“I don’t know why you say, ‘Goodbye,’ I say, ‘Hello, hello, hello.’”
The Beatles
Please excuse the MIA status since September. The past three months have been a blur of job applications, interviews, birthdays (mine and my sister’s), and the usual curveballs that life presents itself with. Days feel monotonous in their routines revolved around work, yet they slip by so fast that the year is already coming to an end. Leading up to the holiday rush, I had a quiet and chaotic season of saying hello to autumn and goodbye to a friend.
My late friend Emily had a gift for connecting with anyone she met. As a legal recruiter placing lawyers in major firms, she embodied the opposite of the stereotypically serious and stern law world. She was bright, inviting, and endlessly warm. She lived by her philosophy: open yourself wide and let people surprise you. I was one of those lucky ones drafted by her spontaneous “recruiting” when we first met three summers ago.
She approached me in the locker room of our local swimming pool after seeing a climbing sticker on my water bottle, and we hit it off instantly. It’s not common to meet someone who shares the same interests in a city as busy and lonely as New York, but finding a friend willing to join me in the masochistic routine of waking up at the crack of dawn for 6:30 a.m. lap swim made our friendship even more special. We understood each other in ways that other people might think odd or crazy–we were both fitness fanatics who always pushed ourselves too hard, the type to lose things because we got distracted, and people who would choose a walk in the park or a hike Upstate over anything else.
We talked about everything: our struggles as working women, complicated dating situations, and annoying office politics over coffee after a swim, wine in her cozy apartment down the street from me, or a hike in Cold Spring. She made me feel optimistic about adult friendships because making friends gets harder as you get older.
When a text notification from Emily popped up on my phone a couple of weeks ago, I assumed it was her telling me she was back home for Thanksgiving from Brazil. She had recently bought a place in Sao Paulo and spent part of the year there to escape the cold in New York. But instead, the message was from her mother letting me know that Emily passed away from a rare autoimmune disease. I was completely shaken and stunned. The words didn’t make sense. I reread them over and over as my head kept reeling and denying what I was seeing. I couldn’t reconcile the idea that my friend, someone so vibrant and alive, was gone. No more voicemails saying, “Hey! Just rang you to check in,” or the excited “Tell me!” during our catch-ups.
My sister and I went to her funeral a few days later. People from every facet of her life was there–family and friends from New York and colleagues from her global travels. She had a well-stamped passport and a heart that was even more expansive–from the Atacama Desert in Chile to the Patagonia mountains in Argentina to Africa. She never hesitated to go somewhere new and made friends wherever she went including the airport. She was adventurous and fearless yet tender and innocent.
The grief hits in waves. I still feel the huge void she has left behind on her departure from the world. Saying goodbye is never easy, but doing so abruptly, without preparation, is a different kind of heartbreak I never thought I would experience. This season of grief reminds me of Picasso’s Blue Period paintings that were inspired by losing his best friend.
But the color palette of my grieving has been the opposite of blues–a range of autumnal tones of yellow, red, and brown. This Thanksgiving Day, I took a long walk around Central Park, exactly how Emily would have spent the holiday–fitting in some movement before the feast. The warm sunlight, the colorful foliage, and the crisp leaves on the ground felt like her saying hello from above. Emily adored what the city and nature had to offer and would have appreciated these snapshots of autumn in New York.
Good bye, friend. May your memory be a blessing. I will carry you with me always. Love you, and miss you dearly.
I recently learned that ginko means bank in Japanese–golden and prosperous, just like these leaves.From the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir loop I frequent in Central Park.
Autumn in Harlem, my (and Emily’s) neighborhood, has its own charm. Sharing some highlights from my photo archive I’ve been curating since the moment I saw the leaves start changing colors.
And some snippets from our Thanksgiving table…
A beautiful floral arrangement by my sister Eunice aka. the Martha Stewart of the family.My family opts for a roast chicken instead of turkey. Why go through the trouble of basting a whole turkey for a micro-family of three women?A piece of the roast chicken accompanied by green beans, veggies cooked under the chicken, stuffing from a box (the best kind–we swear by it), and a bed of mashed potatoes covered in gravy and sprinkled with pomegranate seeds.
August is the final stretch of summer. While many people go on last-minute vacations before school starts, I stayed local, and it turned out to be a packed month in New York.
Be Our Guest
My sister and I hosted a friend visiting from Atlanta for a weekend, which was the perfect excuse to play tourists and indulge in the city’s food scenes.
High tea at the Morgan Library Cafe.A meal to remember at Elio’s.
Tennis, Tennis, Tennis
This month I’ve been especially dialed into my tennis game. We’ve been blessed with great weather for playing tennis the past few weeks. I play with my sister on the weekends or a group I joined through the Central Park Tennis program on Monday and Tuesday evenings. It took me two years of learning the sport to find a group of consistent hitting partners. Tennis comes with challenges beyond the court, one of the biggest being simply finding someone at your level who’s committed to playing together. I’m grateful to have found my tennis group here in the city.
Central Park Tennis Courts, my home base for weekly matches ;).
Not only I’ve been playing tennis, I also got to watch greatness up close at the US Open Fan Week. My sister and I opted for Fan Week instead of the main draw–free entry and smaller crowds. We explored the big stadiums, picked up some merch, and tried the famous Honey Deuce cocktail (worth the hype). Seeing the precision, power, and dedication of pros preparing for one of the biggest tournaments of the year (they’re called Grand Slams in the tennis world) was inspiring.
Novak Djokovic the GOAT.Coco Gauff, one of my favorites.Jessica Pegula, another favorite–last year’s finalist.Honey Deuce.
Art
Outside of tennis, I fit in some cultural time too. At the beginning of the month, my mom and I went to the Whitney’s Free Friday Night to see Amy Sherald’s exhibit. We were mesmerized by Sherald’s bold use of color and reimagined takes on Americana–centering African Americans as the main subjects.
Mom at the Whitney.By Amy Sherald.Michelle Obama portrait by Amy Sherald.By Amy Sherald. Loved the teal. By Amy Sherald.
Later in the month, I took a Wednesday off to check out the reopened Frick Collection. The last time I was there was 16 years ago when I visited New York as a high schooler from Georgia with my church youth group. I was disappointed this time–the staff were chilly, and the art struck me as more of an ostentatious display of wealth than an invitation into beauty.
The Frick’s Garden Court.
A Solo Picnic
At my sister suggestion, I went picnicking in Central Park one evening. She saw some single guys hanging out after work, but spoiler–I didn’t meet anyone. But I found a sense of empowerment in going outside to read a book and enjoy a simple girl dinner just because I wanted to. As a single woman, there’s a certain freedom in these small acts, without obligations to anyone else’s schedule.
August was well spent out and about in New York, the city I’ve been calling my home for 6 years (I recently celebrated my sixth anniversary of living here!).
Hello, friends. With July wrapping up, it’s getting closer to the end of summer. A lot happened this month for me. Let me tell you about it.
At the beginning of the month, my family and I went on a roadtrip from New York City to Atlanta and back. It was more of a business trip than a leisurely one. Our mom needed to retrieve belongings from storage in Atlanta and transport them to her new home in New York. As her daughters, my sister Eunice and I went down with her to help clear out the unit. We brought along our senior dog Ina, inadvertently sparing her from the terrors of Fourth of July fireworks (for those unfamiliar with dogs, they absolutely detest them).
Ina, our 13-year-old 20-pound Chihuahua mix, likes to rest her front paws on the center console compartment for some pats and attention on car rides. She’s become a seasoned travel companion over the years–whether flying or driving, she’s always ready to go. Good girl~
It takes about 14 to 15 hours (with breaks) from New York to Atlanta by car. The first night we drove through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, and Virginia (which took the longest) via I-81. Every time I drive through states, I am reminded of how infinitely vast America is. Most of the country is rural, with farmland, gas stations, and Walmarts.
Mom, the primary driver, underestimated how pitch-black the roads get at night and eventually surrendered. My sister and I quickly found a Red Roof in the middle of nowhere–a mountain town of Virginia called Hillsville. I won’t forget the view of the windshield that night: the dark, mighty mountains looming in front of us made me feel small.
We made it to Atlanta the next day. We stayed at a lovely Marriott tucked away in the peaceful, wooded suburb of Decatur–like a quiet forest from a fairytale. Coming from New York, we appreciated the fresh air and calm of Georgia, among many things we took for granted when we lived there.
Over the course of two days, we sweated our asses off clearing out the storage and sorting items to ship or squeeze into our car. We didn’t have much time to relax, but we did our best to simulate a vacation by swimming at the outdoor pool under the night sky and sipping cocktails at the hotel bar.
Sunbathing and reading on my Kindle by the pool.Peach Margarita with complimentary kettle potato chips – courtesy of George the bartender.
After the trip, I mentally checked out and became a paradoxical recluse. For a couple of weeks I didn’t reach out to anyone to hang out, yet I wanted to talk. I kept my social activities to phone calls with some long-distance friends. I am currently rereading Crime and Punishment–which, coincidentally, begins in July–and Dostoyevsky describes my dilemma perfectly through the protagonist, Raskolnikov:
“Raskolnikov was not accustomed to crowds and, as we have already said, had been avoiding all forms of society, particularly of late. Now, however, he had a sudden longing for company. Something new seemed to be accomplishing itself within him, and one of the things that went with it was a kind of craving for people.”
One Saturday, I made no plans and stayed home to recharge. It was the perfect day of solitude. I had the entire day to myself. I slept in (as long as Ina allowed before pestering me for food). In the afternoon, I took Ina on a long walk to the park across from our apartment, which turned into an impromptu birdwatching session.
There’s nothing extraordinary about finding birds in the park because they are part of nature. But it was fun to look up what species I encountered by Googling their physical traits (e.g. “gray bird with white-trimmed tail”). A slow Saturday turned into an Audubon expedition. Here are the birds I spotted that day (Eri, if you are reading this, you may want to skip ahead!):
An Eastern Kingbird perched on a branch of a London Plane tree. It’s expected to migrate to South America in the winter.Three European Starlings. They move in groups.A Mourning Dove foraging on the ground. Bon appétit!An American Robin, characterized by its rusty-orange chest and dark gray back, symbolizes renewal and new beginnings. I’m counting on this one as my lucky charm for a new job.
After the walk, I came home, made myself dinner, and worked on a painting that I started months ago. A peaceful self-care day… until just before midnight, when I got a text from my tennis instructor canceling our private session the next morning. He had made me pay in advance and claimed to have injured his ankle. I’d always been skeptical of his upfront payment policy, but because he was affiliated with an established tennis program where we met, I gave him the benefit of the doubt.
And so began my battle to get a refund. He wouldn’t give my money back right away when I asked him to. The whole experience was rather bizarre and more stressful than it needed to be. It also deepened my reluctance to trust people.
As an introvert, I’m naturally comfortable being alone. But I know that I need connection for my own health and well-being. A part of me wants to reach out, but I’m also afraid of being disappointed or taken advantage of. As I grow older, I’ve found that life gets harder not because of compounded responsibilities. It gets harder because genuine relationships are rarer, and maintaining them, even more so.
I have barely two days left to write a monthly newsletter before June closes. The month flew by!
School is officially out–fun and relaxation for kids, but stress for parents trying to keep them busy and entertained. As children of an immigrant, my sister and I dreaded summer breaks because we couldn’t afford a private swimming pool or sleepaway camps. Our mom only approved of church-sponsored trips or made us do reading and math workbooks at home. Summer meant utter boredom. Now as a working adult, I get to reclaim the fun summers I didn’t have–traveling and partaking in sports (both as a spectator and a player). It’s Brat summer for me, baby!
At the beginning of the month, I went on a day trip with a friend to Boston where I went to college. It rained torrentially, making it tricky to hop from one destination to the next. Given it was a day trip, we were on a time crunch with a train to catch at 7:55 PM sharp–spoiler alert: we missed the last New York-bound train of the night (we ended up taking a bus instead). Still, we managed to stop by James Hook & Co. for yummy lobster rolls and clam chowder that you can only get in New England, the Public Library where I used to lock myself in during midterms and finals, a queer bar near Copley for a pint of beer, Boston Common, Quincy Market, and the North End for Italian desserts. Despite the melodramatic weather and finale, the trip made me nostalgic of my undergraduate days.
They taste better in Boston. Cobblestone streets and alleys make up Boston’s historic charm.Courtyard of the Boston Public Library (aka BPL).Boston Common: willow trees and concentric rings on the pond amplify the drama of the rain.Shh, the Bates Hall inside the BPL.
On Juneteenth, my friend invited me and her parents to a soccer game between Brazil’s Palmeiras and Egypt’s Al Ahly in New Jersey. It was my first time at MetLife and my first World Cup game. It was scorching–I got sunburnt. Midway through the second half, the game had to pause due to thunderstorms, so we sheltered in the hallways until it was cleared for safety. Thanks to our support, the Palmeiras won by 2-0 (they are leading the group as I write this). As we were walking out of the stadium, the clouds unleashed all the rains they were holding onto–they fell heavily, leaving us completely drenched (I thought of Hilary Duff’s Come Clean music video). I did not appreciate sitting on the bus back to the city with a wet bottom and underwear.
This month, I also started a six-week tennis group class on Thursday evenings. I prefer lessons over hitting against a wall or playing casually because tennis is a technical sport—proper guidance and coaching make improvement much more efficient. As a former competitive swimmer, I love learning a new sport and building technique. Hitting a tennis ball with my racquet has become one of my stress relievers—imagining the ball as my enemy’s face helps generate more power.
Riverside Hard Courts are my favorite tennis court in NYC.
I relish and savor summers in New York—perhaps more than I ever did—because I now have the freedom to choose exactly how I spend my time. I’m taking advantage of the warmth and longer days by playing as much tennis as the weather allows.
It’s been a rainy week in New York. I used to dread the rain growing up in Georgia because I often had to walk home from school carrying a heavy backpack and a giant art portfolio–one of the struggles of having immigrant parents who couldn’t give their kids rides.
Now as an adult I’ve come to appreciate it more–I relish the comfort that comes from watching raindrops fall and create ripples on puddles from inside. Plus, rain waters the earth and subdues the pollen, which I don’t mind because the spring allergies are hitting me harder this year.
The rainy week began with a visit to the New York Botanical Garden with a friend on Sunday. We almost canceled due to the forecast—rain was expected when we planned to be at the garden—but we went anyway. We talked and walked nonchalantly through the grand estate. My friend said something that keeps echoing in my mind: responding radically to an increasingly isolating and individualistic society. Her radical response is being part of communal living. That got me thinking about my way of challenging the norm and being “rad”—I started blogging again instead of oversharing on social media. After all, living is not a solo act but a dance between self and others.
We ended our tour at the Native Plant Garden where we saw a duck sitting by the water fountain. It was so still and steady like an object that I had to come up close to check if it was real—indeed it was, alive and wondrous. Steady as this bird, rocks, and the rain. It reminded me of a song by Dolly Parton in her Bluegrass album The Grass is Blue that goes, “Steady as the rain they fall/ And my tears keep falling down / As steady the rain.” Ingenious. I highly recommend the whole album, one of my all-time favorites by Dolly. [Cue angelic chorus with light beams shooting out from Dolly the Saint]
It’s raining again as I finish writing this newsletter. Later today I will be going to my mom’s new apartment in Sunnyside, a quaint and charming neighborhood in Queens. It’s full of delicious food spots—we’re eating our way through them. I will write separately about the food scenes of Queens. Soon I will be celebrating my sixth year of living in New York, yet I still feel new to this colorful, vibrant, and strange city.
Perhaps that’s what this season is teaching me—how to stay steady like the rain in a city that never stops moving (for the most part).
What I’ve been reading and listening to lately…
Book: QualityLand by Marc-Uwe Kling for the Human Code, an AI book club that I launched at the beginning of the year. It’s a quirky dystopian satire that pokes fun at overconsumption and Capitalism–Pixar’s Wall-E meets Kurt Vonnegut. A Bong Joon-ho film adaptation, maybe?
Music: A self-curated Spotify playlist called Spring 25 that consists of Jazz, Pop, and Baroque (hello, Vivaldi and Bach!). I don’t have a scientific explanation for how Bach and Billie Eilish made it in the same place.
Podcast: Hidden Brain just finished a series called Relationships 2.0, which includes an episode on romantic love–mainly how to stay in love.
After a few dormant years, this blog has been dusted off and reopened for a fresh start. The timing couldn’t be more fitting. It coincides metaphorically with the beginning of spring, a season of waking up from hibernation, seedlings emerging, flowers blooming, and petals falling amid rainy gusts. Spring is also a time for organizing closets, swapping winter coats for lighter jackets, and deep-cleaning homes. Though, with temperatures still hovering in the 40s Fahrenheit, my puffer jacket won’t be packed away just yet.
I know it’s April in New York when I resume my evening runs in Central Park. I used to run in all weather, but now I don’t entertain outdoor runs unless it’s at least 60 degrees–I’ve decided to be kinder to myself. I went for my first post-work outdoor run of the year yesterday. My route starts near my home in Harlem and loops around the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir–totaling about 4 miles. It was windy and overcast, so I was glad I’d worn a vest over my quarter-zip top (I can’t afford to get sick). Many other runners and strollers in the park were also savoring the longer daylight. I listened to First Love/ Late Spring by Mitski on my spring playlist–it gives off emo-millennial-girl vibes (IYKYK).
from a bridge connecting to and from the reservoir path on its northern side
It’s Spring 2025. I originally started blogging here in 2020 when I was responding to COVID-19 in NYC. It was my way of documenting a historic moment as an epidemiologist and coping with the isolation through writing. My last post was in February 2022–clearly, my blogging is inconsistent. So why relaunch with a rebrand?
The blogging idea resurfaced after realizing how much time I’d spent numbing myself through endless scrolling on social media. Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), LinkedIn have become spaces where people casually overshare things they haven’t fully thought through. I considered deleting them altogether, but my sister came up with a brilliant alternative–returning to blogging and publishing newsletters where I could be intentional about what and how I share my thoughts. I owe the revival of this blog to my sister. Thanks, sis!
Formerly called NYC Epidemiologist Writes, this blog was initially intended to share professional insights as a public health professional in New York. However, I often caught up in perfectionism and self-criticism about my writing. I’ve learned over the years that the only way to become a better writer is to simply write. Blogging will keep me accountable. My plan is to publish monthly newsletters covering whatever I’ve been working on or thinking about a lot.
As I brainstormed the direction for the rebrand, I asked myself if I should focus on my career in epi and data, or book/movie critiques. I realized I don’t have just one passion–I have many. I thought of a Renaissance woman who embodies and excels in diverse fields–art, intellect, music, languages, etc. My college Shakespeare lit professor once called me a Renaissance woman, and I currently live in Harlem, a place for its own Renaissance. That’s how the Renaissance Woman was born.
I have a post draft about my love-hate relationship with tennis. I’ll also share my landscape painting series portraying the eerily beautiful Jeju Island of Korea where I visited two years ago. I keep myself busy, if you haven’t noticed!
I never knew the difference between snow and freezing rain before today. When I took my dog out in the morning, it was neither snowing nor raining but maybe a hybrid. Instead of usual layers of opaque white dusts from snow, the ground was covered with a sheet of transparent ice.
Later in the afternoon, I took a walk around my neighborhood. It was finally sunny. As I walked, water droplets fell over me. I realized that water wasn’t rain falling from the sky but from trees that were frozen. I took a closer look at the branches. They were wrapped around with ice, as if they were glazed with glass. The icicles hanging from branches and leaves were gradually melting and shedding water.
A strong wind swept through the park, causing the branches to shake off water all at once. As I watched this sudden downpour along the trees, I could visualize a conductor swiftly waving a baton as the orchestra picks up the tempo and crescendos in a dramatic symphonic piece—bowing fast on strings and cymbals hitting. At the same time, the sunlight glimmering on glossy icicles hanging from the branches made me feel at peace. This scene in the park was a testament to Vivaldi’s Winter—thejuxtaposition between intense first movement and the serene second movement.
Out of curiosity, I Googled freezing rain. After going through a warm layer of air and melting completely, snowflakes go through a layer of freezing air but don’t have enough time to refreeze before hitting the ground. The water then refreezes on contact with any object that’s at the freezing point or below. The ice-coated tree branches I saw earlier were once snowflakes that turned into liquid then crystallized.
In the midst of tumultuous events revolved around Russia’s invasion in Ukraine and going through a rejection in my personal life, I needed this moment to reflect and appreciate the natural beauty around me. Living in a dirty metropolitan city, I have to be intentional about finding green space and reconnecting with nature. In spite of conflicts and pains, life carries on like water falls down, from snowflakes to icicles melting and dripping droplets. It’s pure and precious.
This month marks one year since the World Health Organization declared the global spread of COVID-19 as a pandemic.
On March 1, 2020, the first case of confirmed COVID was identified in NYC. Companies prepared for the looming storm and began allowing employees to work from home indefinitely. No one expected this to go on for this long, yet we survived through a year of isolation and virtual meetings. While we are finally seeing light at the end of the tunnel due to rigorous vaccination efforts, it’s hard to imagine jumping back into the old normal. The COVID world we have come to accept and live in now seems incontrovertible.
The NYC mayor and big tech companies are currently planning to reopen their offices by late spring. Employees are dreading and hesitant about resuming their commutes and working in the office for 8 hours and 5 days a week. I, for one, do not look forward to pondering what to bring for lunch the next day. COVID has turned the world around for better or worse.
I remember the morning of Monday after the news about the city’s first COVID case broke out. I headed to work. The subway was less packed than usual—some companies had already closed their offices, hence sparing noticeable space in the train. I could feel the uneasiness in the air, as if the passengers foresaw the calamity of the mysterious virus. A construction worker wearing a hard hat kept his eyes closed not because he was sleeping but rather in a meditative state. I exchanged looks with a lady standing across from me. We acknowledged each other with no words but our eyes only. We spread our feet wide and held onto the handholds to prevent falling on the moving train.
This time last year my colleagues at work had been preparing since December for the arrival of first cases in New York. They were talking about contact tracing and started pulling people in to help out with the upcoming public health emergency. Masks and gloves were reserved and prioritized for health-care workers at that time. The administrator in my office went around to put together the list of personal emails and phone numbers—for the worst case scenario. She said we as city employees were never allowed to work from home, even during 9/11. I thought to myself, “This must be really bad.” I was used to emergency preparedness by the means of fire and tornado drills at school, but the COVID outbreak might be my first time seeing the worst case scenario being manifested in real life. Unfortunately, the difference between natural disasters and COVID is that the fires and tornados come and go, while the pandemic is here to stay—and we were far better prepared for fires and tornados than for the virus.
The year under lockdown has transformed businesses, cultures, relationships, and our definitions of home and workplace (or the blurred line between the two). We have been cooking more at home and making sourdough bread from scratch. While some restaurants have leveraged by offering takeout and outdoor dining options, other business owners had to close their stores for good. I recently let go of my favorite Vietnamese place in Upper West after months of closure and no signs of reopening. I am still sad about it because they made the best lemongrass pork banh mi sandwiches. The New Yorker featured an article that examined the NYC restauranteurs trying to keep their businesses open and following the constantly changing COVID guidance during this past long and brutal winter (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/03/01/how-restaurants-survive-the-long-pandemic-winter).
COVID had an impact on our relationships. Due to social distancing, we were forced to be creative with socializing and staying connected. In terms of dating, COVID has been both a curse and a blessing. While opportunities to meet physically are sparse, people seem more upfront about having conversations about expectations (what they are looking for) and boundaries (what precautions they are willing be flexible with) right away. Couples in quarantine have been spending more time together than ever. Psychotherapist Esther Perel says it’s been a 50-50 split between breakup or more closeness among the couples in her practice during COVID.
Whether it be baking, learning to play a new song on the guitar, responding to the COVID outbreak in the city, or having a picnic with friends at the park, I have made it thus far in good health. That’s all that matters. I have been privileged to stay employed despite layoff threats last summer due to the city’s fiscal deficit. As we enter a new year of COVID, I am preparing myself optimistically yet cautiously for my return to the familiar yet strange world post-pandemic.
I put aside this post as a draft for longer than I would like to admit. I started blogging with a goal of publishing at least one post per month, but alas, three months have passed since I’ve published anything here. Today is the last day of a new year. This month we welcomed a new Administration and reached a new milestone in public health–two highly effective COVID-19 vaccines have rolled out and been distributed beyond health-care workers. Due to a second wave of COVID in NYC, I have been swamped with work that has demanded a lot of overtime, giving me a little to no headspace and leisure to write at all in the past couple of months. Despite the hectic schedule, I squeezed in some film viewing. My family and I streamed Soul on Disney+ the day after it premiered on Christmas. I enjoyed it and have been working on this critique bit by bit since.
This was the only movie I looked forward to all year long. With the theaters being temporarily closed, I’ve found it harder to stay up-to-date with movies because I usually rely on trailers in the theater for what to expect and look out for. Going to the movies was one of my regular diversions pre-COVID, and I can’t wait to get back to it once the epidemic is lifted. Until then, street posters and previews on streaming services will do.
While the movie has received a generally positive reception, it garnered unfavorable reviews concerned with its racist implications. Some audiences who were hopeful about the movie featuring a Black man as the protagonist have expressed disappointment in the human character’s transformation into a quasi-dead soul, failing to amplify the authentic voice of a minority group (https://www.tor.com/2020/07/14/representation-without-transformation-can-hollywood-stop-changing-cartoon-characters-of-color/). The dissenters have a point. More movies with people of color as leading roles that do not turn into amorphous or zoomorphic characters cannot wait. However, Pixar delivered yet again–real, relatable characters, accurate depictions of the setting, and ontological dialogues and themes that deserve more credit and praise than criticism.
*Disclaimer- spoilers beyond this point*
The movie is about a high school band teacher named Joe Gardner who loves to perform Jazz piano in Harlem of New York City. In the beginning we find him jaded after many failed auditions and barely holding his class band together. One day he meets a famous saxophonist named Dorothea Williams and dazzles her with his piano playing. Dorothea gives Joe a chance to perform with her quartet band at the Half Note Club. Joe is overjoyed and determined not to throw away his shot at redeeming his performance career. While he ecstatically calls up his friends about the good news, Joe falls into a manhole and wakes up as a soul en route to the Great Beyond—the afterlife or post-existence place of life, whichever you want to take.
He is not quite dead yet. His body is in a coma in the hospital, while his soul is pending for a subsequent life of uncertainty. Death right before getting closer to achieving one’s dream—sheer misfortune or fate? Joe refuses to leave his life behind on Earth and desperately tries to return home to make it to the gig. He accidentally lands on the Great Before where unborn souls are preparing for their lives as humans with mentors who already completed their time on Earth. Here enter Soul 22, a precocious and nihilistic being who have spent thousands of years figuring out their “spark,” the last badge along with inherent personality traits needed to debut their life as a human. Soul 22 have had many mentors including notable historical figures such as Mother Teresa, Carl Jung, Abraham Lincoln, and Marie Antoinette, but none of them succeeded in helping Soul 22 graduate from the Great Before. Joe decides to mentor Soul 22 in exchange for returning home and reuniting with his body.
Joe and Soul 22 descend from the Great Before and land in New York City. Joe wakes up to realize that his soul entered a therapy cat in the hospital while Soul 22 ended up in his body. The real Joe, now a cat, and Soul 22, who begrudgingly pretends as Joe, go on an adventure in the city. At first, Soul 22 as Joe refuse to cooperate with the real Joe in reclaiming his original body and try to get away. Joe bribes 22 with a slice of New York pizza. Soul 22 is enlightened by such delectable experience. As 22 live the life of Joe and meet the people in his life, Soul 22 learn that life is made of strange and joyful experiences. 22 have spent numerous years trying out various activities in the Hall of Everything to determine their purpose. They eventually earn their last badge after a brief trial of living on Earth through Joe, but neither the audience or the characters know what exactly ignited their spark. When Joe asks the Great Before counselor Jerry what 22’s spark was, Jerry laughs and tells him that a soul does not have a specific purpose.
The main takeaway of Soul is that life is more than careers or achievements–it’s about gaining experiences and taking pleasure in small, ordinary moments. Joe thought music was his spark his entire life and that his gig with Dorothea Williams would advance his course as a musician, but after the performance, he doesn’t feel as elated or gratified as he anticipated. Dorothea then tells him a story about a fish in the ocean:
“[A fish] swims up to an older fish and says: ‘I’m trying to find this thing they call the ocean.’ ‘The ocean?’ the older fish says, ‘that’s what you’re in right now.’ ‘This’, says the young fish, ‘this is water. What I want is the ocean!’”
Like the young fish, Joe has constantly strived for something bigger and better, but after a near-death experience, mentoring a lost soul and being trapped in a cat’s body, Joe learns to appreciate and celebrate the moment and small wins. I was also guilty of being shortsighted as the young fish when I just left the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. I was certain that I would find a full-time job in clinical research right away, but it took me seven months of working part-time at a retail chain coffeeshop and a total of one year of applying and doing interviews until I secured my current position at a local health department. I thought I had all the variables, a Master’s degree from a reputable program and prior research experiences, needed to be employed. Even after an interview I thought went well and felt good about, the company never got back to me. With hindsight, I am grateful for that season in my life when I was serving and working with people through coffee. More about that later in a future post.
I think most of us are like Joe in a sense that we don’t appreciate the value of our lives until a near-death experience first-hand or indirectly through a loved one. I had this existential moment when a car almost hit me as I was crossing the road during an afternoon run two years ago. It was my right of way, but the car kept going despite the light that had just turned red. The impenitent driver honked at me. I made it to the other side safely in one piece but froze for a few seconds. It felt as if everything around me paused. I thought of my friend’s friend who had just passed away from the Sri Lanka bombings earlier that month. I thought to myself, “Wow, that was close. If the car hit me, I would have been in a critical condition or died.” I was relieved and grateful for my life.
If you were to die today and replay the life you’ve had as you prepare for the Great Beyond, what images would you see? Were you good? Were you kind? Were you strong? What did you do? To the very end, did you try to enjoy the moment to the fullest? As poet Mary Oliver put it, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do/ with your one wild and precious life?”
Picasso, Pablo. Head of a Woman. 1903, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
October was packed with milestones and relishing moments that made the New Normal more bearable. First, I celebrated my 29th birthday. I reconnected with my high school in two ways- I caught up with two of my classmates who also found their ways to New York and gave a presentation on COVID as a guest speaker to my old math teacher’s algebra class. Last but not least, I (early) voted!
Shortly before my birthday, my sister and I took a trip to the Met. This was our first museum visit since lockdown. We had just finished a mandatory quarantine of 14 days after returning from our home state Georgia, one of the restricted states flagged by Governor Cuomo as high COVID transmission areas. I reserved a time slot a week in advance and solely looked forward to this outing to get through the quarantine.
The Met is always a delight. The sheer grandeur of it forces me to reflect and get lost physically and mentally. It’s humanly impossible to cover everything in one day, but being a NYC resident, I could come back and explore the rest at my own pace – the Met is an ongoing personal project for most New Yorkers. This time we checked out the Lattice Detour by Hector Zamora on the Roof Garden and the Jacob Lawrence exhibition. They were both riveting and praiseworthy, but I prefer stumbling upon classics or more traditional pieces such as this painting by Picasso. I mean traditional loosely here. It would be sacriligious to gloss over centuries of art evolution by grouping Velazquez and Picasso into one arbitrary “traditional” category.
Having studied a bit of art history of Spain in high school and college Spanish classes, I struck a chord with this piece from Picasso’s Blue Period. It’s not one of his well-known works but looked familiar to me. I could immediately recognize it by the blue monochrome that resonates with somber, melancholia and depression. All makes sense because Picasso painted such to mourn his friend’s death in his 20’s. Behind the telling colors, I found nuances that juxtapose the blue sentiments. It is a portrait of a poised woman with her head tilted slightly, revealing her left jawline and ear. She is staring at the viewer with suggestive curiosity as if she is about to ask you a question. The orange tone of her skin brings about warmth to counteract the prevailing blue, especially her long navy hair that seems to continue below her shoulders. What I saw in the painting was resilience- the woman keeps her composure in a gloomy ambiance. This subtle contrast makes the artwork powerful.
What do you associate with the color blue? Are you feeling blue? With the COVID epidemic still in progress and the Election Day merely five days away, people around me have expressed that they’ve been anxious, irritable and nihilistic. Are you blue politically? With our country being deeply polarized, it is hard to avoid taking sides or identifying yourself with one particular political group. The current presidential candidates are fighting to turn the Swing States into Blue or Red to win the election. I wonder why the government has to be this black-and-white. What about the gray area or the color purple? We’ve come to the point where we are unable to unite over the issues that should transcend the ideological differences, such as public health that is more crucial than ever during a pandemic. The divisiveness is accentuating my blues today.
the renaissance woman 