I want to say something like:
"part of being is accepting how you have been created and to work within and from that. I am produced and producing, but I have been produced, yet I am also me."

a taste of deserts and trees, of cabins, of driving, of going elsewhere. was this created? is this part of whiteness? I think so, yes. of sun and sunshine and trees and a sense of calm. I think this is part of whiteness, of upper-middle class whiteness perfectly poised to be unware of itself, to not know what it is, to be blind to these things. to enjoy these things in america is like this loop-de-loop of a process:

- enjoy: oh joyful! these things are great.
- don't enjoy: no, it's all mythical, this notion of nature
- enjoy: of course, but why doesn't that mean we can enjoy it still
- don't enjoy: this notion of nature just amplifies whatever whiteness that exists.. for someone who is white, encountering another white person in the woods or in nature is not neutral
- enjoy: yes, you are right, yet to get white supremacy get in the way of enjoyment of nature would be horrid

and there's like five or six or ten more loops that my brain whizzes around before it fizzles out.

sometimes I remember to myself that I need to bounce between cultures, that too much time spend in one culture or language will sink my brain into concrete, and I think about one gorgeous time spend wandering in japan or in korea, a sense of calm, of nature.

I am lucky to have experienced a country where I was told that I belong, and not only do I belong, that I was needed, that we all needed to help each other, that a sense of nationalistic cameraderie was not poised towards a sense of jingoistic militaristic patriotism but rather as a struggle for independence and agency. I am grateful for that.

--

it is a new year. 2019. the freshness of the new year slowly peels away. ringing in the new year. what happens this year? what happens.

a checklist for myself, to care for myself.

- to meditate five minutes a day.
- to operate in positing, rather than in negation
- to remember what it's like to wriggle in a tub naked, like the day I was born, and say "oh boy, oh boy", over again in elated excitement towards the future, like a sharp bright arrow being shot into the air without any destination, with a kind of 'hey lets see what happens' grin on one's face. to jump forward and forwrd.
- to have more situations where I am sweaty and happy, panting to catch my breath in elation
- to watch as many sunsets a week as I can.
- to change my environment often
- to recognize when I fall into thought loops, and realize that sometimes the nicest way to change my thoughts is to stop thinking, or to move orthogonally, through the body, or the environment
- to go deeper towards places where I can be deeply disappointed and deeply fulfilled alike
- let's have more rituals!
- to name it, articulate it

- to spend more time with myself

here's to 2019.