this song has been on repeat for me lately so i tried translating the opening verse from vietnamese, which wasn’t easy since the original lyrics are more suggestive than literal. i ended up reading about the story behind the song and tried to translate it as faithfully as I could while staying true to what I felt.

here’s the original:

Ngày em thắp sao trời
Chờ trăng gió lên khơi
Mà mưa bão tơi bời
Một ngày mưa bão không rời

Trên đôi vai thanh xuân
Ướp hôn nồng bên gối đắm say
Ánh sao trời theo gió rụng rơi đầy

Cùng rót bao nhiêu ngày hoang
Cùng đếm bao nhiêu mộng tàn 
Ru người yêu dấu trong vùng trời đêm

and my translation, likely imperfect:

the day you kindled the stars
waiting for the moon and wind to set sail 
yet the storms tore through 
a day the storm wouldn't cease

on the shoulders of youth 
steeping ardent kisses beside the love-drunk pillow 
starlight following the wind, strewn everywhere

together pouring so many wild days 
together counting so many spent dreams 
lulling the beloved within the realm of the night sky

The periodic pleasure
of small happenings
is upon us—
behind the stalls
at the farmer’s market
snow glinting in heaps,
a cardinal its chest
puffed out, bloodshod
above the piles of awnings,
passion’s proclivities;
you picking up a sweet potato
turning to me  ‘This too?’—
query of tenderness
under the blown red wing.
Remember the brazen world?
Let’s find a room
with a window onto elms
strung with sunlight,
a cafe with polished cups,
darling coffee they call it,
may our bed be stoked
with fresh cut rosemary
and glinting thyme,
all herbs in due season
tucked under wild sheets:
fit for the conjugation of joy.  

by Meena Alexander.

I found a Hounds of Love t-shirt on Etsy a while back. Four hounds sketched in a loose style. Each moving in a different direction. none of them still, creating the sense of a circular chase, as if they’re hunting. Around them, scattered strokes of orange-red suggesting falling leaves; or maybe traces left behind by the hunt. the artwork has this distinct feeling of being caught in something wild. and impossible to outrun. I really wanted it. But it costs a thousand bucks.

In a 1985 interview with Tony Myatt, Kate Bush was asked about the meaning behind the song hounds of love. She said: “the hounds of love are an image, really: someone who’s afraid of being captured by love; and the imagery is of love taking the form of hounds that are hunting them, so they run away because they’re afraid of being caught by the hounds and ripped to shreds.”

I’ve been listening to Hounds of Love again lately. This has always been one of my favourites. There is an energy of despair in Kate’s voice and the entire production - the kind of despair that consumed the teenager I once was, standing at the edge of love’s first stirrings. I have always had a hard time facing my own feelings; not the fear of rejection (being rejected has rarely felt like a loss to me; love, I think, remains whole inside you regardless of whether the other person accepts it or not), but the uncertainty of living alongside love once it has found you. What happens after love catches you? After you lie beneath its claws and teeth?

My answer, I suppose, has always been the same: keep running. Running from things uncertain. And what is more uncertain than yourself, when in love? It takes a particular kind of courage to take your shoes off. To throw them in the lake.

To be two steps on the cold cold water.

and me?

I’ve always been a coward.

I have more love than ever.
Our kids have kids soon to have kids.
I need them. I need everyone
to come over to the house,
sleep on the floor, on the couches
in the front room. I need noise,
too many people in too small a space,
I need dancing, the spilling of drinks,
the loud pronouncements
over music, the verbal sparring,
the broken dishes, the wealth.
I need it all flying apart.
My friends to slam against me,
to hold me, to say they love me.
I need mornings to ask for favors
and forgiveness. I need to give,
have all my emotions rattled,
my family to be greedy,
to keep coming, to keep asking
and taking. I need no resolution,
just the constant turmoil of living.
Give me the bottom of the river,
all the unadorned, unfinished,
unpraised moments, one good turn
on the luxuriant wheel.

by Carl Adamshick.

A few days ago, while walking (my hyperactive cream-colored dog), (my family member who likes to give orders) found a kitten abandoned under a bodhi tree. Two curious dogs were already circling and sniffing at the frightened little thing. (my family member who likes to give orders) pulled them away, scooped the kitten up and took them to the vet where they stayed for a few days.

This afternoon we went to bring the kitten home.

They’re a calico, small enough to fit in the palm of my hand, with a thin coat that’s a little ragged and ears too big for their face. I made them a nest in the bathtub: a rope basket lined with fabric, a litter box, a water bowl and a small dish of wet food. When I’m not there, the kitten roams freely and without hesitation: climbing the edge of the tub, winding through the ferns, nosing under the alocasia and the snake plant. But the moment I appear, they shrink back behind the litter box. Just their blue-grey eyes, peering out.

They’re not used to me yet.

I already feel used to them.

I’ve started making small visits throughout the evening — so they can slowly learn the weight of my footsteps, the sound of the door opening, the running water. I talk softly in the room so they can get used to my voice. I’m glad they are quick and lively. I’m glad they finished most of their dinner tonight.

It’s been raining since evening. Now it’s late. And I’m sitting by the balcony door writing this. The wind coming in slow waves. Outside it’s wet and dark. In here, the kitten is probably dreaming under the ferns.

today is (my niece who likes licking lemons and writing magazines for cats to read)’s birthday. she is six, or seven now; i always lose count with the small ones. and because (my family member who likes to give orders) and i forgot, her mother passed the message (with the gravity only a child can summon) along: we now owe her one hundred swimming trips.

serves us right. we had lunch outside, (my friend who loves romcoms and often takes me out for beers), (my family member who likes to give orders) and i. fried tofu. crispy at the edges nearly molten at the centre. and cold beer under a clear sky. the first days of summer. the heat is here but still polite. (my friend who loves romcoms and often takes me out for beers) looked tired. and i have been drinking too much beer lately. it just sort of happens. the beer. one becomes two, and by the time you register it the afternoon has softened at the edges and you’re not sure if that’s the alcohol or just the light.

the moon is full. again. its cool light falls through the window, and somewhere in that light i remember – the altar. the incense. unlit. again.

welp, what have i yet to forget?

one hundred swimming trips with (my niece who likes licking lemons and writing magazines for cats to read).

Unforgivable, how good the windows are
at pitching their sale to the birds:
More air here. Come in.
We cut apart our shirts and made ropes
to hang over the glass: warn the birds.
Then we cut apart more of our clothes
to make face masks so we could have even more
distance from each other. Now
everything I wear has a future in protecting
the world from the world. Did you know
you can paint a collar gold
if you want your head to become a flower?
You can redden your cuffs if you want to show
where your hands will be when they have nothing
to hold. Inside, some of us are clouds
and some of us are windows who need a bird
to fly through. That’s how lonely we are.

by Jennifer Oakes.

The idea behind this place started simple: to keep things small. It came from my own experience of building other personal sites, each one growing bloated over time, which was fine. That was its own kind of exploration. But this time I wanted something small. I wanted a place that doesn’t try to be too many things at once. A place for one thing only: to hold memories.

On the technical side, that meant lightweight and no unnecessary dependencies. So I went back to basics, building a static site with only html and css (with some help from Hugo). No javascript. No images either. Images add weight. And weight has a cost. That’s why instead of regular photos, I made something called alt-text photos. Basically they’re descriptions of photos I’d love to share, written out as text instead.

When I want to share what I’m listening to, I’ll add a small music player to the post. Welp, a pseudo one, since it doesn’t actually play anything. All it does is open a DuckDuckGo search for the song in a new tab when clicked. The design is inspired by the iPod, mainly for nostalgic reasons. Clunky, but I like the way it feels.

The more I built, the more I wanted this place to feel a certain way. So I fixed the content column at 360px, narrow enough that the text stacks tall and the eye doesn’t have to travel far, like writing in a pocket notebook. No responsive breakpoints. It looks more or less the same on every screen.

This isn’t a space for conversation. It’s more like a personal corner I keep on the internet, for myself first. No comments, no analytics. No tracking. Nothing that would make it feel like it’s waiting for a response.

The rest is kept loose. The content is mostly text, written in lowercase. There’s no posting schedule, no particular format to follow. Things go up when they’re ready, or when I feel like it.

The only structure I impose is a system of tags called seeds. Though I use them lightly. Sometimes arbitrarily. The hope is that over time, unexpected connections will surface on their own. I’m curious to see what grows.

it’s somewhere out there on the internet.

i’m writing this at the end of the day, sitting by the window after the storm (with its rushing wind, torn-back roofs, fallen signs) has finally passed. the wind has quieted. just the smell of the night now: damp and faintly sharp. the sky has cleared, and sitting here i can see small lights blinking in the distance — headlights, i think, and the lit windows of houses i don’t know, amber and white against the dark.

i meant to write about the site. but it’s easy to drift, looking at lives.

anyway, the site is simple. a little bare, maybe. i built it by hand (just html, css and no javascript; nothing that needs more than a browser and an internet connection), spent more time on it than i planned and slept less than i probably should have. but it feels like enough to begin with.

i’ve done this before. built a place. left it. moved on. built another. on and on and what you end up with isn’t anywhere but a trail of unclosed doors.

now the sky has deepened. the small lights still blinking out there, in the distance. i don’t know what will come out of this. i hope it becomes somewhere i return to, every now and then. instead of wandering.