ebbs and flows

hi. i’m here now after three months of what seems like some of the most up-and-down anxiety-inducing-yet-ultimately-satisfactory period of my life so far. i took a break to kind of face that time on my own - i don’t think i would’ve had the courage or even mental capacity to write publicly about the cacophony that was this past semester (my third of eight in college).

the past couple of entries here have been downcast. i can’t not admit that my state of mind over the summer and for the few months leading up to now has been a dark blue. i saw reflections in my attitude and feelings of self-worth and -value that mimicked how i perceived myself in middle school - just hopeless and sick (note: i’ve never fully opened up about that time; this post i wrote in 9th grade gives the smallest glimpse of it). thinking back on those early years of teenagedom has only made me realize how much i needed to be stronger now.

i’m 20. i started writing here when i felt alone seven years ago.

can you believe that? how could i let myself fall back into the traps of my mind from when i was 13? why couldn’t i resist? what was wrong with feeling alone again?

just like the last few years of teenage-now-adultdom have ebbed and flowed in an effort to find myself, so too have the past few months. releasing myself from the firm grasp of summer depressions, learning to rely on my friends who i didn’t initially believe could help (and really truly do), focusing on what i love (because art is what matters) and not on what i don’t, calling my parents, calling abby (my best friend from home), appreciating the mornings listening to npr by myself, cooking for myself again — i had to learn to do these things before i could get out of where i was. this hole that i kept digging myself into every time i told myself i couldn’t get out.

i’m above that hole now. i’ve been able to enjoy small things again (e.g. something like a midnight drive on a tuesday) because i’ve disentangled myself from the dark blue that used to tower over me.

i’m home in new york as i write this. only now can i sit down and really think about the ebbs and flows of june and july and august and september and october and november. it’s over now (or it feels like it). i’m just sailing.

i’ll update more frequently here now. i promise.

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recently i've been...

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…home. i’m home again. finally. i’m in new york city, if it’s been that long that you need a reminder. it’s been 6 days here and only t-18 days until i’m back in los angeles. it’s been an interesting few weeks.

my health is… improving? i started therapy. i finished classes and had exams. went to study color at the getty one night. got $5 ramen the other. had a party with my filmmaking cohort on a roof in downtown la. made new friends. therapy. made s’mores with my roommates at the fire pit and we just talked. ate dim sum. spent the day on a trampoline with my preschool friend who i still love. saw another doctor. flew home. mother’s day. saw my best friend from high school and day-napped together. about to get my aura taken tonight with my family.

it’s been a great few weeks.

i miss my friends back in los angeles. i’ll see them soon.

i’ve been thinking a lot about how best i can spend my next 18 days at home. i’ve been slowly marking things off my checklist of random errands. fix pants? done. watch hanna? done. i have the space for unnecessary tasks. it’s been nice to finally relieve all the little things i’ve been wanting to get done for a couple of months.

i watch movies with my parents in the evening. talk with my -3hr difference friends past midnight. do my errands during the day. and i wake up around 10:30am. i like the balance and the need to not have to do anything. a least for a little bit. (watch me next write about my stir craziness).

here are a few bookmarks that i’ve been bookmarking because internet bookmarks are also relevant to my days:

1. jacob collier singing make me cry has been on repeat in the house recently. i saw him live in concert a month or two ago in los angeles and this song swayed me. now whenever i listen to it i just kind of entrance myself again.

2. i’m trying not to buy groceries and baking items that i can’t finish in 3 weeks (and that, honestly, no one else in my house will ever eat). so as i much as i want to make this date granola, i think i’ll wait to try it out until i move into my new place in LA.

3. i need to make my way to essex market. hopefully, it’s not like chelsea market? they have vegan artisan cheeses. sold.

4. i’ve been accumulating ways to mitigate my plastic use and waste. re: ‘minimalism’. i need a coffeemaker and i’ve been wanting to try to make my own nut milks instead of buying containers from the grocery store that use huge plastics. it’s cheap too. this solves that.

5. too bad i never want to go to jfk ever.

see you next week.

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when you can't eat a lot of stuff

a few weeks ago, i was diagnosed with this chronic disease called small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. people call it SIBO. this is what i felt like when i received the news.

i’ve been dealing with a lot the last four to five weeks. i know i haven’t really been present on here, and honestly, that space has been relieving. i think what is overwhelming me most is the abrupt and almost instantaneous changes that are happening in my life to cure what has seemed like almost six years of health problems.

what does that look like? bouncing between 2 different “diets” that have opposite restrictions (note: “diet” in this context = limiting certain foods to keep me from relapsing into SIBO, not trying to lose weight). seeing 4 doctors regularly— 5 after today. beginning my cycle of antibiotics for what i thought would be 3 months. explaining to people what i can’t eat and why i can’t eat it. having to prove to people that my health matters.

i think it is honest to say that i am frustrated. i’m slowly acknowledging these “setbacks” as progress— that this is what i need to push through, deal with, accept to get better. i am getting better. it gets easier to make this distinction as i see improvements in my health.

for me, the struggles that i am facing in recovery have had more of a mental impact than a physical one. i don’t want to restrict my food, but i am being asked to. i don’t want to check labels on the back of containers, but it is heavily recommended that i do so. in minor ways, i am being asked to return to disordered habits. i know that i cannot let that happen.

sibo recovery has been a test of my recovery from previous disorders. i dismiss disordered thoughts as soon as they enter my head space. i try to think less about why i am eating something even though i have to make sure i know what i am eating. i’m starting to practice mindful eating. i just have to slow down.

i have proven to myself that i am stronger than whatever i was going through many years ago.

and i am so incredibly proud of myself for that.

i’m getting better. i’ve been coping with the stress of my fluctuating health the best way i know how: cooking. i make breakfast in my dorm every day. you can find out what i get to eat every morning as i document my meals here.

i’m getting stronger.

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slow down

i have to keep reminding myself to slow down. to slow slow slow down. to not overanalyze minute details. to draw my attention away from the things that should matter less.

i had a little bit of a mental breakdown on monday. it was this feeling of pent up and enclosing anxiousness and fear of myself. my head was bubbling with self-deprecating thoughts that kept nagging and nagging at me. i was breaking myself down in small, stinging ounces. i knew that it was all in my head. it didn’t matter. i couldn’t stop myself from thinking of myself in this critical light of revulsion. i knew that it was agonizing me but for half the day i just couldn’t stop. i boxed myself in with my own thoughts. i was dipping back into old depressive habits when i was younger.

i called my mom.

and i clicked.

i distracted myself. i cleaned, made my bed, pounded out work, ate. i took a walk. and i took a bikeride to run errands that i had been putting off. just checking off boxes helped me feel better. i took some time to just sit in the sun for a little bit. i reached out to my friends for help. i felt better. i got some bright yellow flowers.

i’m more conscious of how my mind reacts to these bouts of anxiety. i can control them better. but in the moment, i feel entirely caged in my head. i just need to become better at seeing the bigger picture in these entrapping but minuscule moments.

i’m getting better.

thanks for hearing me.

just slow down, iz.

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october diary

oct 1, 2018

the broad & walt disney concert hall projections

went to the broad with john in the afternoon. there was a long ling for the infinity room x kusama exhibit. ended up going to the kusama “pod” that you could only stand and look into. the security guards timed you for 30 seconds. walked around to the disney concert hall projections. sat on a cleared parking lot structure. it was a little underwhelming. watching the shadows drift on the broad was conversely a lot more pretty.

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october 6-7, 2018

weekend in venice beach & photoshoot for veuve cliquot polo classic

drove out to venice to meet simbarashe and the rest of the team. got tacos on abbot kinney for dinner. prepped for our shoot the next day. didn’t sleep. was in the sun photographing at veuve cliquot polo from 9a-6p. my legs hurt by the end. celebrated with an ironic meal of pizza, ben & jerry’s and champagne. ate twice at great white. i learned a lot.

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october 20, 2018

row DTLA

went with maia to row DTLA this morning. it was quiet and serene. popped in and out of little shops. sat at a table and just listened to cars and the birds and the people putting away produce boxes from earlier in the morning. bought a little pin that says, “art every day.” it felt a little empty.

october is almost over.

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hello, la

hello.

i’m in a new place. i’m 3000 miles away from home-home. i call this place “home” now. my friends seem to hate it. i’m just a jumble of homesickness. i’m settled. or settling. i’m creating but just not in the way i expected i would. it’s coming soon, though.

i’m meeting cool people. i’m friends with art people, film people, business people, econ people. i’m finding “me”s. or more interesting “me”s, which thrills me.

i want to make more!

i want to film more!

i want to take the metro more!

it’s only been four weeks.

i’m in a constant reminding-myself-mode that i am just getting started.

i miss home.

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summer polaroids

i have three weeks until i leave for los angeles. back home i go. 

it's weird. i'm living these summer moments home candidly and with the intention and the knowledge that they will be my last in this sort of situation, as a high schooler living in new york. that's weird to me. i won't be seeing anyone from home until november. what????? i'm on my own. 

i thought i'd reflect on a few photos that don't exactly sum up my summer but thought were indicative of the sort of stuff i've been up to. they're not in no particular order because chaotic order is more style. or organized chaos, i guess.

i've been walking around and eating and dining and making and doing and cooking and baking and reading and relaxing and visiting museums and seeing people and eating ice cream and dying on the really hot days. 

i remind myself every few days that i must really savor these moments with the people i love here. this is not an ordinary moment. thank you to everyone who's made it special.

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i was grey

here's the thing about graduating at my school. you wear white. pure, crisp, blinding white. or, at least, that's what you're supposed to wear. commencement is a big deal for obvious reasons: it's a nod at our efforts to succeed at school for the past 13 years and it's a celebration of our last moments of being a teenager in high school. like a lot of other schools, we honor our graduation with diplomas, singing, and our families and close friends in front of us while we grin onstage. we are being championed for us. i am being championed for me. 

the symbolic purity of white dresses is something i've only found at my school, (though i know others do it as well in the city). i wasn't exactly white though.

on graduation day, i knew it was coming-- looks (greatly disapproving) and comments towards my dress. i acknowledged that i was pushing white. even though i had expected some pushback before i came to school, i was still so excited to feel beautiful on a day that celebrates me for me, because that's what commencement is all about, right?

someone had approached me before we walked on stage and told me that the color of my dress would ruin pictures. i kind of spiraled into a whirlpool of self-deprecating and self-conscious mind junk after that. 

i did not feel beautiful, i was insecure. i felt ashamed. i didn't smile wholeheartedly until i realized that people didn't have to look me up and down anymore. the biggest day of our entire upper school life and i showed up looking abnormal. 

but eventually i sucked it up. 

i am me for me. maybe my dress wasn't white, but it was me. "irrefutably you" is what one of my friends told me. 

and that was it.

i was grey. 

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on happiness

from an excerpt i wrote in my journal this morning:

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maybe i'm saying all of this because i'm on winter break.

well.

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twenty seventeen

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according to some weird website, these were my top nine photographs on instagram this year – (ironically) selected by which ones received the most likes. they're far from my best photos that i've taken this year, or the ones that mean the most to me, at least. 

hello.

it's been a long year. i'm done with my lists of things that have happened in the spans of time between each time i write. i think. gosh, it's been a long year. 

i feel like the end of 2017 and the beginning of 2018 is the firsts of lasts (or maybe even the lasts of firsts), if that makes sense. i told my mom in november that this is my last thanksgiving living at home. i told her the other day that this is my last christmas living at home. i'm living my last december, january, and february of high school. i already had my last birthday at home. the walls in my room are slowly filling up with the last photos of my time in new york. i'm going to have my first last prom. and my first last graduation. 

it's weird. 

in this lull of time – of waiting time – until the end of the year, i feel like i'm just wasting time. wasting time all the time. i'm doing things, like school work, but even that seems empty in a way. i think anticipation is killing me. 

i started volunteering at an animal shelter. i started drawing again (the last time, if you remember, was in 8th grade). i might sign up for an art class a few times during the week. i'm trying to start a notebook (but, so far unsuccessfully) again. i'm listening to new music. that doesn't feel empty. even though i'm filling empty time with old things. 

i'm not getting nostalgic yet. 

it's snowing outside.

that's nostalgia. 

here are my hand-selected songs that i listened to the most in 2017. izzy of 2018, listen to these if you want a glimpse back in time. 

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biggest little city

i went to reno last weekend.

i saw my friends that i never get to see.

we recorded music.

i climbed a snowy hill.

i fell into the snow. purposefully. 

i was in arizona for a few hours.

i think i cried at some point. i probably won't see them again for a while.

love you guys.

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eighteen

it's hard to believe i'm an adult now.

i can sign my own papers, take a flight by myself, vote. 

i am my own person now. legally. 

that's such a strange thing, and another addition to the growing whirlwind of growing-up-stuff i'm driving into.

i am not ready to go quite yet – i still have a whole year ahead of me. 

i will make the most out of what i have. i will make the most out of what i am given. i will make the most out of who i am. i will make the most out of eighteen.

i am eighteen now.

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hello, seniors

dear seniors,

hello.

it's a weird feeling isn't it? being back? we're entering this new realm of teenagedom and it feels strange. it feels like we're almost adults – we are almost adults – but there still exists this surreal barrier that we have to break through to get there. 

i won't be surprised if we spend our days writing away our life stories in the next few months, trying to explain our identities in only a limited number of words and numbers. 

two days in, it's already stressful. i want the best for all of you, even if i don't say it to you all the time. we're all going to get there, to adulthood or whatever that means. this will be hard, i know. but we'll get there.

there's going to be a lot of stuff to look forward to.

i'm excited for it all, and to spend our last months together with you guys.

cheers to us,

izzy

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a whole month went by

hi,

it's been a good long while.

i've been traveling around the u.s. and abroad for various reasons... mostly preparing myself for the year ahead as i take on applying to college. 

yeah, i'm applying to college this year.

i don't really believe it either. 

i'm slowly realizing how much i'm growing up. not completely, but a little more fast that i'd like. 

i think i'm going to be ready though. i'm ready for a new push into life and a slow close of what i think is adolescence. 

i've been writing a lot, just not here obviously – supplements and essays and drafts about me and who i am. that's a bit weird... a quite large portfolio of autobiographical writing. 

i went out today with my friend and took photos for the first time in a long time. i've never actually done street photography before. this was my first shot at it. i kind of love it. 

summer's halfway over. i'm just a little ways there.

love, 

izzy

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this 4-day weekend

for the past 3 days or so, henry and i have been traveling new york city. i've been taking video and shots and everything nice and stuff, so be on the lookout for that sort of thing in a bit.

here was our itinerary:

friday

– la esquina, little italy

– morgenstern's finest ice cream, lower east side

saturday

– brooklyn bridge, brooklyn

– smith canteen, carroll gardens

– brooklyn heights promenade + piers

sunday

– ost cafe, east village

– stumptown coffee, west village

– saigon shack, west village

– minetta lane, west village

– the high line, chelsea

and we're off.

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first snow

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dear you,

we got our first christmas tree with jenny (our dog) today. 

it was snowing and foggy and eerie and empty and beautiful.

jenny, who was born in the cayman islands, is obsessed with the snow.

she's like us: beach-born, energetic, and overall kind of crazy. it was no doubt she'd love the snow as much as q and i do. 

we got a twelve-foot tree. it was so big the guys who owned the little tree farm had to use a tractor to drag it to our car. it smelled like christmas all the way home.

it smells like christmas in our house now.

i hope i got good pictures.

happy holidays.

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and, thank you

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yogurt panna cotta . pumpkin pie and ginger ice cream . roasted yams and delicata with yogurt and pomegranate . kale salad with persimmons and tahini dressing . roasted green beans and whole grain mustard . mashed potatoes . stuffing . turkey . gravy cranberry sauce with jalepeños . roasted cauliflower steaks with capers and olives and parsley . berry crisp .

i am thankful for life

i am thankful for opportunity

i am thankful for people and family and friends and love

i am eternally thankful for everything

enjoy your holidays 

be thankful for everything that you have

love,

izzy

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because it was great

i made a video a week ago about my grandparents' neighborhood. 

i went to jazz camp for a week.

i met really cool people.

i discovered new music. 

i took a break.

i spent time with my family.

i'm good. i'm home. let's go. 

i miss them.

happy monday

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what's going on

what's goin' on guys? i've come here to say that we have T-minus 2 days left until the end of the school year. do you know how good that feels? that feels pretty great. 

i've been taking some weird photos lately. like cool weird? alex says that they're cool weird. that means that they really are cool weird. that's good. i love flash now. to kinda celebrate these photographs, i made some weird collages.

1. got a new shirt from my dear friend that says "matriarchy now!" i love it. you can buy one (and look at all of her cool projects) here. 
2. i painted my nails like i always do when i choose to do them once in a millennium 
3. a cool water-chemical stain that i found today waiting for the bus
4. my kefir yogurt ice cream with rainbow sprinkles that i had for dinner last night
5. a brownie cake with very sad decorating by me (for my friend's chinese teacher)

and because it's been awhile, here are some links that i've found from the last 12 days.

1/ all of the pretty colors

2/ this awesome wallpaper (yes, real paper that goes on walls)

3/ buy all of the patches!!

4/ OK.

5/ what are you talking about?

happy hump day, everyone

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blanca

fresh pasta with carbonara 

garbanzo soup with raspberry salt

apple with shaved macadamia 

glass shrimp with kohlrabi 

sweet potato chips with buttermilk 

agnolotti with lapsang souchong tea

sunchoke and cardamom cake with cacao 

fresh stracciatella with asparagus

this is what we ate at blanca for mother's day.

have a great weekend.

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