journey of three seas
dear stranger-friends,
hello from a rainy week in istanbul. this letter is my artistic digest & weather report from the creative life. my last letter was about luna, and loving an animal.
this week, I wanted to share recollections from an adventure I went on at the end of summer -- a three week roadtrip, spanning an old land, ancient ruins, sleepy villages, lush mountains, and three seas. here's the route:
then, I'll share a few creations and inspirations from these last few weeks.
in this letter:
- a journey of three seas: in photographs, maps, polaroids
- put your tsunami in a jar
- a minimalist recipe for change
- digest from the inner creative life
- inspiration log
- ✨ dear kening, how do you stay motivated?
part I - journey of three seas
TRAVEL NOTES | AT A GLANCE
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time: 3 weeks, but it felt like 3 months
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distance: 6,940 km (4,312 miles)
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the weather: september was perfect - you can easily swim in the seas without it being too clotted with tourists. the black sea region can be very chilly.
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the roads: ranged from very good, smooth, paved highway toll roads - to squiggly mountainous dirt roads. on the highways, people drive on the right side of the road, with different lanes for different speeds.
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the car: we had car trouble. and it broke down on the road on day 3 (a whole saga), requiring a toll truck, hours at the mechaniac's in the middle of nowhere, an impromptu last-minute airbnb stay, a new car. then we continued on.
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the accommodations: experienced every configuration: campsites, pre-fab homes, a variety of airbnbs ranging from shitty to not bad, hotels, mountain lodges - most of which I booked last minute, or at most, a week in advance.
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the food: village food is, by far, the best food in Turkey, and worth driving extra for. I used Google maps to find the most homestyle, local places. Turkish people are particular and vocal -- so if you see high rated reviews all in Turkish, it's certainly going to be good.
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fruit stands on the side of the road: is absolutely worth stopping for, and fresh from the farms in the region. bring cash.
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ancient ruins: range from well maintained and protected, to very abandoned and just left there. it cities like Antalya, they are integrated, scattered inside the city.
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the seas: I swam in as many places as I could. my favorite places were in the southern aegean / mediterranean -- in the little villages around the Antalya region.
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the richness of the land: is even more impressive than I expected. both in terms of natural resources (the mountains, the sea, the olive trees, fruit trees) as well as the history, culture, and culinary cuisine. you feel, clearly, why early civilizations settled and flourished here.
I. THE AEGEAN SEA | SLOW VILLAGES, ANCIENT RUINS
after leaving the hilly black hole which is Istanbul, all the little villages down to Izmir blur together - or maybe it's because we drove so fast. they have a slow, sleepy pace of their own - such that you can easily imagine spending a month in a house by the sea, eating watermelon, reading books.
this is the seaside promenade by Izmir - (unfortunately lined with trash) - but there is a sense of openness and spaciousness you don't feel in Istanbul. from here, we look into Greece.
south of Izmir, the very impressive ruins of Ephesus -- an ancient Greek and Roman settlement. it is unbearably hot to visit in the summertime.
eating figs in the car, which we bought from a boy on the roadside fruitstand.
driving along winding mountain roads, during sunset, somewhere in Datça.
II. MEDITERRANEAN SEA | RIPE SUN LIFE
my favorite stretch of land is between Marmaris (which is still technically Aegean) to Antalya. there is a ripeness you can feel in the air as the sea blue appears a little deeper, the sun feels more golden, and figs, oranges, and pomegranates hang from trees in bounty -- such that if you stick your arm out the window while driving through villages, you could touch them.
halfway down winding mountain roads to Cleopatra's Baths.
swimming with Luna in öludeniz - apparently world-famous for paragliding
one of my favorite villages: Olympos, which is both densely forested, filled with ancient ruins, and by the sea. the kind of place where I could easily live in a treehouse bungalow, and chill out for a month.
III | THE BLACK SEA | MISTY DARK MOUNTAIN LIFE
the black sea region is beautiful in a drastically different way. it's rainy, wet, misty, and lush with foliage. mountain life means: long, winding drives to grocery stores. waking up with the sun. retreating into your lodge after dark. there is an introspection and seclusion here -- the hardiness of mountain people. here is a song I love from a black sea singer, and here's another.
in Artvin, a wooden mountain home airbnb, where we could lay in bed and see this view out the window; the fog rolling in and out, like living inside a cloud. the hill overlooks their tea garden.
in Rize, an old black sea home turned into a cozy mountain lodge - with a warm hostess who cooked us breakfast, lunch, and dinner. it smelled like wood. the kind of place I'd imagine doing doing writing retreats in.
I was so impressed with these paintings on the caves in Soumela Monastery - a Greek Orthodox monastery built into the dark mountains, in Trabzon.
here's a creek running through the forest, in Rize.
the roadtrip in polaroids
all the photos you see above I took on my iphone, but I also brought my polaroid, and carried just enough film to take one photo a day, for 21 days. one day, I'll write about polaroid film as creative process in its own right - mainly; all the moments leading up to taking a single photo - and all the moments after. I've never been super interested in photography, but this slow accumulation process makes me want to learn analog photography.
request a curated travel itinerary from me (3 available!)
an experimental-collaboration-gift: if you're interested in the three seas, I'd love to curate an itinerary for your (real or vicarious) travels. I made this Google Form where you can fill out your preferences. I'll have time for 3 guides, as my gift to you.
part II | the creative life & other inspirations
so much has happened since that roadtrip, and I'm working towards the day when my newsletter can catch up to the speed of life (right now, it's a few months behind...)
a summary of my life, these weeks
this last month: I went to the US and visited old friends; traveling at rapid speed across their lives, gave a toast at a childhood friend's wedding -- remembering the power of speaking English -- reunited with my parents for the first time in 3 years -- remembering the comfort of speaking Chinese -- fell in love with reading paper books, again, and returned, via a meditative, seven hour layover in Warsaw airport (where they serve tasty Polish soups), to Istanbul, where I celebrated my 31st birthday via a party I did not want (but enjoyed), on the afterhours of which, I had my leg bitten by a dog. I spent these last two weeks walking slowly. this past sunday, I went to prince islands.
a book is like an indulgent cake | pachinko by min jee lee
this is the book I read, which made me fall in love with reading again. I borrowed it from my brother's girlfriend, and started reading while standing on a fisherman's pier in wilmington, north carolina. I devoured it in 3 days, and it felt like eating an indulgent cake - which is how I felt about books when I was growing up. so, I drew this book as a slice of cake, and wrote a post about it...
from the archives | roadtrip across the states, 2016
six years ago, I went on a 6 week cross-country roadtrip with my boyfriend and drew visual diaries along the way. it was epic and majestic in the way that American landscapes are. I used a set of 12 watercolor pencils, a paintbrush, and a pen. keeping an analog art diary had its own flavor of ritual, and rhythm.
a double portrait of zeynep & etienne | an illustration
my friend Zeynep commissioned me to do a double portrait of her and her partner, Etienne, printed as a large poster. we took inspiration from French electronic color palette, and choose a bold, primary palette. it's a piece about the kind of spaciousness and stability you find in a wooded place, under an open sky, in a partner's embrace.
a minimalist recipe for daily transformation
I wrote this one day in a moment of clarity. the minimalist recipe for making any big changes is: to get from A to Z, do X for Y days. the hard part is finding and identifying the right variables (which may also change).
put your tsunami in a jar
the weather on island Kening is generally a bit dramatic and stormy - so, one day, I stumbled upon this visualization of putting my tsunami in a jar. not denying the tsunami, but simply containing it, for later, when I could give it my proper attention. a lot of breathing is required. see also: Scorpio self care guide.
report from the inner / creative life:
- current creative season: very autumn. shedding, clearing, resetting, integrating, slowly honing my focus for the clarity of winter, my most fruitful season. this means: doing a deep clean of my personal rituals & creative work routines. meditating on the importance of rest, eating, sleeping. building slow mind practices, like a resident monk in my own monastery.
- recommiting to: my writing practice, like a detox for the spirit. to speak life into words is to make my life mine. I barely wrote all year - because I don't know what to write about this place. I'm waiting for the words. or perhaps, the words are waiting for me.
- in the mood for: doing something with my voice, like a podcast. building micro-businesses, including -- a language school, where I reverse-teach myself (and others) Turkish. an astrology evolution experiment. a travel guide website. and more.
- recent work insight: I was reflecting on my work blocks in terms of my astrological signs, and how directly my problems & solutions map onto my archetypes. I tend to have tons of starting energy (Aries) and go so deep I get disoriented and dazed (Scorpio), and then make things and never share them (Scorpio), or get overwhelmed by the infinite projects and abandon (Aries). more reflections forthcoming, in guide.notes!
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inspiration log | things i've enjoyed recently
read: pachinko by min jee lee | as I wrote above, this is the book that got me re-addicted to the pleasure of reading, which I haven't felt in years.
reading: americanah by chimamanda ngozi adichie | a book vaguely similar in themes to pachinko, in some ways, but giving me a distinctly different perspective of being an immigrant in America. currently halfway.
film: lost in translation | this film was so realistic it made me uncomfortable, because I realized that I have lived a similar experience to that of the Scarlett Johanssen character, and this made me feel a concoction of young and stupid, and bittersweet.
film: dune | the film I enjoyed the most this year besides everything everywhere at once. I'm not normally a fan of sci-fi, but somehow, this story absorbed me, and the film is shot with incredible artistic attention to detail -- exquisite is the word.
listening to: follow the sun by Song by Alexander Mercks and Yatao | a handpan piece for late night hours, before sleeping.
listening to: la luna, by hindi zahra | for all hours.
part III | you & me
experiments, offerings, and ways for us to do things together. an ongoing conversation.
dear kening, how do you stay motivated?
dear kening,
how do you stay motivated? how do you keep creating? how do you stay grounded and open and give out so much love through your art when the world moves on around you?
Nanya
dear nanya,
thank you for this beautiful question, and for your words.
if we think of motivation as fuel, powering the engine of the self to get us from point A to point B, then this means you have to constantly go to a gas station to refuel your motivation for a particular goal. this gas station might be: a particular environment, doses of inspiration, teachers, or a community, or validation, or a clear vision that excites you for the future, or, varieties of fear of not being enough.
but I want to argue that making art -- the act of creation -- is not an engine that needs motivation-fuel. creation is an act that fuels itself. it's an end in itself. it's like a solar powered, wind-powered, hydro-powered engine, drawing energy from life; from the universe, from the elements, from your life.
this my way of saying: if you focus solely on the end result, or "the goal," getting from point A to point B, then you won't be able to keep creating without needing more fuel. if you focus on the very process of creation -- absorb the process, internalize the process, live the process -- until it feels like a form of psychic breathing, until you get to a point where you can't NOT create (because it feels bad, like not sleeping enough), then you won't need motivation-fuel. you will keep creating, no matter what happens in the world outside you.
creation is like breathing, because the raw material is in life, itself -- I inhale my life, I hold it in my psychic body, and I exhale it -- in the form of words, images, sounds, expressions. how I feel about it, who sees it, what happens to it -- none of that really matters. breathing is what matters.
and to do this, you'll need to be grounded, and open. you'll need to take diligent care of your body, mind, and spirit, because YOU will be the vessel through which that energy will move through. the world will move on around you, and you will move with it, like a dance.
but how? I'll share some practical suggestions:
first, commit to it. journal about it. why is creation important to you? why does it matter? commitment doesn't happen just once. you commit again and again. so, start an ongoing conversation with yourself about your commitment. be true and gentle.
second, take care of your body. ground and nourish yourself, so that you have the internal energy to create. get enough sleep. do a movement practice. eat well. make space in your life.
third, nurture a daily practice around creation. start small, without too much pressure or expectations around output. do it until you can feel the clear difference on the days in when you don't. tune into that feeling. celebrate what you make, even if it's not perfect, because it won't be. allow it to grow slowly, like planting a seed. trust in time.
and in my experience, the process of creation is both the act of paying exquisite attention to the world outside of you, and that internal process of tending to your inner world, planting beautiful things, one seed at a time -- until one day, you'll look inside youself and see that you've created your own kingdom, your own refuge, your infinite pool of strength -- such that no matter where you are, no matter what happens in the world outside of you, your relationship to your creative instinct -- and all that you create from it -- will be the one thing that will always hold you, and make this one life feel more meaningful, more beautiful, and more worth living.
yours truly,
kening
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that's all for now. hopefully, my next letter will be shorter + and sooner. thank you for reading! write me back anytime.
kening