James Turrell: “we are dwellers at the bottom of the ocean of air.”

James Turrell is a master of light. … We went to the de Young in San Francisco to check out the Ed Ruscha exhibit a couple months ago. We had tickets to see the museum, too, and we were excited to explore properly. A friend of mine was married at the de Young years ago, […]

Last Summer Hurrah (in Napa, CA)

From a technical, Western standpoint, summer is still here. The autumn equinox isn’t occurring for another seven days. A week. Yet it already feels like fall. The days are crisp, and the everything feels fragile and delicate. I grow melancholy in the evenings as the shadows grow long too soon. Long days shorten. Nights grow […]

Climbing a Mountain (Figuratively)

I think it’s the 79th anniversary of Golden Gate Bridge. Happy birthday, dude. You rock. Keep on going. This used to be my view every. Single. Day. I miss it. It probably still could be my view, if I didn’t mind paying an arm, a leg, and my firstborn (and possibly my second) in order […]

Roses in Napa

Somewhere along the way, I was lost. But then I found myself. Or, at least, pieces of myself. Step by step, like Hansel and Gretel picking up the crumbs they left behind, I am following the crumbs of who I am. I’ve gone through many iterations of “me-ness.” My haecceity. (That’s a new word I […]

Taipei Cafe Dreaming

Every now and then I have an out-of-body experience. This isn’t to say that I actually leave my body and experience the supernatural. Rather, I am suddenly thrust into the realization that the life I live is truly what I’m experiencing. It isn’t someone else’s story that I’m reading or watching pass by. No. […]

Someone Else’s Childhood (in Taiwan)

There’s something unsettling about nostalgia that doesn’t belong to you. The bittersweet melancholy of realizing you’re witnessing someone else’s memories is poignant. Stories others have told have painted hazy images in my mind’s eye, and I can recognize snapshots from their memories as I go about my adult life, but it’s just not the same. […]

Taiwan in the Winter

In those rare opportunities when I get to experience something from a different perspective, I am always pleasantly surprised. A few months ago, I had the opportunity to spend a few days in Taiwan during the winter. A January Taiwan is a very different experience than a July or an August Taiwan. Some background on […]