what i’m up to

This week, I’m excited to be attending an art exhibition opening, where a selection of my paintings will be featured for the first time ever! I was thrilled to be invited to share my portfolio with the gallery and have a few items chosen to be exhibited along with 4 other artists. If you’re in town, come out for the opening event on Wednesday the 22nd of March! But it will be open for viewing until the end of May, so there is lots of time.

I’m on a week-long break from classes, which is very timely. I slept for almost 18 hours on the first day and still went to bed early the next night and slept for nearly 9 more hours til alarms went off to remind me I don’t want to sleep away all this glorious free time! Sleep is good, but so is accomplishing everything that becomes “too much” when also giving 16 lectures a week to 244 second-year university students.

I do want to come back to producing more regular publications here again, so watch this space!

what’s on my mind

I’m sitting in a nearby coffee shop right now contemplating how it’s been over a year since I resigned from my last job and nearly a year since I finished out my notice. There are lots of what-ifs that come up from time to time in my mind, but I have to remind myself to not spend too much time on them aside from focusing on what I can still learn from it all. I am so glad to be living here in Cambodia.

A week or two ago, I had the privilege of sharing some of my poems in a poetry showcase here in the city, and I picked three that reflect on my life as an international, a migratory bird, and that mostly centre on my Caribbean homeland. Someone asked me afterwards about where all I have lived and why I like Cambodia so; and one of the reasons I keep coming back to is how very familiar this place is to me. COVID-19 2-week-quarantine-from-hell upon arrival aside, it was easier to move and adjust to life here than it was to move to the USA, and living here is more natural and comfortable to me than living in rural or urban USA ever was. It isn’t because life is fundamentally easier here than there or that I haven’t had difficult adjustments here, too, but this place feels and smells and breathes more like all the other places I grew up and lived. I think the USA is the most intensely different and difficult place I ever tried to reside. And although it is about equal in how much homesickness I experienced, it is also the most isolating place I ever lived, because I was a hidden immigrant.

I love that here feels so much like home and yet has so much new and wondrous for me to learn and explore. I love that I feel more connected to myself here and all my homes (including those I built in the USA!) than I have in many years, while still having the joy and the challenge of creating a new home and learning a new language (however slowly…). I love that in this place I know I am a foreigner and I’m 100% ok with that – for perhaps the first time in my life – and all the places that make me up are wrapped up under that one label and it works. (It only gets tricky when they ask my passport nationality, since that never remotely tells the whole or full or real story.)

Books I’m in the middle of right now:

• Heart of the Sun Warrior, by Sue Lynn Tan (book 2 of the Celestial Kingdom Duology). LOVING this
• All the Lovers in the Night, by Mieko Kawakami. So interesting so far!

This post is a snippet from a newsletter I originally published on Substack. You can read the complete publication there. 

What I’m up to
Sometimes when I’m really tired and wondering why, I realise that I bring this on myself. Perhaps if I crammed less living in, or didn’t always pursue such new experiences, or take on such enormous things, or make continuous Major Life Choices, I’d be less tired. But then, I also get bored and wonder about the point of life. I’m meant to live large; I just think fate forgot to make me independently wealthy so living large was a little less exhausting from balancing up against making a living…

That said, what have I been up to? Here are just a few highlights:

• Continuing to adjust to life as a business school lecturer. Just when I was starting to find some rhythm, the newest element arises: midterms, major assignments, and grading. My goodness, I love being in the classroom with my students and having such interesting discussions with them and fun exchanges, but the learning curve for switching from business world to teaching is about as intense as my learning curve going from being a freshly minted university graduate to the business world was!
• Finding a new place to live. Nothing was wrong with where I lived since moving here, but it no longer was working for what I need. (Example, the commute was quite long). Trying to find a new place to move into that fits my requirements and desires and budget was quite the experience, though! That said – I succeededl
• Moving out of one place and into a new one. It was a whirlwind move this month from my first apartment here into another, and a sharp reminder how quickly we accumulate things in life (or I do, anyways. Don’t ask my Mother what I was like as a child. It may scar you….). Moving is absolutely exhausting and I feel quite shattered from the process – but still some more unpacking/settling in to go. I absolutely love the new place, though! It makes me smile every day I wake up here so far.
• Language lessons. I’m out of the first “level” of classes and into the 2nd one, and I have never not wanted to continue classes more! I love learning languages, and Khmer is fascinating! That said, I’ve felt so overwhelmed and tired this past month that I really considered if this is something I was willing to keep doing right now. But honestly, since I am choosing to stay in this country, then I firmly think that right up there should be taking the time to actually learn the language – even if that means less time doing other activities or is a little less glamorous or shiny as the newness wears off and the hard work of memorisation begins. It is satisfying to be able to communicate incrementally better, though!

What I’m thinking about right now
I find myself missing the Autumn season a lot lately; getting out my favourite dark green cashmere sweater and black leather skirt with fleece-lined tights and knee-high boots and my paisley swirling Nepali scarf and cozy cap and walking out in the brisk air on damp brick sidewalks slick with already decaying leaves discarded from the gloriously changing trees. This was always the only season I truly loved since leaving the rainy/dry seasons of the Caribbean and now it is my second year away from it. (My goodness I miss it!!)

Similarly, I have now moved into my second home in Cambodia, and am on my second job here, and my second business visa.

These things make my decision to “Just come here for a little while” so very…solid. It’s not a small thing anymore, not that it ever really was. But it is undeniably not a small thing now.

I am here. I don’t know how long I will be here. I simply am here. But since I continue to make decisions that have me continuing to live here, continuing to root down further; I also have to decide – do I keep storing things in the States? Do I sell the rest of the things? Do I try to ship it here? (But am I ready to commit to staying here long enough to make a shipment at my cost worth it?) How long will I stay here? These are questions that make me very tired. I do not have answers for them yet

Some of my students asked me in class a week or two ago why I like it here; why I have been choosing to stay. So I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about that – and maybe I’ll share my thoughts on it in my next update. It’s certainly woven in right now to all the decisions past and present that I’m pondering.

Meanwhile, I was nominated to serve as a mentor in a new program launched by AmCham in Cambodia’s Women’s Committee, and it’s exciting to get to be part of giving back – and through an organisation whose branch in my hometown actually gave me my first ambition to become a businessperson.

Life is so full of beginnings and endings and when we think we find an ending, it’s merely a beginning but perhaps not of what we thought at that time. The mystery is thrilling and overwhelming at times, but also wondrous—and I’m glad of it.

This post is a snippet from a newsletter I originally published on Substack. You can read the complete publication there. 

what I’m up to

I’ve been abysmal this past month and a half in providing updates – partly for so much happening at once and partly because I was waiting for things to happen enough to announce. Now, I can!

About four weeks ago, I took up the role of teaching business communications at a business school here in Phnom Penh. My life since then has been full of lesson planning and strategizing, teaching, getting used to the business school and its educational model, and getting to know my students. So far I am absolutely loving it, although waking up early in order to traverse the city and be awake and energetically enough to teach a 7:30 AM class as a night owl rather than a morning person has been challenging. It was also pretty fantastic to receive a paycheck after 5 months again.

Besides taking on this role I am also excited to be speaking at an event this weekend, “Strategic Position in Digital Marketing,” on brand and the importance of language in your brand strategy and communications materials. If you are in Phnom Penh, check it out!

Besides this, I strive to still maintain time to attend events around the city, spend with friends, volunteer, read a little bit more again, and for mus

I’ve also resumed my Khmer lessons and am thoroughly enjoying those each week!

What I’m thinking about and learning

My visa in Cambodia has now been extended for another year—another thing I’m relieved and pleased to have clarity on. Somehow I’m already in a next and entirely unplanned second year of life here. It is wild and wonderful to me that at the moment my life is nothing like what I could possibly have imagined it to be. I’m teaching my students at the moment about personal development and planning for their professional life and my own is such an illustration of how winding and fascinating a life can be. Certainly full of the unexpected, which can lead to the wildly wonderful when we are open to it.

On the flip side, with the past month and a half, the reality of living as far away as possible from people I never liked living far from at all in the first place has also settled in. Choosing to stay here—not because of what I get in staying (which is yay!) but for what I miss out on as a result (like being close to siblings or meeting new nibblings or friends and life in other worlds of mine)—is achingly hard in some ways. My newest nephew was born this weekend and I don’t know when I will get to meet him or see that sister and brother-in-law again. Assessing my skills/abilities for jobs and what I want to actually do and analyzing them against a risk matrix and the backdrop of what is possible, plausible, and profitable (enough) is challenging – and in taking on this new teaching role I walked away from potentially another amazing opportunity. How do we know we are making the right decisions? (I think we don’t usually get to know; we just have to make it so.) Watching friends go through major decisions of their own or experience really challenging surprises – both friends here in Phnom Penh and friends far flung across the globe and not being able to be there with them is also hard.

But amid the good, bad, and ugly is a little nugget of truth revealing itself to me – that perhaps the thing I dread most in all the world is the idea of stagnancy; of reaching a point of no further movement. Of giving up on exploring and missing out on the wild wonder of the beyond.

This post is a snippet from a newsletter I originally published on Substack. You can read the rest of the publication there. 

What i’m up to

It’s rainy season here in Cambodia and I love listening to the music of rainfall and watching it pour down outside. So much of living in this country reminds me of my childhood and my island homeland. Fortunately for me, I haven’t had to worry too much about getting soaked or flooded out by it so far.

I’ve been working on a lot of creative projects lately, doing some design work for a place that is coming soon to Phnom Penh, as well as teaching myself some new software and systems. I’ve temporarily taken up the practice of yoga along with one of my sisters and I’ve also enjoyed swimming so much that my elbows have started to complain!

Besides that, I continue to spend time with friends, explore opportunities, meet new people, enjoy so much live music, and enjoy delicious food and drinks. Just yesterday, among other things, I spent the afternoon playing with cats at a cat cafe while getting things done on my computer, and then later I went bachata dancing with some new friends and then we went out to karaoke until, well, the wee hours of the morning. It was brilliant.

what i’m thinking

Today is my one year anniversary of arrival in Cambodia. Packing up a life in the middle of the pandemic was difficult, scary, and sad, particularly since throwing a large farewell party was entirely impossible and even getting to see and say goodbye to friends individually was implausible.

I knew what I was choosing to leave but I had no idea what I was flying towards. I didn’t know who I might never see again (and that’s still a reality I have to contend with) between the pandemic and life normally. I didn’t know how well I might be able to eat as a Celiac in the new place – knowing I wouldn’t likely go hungry for long, but as a foodie, realising I might nevertheless face a very restrictive plate of options. I knew that since I first went off to uni, I have consciously and consistently chosen to be physically near or in a place where I could at least visit with my siblings as much as possible over the years, but now I was choosing to go far away and with no concrete idea of when or how we will reunite. I knew that technology has increased since I moved all around the world as a kid and every move was a death, but I didn’t know if this would be different or not for all that the world has continued to evolve and devolve. I knew I was coming here for six months to a year, but also that *everything* could change in the span of a heartbeat; in a single breath.

I’ve said it before and I say it again now, I felt like Elsa from Frozen II who is haunted by this something that keeps her awake at night until she finally just has to run off into the unknown to find and face it. One of my friends and colleagues had actually randomly given me a little Elsa figurine for Christmas, before I had even accepted the job relocation – and she is one of the few items I slipped into my luggage to bring with me like a talisman.

Now twelve months later, I find myself still here and still facing the unknown – acknowledging perhaps just how much we all live alongside but ignore or hide from the vast unknown around us all the time. Much more comfortable in the space of unknown than perhaps I ever have felt before. I still don’t know when I will be able to see most of my family again, but I had the gift of seeing my brother and sister-in-law on this side of the world after years of pandemic-produced separation. And I hope that perhaps sometime sooner than later I will at least visit again with family, if not also friends. While the advance in technology doesn’t equal being physically present with people you love, what a difference it is to be able to video chat with high quality video and sound at whim, at no extra cost. To just pop in from around the world to read aloud to nieces and nephews; to do yoga or stationary bike or swim “together;” to call just to cry, laugh, or talk —or a combination thereof! I am so grateful for this advancement in technology that allows me to allay the sorrows of separation and still enjoy being present to a surprising degree even from afar.

As others who have lived in many different places growing up often understand, I find it quite difficult to imagine being any place for any long amount of time. There was a time in my life where I was a different place at least every month. It made a year long commitment to one place sound epic, and more than a year was unfathomable. After uni, I worked really hard to learn to stay in one place for five years despite how homesick I was for elsewhere, how foreign I felt, and how many things I found difficult or downright scary. And then I packed up my life and moved somewhere entirely different to try it out. I didn’t go there with a time in mind besides “I want to at least survive a year here.” And when I did, I created stability for myself in the construct of saying, “I’m here until I’m not.” Which let me actually, simply be there, in that place, and to root down and extend my arms out like tree branches; to grow and flourish.

Looking back at the last twelve months of rooting myself here, at the surprising choice to unleash myself from the security of the job that originally brought me here and would have led me away by now, I still find it impossible to quite say how long I’m looking at. I can’t do it any more now than before! But I will say this again for myself: I’m here until I’m not. And I will be. So, to the next and latest unknown; hello my strange friend and well met.

This post is a snippet from a newsletter I originally published on Substack. You can read the rest of the publication there. 

what i’m up to

June is whirling by here in Phnom Penh, my goodness, but wonderfully full of friends, music, and art. One night I went to a newish restaurant here for what was a fabulous jazz concert by a musician I have avidly followed, the next night I attended—and participated in – a late night jam session at her invitation, and at the end of the week before last, I attended a fashion show at the French Institute.

Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee has come and gone, and I was thrilled to attend a concert by the Phnom Penh Philharmonic Orchestra as part of the platinum celebrations!

Another treat has been the much-anticipated 3-week long visit of a dear friend, who once-upon-a-time worked for me and somewhere along the way a beautiful friendship was begun, aided no doubt by our mutual love of seizing life, of writing, of cooking and eating food, and of magic and mixed cultures. Long after those days and across the continents, we’ve stayed friends – and what a delight to rendezvous here in this city, where her now-husband is originally from and where they are finally visiting again after three years and the pandemic. Sharing a place with friends is always a great way to experience it anew, too – and that was a delightful thing to remember.

I’ve also gone to a number of industry networking events and meetings as I continue to explore what is next for me. There are many exciting possibilities and I’ve felt very privileged to be able to meet, speak with, and learn from so many interesting and kind professionals.

what i’m thinking

It’s Pride week here in Phnom Penh and I’ve been thinking a lot about how much more wonderful the world is when all people are treated with dignity and are free to live fully as themselves. How much better the world would be if people didn’t have to exhaust themselves in simply trying to live their lives; if we all recognised, promoted, and made good on the intrinsic, equal worth and value of all human beings? If we diligently ensured the same rights, ease, and access in life for all (and not as a chore or necessary evil, but out of mutual love and respect for one another) rather than the frequently inhumane treatment dished out by those who claim to somehow be better (?!) humans. I also want to recall to myself that humanity and dignity are promoted not only in the big sweeping actions like policies, rules, or regulations, but in everyday interactions, in the moment-by-moment of life, and even in our intonations, expressions, and words. We should all be choosing love, all the time.

what i’m learning

I’m having the time of my life learning about what all I could possibly do with my life. Admittedly, however, I find myself envying children playing pretend on playgrounds, able to act out possible future scenarios and experience a mild version of them. I find myself wishing that I could spin up a server and test site of my life in which to play out possible choices and new features or elements in a safe environment, just like we do before making major changes to websites. It feels very daunting to step out into something that is so unfamiliar; but as a result, I’m learning more about how my brain is mapped, how I might want to rewire or upgrade it, and what failure and success mean to me.

This post is a snippet from a newsletter I originally published on Substack. You can read the rest of the publication there. 

what i’m up to

I’m back in Cambodia after a monthish-long holiday abroad, and I appear to have finally gotten over the jet-lag. Somehow it always hits me hardest travelling westward. I spent half of April and most of May in Australia and New Zealand – both places I had planned to get to back in 2020 before life as we knew it was COVID-cancelled – and briefly in Singapore. It also ticked my bucket-list 6th continent item off at long last. I had the best time exploring Brisbane, Gold Coast, Sydney, Christchurch, Kaikoura, and Singapore and would have made it to a few more places if I hadn’t caught COVID myself somewhere along the way and had to spend a week isolating.

While I didn’t get to see everything (like the Shire) or everyone (here’s looking at you, my friends in Auckland) I’d planned to in New Zealand, I had a wonderful, special, and certainly memorable visit (and isolation) with my brother and sister-in-law, who fortunately didn’t get sick along with me. We aren’t in a post-COVID world yet, but it is certainly nice that it is becoming more manageable and survivable (thank you vaccines!!) and that the world is slowly re-opening.

Amongst the LONG list of awesome experiences across the countries, some highlights (aside from all the time spent with friends and eating so much deliciousness) include:

• scootering around Brisbane and shopping
• seeing the ocean and relaxing in Gold Coast
• ferry rides and exploring Sydney (including bookstores as well as beaches)
• seeing a show at the Sydney Opera House
• visiting the International Antarctic Centre (and even getting to sit in on a lecture for a group who were heading down to the NZ station!)
• seeing whales and soaking up the ocean and mountain views in Kaikoura
• trivia night with my brother at his local pub
• lounging in hot springs in the foothills of the Southern Alps (or thereabouts)
• wine tasting in Marlborough and a gin tasting & tour at the foot of Mt. Fyffe
• Singapore marina by night

Returning to Cambodia has felt like such a homecoming, and as I look ahead at June and the coming months, I know I hope to continue calling it home for a while yet. We shall see what happens!

what i’m thinking

Much of my life, growing up as I did across cultures, countries, and continents, I’ve felt a keen sense of not-belonging, of exclusion and missing something everyone else seems to possess. Having an identity with roots in so many opposite and opposing cultures, traditions, and memories has been one of the greatest challenges in my life and remains something I still struggle with today. Oftentimes travelling for me has heightened that sense of being lost somewhere in between, of not belonging anywhere. But in the last month while messaging with a friend, I commented on how happy I was feeling and how obsessed I was at that moment with the stunning view out my window, and they laughingly commented that I might belong in the South Pacific. And without even pausing, no hesitation whatsoever, I wrote back, “haha I belong everywhere.”

And then I saw what I’d written, saw what I’d said, and realised it’s significance. Realised that somewhere in the last month of travelling, or perhaps in the past year since leaving the life I’d built up in Washington D.C. and the USA broadly, that it has come to be true. Because while I’ve said that before, I’ve always stated it wistfully, my insides twisted up with a longing for it to be real, to actually belong everywhere in a broad sense since I don’t belong somewhere specifically. But this didn’t feel wistful or sad. There was not even a sense of saudade. Instead, I don’t feel misfit; I don’t feel wrong; I don’t feel haunted by a sense of missing anything—including what I am or where I belong. Instead I truly feel home in myself and in the expanse of everywhere without the undertone of sadness.

Maybe it’s just for now. Maybe it’s because I’m not a hidden immigrant anymore, expected to fit in and consistently failing, constantly surprising people by yet another thing I don’t know or didn’t understand, even years after relocation, even after adjusting my accent and my clothing and my cultural references. Now, I definitely do not and cannot blend in and so I can comfortably and simply be “other.” Be all the varied, many things I am, rolled up into the very unique and constantly evolving being that is me. It’s so grounding and also incredibly freeing. It’s so beautiful and crystaline. It is breathing easy after slowly suffocating for so very long. I’m here for it, I am so happy in it, and I don’t ever want to let this go.

This beautiful thought-image comes to my mind as I ponder all this; it’s an excerpt from T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets (which I adore), specifically, “East Coker:”

Dawn points, and another day
Prepares for heat and silence. Out at sea the dawn wind
Wrinkles and slides. I am here
Or there, or elsewhere. In my beginning.

what i’m learning

Years ago, I worked really hard to learn how to create structure out of and/or despite the chaos in my life, resulting in a long-sought sense of some security; that feeling of finally being in control. This past year and especially the last month have helped me consider, though, that perhaps at some point structure started controlling me. I forgot that I don’t have to be afraid of chaos or be adverse to the unknown because I can handle them, because I can create structure for myself amid the chaos and I can navigate fluid and ambiguous circumstances—indeed, I have done. Importantly, I don’t need structure for structure’s own sake. I myself am solid, fluid, and most definitely ambiguous (for better and for worse)!

Travelling in general, and certainly travelling internationally with constantly changing and widely ranging rules and regulations in the post-pandemic world we are moving into, was really anxiety raising for me at first, because it’s so impossible to control or even predict. But when I remembered that I can be ok no matter what happens, that I can be fluid, too, it helped. Structure can be the palm tree that is built to bend in the hurricane winds. Structure can be the bicycle designed to ride on but that can also fold up and be carried with you on your back.

Structure can be deconstructed and reconstructed, and I find it refreshing to recall that sometimes our fragility as humans is merely manufactured and all we need to do is a little deconstructing, reframing, or shifting.

This post is a snippet from a newsletter I originally published on Substack. You can read the rest of the publication there.