[seattle] you.

there are ghosts of you all around this city. there are ghosts of you all around many cities, places you've been, places you've lived, places you’ve never been, and, as i turn these corners, i wonder where you went, where you ate, where you slept. who were the people with you? who are they today?

who are you today?

and so it is that we populate the worlds in our heads, and i'm actively thinking of a story while in seattle. it's not a story specific to this city but one i've been letting percolate somewhere in the recesses of my brain for over a year now because, last february, i launched a web project that sought to marry fiction and food. while that fizzled out, like many projects, especially those in first iterations, inevitably do, it twisted and mutated into another idea, which twisted and mutated into this idea, fed and developed by the content i've been creating for this site.

and so it is they say that it's only in the doing that we learn. no project turns out the way we planned when we walked into it; we change, and we grow, and we evolve; and with us goes our work. it’s what makes work simultaneously so exciting and so maddening, the constant do-overs, the impossible standards we set for ourselves, that we strive to meet over and over and over again. we tell ourselves, the point isn’t to meet these impossible standards; the point is to try. the point is to get close.

the point is to do the work and trust that it will take us somewhere good.

but, anyway, the point is that i'm thinking about this story as i'm in seattle, and it's a love story, and it's about you. it's about place and travel and food. specifically, it's about place and travel and eggs, and it's a story i'll shoot images for, images i've had sitting in my head since last february, images i know i'll shoot again and again and again until i get them right.

because that is work — that is the work i do, and that is the work i will continue to do until my brain or my heart gives out on me, whichever goes first.

sea-tac.jpg

one thing we learn is that nothing is truly wasted work.

in the last few months, there were weeks when i'd take a photograph of every egg on toast variation i made in the morning, and that's content that will likely never leave the privacy of my hard drive, but it's not for nothing.

i mean, there are so many photograph stories sitting on my hard drive that i labored over, that i shot multiple times, that will also never see the light of day, but that's not all for nothing either. we create and throw away, like, ninety percent of everything we do, and we do that over and over and over again with every new project we begin. it's the nature of the work; it's that process of learning and discovery that brings value to it.

sometimes, i wonder if that’s just something i’ve learned to tell myself to mitigate some of the frustration that comes with so many drafts, so many hours and words and images. as i’ve learned, though, life goes that way, too — like aaron burr sings in hamilton, we rise and we fall and we break and we make our mistakes — and, yeah, sure, we could look back at certain moments of our lives, certain decisions, and think, oh, what a waste; oh, the time i could have saved.

however, we would not be the people we are today had we not gone blundering through life the way we did. we would not be who we are without the heartache, the disappointments, the years spent meandering and deliberating and starting down the wrong paths. we would not be who we are without the people in our lives, the people who were in our lives, and we can lose time regretting the past if we want, or we can keep moving, keep going, keep bettering ourselves.

where did you come from? how has your heart been broken? what is this story i am trying to write?

in seattle, i go to a cafe (general porpoise), and there’s a couple on line ahead of me, and they’re selecting a filling for doughnuts. one is ordering coffee, while the other decides which doughnut they’ll eat, and there are five flavors offered — two seasonal, three permanent — and the lady behind the counter is talking about each flavor, saying, we just launched strawberries and cream this week, and it’s really good.

the one selecting the doughnut flavor says, it sounds good, but i’ll go with chocolate. it’s his favorite flavor.

i think about you.

but, anyway, so, there are ghosts of you all around this city, and there are ghosts of you all around my mind. sometimes, you're one type of human, and, other times, when i'm in a different mood, you're another kind, but, at all times, i think you're one and the same because that's what we are as humans, shape shifters, strange and contradictory to behold when seen in parts, in moments, but whole and complex and full when taken together.

i like this complicated you.

i like meeting people off the internet, and i'll rarely (if ever) turn down an invitation by an on-line friend to meet up in person.

at first, there was a fair amount of anxiety involved, a fear that i would be "discovered" not to be as smart, as clever, as well-read as i might seem on-line. i still juggle that kind of anxiety, and, sometimes, i think i'm not cool enough, not personable enough, not articulate enough. i wonder why anyone would want to meet me, why anyone would want to befriend me (this is something i’ve been working on), but i like meeting people, so i go, and i hope for the best.

last weekend, in los angeles, i meet a woman from the boston area, and we sit and talk about boston and brooklyn and books. we talk about places we like to eat, books we’re reading, things we miss about brooklyn. we talk about career changes and phds and future plans. we talk about traveling. we talk for longer than i think we might, and the time goes quickly, and we say, let’s do this again. let me know if you’re in brooklyn for the brooklyn book festival.

what would we talk about?

in seattle, i meet up with a friend from new york who moved to seattle for school last year. the last time i saw her was in june 2016 when we went to hear roxane gay together, and we’ve been keeping in touch via email here and there, which in and of itself is a personal feat for me. i’m terrible at keeping in touch with people, just like I’m terrible at answering emails in a timely manner or replying to comments, like, ever, so, for me, one of the coolest things about the last six months has been how many of my friendships haven’t been lost to distance.

we talk over food, share what we’ve been learning in the last year, and we talk about asian-americanness and the diversity of that experience. we talk about personal challenges, personal growth, personal struggles, and, afterwards, i go over to her apartment and dabble in art projects and chat with her flatmate and classmate.

and i think how nice all that is, how refreshing, how much i miss this. i miss my community in new york city; i miss my book club; i miss my friends. i miss all the literary events; i miss the easy access to beautiful, wonderful bookstores; and i miss feeling like a part of something.

and i think about how i’m trying to chase that here in los angeles. my online book club gives me a whole lot of joy; i go out and meet people whenever i can; and i go to readings, not as many or as frequently as i would back home, but maybe more selectively, more intentionally. i engage with people on instagram as much as i can; i look forward to growing these connections, to growing this space, to being more open and communicative and productive.

and i think about you.

when traveling, i have different approaches to different cities when it comes to food.

sometimes, i have a city earmarked in my head as a place i want to visit because i have specific places i want to eat already (i.e. charleston), and, sometimes, i have just a general idea of what i want to eat but not where (i.e. new orleans). sometimes, as with seattle, i have no idea about anything.

i do some googling before we leave for seattle, and i make a few reservations, one of which is at joule. (i’ve become a reservation maker.) (fun fact: i hate queueing for food. like, i love food, but i will not wait ridiculous amounts of time for it.)

the idea of joule appeals to me because it’s by a korean-american chef doing different things with korean flavors, and i’m always interested in that. i love seeing what asian-americans are doing in general, how we’re all negotiating our relationships with our heritage and ethnicity and how we’re all doing so in different ways, demonstrating the many various ways of being asian-american on a broad, wide spectrum. i find that more and more to be such vital work.

i don’t know that i love my meal at joule, but i appreciate it. the short rib is fantastic, marinated like kalbi and cooked a perfect medium rare, and i love that it comes with gochujang and grilled kimchi. i love the chilled black sesame noodles, how it fuses something korean with something vietnamese, an herb and flavor i can’t quite pinpoint that bring a freshness to the dish and make me think of vermicelli noodle bowls.

everything is too salty, though, but i think i have a palate that is simply more sensitive to salt because, to be honest, most dishes taste too salty to me, and i know my own cooking tends to use less salt because i’m sensitive to it. i bloat easily, and a salty meal puts me in a daze, sends me right to sleep, no amount of caffeine able to counteract it.

if we were to eat a salty meal or one laden with MSG, i’d fall asleep on your shoulder within an hour.

what is this story i’m trying to write?

[iceland] who lives/dies/tells your story.

i don’t want to be someone who lives her life always yearning for something, someone else. want is something i’ve been struggling with particularly in the last year, want that has often twisted into resentment fueled by fear that i will never find what i want, fear that in turn paralyzes me and locks me into place, paralysis that becomes sadness over how simple they seem, these things i want — home, a person to love who loves me back, space and time and means to write and travel and publish.

if you follow me on instagram, you’ll notice i recycle words sometimes.

maybe that reads like a contradiction to some of my previous posts, but no one says it’s easy. it’s easy to put some of these words down, that i don’t want to be that person, to tell myself some of these words sometimes, but the struggle lies in taking these words and believing them, in living them. i don’t want to be that person who’s never content in the here and now, who’s always looking for escape. i don’t want to be that person because i was that person — no, i am that person.

it’s no secret that los angeles and i aren’t friends, that los angeles (and california at-large) is not where i want to be. it’s no secret that i want to travel, that i want to spend my life on the road. it’s no secret that i want a human being of my own, someone to love and be loved by. it’s no secret that i miss new york, that i miss brooklyn, that i still consider and will always consider it home. it’s no secret that i am still looking for that way home.

however, i don’t want to be that person who muddles up goals and ambitions and dreams and lets them waste into resentment and future-thinking. i was that person who lived her life for that one day — one day, i’ll be thin enough to date, to travel, to get that job; one day, i’ll be thin enough for everything — and i hated it, and i hated myself. i still hate that i lost my twenties to that.

and, so, in iceland, i think that it’s time to stop this bullshit. i already know that it’s time to start figuring out a way back home, and i have an idea of next steps — taking my GRE, applying for grad school, finishing my book, submitting essays, networking. and i think it’s time to start living in the present again, to enjoy this time i have with family, to use this time in los angeles to heal and recuperate and finish this book. it keeps coming back to that: finish the book.

and that takes us to …

on the road, we listen to hamilton over and over and over again, and i like a lot of the points the musical raises. amongst them is the idea of legacy, of story, of how we're remembered, that we have no control over this, and it’s worth remembering because it’s so easy to get lost in this, to chase it so obsessively our lives devolve into vanity and futility.

(vanity, vanity, the writer of ecclesiastes says. all is vanity.)

and it reminds me of the need to do the work on the ground, of the need to remember why we do the work in the first place, not for glory or legacy but for urgency, for need, and i think about this constantly in iceland, too, because we talk about creating, about what it means and what it entails to choose a life in pursuit of this. i realize that i'm that asshole who dispenses advice without being asked for it, and i think i don't like this about myself — i don't want to be one of those people; i want to listen and give counsel when i've been asked for it.

i think a lot about what i'd say about creating, though, if i were asked. maybe none of this makes sense because, yes, i write, and, yes, i write seriously, but, no, i have yet to be published. i don't do this "professionally," though i hope to. do i have anything worth saying? does this idea of "qualification" even matter?

i want to say no, not entirely, because i think that's kinda bullshit, so here are a few things i find myself saying over and over again, things i might say because these are things i've learned over the course of the years.

01. do the work. write; cook; paint; dance; draw. and not only that, but also read, eat, see, watch, observe everything. do the work. don't just think about it; do it. do it obsessively. work is useless when it's just an idea in your head.

02. maintain a sense of curiosity, of wonder. i kind of hate the word "inspiration" because i kind of hate the idea attached to it, this implied dependency on inspiration in order to create, which forgets how fucking hard it is to generate inspiration because you can't just sit around, waiting for these flashes to come — you'll never get the work done then.

the thing is, if you walk around with your eyes wide open, even in your banal everyday shit, you'll be surprised at how much you absorb and process and how much you can bring to your work. you don't have to live in some exciting location, and you don't need to pursue adrenaline-fueled adventure. you just need to be curious. curiosity doesn't cost anything.

03. take yourself, your work, seriously. no one will take you seriously until you take yourself seriously. respect your work, and respect yourself. you can't expect others to regard yourself so until you first expect it of yourself.

this is the last planned iceland post, though maybe we’ll get something later because there are still so many photos, so many words, so many thoughts being processed. thank you for following along! it’s been fun!

[iceland] textures.

touch is a vital sense, and i want to touch everything. it's an extension of my desire, too, to feel everything.

i want to touch you.

i want to feel everything there is to feel about you.

THE TEXTURE OF VEGETATION

moss is springy to the touch, rough but pleasant. it reminds me of carpet, but in a nice way, which maybe sounds contradictory because i hate carpet — like, i hate carpet. especially in spaces where people wear shoes on carpet because i just don't understand that, tracking all that dust and street muck willfully and intentionally around on carpet.

i shudder just to think of it.

i learn that the middle cousin hates the feel of grass under his feet, that the eldest used to tease him when he was a baby by lowering him so his bare feet touched the grass.

i think that i kind of like the feeling of cool grass underneath my feet, find it interesting how grass imparts the feeling of wetness before you start really feeling the physical dampness of it. i like the grass in iceland; it grows tall and falls over on itself; and walking through it is like walking on giant cushions. you have to be careful, though, because it's easy to misstep or to step into a pit in the ground, hidden by grass, or to be like me, to step wrong and twist your ankle.

i have weak ankles. it doesn't stop me from traipsing around half the time in converse.

would you yell at me for this? would you laugh-scold me like my cousins do, telling me to wear my proper hiking shoes? would you roll your eyes at me, bundle up towels at night and tell me to elevate my leg, bring me ice to reduce the swelling?

or would i be the one fussing over you, telling you to be more careful, get away from that cliff edge, the ground is unstable, can you please not plummet to your death, please? would you make me worry, even as we go scrambling up rock faces together? would you slip and fall by a waterfall, come back up laughing, dusting the mud off your hands, off your jacket?

would you hate the feeling of grass under your bare feet?

or would you go be the one to take your shoes off and go running off with the grass between your toes, laughing at the way it tickles and shouting, you should do this, too?! as you go rolling down a hill?

THE TEXTURE OF STONES

in iceland, we talk about how the island was formed through volcanic activity, how these incredible formations we see have been created over time, through erosion, through natural occurrence. it makes me think about the past, but it also makes me think about the future, about my future, about this crossroads i find myself at and the directions i should be taking.

i think about applying to grad school, about conquering my irrational fears that i'm not smart enough, not focused enough, not creative enough to get accepted anywhere. i think about my book, about the work that still needs to be done, about querying and submitting and dealing with rejections. i think about what i want to do with my life, where i want to go, who i want to be.

i think about you.

my brother recently got married, and he's younger than i am, so it raises extra questions of when i'll get married. i think my parents are waiting for this, for me to meet the “right” person, for that wedding, for that future, for grandchildren, but that future of seeming domestic bliss has always registered in my brain as the worst possible nightmare. i may have struggled with figuring out what i want from my life and for my life, but i've always known clearly what i don't want, and it's exactly that — the requisite husband, the children, the suburban home and minivan and 9-to-6.

and that, to me, is the beauty of choice. i have friends who are very happily wedded with multiple children, and i thrill for them. i have friends who homeschool, who give up their careers to be stay-at-home parents, who live their lives making sacrifices for their children. i thrill for all of them because that is what they want — it's what they've chosen.

it is not something i choose.

when i think about you, when i think about the kind of life we might have together, i think about this. i think about open roads and different countries and new experiences. i think about the freedom to be, to exist when and where we want. i think about stamps in passports, all kinds of cuisines, languages and cultures and peoples.

i think about venturing into countries where we don't speak the language, about jumping out of planes and off bridges and into bodies of water, about losing our way in strange cities but being okay — we're together, and, together, we'll be okay.

i think about looking over at you and saying, hey, let's go here, hey, i want to go there, and i think about you saying, yeah, let's do it, and making it happen, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.

i think about all that possibility out there in the world, waiting to be known, to be discovered together.

i think about you.

THE TEXTURE OF WATER

water shape-shifts, becomes a different thing in different forms. as water, it can be still and calm, reflective of the world around it, or it can be a living, furious, raging thing. as steam, it can be hot, scalding upon contact, smoothing out wrinkles and opening up pores. as ice, it can be freezing and slippery, a hazard upon which to venture.

i think about people and moods because i can be moody, can be temperamental. it’s one of the character flaws i know most about myself, something i struggle against constantly, a battle i lose sometimes and do better with at other times.

before i fly out to iceland, i’m afraid that my moodiness will assert itself and put a damper on the trip. i worry that i’ll fatigue of being attached to people at all times a day, non-stop for two weeks. i worry that i’ll retreat into myself, become silent and sullen, and i worry that i’ll lose my temper.

the two weeks go by smoothly without incident, though, and i credit a great part of that to my cousins, to their personalities and their brightness. i think about myself, too, wonder if i’ve changed, if i’ve gone back to who i am at core, though what that means, i’m still not sure. i wonder about who i “actually” am under all the “issues,” under the depression and the anxiety and the panic attacks. i’ve been in such difficult headspace for so long that it’s become habit to question who i am underneath all that, what the purpose of medication and therapy is, if there’s even a fix for all the darkness. it’s become habit to question if this depression is who i am, this despair and hopelessness, if it isn’t a futile thing to try to get better because this is all there is. this is all i am.

because the thing is that i’ve always been someone who laughs a lot, who laughs at everything, and i’ve been told all my life that i’m a bright person, a kind person, and, yet, that feels so contradictory to the damage i feel has broken me.

and one consequence of that is that i doubt constantly if i’m someone who can be loved. i get scared that my moodiness will scare you away, if my temperament will turn you off, and i get scared that i’m too broken to be loved by you. i get scared that i’m too broken to love you.

i’m learning to quell such fears, though, because they’re as unfounded as the fears that keep me from applying to grad school, from pursuing the things i want. we work at love, and we put ourselves out there, and we risk being hurt, being disappointed, just like we risk inflicting that same hurt and disappointment. it’s the only way we can thrive, though, running that risk, and it’s why i have no patience for people who are risk-averse. the best things in life require risk, and, if risking the best parts of me is necessary to find you, to have you, to love you and be loved by you, then it’s something i’ll learn to do.

[iceland] we're just living in it.

so much of iceland feels like we've left earth behind.

maybe that's partly to do with the fact that we're on holiday and we're in a new country and we're all feeling pretty suspended from reality — like, there's work back in the states and future summer plans and to-do lists, but we're here, driving around this country of unworldly beauty in a camper van.

when i think about it later, i think, did that really happen, did we really do that, or was it just a dream?

and i think, can i go back to that dream?

i can't believe that, a week ago, i was in iceland.

mars-02.jpg

my little cousin carries a thermos of hot cocoa around with her at all times. at first, we fill it with ghirardelli's my aunt brought from the states, but we run out of that, so we buy hot cocoa when we're buying eggs and milk and apples. (we eat a lot of apples and bananas in iceland. and tomatoes. tomatoes are freaking good in iceland.) we buy giant tins of swiss miss because that's what we can find and we decide that the giant tin is more economical than a box of 10 envelopes, and that turns out to be accurate because it's a sizable thermos, and we also drink hot cocoa out of cups for breakfast and dinner sometimes.

we finish 2 giant tins of swiss miss in roughly a week.

my aunt also buys cartons and cartons of almond milk, and, when she and my uncle and cousin return to the states a week before we do, she leaves behind five cartons, tasking my cousins with drinking it all. we cook oatmeal with it in the mornings, but the rest is left to my little cousin, who chugs it with toast, with lunch, with rice mixed with beef and eggs.

the middle cousin and i prefer cow milk instead.

but, anyway, the point was that my little cousin carries a thermos of hot cocoa around with her at all times, even when we're hiking up and down mountains or walking through alien landscapes smoking sulfuric smells. she'll carry the hot cocoa, though she'll hand her jacket over to me when she gets hot, and i get used to tying discarded jackets around my waist.

luckily, she shares the hot cocoa. the little one doesn't need sugar to make herself giddy. she comes naturally charged that way.

sometimes, i think it must be weird to know a writer who'll turn you into a character in the stories she tells. it must be strange to come across something and find yourself so casually mentioned, to find yourself a character in someone else's life, in someone else's story, which, i suppose, we all are, really — we're all characters in other people's lives.

we can't control what people think of us, how they perceive us, what they believe about us. we can't control how they interpret our actions or the insecurities they project onto us. we can't control how they try to place us within the narratives of their own lives.

and i think that's something i've learned to let go of over the last few years. instead, i've been turning it around to the realization that, while i can't control how someone considers me, i can control how she/he/they make me feel. that kind of power is not something i have to hand over to someone, and it is not something anyone deserves or is entitled to.

similarly, i can't control how people feel about me. i can try and make the effort to put my best foot forward and to be the best person i can be, but, ultimately, i can't control how someone decides to react personally to me and my actions.

this, too, is something i've been learning about communication — that it requires us to go in these roundabout loops sometimes, where our intentions and meanings get lost and twisted and lock us in frustrating back-and-forths in the hopes of reaching a point of understanding. when i was a child, i hated this, thought it was wasted breath and effort, trying to get people (namely my parents) to understand. now, though, i think it's a struggle worth engaging in, especially when the relationship means something to you and has value and is worth preserving.

i mean, no one says interpersonal relationships are easy.

as it turns out, i like talking. i like engaging. as it turns out, i'm not as much an introvert (or misanthrope) at my core as i thought i was. as it turns out, i like people. i kinda like people a whole lot.
 

one of my favorite things about iceland is the midnight sun. i love that there is light at all times, that it looks like blue hour from 11:30 pm to 5 am.

we fall into a routine of sleeping late and waking late, and we usually leave campgrounds around 11:30 am, maybe noon. we don't worry about this, though, don't follow a schedule obsessively, because the point is to enjoy the country, not stress out over things we might be missing because we're in such a hurry.

there's the midnight sun, too, the fact that there is always light, so we don't need to worry about making it from one campground to the next before dark. we don't need to worry about getting stuck in the mountains or along a fjord or in the middle of nowhere, not even a tiny town nearby, before dark. we don't need to worry about a whole lot — or, at least, i don't worry about a whole lot.

the thing i do worry about, though, is the state of our tires, and, one morning, i go to the bathroom to wash up and am walking back to our van when i notice that our left rear tire has deflated overnight. i think, oh shit, it happened, and i think, oh shit, even more because i know that, while we have a spare tire, we have neither the tools nor the knowledge to change our tire.

i wake the eldest up, and we go to the hotel down the hill to ask if there's a tire place nearby. the receptionist is professional but unhelpful, telling us the nearest person is about a 10-minute drive away — and our tire is too low to drive on gravel roads without risking damage to the rim.

we're standing at the counter, frustrated and concerned because we have a ferry to catch and it'll take hours for roadside assistance to get to us. as we consider cancelling the ferry and just hiking around the area and finding a hot spring while we wait, a man comes up to us and says he thinks he has tools in his car — if he does, he'd be happy to help us out.

i think one of the things traveling teaches you is about the kindness of strangers.

sometimes, it's a big kindness, like taking time out of your morning, out of your trip, to help strangers change the tire on their car because you overheard them talking to the receptionist, and you overheard her saying it'd probably be four hours before help could reach them.

sometimes, it's a small kindness, like stepping in when you see a stupid foreigner (aka me) at a market, mumbling about wanting milk but not being able to read the labels, intervening when you see her reaching for something that is not milk and pointing her to the right cartons, explaining that the blue carton is thicker milk and the yellow carton is thinner milk. sometimes, it's stopping to offer help with directions or to offer to take a group photo.

and you learn not only to receive such kindnesses with grace and thanks but also to offer it. i think that's always something nice to be reminded of, this notion of paying it forward, that we should strive to give back at least as much as we have received.

and i'm constantly encouraged to see this in the literary community, in the support we try to show each other, whether by reading each other's work, sharing each other's work, or simply offering comfort and support and encouragement when it's needed. i'm not saying this is something exclusive or unique to the literary community, simply that this is the community i know and and participate in and love, that i am lucky enough to find myself in a community, particularly of asian-american women writers, that is warm and invested and supportive. it's a wonderful thing and not something i take for granted.

the eldest explains that the black sand is from lava that's cooled, become rock, and has been broken down into sand. the eldest has a lot of explanations for things, so we start asking her everything, like, how long do sheep live? and how many babies do sheep have? and do only male sheep have horns?

we have a lot of questions about sheep because we really like the sheep.

at one point on the eastern coast, there is a beach where chunks of glaciers sometimes maroon themselves while on their way out to sea. it's called a diamond beach because some of the glaciers break down into smaller bits and scatter themselves on the black sand beach, so they look like (surprise, surprise) diamonds.

the little one picks up a chunk of ice and cradles it in her arms, licking it to taste it. the middle one is like, ew, why would you do that, that was on the ground — but, then, i lick it, too, because i want to taste it. it tastes like clean water, and i could keep licking away at it like a popsicle if it weren't weird to be standing in the middle of a beach, holding a chunk of glacier in my arms.

black sand feels softer and finer than regular sand. it feels denser, too, and it's easier to walk on because i sink less, don't feel the ground slipping away from under my feet and filtering unpleasantly into my shoes. i prefer how dramatic black sand looks, too, like the blackness, the  origins, the relative rareness of it.

i like how it contrasts against the vivid blue of icelandic waters.

bluelagoon-01.jpg

we do the tourist thing and go to the blue lagoon, and we have a repeat at the baths at myvatn in north iceland.

the water is that otherworldly blue, which the eldest explains is a result of the silica content in the water, and we go gasping from the changing room, in 6-degrees celsius weather, into the hot water. we sink into it with relief, feel our bodies melting and relaxing, and we go wading around (the water isn't deep; when i stand, it maybe comes up to my waist), only our heads floating above that blue.

we're told not to put our hair in the water because the sulfur is bad for hair, so we tie our hair in buns on top of our heads. the middle plunges his head into the water anyway, and the little one follows suit, and she marvels over the smoothness of her skin but the roughness of her hair the next day.

we get really close on this trip. we shower in the communal, public shower, and i think, wow, i haven't seen so many naked bodies since i was in korea in 2012.

i think, hey, it's nothing to be so weird about. a body is just a body. my body is just a body.

after the baths at myvatn, we drive to the campground nearby. it's past midnight when we get there, and the campground is packed because it's in a beautiful location, right by water. my aunt and uncle and cousin will be leaving us early in the morning to drive back to reykjavik to catch their afternoon flight back to the states, and we're all washed and clean and happy from the baths, so we decided to make ramyeon outside.

we're the only ones awake, and there are tents pitched near our table, so we talk in whispers while we wait for the water to boil. we cook two packets first and eat them, cook a third when my aunt and uncle walk over. they don't want any, though, so we eat the third ourselves.

it's one am, and we're sitting at this table on a campground by water in north iceland, and it's bright out, no need for flashlights or headlights or lamps. the sky is pink and blue, and the clouds look like cotton candy, and i think, god, this is such a dream world, and, god, how is this real. i think, god damn, how lucky i am to be alive.

[iceland] eat the world to learn the world.

okay, this title is a little disingenuous. we cook more than we eat out in iceland.

i take a v60 filter, a hand grinder, and a baby cast iron and fish spatula (and apron) with me to iceland. the v60 is one that doesn’t require paper filters, and we use it pretty much every day because we’re coffee drinkers and we need coffee all day. i use the baby cast iron to fry eggs, make grilled cheeses, cook bacon, and i scrub it with salt and a wet paper towel and don’t really give a shit because it’s cast iron — it’s meant to be worn, to be beat up, because it’s built ti withstand shit.

that makes me think about bodies, about fear and a love for speed because i love to drive fast, and i love the exhilaration and adrenaline rush that comes from it. on our last night in iceland, we go for a midnight ATV ride and we drive up and down rocky mountain paths, up and down zig-zag, potholed roads, and i feel my body tensing each time, afraid of being flung off the ATV or whatever.

i tell myself to relax, to trust the machine, to trust my body. i tell myself to let go.

in iceland, i watch my cousins go scampering up and down rocks and mountain paths made slippery by water and/or gravel without fear, and i envy them that. it’s not the fearlessness that i envy, but the ease they have with their bodies, the faith they have in the strength and ability of their bodies. i grew up hating my body, wanting to disappear it, despising it for its size and weight and heft, and i never felt that lightness my cousins seem to have, flying down these paths like their bodies are made of air, like they’re unbreakable and light and free.

it’s only recently that my body has started to feel less cumbersome. part of it is that i've physically lost weight, not intentionally but more consequentially, but most of it is that i've ceased to see it exclusively as a burden, as something to be rendered invisible.

that's not to say that i'm suddenly free of the body dysmorphia and body hatred that i've carried for most of my life. i still struggle with my body, and i still struggle with eating, with food, with limitations. it's been a learning curve, learning to trust my body, to listen to its needs, to know that my body will tell me when it's hungry, what it's craving, what those cravings mean. my body will tell me when my sugar is about to drop or spike, when it's dehydrated, when it's exhausted and needs to stop and rest. similarly, my body will lean the way it needs when i take a turn on my ATV; it will support me as i scramble up rocks after my cousins; and it is capable of so much more than i think it is. maybe i should trust it more and let go.

my aunt packs two giant duffel bags of food and brings them with her. she's made a ton of 장조림 (jang-jo-reem, braised beef cubes, served cold) and 고추장보끔 (go-chu-jang-bo-kkeum, sautéed red pepper paste with beef and mushrooms), and she brings kimchi — yes, kimchi — and rice and so many packages of ramyeon.

when my aunt and uncle leave, it's on me to feed everyone. it's not like i've been assigned this task; it's simply one i like to assume because i like food and i like to cook and i like to feed people.

i cook a giant pot of spaghetti, using spaghetti sauce from a jar, something i haven't done in years, something i won't do again unless i have to. (i love terrible pre-packaged food, but spaghetti sauce is not on that list.) i make it with onions and mushrooms and steak meat, left over from when my aunt makes 김치찌개 (kimchi jjigae, kimchi stew), and i cook two boxes of spaghetti noodles at one time, rinse them off, and stuff them into sandwich ziploc bags. we eat cold spaghetti for meals the next few days; we eat it hot when we have a kitchen in a hostel.

when i cook rice, i place eggs on top of the rice, and we peel them in the car, leave the shells in the emptying cartons. on windy, rainy days, we set up our burner stove on our table in our camper van and cook ramyeon, and we eat it directly out of the pot, adding cold rice when the noodles run out. in the mornings, we boil water in a pot, pour it into mugs for coffee and hot chocolate, and my little cousin becomes an expert at balancing the v60 over the narrow mouth of our thermoses. i make grilled cheeses on my cast iron; we hand around a container of skyr; and we end up eating the entire pound of smjör butter over our two weeks, smearing it on slices of sourdough rounds we buy in bakeries in reykjavik and akureyri.

for lunch, we make sandwiches in the van, and i smear mayo on a slice of sandwich bread, top it with a slice of gouda and some sandwich meat. we eat our sandwiches with these norwegian chips i immediately get obsessed with, buying another bag in another flavor every time i run out (ultimately, we eat 4 bags of these chips). when we do eat out, we look for fish because the fish in iceland is so good; we eat fish and chips three times. i eat lamb kebabs twice.

and, then, i eat a lot — and i mean, a lot — of hot dogs.

i eat a lot of hot dogs in iceland. here's a small sampling.

icelandic hot dogs have a snap to them that american hot dogs don't, and they're made with more lamb than they are beef, which isn't a surprise given that sheep outnumber humans 2:1. they're served in soft buns with ketchup, mayo, icelandic mustard, fried onions, and raw onions, and they are delicious indeed, not too salty and delightfully balanced.

when we arrive in stykkisholmur, off the ferry from brjanslaekur, we stop by a hot dog truck that crumbles up doritos and creates variations on the hot dog using them.

maybe it sounds disgusting and horrifying, but they're great — crumbled up doritos add a nice crunch and a subtle flavoring — and i think maybe it works because doritos in iceland are also less saltier, less intensely flavored than they are stateside. (of course, i tried doritos in iceland.)

and it’s funny because my cousins don’t know what to make of my fascination with shitty processed food. hot dogs are one thing, and spam is another (one of my cousins tries spam for the first time ever in iceland) (my aunt brings spam), but my little cousin in particular can’t seem to wrap her head around my love for really, really shitty instant mac n cheese, especially given how much i love to cook and love good food.

my father finds this weird, too, wonders at my love for cheap, greasy street tacos, but i don’t know — some foods are meant to be cheap and disgusting, and, as much as i love gourmet mac and cheese, i do love the instant shit that coagulates and turns a questionable shade of almost green as it cools. 

… that sounds more disgusting and horrifying than doritos crumbled onto a hot dog, doesn’t it? i love it, anyway. i don’t like gourmet tacos, though. tacos should be greasy and cheap and simple.

when i travel, i allow myself one fancy dinner, and, in iceland, i make a reservation at resto. here are notes.

the seafood soup is delectable, creamy but not heavy; i could eat a giant bowl of this. i eat goose for the first time, and the server tells me to be careful of any remains of shotgun pellets, which is something that alarms me after i've cleared my plate, thoughtfully chewing the goose and wondering what i think of it, if i like it. (i'm not sure that i like goose.) when i'm thinking about goose while waiting for the next course, i think there's something nice about that note of caution, that, as consumers, as eaters, we should remember that food comes from somewhere, that it doesn't simply come prepared on our plates. animals are slaughtered for our meat; people labor for our produce; and it's too easy to forget the cost involved.

next is a hand pie, hot and crispy on the outside, warm and rich on the inside. i don't eat the olives because i'm still not an olive-eater (i'm not the keenest on briny flavors), but i love the bitter crunch of what i want to call radish but am fairly sure isn't radish. i don't know as much about food as i wish i did, and i'm clearly a terrible note-taker.

the main course is langoustine, which is something i've never heard of. the tiny lobster tails make me wonder, "did the dish come with lobster?" because the body of the langoustine has a soft, fish-like texture. the tails, too, are more fish-like than lobster-like in texture, but, as it goes, a langoustine is a norway lobster, and it's smaller than typical lobsters.

and then for dessert, there’s ice cream — or, at least, ice cream is the dessert i pick. by then, it’s late, almost eleven pm, and i’m exhausted because i have my fancy meal my first night in iceland, and i’ve barely slept, so i’m thinking dessert will be kind of whatever. it’s fig ice cream, though, and it. is. so. good. i don’t know why i had doubts about dessert after the fabulous tasting menu that preceded it.

resto gets a thumbs-up from me. thanks to my friend for recommending it!