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if you don't remember who I am, or why you subscribed to this newsletter, you can visit my world or journal or (my outdated) about.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