Emotions, in my experience, aren’t covered by single words. I don’t believe in “sadness,” “joy,” or “regret.” Maybe the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that it oversimplifies feeling. I’d like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic traincar constructions like, say, “the happiness that attends disaster.” Or: “the disappointment of sleeping with one’s fantasy.” I’d like to show how “intimations of mortality brough on by aging family members” connects with “the hatred of mirrors that begins in middle age.” I’d like to have a word for “the sadness inspired by failing restaurants” as well as “the excitement of getting a room with a minibar.” I’ve never had the right words to describe my life, and now that I’ve entered my story, I need them more than ever.

~ Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex

I haven’t written publicly these past few months because I had no words to describe my (at times harrowing) emotional journey, until I realized that we will never have the right words, in any tongue. they don’t exist. like Calliope above, I’ve been grasping at straws for language to validate my experience, but I keep coming up short. and did I just mix my idioms?

I needed a word for the silent dread as my father endured hours of surgery, and one for the disappointment of dropping an earring in the toilet. words for the disgusting shame that lingers on my fingers after smoking an entire pack of Parliaments, and the instantaneous comfort of smelling my own apartment after a long trip. and one for the intense, foundation-shaking fear as I roll over in bed and truly try to understand, for the first time as a real adult, my own sexuality. and for the nostalgic anticipation of a champagne cork’s POP! (every bottle of bubbly momentarily transports me back to New Year’s Eve, 1992.) and most especially, the imagined surface tension of my skin when I’m physically overwhelmed with creativity, but have no outlet because I’m too stuck– or maybe proud is more accurate– to pick up a pen, or a flute.

our words will always inch ever so closely to the true emotions they represent without ever quite reaching them completely, like mathematical hyperbolas shooting off the page, barely skimming their perfect asymptotes for eternity. but for all its frustrating shortcomings, Language is achingly beautiful and impossible for us to resist. even its failures conjure epic tales, stir our hearts, and overflow library shelves. I have to keep trying, and failing, and trying.

so I write.

when I feel lost and broken, sometimes the only thing that keeps me going is my music, a living legend’s raspyhoneyliquid voice pouring over my aching heart like a big sticky suffocating hug. aural unconditional love.

ring the bells that still can ring,
forget your perfect offering.
there is a crack in everything,
that’s how the light gets in.

enjoy one of my favorite nocturnes by one of my favorite composers, ever. I get lost in the soft spaces between his notes, and dance on imaginary stars at 4:30. I miss my piano.

“Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and on which it is impossible to remain silent.”
~ Victor Hugo

In the Philippines, there is a geographic anomaly I want to call your attention to: a volcanic island in a lake that’s on a volcanic island in a lake that’s on an island. Can you picture that? Vulcan Point is an island in Crater Lake, and Crater Lake is on Volcano Island, and Volcano Island is in Lake Taal, and Lake Taal is on the island of Luzon. It’s confusing–just as your currently convoluted state is perplexing, both to you and those around you. You could be aptly described as fiery earth within cool water within fiery earth within cool water within fiery earth. Whether that’ll be a problem, I don’t know yet. Are you OK with containing so much paradox?

I still remember the unmistakable aroma of grass and dirt that stained our ratty clothes after inevitable tumbles across the lawn. the high-pitched warnings of “carrr!” for our unsheltered friends in the middle of the street as a driver rounded the corner. the hazy waves of steam evaporating from the blazing pavement that caused mirage-like visions. the terror that rose in my throat as I crept around a bush and came face-to-face with the fastest, lankiest kid on the block, his water balloon held high right before its arced ascent into my back as I ran in vain. in the end we were drenched and exhausted, and wore our skinned knees proudly. we’d high-five and hug and move to the cool sanctuary of someone’s garage to share soda and pickles, with half-moon grins from ear to ear.

Life isn’t one big thing– it’s a series of constant fleeting moments that we tuck away in our memory. years later they randomly rise to the forefront of our minds, surprising us with their bittersweet whispers. at the time, I had no idea how important those absolutely carefree moments with my neighborhood friends would be.

wow… my job environment seems absolutely luxurious compared to some of these. sometimes we forget how the rest of the world works. I feel blessed.

Jasmin, a young American woman, is a production editor for a major college publisher in wacky San Francisco, CA. She handles messy manuscripts, creates schedules, monitors design, juggles freelancers, keeps track of photo/text permissions, reviews page proofs, and acts calm in the face of imminent disaster in order to create beautiful educational material. She is currently putting out several major history-related fires so her editorial team and sales staff won’t have a collective heart attack.

monthly salary: barely covers SF rent (enough to feed a family of 20 almost anywhere else in the world).

~ Susanna Kaysen

guess there’s something wrong with me
guess I don’t fit in
no one wants to touch it
no one knows where to begin
I just want more than one membership
to more than one club
because I owe my life
to the people that I love

he looks me up and down
like he knows what time it is
like he’s got my number
like he thinks it’s his
he says,
call me, Miss DiFranco,
if there’s anything I can do
I say,
It’s Mr. DiFranco to you

some days the line I walk
turns out to be straight
other days the line tends to
deviate
I’ve got no criteria for sex or race
I just want to hear your voice
I just want to see your face

She looks me up and down
like she thinks that I’ll mature
like she’s got my number
like it belongs to her
she says,
call me, Ms. DiFranco
if there’s anything I can do
I say, you know I’ve got spots
did you know I’ve got
stripes, too

their eyes are all asking
are you in, or are you out
and I think, oh man,
what’s this about?
today you can’t put me
up on any shelf
’cause I came here alone
I’m gonna leave by myself

I just want to show you
the way that I feel
and when I get tired
you can take the wheel
to me what’s more important
is the person that I bring
not just getting to the same restaurant
and eating the same thing

guess there’s something wrong with me
guess I don’t fit in
no one wants to touch it
no one knows where to begin
I just want more than one membership
to more than one club
because we all owe our lives
to the people that we love

my lover, with her brilliant bay windows lit up side-by-side at night like perfect pearly teeth. faded tips of towering palm fronds stand out like beautiful grey hairs adorning her temple, brought on by decades of tortured artists and homelessness and AIDS. her soft sunsets of salmon and ocher and azure paint the rickety earthquake-prone apartment buildings like sweet laughter thrown in the face of adversity. we may one day topple to the ground, but we will be smiling.

her rainbow flags dance in the wind like bedsheets on a clothesline, untangled and laundered after a night of lust-fueled fervor. her musical voice pours into the colorful streets– drum circles and jarring Mexican radio and a thousand wine-soaked conversations about sustainable food. she speaks every language, sometimes all at once in a cacaphony of explosive aural pleasure I wish I understood. after her swiftly rolling fog chills me to the bone, she warms my hands in hers with her velvet breath, an unspoken apology. her unmistakable, heady perfume fills my nostrils during sunny park naps– sweet wildflowers with smoky chicharrone top notes and a marijuana bouquet. the siren song of her haunting jazz lures us deep into the dark bowels of dive bars to writhe against each other’s bodies between games of pool. in the morning I step on dewy blankets of purple plum blossoms strewn across her sidewalks, confetti leftover from last night’s bacchanalian celebration. I cross her golden bridge and watch her sleep from afar, admiring her sensual rolling hills and calm self-awareness. she blurs the line between pleasure and pain. her beauty makes me weep.

she is known as the Literary City, a place with more writers and bars per capita [no coincidence, I'd argue] than any other. but I love her for more than her eloquent prose and satisfying pints. she is also the Playful City, the Wise City. Empathetic, Nonjudgmental, Erotic, Delicious. Achingly Addictive. if it was only possible, I would call her My City.

…baby steps.

it’s funny– as anxious as I get about public speaking or standing in front of crowds, something magical used to happen when I was onstage with a flute. I was never that nervous and lost all sense of self. the instrument became a conduit for a much deeper consciousness and experience. I’ve never felt that with anything else before or since.

for years my fear about not being perfect has kept me from picking it up again, but in the end the void it left was too painful. it’s going to take lots of time, patience, and work to get my chops back… so here I am, heaving and stumbling over simple sixteenth notes with a smile on my face.

~Jack Kerouac, On the Road

my best friend Lauren introduced me to beat poetry in college and this quickly became my favorite quote. unknowingly, my sister created a beautiful painting centered around a card with the same quote for my birthday one year. it sits in my living room now and could not be more appropriate.

recently I hit a creative wall and felt a bit lost. call it a quarter-life identity crisis. plain and simple: I want to do too many things. publishing, music, grad school, nonprofit work, travel, relationships, connections, everything is interesting, everything is a possibility, everything fills my heart with a raging fire that I can’t quell. each of us has the power to move our life in any direction at any time, and this realization fills me with a sense of panicked urgency to figure out exactly which path I want to take and where I should focus my attention. but the more opportunities I have, the more indecisive and depressed I get.

my biggest fears are wasting time and looking back on my life with regret. questioning is healthy, but I’m trying to accept that maybe it’s unnecessary to choose right now who I want to be tomorrow, where I will live and work, any of that stuff. I guess the best thing to do is to keep moving forward little by little. fill my life with love and happy acts. keep learning with an open mind. read some more Kerouac. have faith that everything will unfold organically. and always be true to my loved ones, and to myself.