The other morning, as I was waiting for my tram at the tram stop, I looked up to the heavy gray sky hanging low above the roofs of old houses in our street, and I saw 11 birds (yes, I counted) flying in a V-shaped formation, and I watched them until they were out of sight. For some reason, they reminded me of this whole year—a turbulent, at times heartbreaking year; it was like mourning 11 (or maybe more) pieces of my life that I had been separated from, and seeing those birds made me feel hopeful. There must be things I can do to get those pieces back—or to get them all to fly together again, so I can feel whole once again.

In a way, I felt better when I thought of myself as made of tiny little pieces, like a jigsaw puzzle missing a piece or something. Because even if you’re losing a few pieces here and there, the big picture didn’t change. You could still see that it was a puzzle of a vase of flowers, of a city at dusk, of a winter forest. Even if at the moment I am missing a few pieces of myself, I could still see the whole me in its entirety. This gives me the freedom to either find the missing old pieces or, better yet, craft new ones that will eventually fit the big picture. All the while feeling like I’m not entirely losing myself. That the “me” is still here, always here, and will always be.

I guess there are many ways to make you feel whole if you see yourself as a collective of tiny little pieces. At the end of October this year, I started picking up some of my missing pieces, and I found that giddiness of anticipation, excitement, and bursts of inspiration once again—a feeling I have been missing for a while. I told myself, “Let’s collect one missing piece at a time.”

Who knows, maybe the pieces weren’t actually missing. Perhaps I was misplacing them or forgetting where I kept them, but maybe, maybe they were always here inside of me all along.

Amsterdam

MONDAY, June 2, 2025

After having our morning coffee, we left early for the office to pack and ship some orders. It was pretty windy and chilly that morning, so I wore my sweater and brought my raincoat, just in case. On our way to the office, around Kinkerstraat, a police car followed us, slowed down, and an officer looked out from the rolled-down window. They mentioned something about how we drove our snorfiets in the wrong lane—that it should have been in the bike lane (it used to be that way).

I tentatively pointed to the sign on top of the bike lane, saying ‘snorfietsen niet toegestaan’—moped not allowed. The officer laughed and then nodded enthusiastically, “Oh, you’re right, good work!” before giving us two thumbs up and speeding away.

The police here were cool like that.

We had warm bread with chicken from the Waarme Bakker for lunch, and from the kitchen window, we saw someone get arrested by the police in front of our building’s door. As D said, “Never a boring day in our office.”

A came over to help us with shipping in the afternoon, so I had some time to rush through my Aboulela’s exercise for class. I realized that when I created this two-page exercise, I always had a bigger story inside my head. I felt like I had to hold on to some information so I could gradually reveal it when I wrote the whole story—and in the end, I spent so much time thinking of the entire story instead of focusing on just the 2-page opening. This was always a bad idea. And it was a bad habit. I always needed to remind myself, ‘This is just an exercise.’ This is just an exercise.

We came home around 6, and while D went out for a run, I took a nap. I felt like my brain was overheating.

In the evening, D prepared dinner: spaghetti pesto as our first course, and chicken cordon bleu with beans as our second course. For dessert, I made myself a cup of milk with arenga sugar, then went to my room/studio to quickly update my weekly journal.

I wanted to read something light, so I opened One by Sarah Crossan on my Kindle—a middle-grade story about two conjoined sisters, told from the perspective of one of them (Grace) in verses.

 

Amsterdam

TUESDAY, June 3, 2025

I was sobbing as I finished reading One by Sarah Crossan; it was so sad and beautiful at the same time. What an excellent middle-grade book!

D went out to have dinner with his friends, so I made my chicken porridge again, using leftover rice, but in a street-food style this time: with grilled shredded chicken (marinated in yellow spice), kerupuk (crackers), and of course, onion sambal. It was so good, and I felt like I was transported home right away!

I read more from Orbital (my new reading light just arrived!). I was reading slowly because I was so afraid this book would end. Then I continued with a little bit of Call Me by Your Name, and I realized my problem with it was primarily due to how they had labeled it as “the greatest love story of all time.” If only it weren’t labeled that, it wouldn’t be as problematic.

Amsterdam

WEDNESDAY, June 4, 2025

D told me he would take me to a surprise spot before going to the office, and we ended up at The Book Exchange. I loved this second-hand bookshop, and I used to come here a lot when D and I were still dating, but I hadn’t visited it in years. I could have taken hours selecting books there, but since we needed to go to the office, I managed to choose my books in an hour.

I found The Mortgaged Heart, Reflections in a Golden Eye, and The Haunted Boy by Carson McCullers—she was one of my favorite authors, and I would read anything she wrote. I also found a classic copy of Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style—I had bought so many copies of this book over the years (university/work/courses/trainings, etc.), but someone always borrowed my copies, and I ended up not having any. So, for EUR2, I snatched it. It was just one of those books you needed to have on hand.

On one of the top shelves, I saw Writing from the Inside Out by Dennis Palumbo, which, as I flipped through the pages, reminded me of Natalie Goldberg, so I adopted it for those days when I needed inspiration and comfort. I took Miller’s Death of A Salesman for my study of the play’s dramatic arc, and Ginsberg’s Howl, Kaddish, and Other Poems—for when I needed some inspiration for something raw, energetic, charged, and spontaneous. I also discovered Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris, and I loved her work as a comfort read for cold, rainy autumn or winter days. It was like knowing I was in good hands, and I would just be transported into the story, wherever she decided to take me, and it was always a good journey.

And last but not least, I got this first edition of Salad Anniversary by Machi Tawara. I had never heard about this book before, but I had a feeling…

The book was wrapped in plastic (since it was a 1st edition) and there were no blurbs at the back, so I couldn’t peek inside or find out what it was about (or maybe I could if I asked the staff to open the plastic seal, but anyway…). I could Google it, of course, but it was like robbing myself of the fun. So I decided to try my luck and just got it. I was overjoyed when I opened it at home and began reading, and then I went online to find out more about the book. It was my kind of book—I could see myself swallowing it whole as a 20-year-old hopeless (or should I say hopeful) romantic: a poetry-prose on love, heartache, and longing.

I wanted to flip through it and read it some other time, but I couldn’t stop myself from starting to read the whole book.

“You love boiled tofu for dinner.
Remembering,
I bought a little earthen pot.” (Tawara 19)

“Late afternoon—
you and I gazed at the same thing
as between us something ended.” (Tawara 22)

“Parents claim to raise their children
but garden tomatoes turn red
unbidden.” (Tawara 109)

“The day I left for Tokyo
Mother looked older by all the years
of separation ahead “(Tawara 144)

“Three-thirty p.m. in a noodle shop—
listening to the whisper
of frying tempura” (Tawara 183)

Tawara, Machi. (1990). Salad Anniversary. Translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter. Kodansha International.

 

Amsterdam

THURSDAY, June 5, 2025

We read “Sestina” by Bishop in class yesterday evening, and since then, I have been obsessed with creating a sestina for my Bishop exercise. The rigid structure excited me, and I realized how limitations could stimulate my creativity.

I made a cucumber, lettuce, and tomato sandwich with cream cheese for lunch before heading to the office. Today, I managed to get the number of processed orders down to 89, which was a huge relief since this was more or less our “normal” open orders compared to the 400+ open orders at the end of last week. I think this was the first day I would have a good night’s sleep since we returned from Italy.

I grilled my pesto-marinated salmon in the oven and prepared rice for dinner while reading Orbital on the couch. After dinner, I continued to tinker with my Bishop exercise. It was gratifying to become so immersed in something that I lost track of time.

Amsterdam

FRIDAY, June 6, 2025

I took an off day today and spent the whole morning working on my sestina for class, while also replying to emails and completing some administrative tasks on the side. I created my 3-month checklist on Notion yesterday, so I felt a bit calmer seeing everything laid out that way, knowing I could check a few items off each day (although new items tended to slip in from time to time).

D made lunch today; he prepared a salad with beans and schnitzel. He went to the office to help ship some items while I stayed home and worked on my final leg with the Bishop exercise. I made sure to read the piece out loud several times to ensure everything flowed the way I intended. I decided to wait a day or two before submitting my assignment, to re-read my sestina on Saturday and Sunday and see if there was anything I wanted to change.

When D came home, we tried to decide what we wanted for dinner, and since we just used the ‘winner-picker’ wheel for the shop’s raffle, we decided that was how we’d choose. We ended up with “sushi” winning this dinner raffle, but when D went to the sushi place, it was closed. Next door was a new Korean place, Cham, that we had never tried, so we chose that. D got his bibimbap, and I got my spicy tofu and vegetable deopbap.

 

Amsterdam

SATURDAY, June 7, 2025

I finished reading Orbital and Salad Anniversary today.

Both were so good, and I felt so happy I finished them. Orbital was terrific; it deserved its awards. I always read a few parts out loud because the language was so lyrical, and they truly read like spoken word poetry. People said they had trouble identifying each astronaut after some time, but I didn’t have that problem. The characters of each one were pretty apparent to me, with their memories and quirks, so I was never really confused about who was speaking the whole time (I loved Chie’s lists! I made lists, too!).

Salad Anniversary was so heartwarming, and the way it carried the Tanka tradition—honoring it while also making it contemporary—was inspiring. I also read how, upon its publication, the writer, Machi Tawara, received many letters from readers writing contemporary Tanka to her, capturing their feelings.

That was, I believed, the highest compliment a writer could receive: how their writings inspired and moved others, in the spur of the moment, to write and express themselves. In the evening, we made nachos with cheese, homemade guacamole, and tomato salsa along with store-bought aioli, and ate dinner while re-watching The Big Short.

Amsterdam

SUNDAY, June 8, 2025

Another rainy and windy day. I needed something wholesome and light, so I reread my childhood novels, Mallory Towers, while eating oatmeal with banana and berries, and then finally finished Call Me by Your Name.

My opinion held for this novel: it should not be labeled as the greatest romance or love story of our time. If only this novel hadn’t been advertised or marketed that way, I wouldn’t have had such a hard time with it. If only, at the end of the book, either Elio or Oliver could have looked back on that summer and realized something, understanding what was wrong (and what felt right), and we were shown how their thoughts/feelings had matured—now that they were adults in their 40s or 50s, it could have been a good enough resolution. Sadly, it didn’t happen. Gladly, I slipped into The Solitude of Prime Numbers by Paolo Giordano and sighed in relief, knowing from the get-go that this would be good and memorable.

We went to visit E and R at the open-air market where they sold kimchi and pajeon. It was cold and windy, and when we arrived, it was pouring. Everyone tried to hide beneath the tents of the stalls. Then the wind blew so hard that some people’s stalls almost toppled, and their boxes and packages flew away. D bought me a super bright and playful yellow gilet from one of the stalls—he knew I was always in need of a bodywarmer!

We came home with two packets of kimchi, and (please forgive me, Italians) I made my creamy kimchi spaghetti (using a carbonara recipe of whisked egg yolks and pecorino). I liked how the sourness of the kimchi made the whole creamy and cheesy pasta taste lighter.