In the spirit of living in less theory and more practice, I decided over the weekend to put this commitment to the test. I wanted to make a vlog… something simple like a “day in my life in DC.”

A few minutes into making the decision, I already felt my adult-marketing brain starting to overthink everything. Did I need a script? Should I build a storyboard? How would I be strategically unique? I pulled myself out of the wormhole quickly (before it was too late).

Instead, I asked myself: “What if it was actually easy? What would the laziest, simplest version of this look like for me?” A lightbulb went off: I laid on my couch and pulled out my notes app. I jotted down a few bullet points until they became a rough shot list. It was actually just what I wanted to do that day: go to a museum, get a coffee, stop by Union Market, and get some groceries at Trader Joe’s. It took me 10-15 minutes to write and think through the logistics (metro time, order of filming, etc.)

Now, would this video be the greatest vlog of all time? Of course not. In fact, it wouldn’t even have been a 20-minute “proper” vlog. I had a feeling it’d make it to about 5 minutes at most when all was said and done. I was right:

I admittedly didn’t get through the entire shot list and it’s not the most cohesive piece of content, but I threw it together and now it lives online. It took me…

• 10-15 minutes to write out the video concept

• 5-6 hours out and about to film on my iPhone

• One afternoon to edit on CapCut (Desktop)

I’m sure with more practice, I can do it faster and better. This micro vlog is quite simple and nothing crazy in concept, but I’m glad the memory is now alive for me to look back on in the future.

The irony of getting more “seasoned”

If you know me personally, you might know that I used to actually have a YouTube channel when I was in college. Back then, it was mainly videos I was making while studying abroad in South Korea. I had about 1,500 subscribers back then — not bad for a college gal having fun.

When it was time to graduate, career and college counselors seemed to echo over and over again that we needed to be professional online to get a job. Out of fear, I ended up deleting my channel. I got overly conscious about looking professional and polished online. That was 12 years ago!

I did end up getting a job, moving to New York City, and living my twenties out in the greatest city in this country. Not every day was exciting, but my years there certainly would’ve made a wonderful archive of vlogs.

I completely regret deleting that channel to this day due to the digital mementos I’ve lost. (My external drive ended up getting damaged and I lost all the backup files.) I didn’t think about it too much from any other perspective.

But ironically, as the years went by and I got more “seasoned” in my career, I realized how much of a missed opportunity I had from losing that channel. It wasn’t that I thought I would’ve “made it” somehow, but I did wonder what would’ve happened, skill-wise and creatively, if I had kept going.

Over the decade, funny YouTube personalities became “influencers” or “talent,” who then became full-blown media partners. They became the sought-after individuals I would end up briefing on behalf of clients. Concepts, strategy, and storyboards became inevitably more complex, red-taped, and high stakes. (Funny enough, this pattern has appeared in many other aspects of life as I’ve gotten a little older.)

Nowadays, I find myself revisiting all the things I used to love with a fresh question: What if this was easy again? How would I do it differently? Simply asking myself this question is getting me unstuck and moving forward.

Hi friends,

Happy December! It’s that time of year where we all start getting introspective and thinking back on the past 11 months.

I don’t know about you, but 2025 has been full of ups and downs for me. I spent more time than I’d like to admit circling around a frustration: I was doing more ruminating and imagining rather than actually “doing the thing.” Thankfully, halfway through the year my sabbatical and few subsequent experiences have begun to turn the tides around.

This letter is a recap and reflection of one of those recent experiences — a weekend trip to Zion National Park in Utah from two weeks ago. But, it’s also about how I’m deeply inspired to become a more proactive, action-oriented person. Hope you’re somewhere cozy and enjoying these last weeks of the year.

— Emerline

The campfire I couldn’t start

Before I jump into the Zion trip, I wanted to share a short story from the past: While living in Texas in 2021, I persuaded my partner to go “glamping” with me for the first time. We’d met and spent most of our relationship in the concrete jungles of New York, so I was excited to start creating memories outdoors beyond the city.

When we arrived at our Getaway Cabin, everything began easy. I had specifically chosen a glamping experience as I wanted to ease him into the idea of camping as he’d never grown up doing it. Early evening came, and the temperatures began to drop. We were excited to start a campfire in the designated area. The company had provided everything we needed — firewood, a lighter, kindling, and more. My boyfriend looked to me to lead the way. It only took a few minutes of trying to suddenly feel like a complete fool.

I realized I didn’t *actually* know how to start a campfire. I couldn’t believe it. In my head, I was someone who knew how to do it! But when we approached the fire pit, nothing went as planned.

He looked at me, confused: “I thought you knew how to do this?” I thought I did too!

I FaceTimed my family and everyone instantly teased and laughed. That’s when it hit me: I’d been carrying around the false identity of being someone who could start a campfire, someone who was competent in nature. But my hands didn’t know what my mind claimed to know.

All those childhood camping trips, all those years going to National Parks — I’d absorbed the atmosphere, but never the actual skills. My dad and friends had always handled the logistics, the setup, the actual doing. I’d watched but never learned. And somewhere along the way, I tricked myself that immersing myself was the same as knowing.

But even immersion without practiced actions is just stories we tell ourselves.

Practicing the pitch

A day before our Zion trip, my brother called me from outside the house. “Come outside. I want to teach you how to pitch the tent.”

I was in Southern California visiting my family again, and my brother and I were about to go on our first camping trip together as adults. We grew up going to National Parks — camping throughout our childhood with our parents and family friends — but this was different. When I graduated undergrad, I moved to the East Coast and have lived the “city life” for the past decade. My brother, on the other hand, spent all his twenties mastering the outdoors, becoming a seasoned climber, camper, traveler, and all-around outdoorsy Californian.

I walked outside to find him on the front lawn with a large tent laid out. He wanted to practice setting it up together before we left for our weekend trip to Zion. Rain was in the forecast, and he didn’t want us fumbling in the dark as we’d be arriving to the campsite at night. After some trial and error, we figured it out. (For the first time, I felt like I might actually be useful at a campsite!)

Arriving to Zion

Zion National Park is about a six-hour drive from my hometown of Riverside, California. A quick mid-way stop in Vegas for gas and food is all you need to zip right up to the southern border of Utah. We, of course, had to stop at one of our favorite go-to taco spot. 🌮

I was excited for this trip. It was organized by a local Snow Peak ambassador, supported by a few Snow Peak Way members, and sponsored by Snow Peak. If you know me, you know I’ve been a longtime fan of the aesthetic Japanese camping brand. On Instagram, I’d always bookmarked all the beautiful camp setups and dreamed of owning my own collection of equipment. But due to moving often and lack of storage space, I’ve been hesitant to collect too many material items. For this Zion trip and experience, I got to participate without the pressure of having to own a lot of equipment. My brother and the Snow Peak community provided what I lacked.

We arrived late Friday night to the campground curiously named The Watchmen, and thankfully it wasn’t raining. We set up the tent quickly (this time I knew what to do) and approached the beautiful communal grounds to say hello to the other campers. The Snow Peak community greeted us warmly, as did everyone else. Driving in at night, we didn’t get to see much as it was pitch dark. But I could make out the dark silhouettes of the rocky landscape, and I looked forward to what would await me in the morning.

Small humans

The next morning, I was instantly awestruck. I understood why the campsite was called The Watchmen. All around us were towering rocks and mountains looking down on us teeny tiny humans.

The forecast showed sunny skies all day Saturday, so we were excited for a full day of hiking and exploring. Before setting off, we walked over to the communal area, and I admired the beautiful Snow Peak setup. So much love and care had been put into it. They let us know the plan was to have an early Thanksgiving meal together that evening. Some folks decided to stay behind to cook a turkey. We agreed we’d contribute drinks and dessert when we returned.

And we were off! I looked over at my brother and asked, “What’s first?” We hopped on the electric shuttle that would take us deeper into the park.

Our first hike was to the mouth of the Narrows — the narrowest section of Zion Canyon where the Virgin River cuts through towering walls of sandstone, and where hikers wade through the river itself. We moved slowly, stopping every few steps to take pictures.

Despite the cooler temperatures, we watched as droves of fellow nature admirers — dressed in dry bibs and wielding walking sticks — marched toward the waters. We even found people meditating by the river, cross-legged and eyes closed.

Our next hike on the Kayenta Trail, also known as the Emerald Pools Trail, was slightly more challenging.

We climbed first to the Upper Emerald Pool. Since it hadn’t rained recently, there wasn’t an active waterfall, but the enclosed basin was still beautiful. It was a pocket of stillness tucked away on the mountainside.

With each step, I paid attention to my breath to maintain its rhythm. I was a slow hiker, but it felt good to be in the flow of hiking without cell service, distractions, or even music.

A Snow Peak Friendsgiving

After our hikes, we made it back to the campgrounds just as the sun set. The warm campfires glimmered and the turkey had been cooking for hours.

We added our drinks and dessert — small offerings, but I was glad to be part of it. As we sat down with people we’d met just the night before, it didn’t take long for all of us to be chatting and having friendly conversations. We talked about the hikes we’d done that day and how we all came to love Snow Peak.

What struck me was how enjoyable and meaningful the experience felt all thanks to the folks who actually had the hands-on skills to set up the camp. Many of them had arrived earlier than us, taken hours to setup a kitchen, dining area, and sitting area. It was impressive and unlike any other setup I’d experienced in the outdoors (and outside the Snow Peak stores). Knowing how much work it must’ve taken, I was all the more grateful to be a part of it all.

I felt inspired to really start my own journey now with picking up outdoor skills as my own.

Overlook Canyon

The next morning, before heading on our way back, we made one last stop at Overlook Canyon. My brother was excited to show me one of his favorite spots in the park.

After a short hike, we caught our first clear view of the Great White Throne — a massive, pale monolith rising from the valley floor — and the sweeping canyons. I’d seen countless photos of this landscape, but there was no photograph or video I’d seen that could truly capture the majesty and scale of it. I stood there breathless, trying to absorb it all.

Something about being dwarfed by something so ancient and indifferent makes you feel paradoxically more present. The mountains didn’t care about me. They just were, and I just was.

The creative-action theory

I recently came across research by philosopher Peter Carruthers on what he calls “the creative-action theory of creativity.” His argument turns our usual assumptions upside down: action doesn’t follow creative thought. It precedes it.

When jazz musicians improvise at full speed, they’re often surprised by what they play, the notes weren’t planned in advance. The physical act of playing generates the creative idea, which is then processed and understood by the conscious mind. Our motor systems create the thoughts that our awareness then receives.

I thought I knew how to start a campfire and pitch a tent because I’d observed it from afar a dozen times. But as the stories illustrated, I was far from it. I’m sure for many of us, these types of gaps exist all across our lives. We tell ourselves we’re fulfilling certain identities by immersing ourselves in it yet never participating directly in it.

But satisfaction never comes if there’s a glaring difference between the theory of who we may claim we are and the actual practice of it.

Action-first living

I had a feeling 2025 was going to be a year of change. But it was nothing like I could have imagined. None of it was incremental, all of it was incredibly disruptive and full of ruptures — identities crumbling, old stories falling away. And in the space that opened up, I kept trying to think my way into clarity.

Standing in Zion, I finally understood: it’s not just external transformation that begins with doing, but clarity itself comes from taking action first. It sounds obvious, but it seems to be a lesson that I have to keep learning until I ingest it fully.

In 2026, I want to embody an action-first bias and lifestyle. Getting out of my head and being in the presence of grand nature reminded that I am small and the work is large and none of the labels matter as much as the doing.

The last time I checked in, I was just starting my micro sabbatical and getting used to having all my time to myself again. Now here we are at the very end of the season! This summer has undoubtedly been eventful, so I felt it was the perfect time to sit down and write a recap.

How poetic to share this on the last week of summer, right? Warning: It’s a long one, but I aimed to make it as visual as possible! :) Enjoy.

Love,
Emerline

Sabbaticals are about becoming

Sabbaticals were always meant to be about becoming, not escaping. Vacations help you forget work for a week or two, but sabbaticals should help you remember who you are beyond it. According to a 2022 study of working professionals, there are three types of sabbaticals:

• Working holidays are “intense periods of work and dedicated breaks to rest and rekindle long-neglected relationships.”

• Free dives look like “leaping out of work and diving straight into intense exploration.”

• Quests would “push personal limits to discover themselves.”

I’d categorize mine as a combination of a free dive and a quest. It largely was a leap into exploring various aspects of my life with a fresh eye combined with pushing my skills with a new discipline (as you’ll read below).

After two years of agency life, I felt my curiosity and fire to learn… dwindling. The constant cranking out of client work — the trend-chasing, the demand of mechanized insights, the endless decks — actually dulls the strategic mind it claims to sharpen. You get good at pattern-matching, but lose the ability to see anything genuinely new. You become a highly efficient machine for producing expected answers. The very muscles that make you valuable as a strategist start to atrophy when all you do is optimize someone else’s metrics.

While professors might spend their sabbaticals teaching at foreign universities, finishing book manuscripts, or conducting field research in far-flung archives, creative professionals like us have to DIY our renewal — piecing together workshops, residencies, and wandering into something that refills the well rather than draining it.

The markers of my sabbatical weren’t publications or research papers, but something less tangible: connecting with purpose, revisiting old relationships, being spontaneous, and exploring a completely different creative lens (spatial investigation). My summer sabbatical helped me remember who I was, reignited my curiosity, and most of all reminded me how important human and community connection is to feeling content.

Everything I did this summer

Starting in mid-May, I knew that I had just a few weeks in D.C. before I took off for the summer. So, I made a concerted effort to get out of my neighborhood and explore the city on foot. I wanted to see more of its nooks and crannies. I went to artist pop-ups, outdoor galleries, courtyards, experimented with street photography, and cafes I’d never tried before.

Then, in late May, I decided to spontaneously go up to New York to attend a panel featuring folks from Mouthwash Studio and Chandelier Creative. There, I also got to learn about other studios and also loved the facilitator Emma Apple Chozick’s perspective. As always, I made time to see a friend and also do a quick drop by at the Whitney to see Christine Sun Kim’s featured exhibit.

Before I knew it, June was here! I flew to San Francisco to surprise my grandma for her birthday. She’s been battling breast cancer for years now. On a day she seemed strong enough, we took her to an outdoor park. Unfortunately, the next few days she was in incredible pain. It broke my heart into a million pieces to see that and also seeing my mom and the toll full-time caretaking was having on her. My brother and I got my grandma a comfortable chair that she could sit in. Thankfully, it seemed she was on the recovery again before I left.

Driving down to Southern California, I came home and then spent the next month there. There’s always a few rituals and activities I do when I’m back home to fill my cup: going to the beach, hiking, seeing old friends, etc.

I did all of the above, of course! I even made an effort to explore Long Beach (something I’d never done oddly) and spent a day at the Huntington Beach Public Library. I had no idea that Richard Neutra had designed the library. A childhood friend also had her bridal shower so it was fun attending that as well.

Not wanting to spend all my time in the suburbs, I decided to use my last week in California to stay in LA “like a local.” My very first job out of college was in the DTLA area, but I never actually have lived in the city. So, I booked a place to stay in the Highland Park neighborhood and cos-played as a resident. I went to yoga classes and hung out a lot at Comet over Delphi and worked on some creative work at Meadow Fig.

Luckily, my stay overlapped with quite a few events. There was a casual panel led by Swike Design featuring photographer Justin Chung and furniture and spatial designer Willett. I also hung out in the Chinatown Mandarin Plaza where I went to Mouthwash Studio’s beautiful office and attended an interesting talk about curation led by the folks from Marta LA. One of the highlights was going to Mahjong Underground hosted by a good friend, learning how to play, and winning! (Thanks Christine and Jaimie for teaching me.)

I’ve heard people say, “New York is great to visit and hard to live in. LA is great to live in, but hard to visit.” I think this statement is very true. For all the time I’ve lived in California and hung out in LA, staying for just a few days made a huge difference in how the city felt.

My stay in LA was concluded by a pick-up at LAX to bring my mom home for awhile. My uncle was taking over care-taking duty while she got some much needed rest. I drove her home and the very next day I flew to Arizona.

Being in Arizona was by far the highlight of my summer. I went to Sedona in July to participate in The School of Architecture’s summer immersion program (formerly known as the Taliesen Fellowship and founded by the famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright). It was a bucket list of mine for quite some time and I couldn’t believe I was actually doing it!

For one whole week, the architect and dean of the school Stephanie led us through workshops and site field trips in the Sedona area. (You might recognize her work Taffy, a Coachella installation last year.) I learned how to create my first architectural drawing, hiked beautiful trails, and encountered everything from scorpions to coyotes. We visited artist studios such as the Waddell family studio and the otherworldly Arcosanti. Of course, the Chapel of the Holy Cross and Taliesen West were additional noteworthy places I got to see.

I even did a final project presentation of my first model! I was a complete beginner at it so I felt embarrassed at first by how far behind I was in my skills. Most of the other students were much younger and were already architecture students or civic engineers. By the last day, however, I realized how proud of myself I was for willing to be a complete beginner at something.

I’ve been working in branding and marketing for nearly 12 years now. While I enjoy what I do, I’ve long been itching to evolve my career into something more hands-on and experiential. Essentially, I hope to become a designer that specializes in environments and interiors. Attending this immersion was part of a larger identity shift I was looking to spark within myself. I’d say it was a success in that aspect!

From Sedona, I flew back to Washington, D.C. to reunite with my partner (just as the president began unleashing the National Guard onto the streets). The timing was uncanny as this happened the very same week it was time for us to head off to O’ahu. A close childhood friend was getting married (N+J)! I hadn’t been to Honolulu since I was a child, so I was excited to both celebrate my friends and also spend some time there in “vacation mode.”

I wanted to keep up my sabbatical theme of spatial exploration and investigation, but wasn’t sure how I would do that on the islands. I flipped through a travel guide from Magazine B and to my delight learned about tropical modernism. (Coming from Southern California, it felt kindred to the desert modernism you’ll often see in the Palm Springs area.) The Liljestrand House had a few spots left for a private educational tour during our trip, so it became one of the first stops after arriving. Well worth the visit!

My journey started to slow as I then made my way back to the east coast. Up in New Haven, Connecticut, we attended a second wedding (M+D). At this wedding, I saw a handful of friends from the Hawaii wedding again (N+J). It was amusing to see the same group of people in a completely different setting only a week after. There, I was met by high school friends I hadn’t seen in nearly 15 years since graduating! It was actually a bit of an out-of-body experience as I hadn’t been expecting it. It felt like my past and present lives were colliding, blurring the lines of the different versions of myself. It all became one suddenly.

A few weeks later, I actually found myself in the northeast region again in Providence, Rhode Island. I have an oddly heartwarming feeling about the country’s smallest state as it was my fifth grade project in elementary school. I don’t know why it was always so memorable to me (honestly), but I’d always been curious about it since then. I was there to meet up with a guide who gave a group a tour of the famed Rhode Island School of Design. It felt like its own microcosm where every detail was considered and designed so elegantly. I was looking to experience their graduate thesis archives — specifically for interior architecture — at the gorgeous Fleet Library. What I found there is now at the top of my fall reading list.

This concluded my whirlwind of a summer. Whew, did you make it to the end with me?

What’s next

If the summer was all about in-take and opening up, my fall season will be about applying everything I’ve digested. I’ll be sharing more on this in the next newsletter, but until then, I’m aiming to be as intentional as possible with my attention and focus.

(I had to delete Instagram off my phone to finally publish this! I don’t know how long I’ll last… but for now, this is working!)

Slow blooming under clear skies

Hey friends, it’s been a long minute.

The last time many of you heard from me, this newsletter didn’t really have an identity (ha), and I was bouncing between Dallas and California, preparing to move to Washington, D.C. That was about a year and a half ago!

Since then, life’s been full. I hit the ground running adjusting to a new city while juggling a fast-paced job. It was really go-go-go from the start in 2023, and I didn’t get much of a breather until earlier this year. I’ve gotten more grounded here and for the first time since the move, I’ve been able to truly slow down.

As of this month, I’m not tethered to a 9–5 for the time being and instead of jumping into the next big thing, I’m doing something I’ve quietly dreamed about for a long time: taking a self-declared micro sabbatical (I’ll share more on this in the next memo). Now, without the weight of commutes and constant deadlines, I can feel something reopening.

With all this extra breathing room, I’ve started to pay closer attention to how I spend my time and what actually supports me. I’ve been getting creative with how I engage with tech. One example of a small but surprisingly satisfying shift: organizing my Photos app into smart folders, each one automatically sorted by season. It’s helped me visualize my recent months at a glance and not just where I’ve been, but how it felt, and what I cared enough about in the moment to capture without too much manual effort.

Turns out, we’re already two-thirds through spring. The color palette thus far is unmistakable: sky blue, vibrant green, flowers in bloom, long walks, bright mornings. D.C. is beautiful this time of year.

As the days get warmer, I’ve been returning to taking care of my body. Not out of pressure, but with curiosity and care. After years of unpredictable rhythms, I was feeling burnout creeping in again. But this time, I’m so glad I didn’t override it. I slowed down. I listened. I rested.

The forecast? Clear skies to getting back to myself and feeling more alive (despite well… everything).

On pace as a tool

Without external deadlines or constant urgency, I’ve started to notice and viscerally feel out the natural rhythm of my days. The way I ease into work, the warm-up rituals, and the wind-down after a task. It’s unfamiliar at first, then quickly feels extremely natural. It’s funny watching time stretch like this.

I’ve been without a 9–5 before, but the first time around I was clumsy with it. Totally unsure how to spend my time authentically. It took months before I figured out what I actually wanted from my days. I remember the first time I went to the beach at 3 p.m. on a Wednesday and thought, “Oh, this is what a day designed around my energy can feel like.”

I’m using this micro sabbatical to experiment with pace. Not just as a lifestyle shift, but as a spiritual and creative practice. What if how I move through the day is the work? What if the tempo I choose is part of what I make?

Spiritually, it’s meant learning how to listen again. To notice what my body needs, what my energy is drawn to, when something wants to begin or end. Creatively, it’s been about letting go of urgency as a metric and about trusting slower timelines. Giving ideas more time to breathe and letting the process feel more like a conversation with myself than output for output sake.

Of course, I still get distracted, get impatient, and wander down rabbit holes. But even that teaches me something. Pace, I’m learning, is actually the texture of my attention and isn’t the opposite of ambition. It’s what’s keeping me present.

A gift I’m taking from the past year and a half: I feel much more trained. The work and speed was intense at times, but it sharpened me. I’ve learned how to move through complexity, clarify direction, and lead things from idea to execution. That kind of creative process training repeated and lived sticks with you. So when it comes to my own creative projects, they don’t feel so intimidating anymore. Maybe it’s a little nerdy, but I’ve been having fun creating some guardrails for Turntable Memos (a bit of creative codes I can actually follow).

Marked for Return

I need to plan a trip to the Glenstone Museum in Maryland again soon before the summer heat is here. The art doesn’t shift much, but the landscape does: greens deepen, skies shift, wildflowers come and go. Visiting in different seasons gives you a whole new reading of the same place. I think that’s part of what I love about it. It makes me realize how I give a museum more grace to evolve slowly than I sometimes give myself, haha.

On Repeat, Recently

Yukimi’s album For You has been on repeat. I admit I didn’t know Yukimi was Little Dragon until I watched the below clip from WaxPoetics’s feature. While I’ve definitely been playing summer fun tracks (Amine, Kaytranada type sh*t, and the usual bounce-around sounds), For You has been my go-to for the quieter hours. The whole album is contemplative, soft, and expansive.

✦ reflection (n.) — a question for your week

What tempo feels most true to you right now, and what might it unlock for you if you found a way to honor it?

Here’s to pacing ourselves with care. See you in the next memo.

You certainly know the title of the video and the song by The Internet, no surprises there. You follow along the vibrant yet grainy scenes, the melodic pacing of the music fits perfectly with what you’re seeing. You’re mesmerized. Hold On… hold on. Was this the original music video? You don’t remember ever seeing it before.

Hm, it’s not from the main account. But it fits so perfectly? Who made this? The top pinned comment reads: “Footage taken from Losing Ground (1982) written and directed by Kathleen Collins.”

It’s a lazy Saturday afternoon and you immediately search for ways to watch the film and purchase it on YouTube for $12. Twelve dollars to be transported to a different world? Not a bad deal.

Less building castles

There’s a dozen things I could say and share about Losing Ground. But I’m not writing this post necessarily to review this beautiful independent film. Rather, I want to surface one scene and line in particular.

Without giving the plot away, the main protagonist is a professor named Sara. Sara is sitting at the dinner table with her mother and husband who are both “serious” artists. Sara laments to her mother how busy she is these days and that she has two research papers to finish to which her mother leans in close and says: “Still building your castles?”

In the context of the film’s storyline, the question stings as it’s not from the voice of a loving parent, but a purist artist judging “made up” busyness. Sara is painted by these two people in her life as overly analytical, logical, and pre-occupied with traditional success. (Of course, the underlying subtext and irony is that Sara’s financial stability is what likely keeps both of these individuals afloat.) Throughout the movie, Sara judges them back for “chasing ecstasy in the name of art” and hiding behind it to excuse bad behavior. You’ll have to watch the film to know how this all plays out for Sara.

Going back to the dinner scene, the question on castles stuck with me. I replayed it as I sat with the implied message: Building castles? Still keeping busy and prioritizing other supposed urgencies instead of doing what you love? I felt called out. It made me think about how much I’ve really been prioritizing my time to do what I truly care and not just getting swept up in daily busyness.

I could fertilize my family’s backyard with all the decayed ideas that never saw the light of day or made it to the next stage. I’m guilty of spending too much time picturing a project’s future instead of just starting and with iterating as I go.

It's been six months since I moved to Washington D.C. All my moves in recent years – NYC, Texas, California – have been life swirls that have made it hard to sit down and make progress on personal projects. But most of these project ideas aren't totally new; they're older experiments evolving to their next iteration.

Hearing the “castles” line in Losing Ground made me reflect: Is my constant busyness as of late a way to chase a kind of success that looks good to others? Am I truly making my personal work a priority?

More minimum creative acts

Not too long ago, I saw a social post that started with the following sentence: “To all the creatives with not enough time to create…” I swiped and read: 

The post then walked me through a simple flow chart:

• Does it spark joy? 

  • Yes - If yes… keep going

  • No - If no, find something else

• If yes, 

  • Do you have time to do it every day? 

    • Yeah! - If yea, keep going

    • Nope - Then, make it simpler

      • Until you can say “yeah” to “Do you have time to do it every day”

        • Now: Do it as often as you can.”

How great is that? My new rule of thumb is to keep projects and goals as small and manageable as possible. How can I make this so small that it would be a joke to not be able to finish it? The key is simplicity and ease.

Making pockets of time

I sometimes think about Ken Cosgrove from Mad Men. He's an account executive — one of the "suits" managing client work and the daily grind — but he surprises his colleagues by revealing his writing has been recognized by a prestigious magazine. His coworkers, mostly jealous, struggle to reconcile this artistic pursuit with their image of Ken.

We don't see his process too deeply, but we know Ken is dedicated to nurturing his creative side no matter what. He balances the demands of a steady job with a lowkey life as an artist, finding time to write before and after office hours. It takes discipline to build that creative space alongside the "castles" of everyday life.

I, like many of us, am tied to my own “castle building." No doubt, I have been the busiest I’ve ever been in my life and career. But I've been striving to follow Ken's example even 20 or 30 minutes a day. I’m working on pausing the endless construction and devoting pockets of time to “my own things.” Incremental progress is always better than none.

Currently on rotation

I’ve been listening heavily to two soundtracks from the movies Past Lives and Challengers. They are on the complete opposite ends of the spectrum and on my most chaotic days I oscillate between the two depending on the moment. I know people have their opinions of Challengers, but I appreciate it for the frenetic summer hit it is.

I've been in Dallas for the months of September and October, reunited again with my partner after being long-distance for the majority of this year. We celebrated Chuseok (Korea’s version of thanksgiving) over the weekend and took a drive to an area called Carrollton, where we purchased some songpyeon rice cakes from H-Mart.

While in the H-Mart parking lot, we noticed something quite bizarre. Hundreds of birds were perched on the buildings and cars, chirping and crowing loudly. It almost felt like they were scheming, waiting for the humans to be gone. (Turns out they wanted to revenge us by defecating on all the parked cars.) Their behavior was so out of the ordinary that I got the feeling these birds were visitors, not normally here.

I wasn't wrong. Currently, two billion (!) birds are migrating south and passing through Texas on their long, dangerous journey to warmer destinations. This migration is one of the largest on the planet, and you can see them everywhere you look, in unbelievable numbers. As of writing this, the city of Dallas is carrying out a campaign called 'Lights Out' to dim lights on skyscrapers, helping to protect the birds and minimize disorientation.

I know their presence here has nothing to do objectively with my life. But in a writerly selfish fashion, I'd like to pretend it has everything to do with me. The descent of these migratory birds, at this moment in time, is a convenient instrument to make sense of things.

If you’re new here: After many years in NYC, for the past two years, I have been splitting my time between California (my home state) and Dallas (where my partner lives). Although two moves in a short period would make anyone feel out of sorts, I knew there was more to it than the changing of my physical environment. I simply did not feel in sync with myself and I think I was in search of answers or some sort of relief from the feeling.

Over this summer, I finally found the root of the problem. There were gaping canyons of memory and understanding between three “versions” of myself: the 23-year old college grad me I left behind in California, the young adult identity I had built up in NYC, and the me of today.

A moment for the pandemic skip

I felt relief reading The CUT’s article last month titled “The Pandemic Skip: By now, many of us have fully resumed our post-COVID lives. But what about all the years we missed?” I found myself re-reading sentences, making all the proverbial ooo-ing and ah-ing. I had finally found a helpful label for this particular chapter of wandering.

"This pandemic skip — the strange sensation that our bodies might be a step out of sync with our minds." (via Katy Schneider)

There were a few comments under the article that I also want to add here:

• To not forget that elderly and at-risk communities were hit the hardest. Losing cognitive and mobile function or at worst losing their life.

• Pandemic or not, life doesn’t follow a simple trajectory for most people. Nobody is guaranteed a smooth chronological unfolding. The expectation that life will follow any safe and predictable timeline is an immense privilege and actually rare. (It’s also a part of society’s propaganda.)

• There is a deeper phenomena behind experiencing the pandemic skip than not being able to wear the same clothes or “acting your age” as written in the article. Overexposure to youthful hyper-trends via social media may be adding to an experience of age dysphoria.

• There is a level of social disconnection that will take time to repair. We could all use more friendship and understanding across generations.

How to mend and bridge narrative gaps

“Time is an illusion, a construct made out of human memory. There’s no such thing as the past, the present, or the future. It’s all happening now.” (via Blake Crouch, Recursion)

Instead of thinking about time, I’ve found it much more helpful to connect the dots based on the stories I’m telling myself about life, about others, about who I am…

Don’t rush or force the journey.

Whether it was starting new projects or taking on too much work, I tried so hard to “get back to normal” over the past two years. I was afraid of stagnation. Turns out it’s easy to mistaken the need for quiet reflection as stagnation.

Allowing learnings and realizations to unfold at the speed they’re meant to was one way I’ve matured. You’d be surprised at how quickly things move along on their own when the timing is right. Especially at the beginning of transitions, slow and organic is better.

Breathe and practice daily movement.

Walking, hiking, yoga, and swimming have proved to be my favorite connect-with-my-body activities. The more I connect with the energy of my body, the more I feel connected to the present. Daily movement of any kind gives me the calm and energized mind I need to not get distracted by things out of my control.

Witness what’s changed and give yourself grace.

While in California, I’ve got to spend a great amount of time with my parents. Their wrinkles have gotten much more prominent and it’s been humbling to watch them process coming face-to-face with their later years.

I have reached out to old friends and tried to rekindle relationships. Mini vans, child-friendly dates, back to back weddings and proposals, home ownership, pivots in professions, and more. Everyone has moved forward on such different tracks of life. Sometimes you hear something so good on TikTok that you actually write it down: “These friendships function as conduits to earlier versions of ourselves.”

I have dramatically shifted how I engage with my parents — optimizing for quality memories and connection. Many friendships and relationships have run their course and that’s okay. It’s been a blessing in disguise going through different levels of grieving.

Leave behind what is no longer aligned. Know your appetite.

Lately, I’ve enjoyed thinking about personal bandwidth through the lens of appetite. It takes time and energy to digest all that life throws at us.

There’s only so much room I have on my plate at any given moment and a key part of feeling aligned with myself again has included intentionally saying goodbye to counterproductive habits, identities, relationships, and labels that no longer feel right. Let go of what’s no longer you or true. Make space for the next course.

Spend time with wisdom. Meditate on your purpose.

I believe everyone needs to have cross-generational relationships. I’m always moved when I spend time with my halmuni (grandmother). She’s now in her late 80s and is battling breast cancer. This is her second time fighting cancer in her lifetime. Her tumor has spread and she has chosen not to seek chemotherapy. (It’s been hard to accept, but I’m learning to honor her wishes.)

It’s a strange experience watching her live in low-income housing unit on the same streets as Apple and Google. Her hands are frail and wrinkled from years of working on the Silicon Valley semiconductor assembly lines as an immigrant factory worker, and then as a cleaner of their buildings at night.

But despite everything she has endured in her lifetime, she remains full of vibrant energy and joy. She lives her life in service to others and shows gratitude for each day. Spending ample time with someone like her and just hearing her stories has pushed me to re-center myself and be hungry again to live my life with purpose and in honor of her.

Try things, experiment. Get curious and find sparks of joy again.

Protecting my curious spirit and gently engaging with the things I know I love or want to try always brings me joy. For example, in my 20s I enjoyed hip hop dance classes as a hobby, but now I’m considering learning something entirely different like jazz. Maybe I’ll pick up some instruments again!

I also have reintegrated the practice of reading and collecting things that inspire me. All the headlines are telling us that social media is ruining our attention spans and I believe it’s a real epidemic. Being outdoors, reading, mood-boarding, blogging, and curating are the kindling for my curiosity.

Chart the next migration. Be open to serendipity.

My favorite moments in life are when I feel I’m on the cusp of leveling up. Truth be told I know that I spent the past decade speeding up this feeling through changing jobs or cities. These past three years though have taught me what “leveling up” looks like internally at a slow pace.

From my rabbit hole on bird migrations, I learned the following German word: “zugunruhe,” that is, “migratory restlessness.” It’s been quite rewarding doing this work on myself, but this specific sun rotation is setting and it’s time for change again. I don’t know exactly what it will look like or entail. How exciting.

“Hey ChatGPT, what spiritual or symbolic meaning could witnessing billions of migratory birds hold?”

Witnessing birds during their migration can symbolize renewal, freedom, unity, guidance, and a connection to nature. It may also represent the cycle of life and death, transcendence to higher realms, harmony, hope, and personal transformation. The spiritual or symbolic meaning depends on individual beliefs and experiences but generally reflects themes of rebirth, interconnection with the natural world, and personal growth.

So, what’s next?

We’re packing up our boxes currently and moving to Washington D.C. very soon. NYC is also in the cards for a much needed visit and catch-up with friends hopefully before the end of this year. (:

As you can tell, I’ve felt like I’ve been treading a bit in place for awhile now and I’m excited to move on from this time warp.

(P.S. I’m also contemplating changing the name of this newsletter entirely to Turntable. I think the concept fits a much wider range of topics than just curating links across the web. What do you think?)