019 - What I can't forget

This weekend was amazing and little overwhelming, but before I write a long post about how "inspired" and "uplifted" and bullshit, I need to get a few things down that I can't forget.

You, by the way, being me.

1. What you see yourself as and how you fit about both once again up in the air. After friday, that part of you has degenerated, and it will be a good length of time until it fully regrows. Watch the progression, help it, coax it, but never forget that you will never entirely fit anywhere no matter what labels you affix or how much you buy into the mainstream.

2. You are a black sheep in a larger family but there are other black sheep like yourself. Seek them out and you will be rewarded.

That sounded like a fortune cookie.

3. Your family is there for you. You just need to be there for them.

4. Keep writing. It's the only thing that will entirely keep you sane from here on out. And never forget that you are a decent writer...if not good, you are at least decent.

Alright. The weekend.

I arrived at this APIA Spoken Word/Poetry Summit expecting the usual highly structured three day meeting spot I'm used to. I was looking forward to meeting, greeting, and then eventually getting to know the poets and artists and poet artists who I expected to be there, going home, end of story.

Instead I got a free flowing experience and existential crash course on who I am and how the way I express who I am have implications for who I will become.

Writing was my thing from grade 3 onward until I hit college last September and it just ended. Along with my grasp on what Asian America is and along with my faith in the system, I lost the will to write and I lost the ability to write. Even my girlfriend Xanga and I fell out of touch and eventually we parted ways, me moving onto Blogger for the occasional rant and her just sitting on the interweb for Google and Yahoo! searchbot and destroy. How could I get out my own inhibitions? My own vices? Ever since I saw zero3 perform at Manazanar at age 13, I found words to be my best defense against myself. Words became an outlet to the anger I could not explain nor control, anger I've felt grow since I first read Uchida's "Journey To Topaz" back when juice boxes were still in style.

And then college took that away from me. I wrote a piece this semester because April was on the coordinating team for a campus APA spoken word showcase and needing performers, she called on her activist boyfriend to perform. I couldn't exactly say no. The piece was written in two days and was about generational silence and how it effects the silent's children. I wasn't satisfied with it, but it was something...and then I went back to not writing.

Then I found an e-mail in my inbox about this summit. Having suffered bullshit casualties this summer, I decided that the 30 bucks in transportation I'd have to spend would be a good pat on the back for bearing with it. So I went to the first showcase on friday...and was blown away. The performances were amazing and I sat spellbound...and found myself in a completely different place.

One girl, a Japanese-Canadian yonsei not unlike myself, spoke about her inability to feel like she belonged in Canada because she was "Japanese" but her inability to feel like she belonged in Japanese because she was Canadian. It was during this piece that I realized...that in the past year, I have lost my sense of self. I am a fourth generation Japanese American and I feel comfortable in both countries, my Japanese good enough to pass for a countryman at first glance and my English fluent. I've slowly realized that I am different than the other Yonsei and it didn't occur to me until last night that because of this slow realization after being on the west coast for this year, I have completely lost who I am. I used to take immense pride in knowing who I am, but now I'm not sure.

I left the performance...in awe. I wrote until 3 that night, spitting out a piece unlike anything I've written before. Personally, I love it. I love it even moreso than my prose, and I've never felt any affection for my work.

The next two days were amazing, and I felt a real sense of community and family. It's impossible to describe how it felt on a blog. I probably could if I really tried but I've been awake for far too long and I can't think straight right now, unfortunately. If you haven't noticed, the sentences have been running on down the page like egg yolk.

So I'm going to end this here. Maybe I'll pick it up later, maybe I won't.

I will, however, eventually finish my Japan log. That I want to do.

For now though. Peace.

Oh. And I'm actually using my myspace. It's weird.