fact that in the society I live in we have little control over our time. When given the “freedom” to decide how to use it, I am paralyzed with indecision.

    And this might be because I don’t really know what rest is for me, yet.

    I find the idea of resting so that I can be more “productive” to be terribly off-putting. I don’t want to live for productivity. And, yet, on the other hand, living in a permanent state of rest is also unappealing. The other day, I read someone’s piece of advice for going through cancer treatment: to stay active during the day so that sleep comes more easily at night. And while I’ve experienced the truth to this, I find myself getting trapped on this mental hamster wheel, going around in a rest and productivity circle. I find myself at times floating out in space wondering: how much is enough activity? How much is enough productivity? How much sleep is enough? Too much?

    For a time, I’ve been relying heavily on my watch and phone to tell me these things. I gave up the sleep monitoring when I realized that wearing my watch (and knowing it was monitoring me) was making me sleep less well. I threw caution (or perhaps the need to have hard and fast sleep numbers) and stopped wearing it at night. I think I’ve been sleeping better.

    I still rely on it heavily to monitor my daily steps and my activity (you know, those primary-colored rings to close in a burst of fire works when you meet your daily goal). I’ve reached a crucial crossroads where I’ve been meeting my goals every day for well over a month now. Do I increase the goals or, again, throw a bit of caution to the wind and decide to just trust how I feel, trust my body to tell me when I’ve had too much or not enough?

    My body happens to be a trifecta of identities that cause me to struggle to listen to it and to trust it: a woman, racially marginalized, and, now, a cancer patient. With all three, the society and culture I live in is often telling me about my body, trying to control it (more successfully than I’d like to admit) or the other extreme of completely ignoring it. And so it is that perhaps I rely on those little rings closing than I need to. And perhaps I spent a little too much time (meaning any time at all) on the internet trying to figure out my own body and how to take care of it.

    So back to spring break. We didn’t make any big plans even though I didn’t know I’d be in radiation treatment until a few weeks before it started. I also didn’t know how exhausting the treatments would be. Still, I’m trying to stay active. One of the funny things about radiation treatment is that you’re just lying on this table for the twenty minutes to forty minutes that it takes to complete it. It looks like rest. But it isn’t restful at all. The machine is whirring and humming and moving around you, the radiation techs are drawing on you, sometimes shifting your body a bit, but mostly they’re in the other room operating the machine. The position is awkward, the table is hard (in spite of the extra thick, cushiony sweatpants I’ve been wearing), and the whole thing is more mentally tiring than I give it credit. I’m trying to stay on top of taking care of my skin and sometimes a sore throat or just some discomfort in the area arises afterwards. Yeah, it’s not the worst of things, but it’s still not restful or fun by any means.

    So I guess that one lesson I’ve learned from going through it is just that rest can look myriad different ways to different people and in different times in our lives.

    The other day, I decided I had enough energy to go with my daughter to a Smithsonian museum one afternoon. It was a lot of walking and my feet were exhausted. But it was also, I don’t know, restful in a way. I got to turn off the part worrying part of my brain and just enjoy my daughter’s company and her excitement about history. I didn’t have to be a cancer patient. I didn’t have to make any real plans or major decisions. I did buy a book (George Takei’s They Called Us Enemy) and some chocolate before we headed home. And I closed all my rings, easily.

    The next day, I got to sit on the couch and read the book, which was stunning. And although I wouldn’t always say that reading has always been restful to me, it was very restful to read Asian American history.

    But I think that ultimately the aspect of these days of spring break that have been most restful have been that I’ve just let go and trusted. I didn’t feel like I had to make anything happen (exercise or trips or even time to rest and recover from radiation). I just let things happen. And the end result has been that I’ve been able to rest and (dare I say it?) be productive too.

  • The stranger within.

    Daily writing prompt
    Describe a random encounter with a stranger that stuck out positively to you.
    View all responses

    When I was first diagnosed with breast cancer, I had to be transported from the hospital to the radiation center for treatment. The people who transported me usually sat with me while I waited to see the doctor or to receive the treatment. Needless to say, the people who were driving me places were strangers to me. But I had a few encounters with them that stuck out to me.

    The first was a younger woman who had driven the ambulance-like vehicle. She asked me what kind of cancer I had as we were waiting outside of the radiation room. After I answered her, she started telling me about how her mother had breast cancer too. I had just received the diagnosis and still had no idea what my treatment plan would be. She talked about the chemotherapy her mother went through and she said that the one thing was to try to eat whatever I can to keep my strength up through the treatments. The fact that she took the time to share with me her advice and to share with me a story of someone on the other side of their experience with breast cancer gave me hope. And through my treatment, I kept her words in mind about keeping my strength up. Because the advice came from a patient (through her daughter) it was probably more powerful than even what the doctors and nurses said. And I remembered them when the chemotherapy made everything tasteless.

    Another transportation person made me laugh out loud, great belly laughs that left me breathless right when I needed that. He also shared this wild story about when he was in the marines. It involved a very specific type of beer that is only made and sold in Wisconsin. It happened to be one of my favorite beers when I lived there. Our encounter was very, very brief, but we connected on such a niche subject that it made it feel somehow preordained. It made the world seem small, the specifics of my life not all that unique after all. And that’s exactly what I needed to feel in that moment.

    One other young man who helped my transport also had a very short interaction with him. He asked me almost right away, “Are you a teacher?” It was such a pointed question, that I started racking my brain, “Was this a former student?” No, he wasn’t. By way of explanation he said I just seemed like a teacher. I took it as a compliment and I think he meant it as such. Later on, one of the women who cleaned the hospital rooms and I got to chatting. She talked about some of her recent difficulties. “I’m usually shy, but you have a good energy.” Both of these comments were also what I needed to hear in those moments. Mostly because everyone I’d been seeing saw me primarily as a patient and I was beginning to see myself just as a patient. I had months (years?) of interactions ahead of me where I would be reduced to “patient”. Both of these interactions with strangers reminded me that I’m human first. They told me that even in this role as a patient and in these medical settings, I was more than just someone to be helped, that my presence or energy could also help someone else. I guess you could say that in a way, these interactions empowered me to see myself as more than a patient.

    Lastly, dear reader, you too are a stranger to me. And yet, here you are, reading my words. And maybe I am becoming something less of a stranger to you. Just as I am becoming less of a stranger to myself.

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    Likes, shares, reblogs are welcome and help us all become less strange to one another! (As do tips … Thanks!)

  • Hawai’i

    Daily writing prompt
    What place in the world do you never want to visit? Why?
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    Here are a few paragraphs from an essay I wrote (and didn’t publish) a few years ago:

    I am not immune to the romance and draw of travel. In fact, I spent a fair portion of my twenties moving from place to place, exploring a few different countries and towns. My husband and I recently calculated that we had one year that we travelled twice internationally (Norway and Japan) and at least three or four domestic trips, all with our two kids, one of whom was preschool-aged. But in recent years, I’ve grown a bit more wary of travel and, perhaps, a little embarrassed at how thoughtlessly I travelled in my earlier years. Of course, I grew and changed as a result of traveling. I’m possibly even a better person because I travelled (there’s no way to know, obviously, as there’s only one of me and no telling how I would have turned out had I not travelled). But the question that I am really considering is this: were the people and places I visited better people and places as a result of my having been there? I’m having my doubts. At the very least, the carbon impact of the flights, cars, and even boats that I used to get places is irreversible. (The trains I travelled on feel not only more charming but less polluting per mile travelled.)

    Let us take a closer look at the example of Hawaii. In July of 2021, a former Hawaii state representative Kaniela Ing tweeted, “Stop coming to Hawaii. They are treating us like second class citizens.” According to an August 13, 2021 article in SF Gate by Libby Leonard, locals on Maui were facing water rationing and shortages due to water supplies being diverted to support tourists who were traveling to the islands in numbers which exceeded those pre-pandemic. I observed out-spoken indigenous Hawaiian activists on twitter asking mainlanders to stop visiting as those who live on the islands were facing both water shortages, which in turn impacts food security, as well as housing shortages. Of course, the response from many is that tourism brings in money and creates jobs. According to the Hawai’i Tourism Authority’s website, visitor spending in Hawaii in 2019 amounted to $17.75 billion and typically accounts for approximately a quarter of the state’s economy. But what is the trade-off between dollars and quality of life for the local people? In the same SF Gate article Napua-onalani Hu-eu, a Hawaiian activist and kalo (also called taro) farmer indicates that before water was being diverted away from farming, “much of Hawaii’s food was grown in east Maui.” Today, 90% of the food on the island is imported. Former Representative Ing also tweeted, “Tourism is a servants’ prison that keeps local people in a permanent underclass, in our own home. It’s a system that literally only works when the people who play here are richer than us who live and work here.” 

    I went to Hawaii about twenty years ago, before I’d taken the time to inform myself about the dynamics of the tourism industry there. It was beautiful and relaxing and I felt at home, in a way. Primarily, this is because being a multiracial-Asian person is not unusual there — or at least it’s not as unusual as in other places. When you’ve spent most of your life feeling like a bit of an odd duck because of the way you look, it’s very comforting to be amongst people who look like you, even if it’s just surface interactions.

    Still, my comfort is not a good enough reason to go back and visit when the indigenous folks there have asked that we not and when the dollars I would spend there wouldn’t necessarily be going to support and help locals.

    This daily writing prompt came at just the right time for me, as I’m currently reading the last few pages of issue #119 of Bamboo Ridge, Journal of Hawai’i Literature and Arts. This issue is titled, Kipuka: Finding Refuge in Times of Change and was published in 2021. From the introduction:

    “When volcanoes erupt, variances in topography create kipuka, islands of turf untouched by the flow of lava. While Pele’s fiery rivers caress its borders, its plants and seeds remain. It watches lava cool, then blacken. It witnesses pahoehoe break down into rich volcanic soil. And when the time comes, it seeds its surroundings, sets free former boundaries as genesis and legacy join. Na kipuka preserve and regenerate. They survive and persist. They anchor and hold life, ensuring in the end that nothing is forgotten.”

    While I was going through chemotherapy last year, I was often exhausted but paradoxically, I also experienced a bit of insomnia. This was possibly due to the steroids I’d been prescribed to help with the nausea. Regardless of the reasons, I often found myself awake late at night. This can sometimes be a lonely time, vulnerably time. I suppose it’s possible that it was in this state that I reached out on line. I don’t remember what I searched for specifically, but I found Bamboo Ridge on the other end of the line I’d cast out. In a flurry, I ordered six of their volumes and promptly fell asleep. Since then, I’ve read two of the six that I’d ordered.

    I’m not going to say that I feel as though I’ve vacationed in Hawai’i each time I’ve read one, because it’s something much deeper than what I could have experienced in a few weeks in a resort. I feel like I’ve come to know and connect to the parts of Hawai’i that the tourism industry ignores or, worse, feeds off of.

    I visited Pearl Harbor when I went to Hawai’i. The way that it’s set up now, for tourists and visitors, it feels as though Pearl Harbor is some sort of historical past. That it actually doesn’t exist in the present. In his three poems, Lee A. Tonouchi, brings the reader into Hawai’i’s militarized present.

    I’m sitting here typing, trying to figure out how to finish this post in a meaningful way. But the truth is that I’m in the midst of radiation treatment which has made me very fatigued. And I just took one of my anti-cancer medications that, if I don’t time it out, causes waves of nausea. Even if I wanted to travel somewhere like Hawaii, even if locals had not requested that tourists not visit, my body is currently demanding that I stay home. So I’ll retire to the couch to finish the last pages of this issue of Bamboo Ridge which I ordered in the lonely dark of the night. And art, words, poems, and stories will distract me and, yes, in a way transport me right when I need it. And for that I am grateful.

    *********************

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  • What Olympic sports do you enjoy watching the most and why is it women’s gymnastics?

    Daily writing prompt
    What Olympic sports do you enjoy watching the most?
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    Last summer, I took a much needed week-long holiday to the beach with my family. The trip was right at the end of an eight week stretch of two types of chemotherapy (administered every other week) and right before I was going to start three months of a second type of treatment (administered weekly). The only thing I really had energy for was a few hours on the beach in the morning. I’d then go to the couch for the hottest parts of the day. Fortunately, the couch had a TV in front of it. Fortunately, this was the week of the 2025 Summer Olympics in Paris. Fortunately, the TV could have four different stations playing simultaneously.

    In the thick of chemo/ cancer brain fog, I didn’t have the focus to be able to read much or paint or write or really do many of the things that bring me joy but involve some attention. I was pretty weak and my tastebuds were completely obliterated so that even eating together with my family was not the most enjoyable. The chemotherapy had also made my skin photosensitive so when I was at the beach, I was under the shade when I could be and usually completely covered up when I couldn’t. Oh, and I was also bald so I was sensitive not only to the sun but I felt chilly at the slightest wind or temperature drop.

    But watching the Olympics, indoors? That I could do. The narratives that emerge feel so fundamentally human that I could pick up on them and even enjoy them through my brain fog. When I mentioned women’s gymnastics in my title, I was really just doing that as an attempt at a cheap laugh. The truth is that this past summer, I enjoyed all the sports. I, too, was wondering, “who is this male gymnast in glasses who seems to be meditating but hasn’t competed yet?”. And was stunned when Steve came out to dominate the pommel horse in the last rotation. I was also smiling along with Snoop Dogg as he c-walked holding the Olympic torch. I also occasionally ended up watching hand ball and wondered, “What on earth is this?”

    At the time, I was too foggy to put it all together but now, I can see that part of me, I think, was really grateful to have a week of being constantly reminded over and over of what human beings are capable of and what, specifically, our bodies can do.

    I’m in the radiation portion of my treatment. It’s exhausting. But I’m walking and exercising everyday. I’m sticking to my routines which allows me to have moments of spontaneity and growth. And I can feel myself getting stronger each day. I’m not saying that I’m ever going to be an Olympic athlete. I’m middle aged. Even without cancer, I’m far past my physical prime. But it’s not Olympic gold that I’m working towards here. It’s being able to get back in the ocean, swimming and battling the surf with my kids. It’s being able to walk my son to school. It’s being able to enjoy a few sun salutations. It’s having the energy to be able to say yes when one of the kids wants to dance. Or even when I want to.

    In fact, you know, that one Australian breakdancer’s routine doesn’t seem all that out of reach…

  • I’ll take this as a sign to book my next tattoo.

    Daily writing prompt
    What tattoo do you want and where would you put it?
    View all responses

    I just got my second tattoo Tuesday this week. It’s on my right forearm, where I can see it when I’m writing. That one is the words, “it’s something to do” in my handwriting. I heard the poet Nikki Giovanni say this at the beginning of a talk. The full quote was something along the lines of, “I’m getting old. I don’t mind. It’s something to do.” I was nervous often this past year in the lead up to different procedures, surgeries, biopsies, treatments, etc… and her words often came to mind. They calmed me. She calmed me.

    The artist Bibi Abelle drew this one. She’s local and does single needle tattooing. Her work is beautiful. I’d read in an article that she also had cancer. It’s comforting to be in the presence of someone who you don’t have to explain things to, especially when that person is doing something as intimate as drawing on your body.

    The tattoo didn’t involve a whole lot of planning. I wrote the words on a piece of paper with the pen she had out for me to sign the consent form. I didn’t even pull out my favorite (if you know you know) pens that I had in my purse. I was a little nervous. No. I think actually it was excitement. I’m finally in a place where I’m able to differentiate between the two. And maybe my hand shook a little as I wrote. But part of my promise to myself was just to write it, tattoo it. One and done. Extend myself grace. Whatever came out of my hand on to that piece of paper was going to be tattooed on me. Bibi did give me some options of different sizes and we discussed it. She said, “bigger is always better when it comes to tattoos.” So I went with a slightly bigger size. It seemed apt also as my eyesight is getting worse and it would be easier for me to see it and read it. Part of this whole experience was to accept my imperfections and to let go of trying to make everything perfect. That was achieved.

    As my daughter pointed out when I showed her my new tattoo, “It’s also the answer to the question, ‘why did you get a tattoo?”

    My first tattoo was only about ten or so days before my second and also inspired by Nikki Giovanni, who had the words Thug Life tattooed on her left forearm. I’ve read that she was inspired by Tu-Pac’s tattoo across his abdomen. Mine is the words, “Kung Fu Life” in archaic Chinese. Here are the themes that I pulled from Nikki Giovanni’s tattoo: reclaiming words that contain entire codes, lives, meanings, philosophies, and ways of being but have been weaponized against us and people who look like us.

    It was designed by Candy Wang who’s based in the other Washington (I’m near DC) so I was looking for someone local to do the tattooing. I found Ariyana Suvar who is about thirty minutes from me in Clarksburg, MD. The truth is that in the back of my head, I was also looking for someone who could do a large chest tattoo where my breast used to be. I’m not getting reconstruction. A tattoo just seems a lot more fun? Beautiful? Unique? Meaningful? Collaborative? All of the above. Ariyana and I first video chatted. One of the first things she asked is, “Are you Thai?” I think my jaw dropped because she quickly said, “I saw your last name on your email.” She then explained that she uses Suvar for convenience but that her actual last name is also a longer Thai one. Relatable. Not only are we both negotiating using our long Thai last names in spaces that aren’t generally very open to that sort of thing, but it turns out that one set of her grandparents are also from China and immigrated to Thailand just like mine. In spite of how countries might try to contain and control their borders, migration isn’t that unusual in most parts of the world. But if you can see that something bigger was at work here to place me in her tattoo studio to get my archaic Chinese characters on my arm, then you get it.

    Do you know what it’s like to spend most of your life having to “explain” (ie justify) your family’s history in almost every space you enter? Do you know what it’s like to, on the other extreme, have that same history be ignored in almost every other space you enter?

    At that same appointment, Ariyana started designing my chest piece. Turns out, I’m going to have to put it off until after summer is over because (cancer) reasons. I do not have the words to explain what it means to have someone, an artist, look at your changed and scarred body and see potential.

    This morning, I was thinking about writing a blog post today. It was really bothering me, this question of: what am I going to write today? I’m trying (see “it’s something to do” tattoo experience above) to be in the moment with all things, but perhaps most especially with my writing. I’m trying to shut out all the voices that demand perfection and meaning and beauty and profundity in every word and sentence and paragraph, the voices that tell me that the only way to write is to brainstorm and outline and draft and revise and edit and on and on and on and anything less is not worthy of being seen by anyone else.

    I am working on trust. I am working on trusting that if I show up to my notebook or computer, something will come. The thing that’s needed will be come. It’s in the returning. It’s in the faithfulness. It’s in trusting that I have practiced this, this putting on words on the page over and over.

    And so it was, that I came to my computer. And there was the question of the day. The thing that had already been on my mind.

    And that, friends, is why I’m off to book my next tattoo with Bibi, one in which I’ll show up at her studio at the appointed time and we’ll just see what comes up, what we decide needs to be put on my body in that moment and that time. And that, friends, is Kung Fu Life.

    If you’d like to contribute to these and future tattoos, please click here.