Dear Aama,

Who are female friends to you?

Mothers-Daughters,
something about that relationship is equally stressful as it is resilient,
as if both sides of a story somehow meet to say something,
even when they have totally bonkers levels of differences on what a story should be.

I’m writing this to you during a time where I’ve felt there’s somehow not much to say about stories,
apart from the stories I flip through on Instagram daily.
Are you flipping through them too?
I’m equally addicted as I am aware that I’m genuinely losing my sense of time
(And self? And mind?).

I’ve grown up with stories being whatever type situations
Khana parom beipun? Our request for grandmother’s stories.

She once told us God poured into humans their feelings
which were all in a klong, something of a local gourd turned into bottle,
he filled each human up with this liquid of feelings
pain, sadness, anger, jealousy, joy, happiness, excitement, etc.
one gourd filling up a person
except the one last drop that wouldn’t budge.
Contentment.

So, there’s a lot of content and a lot of stories…
but not much contentment and
I feel, for myself, not much storytelling.

Dearest Aama, I don’t know much about the story this journey generates beyond knowing it’s an attempt at generating content(ment?) for us.

I wish you rest, home, hope, some contentment, some stories,
Some warmth.



Dear Aama,
Whatever it is that holds you, I hope you know always know safety.


Dear Aama,
My heart is completely broken. I wake up in a bed, with spiked cortisol levels, only thinking of him. I've spent the past 2 months and 3 weeks like this. Waking up shocked at 3 am, then trying to not feel heartbreak. How absolutely ridiculous, my grandmother said, to lose appetite and sleep over some man.
But we let go I suppose. We do.


Dear Aama,

For the longest time, I asked myself the moment I woke up. "What would the ideal version of me do today?"... I am not sure at what age, but this happped to me at some point and I never stopped. Until recently.

Dear Aama,

My mother cut down all our orange trees. Because they were dying. We grow only Kiwi now because the climate is too damn hot. Gone are the winters of my childhood sleeping on on the bed surrounded by the smell of oranges stocked safety on the floor below.

𝙳𝚎𝚊𝚛 𝙰𝚊𝚖𝚊,

𝚃𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚋𝚎𝚍 𝚊𝚝 𝚖𝚢 𝚐𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚖𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛’𝚜 𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚜𝚎.
𝙸’𝚟𝚎 𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚍 𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚊 𝚠𝚑𝚒𝚕𝚎.
𝙸’𝚕𝚕 𝚐𝚎𝚝 𝚞𝚙 𝚗𝚘𝚠.

𝙵𝚛𝚘𝚖,
𝙵𝚒𝚕𝚎𝚘𝚗𝚊

Dear Aama: Our Scrapbook