hello wilderness friends,

this week I had strange, vivid dreams, and woke up before sunrise everyday to write and draw. it felt comforting to return to those practices -- like drinking soul water, eating soul food.

I've been a bit too consumed by client work lately, and I made this pie chart to capture how I felt, and clarify how I wanted to feel in my distribution of creative energy:

a pie chart of creative work energy — kening zhu

reflecting on how i spend my energy these days

dear creative friends,

I'm really trying to break the habit of writing these letters at 1am Thursday (my Friday) mornings, but for whatever reason, I tend to play with pressure and promises (deadlines) with a strange pleasure. (maybe this is like finding the edge of pleasure/pain, in work?)

last week I didn't write you because I was playing host/tour guide/translator to the kind of friend that takes up 99% of my brainspace -- and I felt tired and (unfortunately) psychically malnourished for days.

thus, for this week's letter, I'll share some nourishing things I've been ingesting lately.

dear ocean friends,

this is guide.notes 17, a weekly letter on building internet universes to nourish the soul.

I started redesigning my website today, after what has been a very, very, long constipation/delay. you can see the ongoing (secret) homepage here - this is how far I got this afternoon:

dear web spirit friends,

~this is guide.notes 16, a letter on tending your magical ecosystem on the internet~

this week, I started drawing two pages of what I intend to be a digital book about summer -- "too hot to hug" and "a single day without watermelon is a wasted day"

summer means it's too hot to hug — kening zhu

we do one finger hugs instead

dear gentle friends of the void,

~this is guide.notes 15, a weekly letter on the labor of love of sustaining a rich creative life in the pixelated world~

this week I fell off a steep cliff (in terms of energy levels / motivation) -- and spent many mornings succumbing to the urge to close my curtains and take a nap, until mid-afternoon. here's how it felt:

end of the cycle mood (the zombie float)

dear wayfinding friends,

~this is guide.notes 14, where I obsess over the process of growing fruit-bearing, shade-giving orchards in a concrete jungle internet.~

today is my 1 year anniversary with Luna (like, I picked her up exactly a year ago from a cafe, and drew the story here) and tomorrow, I'll probably make a 1 year video of all the photos I hoarded over the year. I will share it with you next week.

last week, I wrote a movie review, and two distillations of k-dramas... but this week, I've resumed nerding out on creative systems and processes, and I experienced what you might call... a breakthrough.

dear seeker-friends,

~this is guide.notes #13, a weekly newsletter on opening the creative deluge, and building a digital world that nourishes your worldly life~

~

rest first, work later

dear magical seashell-seeking friends,

~this is guide.notes 12, a weekly email on caring for, and channeling -- your creative spirit/essence/patronus to roam free on the wilderness of the internet-universe.~

let's begin with

an invitation to rest

dear stranger-friends,

I'm writing you this artist digest from a sticky summer night in Istanbul. since my last letter, I traveled too much, then hosted / ran around the city with a series of visitors (including my parents) -- but, after all that, I've landed in a new phase of feeling embodied, peaceful, and in creative momentum.

(the answer to stuckness is always: movement. movement is nourishing, even when it's tiring.)

here's a snapshot from a cafe I visited last weekend, on an island an hour from the city.

dear creative friends,

this is guide.notes 11; where I nerd out loud on the process of nurturing a soft and true creative life in a capitalist world.

*

I won't lie, this week my brain is mush. when summer hits me in the face, my body starts to feel like it's swimming through molasses. more significantly, my parents are visiting / living with me for two weeks -- which means I'm spending days being enthusiastic tour guide / translator / chinese daughter / defender of my sanity (and my father's wallet from snake-tongued Turkish carpet sellers at the Grand Bazaar!), and nights at my computer, in bed, working in the dark (like now).

dear kindred friends,

this is guide.notes #10 -- on the process of nourishing an embodied creative life in the digital world.

this email is about money -- as requested by your Lazy Q&A votes from last week's letter. (thank you all for voting! I will address Notion + planning my days in another letter).

first, I'll admit that I'm a total money novice at the very beginning of my studies. by that I mean: until very recently, I disliked thinking about money; let alone putting any intention into working with it as an energy force/resource -- a kind of daily cultivation that (I only recently realized) is not unlike making art, or doing wellbeing practices.

dear kindred spirits,

this is guide.notes 09 -- on the process of nurturing a creative life. I’ve committed to writing on Thursdays — so you’ll hear from me every week, henceforth <3

this week, I wanted to share reflections on a reoccurring theme/challenge in my life — solitude vs. community -- (or should I say, solitude AND community). you can read it here.

dear creative friends,

hello from guide.notes 08 ~ on the process of nurturing a creative life.

this week, I'm sharing a post I wrote specifically for a kindred internet friend (<3) of this past season's creative circle, who asked for resources on navigating a break-up. you can also read it here.

dear creative friends,

this is guide.notes 07 ~ on the process of nurturing a creative life.

this week's letter is a very meta post about feeling overwhelmed by all the things. it's about creative procrastination, paralysis, and guilt - especially if you, like me, are prone to moodiness and getting lost in the wormhole of time. you cam read it here.

let's pick a day of the week?

hello creative friends,

this is guide.notes #6, on the process of nurturing a creative life.

recently: I've been in a life blur of stomach flu, the anxiety of travel plans, and the guilt of many unanswered emails. I'm still looking for a dog sitter for Luna in Istanbul for ~2 weeks in early April. write me asap if that could be you.

this week, I want to share a piece I wrote called, "lonely work is swimming in the ocean alone." it's about the joys and perils of working for yourself, inspired by something my brother said to me, years ago:

dear stranger-friends,

hello from my first digest of 2023. these days, it's been zombie weather in istanbul -- neither dark nor light, but heavy and grey, suspended in between.

since the earthquake, there has been talk and forecasting around the next big one to hit Istanbul. I've been thinking about what art I can create about the city before I go, and how to give it my very best.

here's what's inside this email:

dear creative friends,

hello from my favorite month for building creative things: January of Capricorn season. every year around this time, I get a surge of energy to do earthy things: nest, redo my website, and nurture concrete business projects. I noticed that my annual cycles usually repeat like this:

• Scorpio season - a somewhat dramatic death & rebirth, significant and mysterious internal shifts

• Sagittarius season - breathe, rest, and digest my year. watch harry potter, read books, play games.

dear stranger-friends,

happy almost new year! in this mysterious window between christmas and new years, I've been watching harry potter, playing stardew valley, and learning about human design (more below).

I also repeated a yearly ritual: making a year-in-review film, which I started in 2020. I wanted to share it with you, here:

2022 in 4 minutes, a film

hello kindred spirits,

thank you for signing up for guide.notes, a newsletter about the "how" of growing a creative ecosystem in the digital world.

my artist digest letters share my creations, but guide.notes is all about the process: of wayfinding, nurturing, building: creative things. digital ecosystems. soulful ventures that can sustain our worldly lives.

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:

dear stranger friends,

I write to you eating my last watermelon of the year, thrilled that Istanbul finally feels like fall -- which means that my brain is working again. summer is good for some things: fruit, cold desserts, iced drinks, thunderstorms, and swimming in bodies of water -- but each year, I'm relieved when it's over.

this September, we did an epic, summery thing: we drove 6,570 km on a roadtrip around Turkey -- from Istanbul down along the Aegean coast, to the Mediterrean sea, then along the Black Sea. it's not my first long roadtrip, nor my first tour of a foreign country by car, but it is my first time traveling with a dog.

here's a photo of me and Luna, near Izmir, at the first of many beaches on our journey. I dream of, one day, taking her to a snowy place.

dear stranger-friend,

at the beginning of summer, I returned to istanbul after two weeks in new york, and wrote you a long letter about it -- the stark contrast between the two cities, how it felt to return to an old home, to see old friends, to remember past lives -- while starting a nebulous new one ... but that letter, somehow, disappeared before I could send it.

since then, I've sweated through the sauna of Istanbul summer (my least favorite season), painted my walls, hosted a childhood friend and her husband, experienced the city like a tourist, and continued to nest in my apartment, which feels like a different place each season.

then, a few weeks ago -- I adopted a dog, and my life changed overnight. I renamed her Luna. I will tell you the story in my next letter.

dear stranger-friend,

I'm sorry it's been an entire season since my last letter from that snowy day in istanbul. spring has felt sudden, loud, and heavy. I think seasonal transitions always feel hard in new places. you walk outside in the wrong clothes, and routines you became accustomed to no longer seem to fit.

today, I'm writing you from new york city, my old home of 9 years. I paused my istanbul life to return here for a few weeks. I landed yesterday. by the time I got out of the airport, rode the airtrain, and entered the subway -- I felt the internal click that told me I was back inside the clockwork machinery of this city, pressing "resume" on my parallel life.

I think once you give a decade of your life to a place, it will always feel like home - those years were like a blood payment.

dear stranger-friends,

it's been 2 months (or 2+ years) since I've written most of you. at some point in the last 5 years, you signed up for my letters.

I'll reintroduce myself again, and of course, please feel free to unsubscribe, visit my digital house, or write me back.

dear stranger-friends,

it's been 2 months (or 2+ years) since I've written most of you. at some point in the last 5 years, you signed up for my letters.

I'll reintroduce myself again, and of course, please feel free to unsubscribe, visit my digital house, or write me back.

dear stranger-friends,

the sun arrived in istanbul today - after days of darkness and wetness - and it feels like i'm slowly emerging from an underwater cave.

i spent christmas and new years here, alone -- with chaos machine of a black cat -- working on two films: an animated love poem about sleep, and a distillation of my 2021 in 119 seconds. this last week, i've been simultaneously apartment hunting in this spiderweb of a city, concocting a new course on daily self-care rituals (art of wellbeing) - and reviving an old one (creative circle).

in case you'd like to join, this winter season of creative circle will begin in 3 days - on monday.

dear stranger-friends,

I won't lie, I lived most of this last week in tired tornado weather - while it's been rainy and windy on the island - and I try to decide what to do, where to go next. I guess I'm not meant to be in a tiny house, alone, forever. I think i'll be in paris by friday, then amsterdam, then back to istanbul.

this week: some reflections on the process of leaving, saying goodbye to my cactus fruit, and a five minute PMS animation that felt so cathartic to make - just to remind myself that feelings don't last forever. other things:

• I binged dogs of berlin over the weekend and it made me so nostalgic for the feeling of berlin - so much so that I think I'll resume my deutsch studies, and go back next summer. I definitely recommend this show for its complexity of characters, unpredictablility, and for tangibility of racial, cultural tensions.

dear stranger-friends,

i am writing to you from a very windy, dark week on this island. i went offline for three days - and it felt like three weeks - and returning to the world was like returning from a submarine. i'm not sure i liked it (the return, that is - i loved the submarine). in those three days, I threw myself into language learning -- learning a language is like unveiling a world - albeit very slowly - and adding a new veil to yourself. more on this eventually. this week: notes on still lifes, windy days, old man in a bird shack.

*

i'm wishing you
the softness of
getting enough sleep,

dear stranger-friends,

I'm sorry it's been so long. at the end of july, I fell into a black hole, and I climbed out just in time to celebrate my 30th birthday last week -- alone, on the island of santorini, greece.

if you don't remember who I am, or why you subscribed to this newsletter, you can visit my world or journal or (my outdated) about.

please don't hesitate to unsubscribe!

dear stranger friends:

today feels like autumn in berlin - my favorite season - and i'm trying not to get too excited about baking rhubarb cakes and fermenting kimchi, one day soon, in my imaginary house by the sea, where i'll live with my lover-cat and maybe lover-man, if we are lucky.

i discovered a new joy: working late at night, on the balcony, with candles -- post-shower, post-skincare, between 10pm and 1am, as darkness falls slowly. it's the inverse of what hemingway described about writing early in the morning, in the cold and dark.

summer is not great for focus, let's say.

dear stranger friends:

these days, my mind has felt like a minefield, but berlin is beautiful and rainy. anxiety is: living with a bomb in your heart -- or getting your foot stuck in a beartrap and thinking it will last forever. I've been writing a lot of notes-to-self on my journal. I hope some of these tools might help you too. (here's an archive of them).

this week: on loving what you can't control, and living a nomadic life that feels like rowing through the open ocean. remedies from the soothing room: take a bath. a resolution to do simple things everyday.

sending you an afternoon by a berlin lake, with a glass of campari i drank yesterday,

hello again, stranger friends:

on friday I woke up in new york and went to sleep in berlin. to be in a time where two worlds can exist in a single day -- this is a strange feeling. i'm still groggy and finding my center again in this berlin summer -- where it's unrecognizably green and warm. here's a glimpse of the sunrise from the plane. sunrise like a laser beam.

this week: on cycles of death & birth, embracing the darkness, and a glimpse of new york city's sharp edges.

sending you a cold bottle of peach prosecco i drank in the park yesterday (because it's europe),

hello dear stranger friends,

sorry i've been silent for a little while. I've been swallowed into the black hole energy vacuum which is new york city, and feeling nearly ready to (1) disappear into a mountain house and never leave (2) sit by the sea and eat bento boxes and make seashell art for days (3) close my eyes and wake up in another life, another dream. I fly back to berlin in 11 days.

this week:

• a diagram of personal abysses
  
• circle animation of work as a labor of love
  
• from-memory drawings of new york city
  
• a 30 min centering ritual I use to keep myself sane.

dear stranger-friends,

i'm in harlem. staying with a friend with a thousand plants, and a cat that runs back and forth at night, chasing shadows. i wrote about my experience of getting vaccinated in new york, and feeling strangely at home here -- how new york city feels like my parent's house. everyday, i'm observing the fickle nature of my heart, and using a mood thermometer. and. it's springtime in new york. I'm dreaming of gardens with houses in them.

flowers to you,
kening

dear stranger-friends,

it's spring again and I'm in new york city - after 1.3 years away. I didn't write for a few weeks because it was black-hail-storming, tsunami weather inside of me. but I opened my eyes, and I'm on the other side of the atlantic, already half-vaccinated. I'll be here until end of may.

this week, i'm sharing

• excerpts of a travel letter: on leaving berlin
• art from a daily mood diary
• beginnings of the soothing room

dear stranger-friends,

today is blazing spring weather in berlin -- and for some reason, it makes me want to run inside. I think it's not the weather; it's the sudden swelling of people. I guess this pandemic has made me more of a hermit than I realized. I long for mountains, stars, sea, fish. starfish.

I started a website redesign last week - and it's still very much ongoing, but you can take a little look here.

here is the first journey I just opened (today) on starting a morning ritual (again, also ongoing).

hello!

sorry I didn't write last week - when I don't write it means I am either (a) incapacitated or (b) on an airplane or (c) feeling uncharacteristically lazy or (d) in a remote village where there is no wifi and I have to wave my phone around at the clouds in order to tell my mother that I'm alive. last week it was (a) zombie apocalypse week, but I survived.

a few things from my world:

• two ongoing illustrated maps of berlin
• a revelation on art as a darkness-vessel
• reflections on time in 3 scales
• some elon musk TED talk inspiration

dear stranger friends,

today was 11 hours of sunshine in berlin, with birdsong all morning. I had too many goji berries for breakfast, called my mother and found her 70% happy, and watched three netflix episodes in one hour.

today, I'm sending:

• a 38 sec film poem I took yesterday
• finding my artist inspiration from trees
• a gentle wish from spring.

dear fellow traveler of a winter night,

I'm writing to you from a berlin where spring feels nearly here. I went on a two hour walk today and noticed how the buds are ready to bloom. the trees and animals all seem to have an effortless internal clock, while we humans are slow.

what is this clock within us? what does the body want with spring?

I want: simple, soft pleasures. a lightness of being. winter was very good darkness training.

dear serpent charmer of my heart,

this week i am embracing the tidal way of working -- which is to say, allowing myself to ebb and flow and have tsunami storm weather, if i feel like it. other things I am allowing myself include: long walks in the sun at 10am, tres leches cake, unapologetic consumption of snacks, little naps before sunset, and occasional episodes of The Crown -- like cooling salve lotion on my wildfire heart.

this week I am sharing with you:

• an animation about afghanistan I finished last week (19 hours of work for 1:45 minutes) i worked on it while drunk in love.

dear kindred voyager of this life,

last week was chinese new years, and my grandfather died. my two grandfathers both died in the last four months -- during winter in Berlin, during this pandemic lockdown.

I don't have the words to talk about it yet, but I'm sure words -- and pictures -- will come. right now, I try to embrace the felt sensation of each day in this endless grey berlin weather.

I have a lot of things to share with you this week. a handmade labor of love (cigarette kisses) -- some reflections on what I did in January, a visual poem about Berlin, and two photo diary entries.

dearest stranger-friends of my heart,

my word of the week is ritual, so I'm going to start writing to you -- monday nights -- a little more religiously than I did before, even if I feel like I have nothing to say (like today).

I'm only sending you 3 things this week.