Pervette | unfiltered

Write about mom

I feel like I can only write about things that has the most energy. Like it’s bubbling inside me and it has to come out. I know I have to write about my mom. My intuition knows that writing about her is part of my healing process. It’s been 77 days since she passed away. I’m still working through the grief, the regret and all the sadness that comes from looking back.. I want to create a zine that addresses all the regret that I feel now. It’s all the things that I wish I had done (more) when she was still alive. Maybe it’ll be called, “If your folks are still alive, do this while you still can” I wonder if it would make a difference. It’s basically “visit your folks more often and call your mom more.” Well actually there’s more.

I should preface that even though this is a guide for those who still have their parents, this probably isn’t for everyone. I’m making this zine for me, or someone like me. The 20- or 30-something-year-old me, the 1st-generation Vietnamese- American child of refugee boat parents. The 2nd-born daughter who probably has a higher dose of unconscious filial piety than most because I’m constantly made aware that my parents sacrificed so much (their very lives) so that I can be here, living out my version of the American Dream.

It’s made for someone who knows that their folks are/were perfectly imperfect. That they made a fair amount of mistakes, showed their love in controlling ways, but ultimately tried their best while at the same time not knowing any better.

This might not be for those who are in “no contact” with their parents.

This is for those who are still in touch with their parents and deep down know that it would be good to reach out more, but somehow life and work and more interesting and exciting things always get in the way.

If this is you. I’m gonna tell you what happens when your parents die. Well first, you have to brush your cool atheism aside and get metaphysical with me.

When you, your parents or anyone dies, they will do a “life review.” As in they will look back on their whole life and see all the choices they made from beginning to end. But the interesting twist is that in all the choices that they made that affected others, they will experience the choice that they made from the perspective of the other. So if they did something that hurt somebody, they will feel their pain. On the flipside, if they did something that made someone happy or feel loved or cared for, they will feel that too.

The reason why I’m mentioning this is because after my mom passed away, while my mom was experiencing her life review, I was going through my own life review too. I was looking back on my whole life through the lens my mom’s eyes, asking myself where was I in my 20’s and 30’s? Why wasn’t I coming home more often or calling my mom more?

I could feel now how disappointed my mom was when I moved away to Berkeley for grad school. She really wanted me to stay in LA, closer to her in Orange County, so that I was just 45 minutes away by car and not 400 miles apart. She wanted me to come home more often. She wanted me to call her more. Looking back, every time she calls I can now hear the subtle tone of concern and sadness when she starts with, “I’m just calling because I haven’t heard from you in a a while..”

I can feel her loneliness knowing that all her kids moved far away.

I can now also now detect in her voice when she “lets me go” and says goodbye, how aware she was and can tell when I’m too busy doing something or on my way to somewhere. She never wanted to bother me or keep me on the phone longer than I wanted to be.

I can also feel the worry she felt when I didn’t pick up, which was very often. I felt like my mom was always calling at the worst times, as I’m running late to my sessions or running around with one of my boyfriend(s) at the time.

Now that I wish I can call her, I remember all the times that she called and I didn’t have it in me to talk.

Now that my mom is gone, I can now feel all my absence in her life when she was here.

In other words,

It’s in her physical absence from my life that I can look back and see my own absence in her life.

Life is filled with their cruel ironies that everyone who love and lost their parents will tell you:

You will take for granted what you have

And you won’t value what you have until it’s gone.

And you will come to find out only when it’s gone that there’s nothing more valuable than the time you get to spend with those you love while you still can.

I’m in the bargaining phase of my grief. I’m filled with the woulda’s and coulda’s.

The days and weeks after my mom died, here’s what I wished I did:

Collect their oral history. I wish I asked her more questions about her past, her childhood, her teenage years and early adulthood. Basically what was life like growing up in Vietnam, during the war. I had bought several books on capturing your parents oral history. One was called “Mom’s Story” the other was “Mom, tell me your story.” I had got started on it with mom. I was just on page one. I asked her how she was born. She told me where (it’s all audio recorded) She was so excited to share the names of who was there. She tried to remember the name of the midwife, she’ll call so and so to ask because they’ll remember… She was very excited about my interest in her story and really happy to share her story. All of summer when I was taking care of mom I was asking her questions, not from the book but just from my own curiosity. And on the days when she was not in pain and had the bandwidth to look back, she told her story. So in a way, I did collect her oral history. But I didn’t get to ask all the questions. There were 2 full books of questions to ask. When I look back on the blank pages and all those unanswered questions, it makes me sad. So grab those oral history books or a blank notebook, make up your own questions, sit down with your mom / dad / caregiver (if you’re in contact with them) and ask them about their past, start with the happy moments, like who did you play with when you were young? what did you after school? and then work your way to the more intense moments, where were you when (enter historical moment they lived through)? and record your whole conversation (with an audio recorder). These recordings will be priceless.
Celebrate their birthdays, make a big deal out of it, make each one memorable. Because you’ll never know when their last one will be. You have no idea how much I regret not going home for my mom’s last birthday this year. Logistically it was tricky. I had already gone home two weeks before her birthday to take my mom to her oncologist appointment (like I always do) and I was teaching Writing in Bed on that Sunday, which happened to be on her birthday. If my folks had faster internet I would’ve went home that weekend and taught from there. But that Sunday was also the day that my friend was free that week to come over to my dungeon and do a photoshoot, creating the promotional content for my new course, The Shadow Series. And it was that very week that I “needed” to start promoting for the class. I was feeling the time crunch. “Don’t go home again, you were just here a week ago. And you know me, birthdays are just another day, it’s not a big deal for me” my mom said and I took her word for it. So on her birthday, I worked. I taught my writing class, then I went straight to the dungeon and shot promo videos and photos for the Shadow Series. And then I took my photographer friend out for a nice dinner afterwards. And it was in the middle of the dinner, when my stepdad texted to me, my sister and my mom in our family group thread a photo of my mom’s birthday cake that he got for her with the number 7 and 0 as candles on it, that I had a sinking feeling. She turned 70 and I wasn’t there to celebrate it with her. Am I gonna regret this? I began to wish that I flew home right after my writing class ended (at noon). I could’ve made it in time to take them out to a nice dinner. When I called my mom earlier that day to wish her a happy birthday and asked what she had planned for her birthday, she said my stepdad was gonna take her out their favorite buffet (of all places) for dinner but after my mom got ready, they thought maybe going out to a buffet is a bad idea since she’s immunocompromised, so they stayed home and had takeout and birthday cake instead. All that night, the day after and weeks after I thought, am I going to regret this? Will this be her last birthday? And sadly, it was her last birthday. And I was so busy that month with teaching and promoting my new class that I had forgot to do what i always do, which was mail my mom a birthday card and check for 1K. My mom always told me and my sister not get her anything, just cash is good. So it was our tradition to mail her a check for 1K every year. This year, 2 weeks after my mom’s birthday, my mom called and asked if I had mailed her anything, she knows I always do and was worried the card/check got lost in the mail. Omg mom, I’m so sorry, I was so busy, I forgot to mail you your birthday card. It still eats away at me that for her last birthday, her 70th birthday, I didn’t go home and celebrate it with her and I was so busy with work that I didn’t send her a birthday card, which is really the least I could’ve done. Her last birthday was unmemorable, not a big deal, and one of my biggest regrets. So go home for your folks’s birthday, especially if they’re getting up there in age, esp if it’s a new decade of their life they’re celebrating. And if you can’t make it home, send them something sweet in the mail. Or do something creative to let them know how much you appreciate them for being born. Find a way to make it a big deal, no matter what they say.
Listen to your parents’ favorite songs with them. Ask them about these songs. Where/when were they when they first started listening to this song? Why do they like this song so much? If the song is in their native language, ask them, what is this song about, what do these lyrics mean?
When my dad passed away 5 years ago, I listened to this mixed CD that he made for me. It was a compilation of his favorite songs, which happen to be mostly power ballads belted out by the great divas of the 80’s and 90’s (i.e., Whitney Houston, Celene Dion, Gloria Estefan, Bette Midler, etc) for 3 years. When P died, I made a playlist of all the songs we used to listen to (which were mostly indie bands I introduced him to) and now after my mom died, I listen to her favorite songs everyday. Her favorite singer is Si Phu. I listen to her favorite albums of his on repeat. I listen to her favorite albums of his on repeat. Right now as I sit in this teashop and write these words. I also got Si Phu playing through my headphones. And I so wish I had a memory of me asking mom, when she was alive. I wish I knew how old she when she first discovered this song. I wanna know how this song soundtracked a specific time and era in her life. Was she in her 20’s, 30’s or 40’s? What decade of you r life is this song bookmarking? I wanna know. So carve some time to sit and listen to your folk’s favorite songs with them. Let the song be a door that you get to open into their past. And when you listen to that song after they’ve crossed over, you have so many sweet memories embedded in the song. And trust me, when they’ve departed from their earth bodies, one of the most valuable things you’ll have left to cherish are their favorite songs. Listening to their favorite songs will sometimes feel like this is the closest way you can be back in touch with them. By listening to the lyrics and melodies that have moved them, you will be moved too, *witch is cultivating a spiritual connection with creative material.* The more I listen to my dearly departed’s music, the more I’m so appreciative and in awe of musicians who can create and give such powerful gifts to the world. A song is poetry that can touch and change lives. I can create a whole zine about these favorite songs (of my beloved and departed) that I’ve listen to on repeat and, *witch has been beautifully weaving their soul’s essence into the soundtrack of this season of tears.*
Make time for outings with your folks. It’s so easy nowadays to go home and visit your folks and do nothing special with them. Everyone is locked into their devices and can scroll endlessly. My stepdad is on his desktop computer checking how his stocks are doing and checking out the latest posts on Amazon Marketplace, my mom is on her ipad scrolling on Facebook with Youtube blasting on the big screen TV and I’m on my phone scrolling. We’re all “together” in the same space, the kitchen / family room, but in all own worlds. The inertia it takes to get out of our comfort zones to make plans and actually get off our asses and go somewhere is huge. You HAVE TO be the initiator, the driving force to do something different. Make plans, book that reservation, declare that “we’re going” to (destination) at (time and day), get everyone to agree and then go. It can be to go for a walk around the arboretum or park, or to that new restaurant you wanna try out, or to the beach or somewhere to catch the sunset
Plan that trip, book the flights and go. One of my biggest regrets is not being able to take my mom to Japan. We both love all things Japanese. I grew up on Hello Kitty. My mom loves beautiful things. We’ll buy anything made in Japan. We love their impeccable design, great packaging and the craftsmanship that’s poured into every detail. Ever since I fell in love with Japan from living there for weeks and months at a time when I was with P, I always envisioned myself taking my mom to Tokyo. Flying her on her first business class flight, imagining her luxuriating in the more spacious and fully reclining seats, enjoying the more elevated in-flight meals. I can see us at cutesy cafes trying sipping our lattes and trying the yummy and not-so-sweet pastries. I can see us buying a ton of Japanesey trinkets, pens, stationary, crocheted stuffies that you can’t get anywhere else but there. I can see us visiting temples and shrines, praying at the feet of beautiful statues and altars. I can see the look of awe in her face as she takes in the view and vibe of a buzzing metropolis that feels exciting and new and at the same time my nervous system is regulated because she’s in an incredibly safe culture, where there’s no fear of pickpocketing (like in Vietnam) or kidnapping and organ-harvesting (like in China, at least that’s what we’ve heard). If you don’t have stupid money to afford business class flights, then book the reg economy flights and just go. Because if you wait too long, wait for when you’re not too busy with work, or when “you made it” and have all the time and money in the world, you may have waited too long and lost your chance. Because it’s not just your timeline that you have to consider, it’s your folks too. If they’re getting up there in age, there will be a time when those “windows of opportunities” will close. Absolutely catch the years before they hit their 60’s. And if they’re in their 60’s and 70’s and beyond are in still good enough health to fly, to take the cruise or go on a roadtrip, do it! You never know when they might get a heart attack and have to put a stint in their artery and now they’re too afraid to fly (like my stepdad), you never know when they’re too tired of life to carry on and decided to end it on their own terms (like my dad), you never know when they get a cancer diagnosis (like my mom), you’ll never know. So book that trip and create a core memory together. Get past the fact that your folks may be fear-based and going anywhere with them is exhausting because you’re adventure-based and don’t see danger lurking in every corner. Get beyond the fact that a trip with your folks isn’t as cool, exciting or party-filled as a trip with your friends. Get beyond the inconvenience and the amount of energy it takes to block out those dates, pack your stuff and travel with your aging folks. Get beyond yourself and do it for both of you. Because you will never know when that window closes, and how it will crush your heart when you realize that the chance is forever gone and all you can do now is imagine what it would be like if you had booked that trip and made it happen.
Take more photos. I sometimes think taking a photo of a moment takes you out of the moment. But now I realize it’s just a moment out of a whole experience. Don’t be lazy, and take that photo of you and folks when you guys are together. It doesn’t matter if you or your mom doesn’t have your face on. If they protest, you can just say, no one else is going to see this other than me. Take the photo when you’re at somewhere new. Who cares if it seems like an inconvenience to ask a passerby or a server to take a photo of you both. If there’s no one there, extend your arm and take a selfie together. Just take the photo. Because most likely you won’t remember that random moment or time when you went to the beach or that korean shaved ice place. Your future self will thank you for taking a moment to capture that time you had together. Trust me, when they’re gone, and there is no more time to be had together, all you have are your memories of those times together, and if your memory is not photographic, then you’ll be glad that you have a photograph to remind you of that time when they picked a giant guava (the size of their head) from the tree in the backyard and held it up proudly for you to capture, or that time they were crocheting a new pink sweater for your old worn-out beloved teddy bear, or that time they went to the neighborhood park with you and your aunt (her younger sister) visiting from Vietnam. Just take a moment to take that photo.
Create a slideshow. After my mom died, I took on the task of compiling my mom’s photos and creating a slideshow for her memorial. As I was going through her photos all the way back to her childhood in Vietnam to her most recent photos of her holding her baby grandson this year I thought to myself, I wish I did this before mom died. Wouldn’t it be nice if I had gathered all her photos-like the old physical photos and digitized them (i.e., taking a photo of them on my phone) and the ones of our trips and basically all her photos-and created a slideshow and had it playing on our big screen TV so we can look back on her whole life in photos together. We can pause on some of the old photos and I can ask her, who is this? And she can tell me which relative that is, and maybe she would recount what happened before or after this photo was taken. There are these photos of her and a dozen other kids, her siblings and cousins playing in the flooded streets of Vietnam. What’s going on here? I wish I can ask her, Who is who? I took hundreds of photos of my mom in our last trip to Vietnam in 2018. It was the trip of her 35th high school reunion. I have so many photos of her and her old high school friends sharing meals, going to dance halls, eating che (a vietnamese desert) on the streets. I wish I had a chance to show them to her. I wish I went through all the boxes of photos and took all these loose old photos from the 60’s to 90’s (in the eras before digital photography) and put them in nice photo albums, so that we can flip through them together. My partner in the last year started this project of digitizing all his family old photos and uploaded them into two digital photo frames. Every time he goes home, he would digitize several hundred photos. One of the digital photo frame sits in his parent’s place and the other is in our home. It’s thousands of photos. And his mom keeps telling him how much joy it brings to her and his dad to see these old photos and memories pop up in the frame. I wish I had done that for my mom. It’s a project that pays off the sooner you do it. The slideshow for my mom’s funeral was beautiful, but it was only played once, just at her funeral. If I had put in the energy to do it sooner while my mom was still here, I could’ve had my her enjoy it. And she’s the person that would get the most out of the slideshow of their life. It’s like they get to see a mini movie of their life and reflect on all the eras and decades and sweet little moments. So if you can, go home, collect and compile all your folks’ old photos into a photo album and/or digital slideshow. And take a moment to look at them with your folks and ask them about those moments. Let the photos be an artifact and part of your practice of collecting their oral history.
Collect your folks’s recipes. My mom makes her own yogurt. It’s the Vietnamese style
Call your folks more often.
Be present. Act as if this was your last day with them.

PERVETTE MANIFESTO FOR POWER/PLAY

Play with the new tools and technology. Just don’t let them play you. We’re living in a time of infinite possibilities. Where you can create a living by being creative. You can create a following, make content that goes viral and have your message, art and voice be seen and heard by millions of people. Everybody can shoot their shot and if they play their cards right have their 15+ minutes of fame. Playing with the internet and social media can invite these new connections and possibilities. The trick is to not fall into its traps. And there are many, esp if you’re a sexy creator. Don’t get hung up on the like count, nasty comments and comparison with other peers. Don’t let your mood and day be dictated by the bots or the algorithm. And if you’ve gotten big enough that you now have haters,¹ don’t let the trolls get to you. Playing with social media is as much a creative game as it is a mindfuck. You have to find a way to let your creative genius and soul express itself (in the most unique, authentic, interesting, beautiful and/or hilarious way) so that you can attract other like-hearted souls (with similar values) into your inter web. But at the same time you have to be aware that these tools and apps can easily play you, make you self-conscious and insecure. Or if you’re not conscious of its design to steal your attention, it’ll make you a consumer, zap your time and energy, and lure you into endless doom-scrolling. Your phone is a powerful device, it can be an oracle and creative tool and at the same time it can be a weapon of mass distraction. Find a way to play with it so that it inspires you to be creative and connect with others, but draw boundaries so that it doesn’t make you less present.
Uncover your BONDAGE. In the dungeon, when you submit to another, you can see what your bondage is. It’s the rope or cuffs that bind your wrist, the blindfold that takes away your sight, the gag that muffles your voice. Outside of the dungeon, we all have our bondage, but’s it not as obvious to us as when we’re in the dungeon. Our true bondage is invisible to us because we can’t see it or consciously feel its weight. But it’s there. If we aren’t doing what want to do, saying what we want to say, being who we want to be in every moment, then we are in bondage. We all have ourl golden handcuffs, that seemingly good thing we have or got going on² that holds us back from being in our fullest self-expression and realize our wildest dreams. What’s our metaphorical gag that stops us from speaking our truth and telling the other (or larger world) how we truly feel or think? What are our blindspots that keeps us falling into the same self-sabotaging patterns? What are we subconsciously choosing to not hear or see so that we don’t have to face our fears? All of this is our bondage. We can’t see it because it’s all inside our heads, and eludes us like our shadows. Maybe it’s our ego that holds the dominant voice. It tells us to stay comfortable, play it safe and don’t get hurt. Or even worse, maybe that voice tells us that we’re not enough, that we need do more or have more to be worthy of love.
In the dungeon you’re aware of your bondage and therefore can choose to experience it or opt out of it. Outside the dungeon, when you’re not aware of your bondage, thus you can’t see the path or choice to free yourself from it. The most important thing is this: you have to become conscious of your unconscious bondage. And from that place of awareness, can you choose to..
Cultivate your DISCIPLINE practice of figuring your way out of your bondage. Once you become aware of your bondage, you now have to do the work of freeing yourself from the bondage. This typically means doing the opposite of what you typically do. You have to unlearn your disempowering habits. Maybe you’re a people pleaser and you go along with other people’s wants and don’t know how to voice your own desires and boundaries. So you’re disciplined practice is telling the truth. Not just any truth. The awkward and uncomfortable truth. It’s your most painful truth (the truth that hurts the other or bruises your or their ego) that’s the most powerful truth. It’s the shadowy or shameful truth that you feel like you can never say. That’s the truth that has to be told. Because the alchemy is in the expression. Once you can tell your story, your whole story, shadow, shame and all, you own your story. Once you own your story, you are the author of your story. Once you’re the author of your story, you can see all the choices that you can make. Once you can see all the choices that you can make, you are can finally choose to live the story that you want to tell.
Your disciplined practice can be many things (including telling your truth). Maybe it’s taking care of yourself, doing things are not easy to do but you know that are good for you. Meditating, exercising, getting off your phone, writing, not being so judgy, practicing non-violent communication, having a mindful relationship to money. You have to identify your BONDAGE in order to consciously cultivate a DISCIPLINED practice of freeing yourself from it.
In the dungeon, you’re very aware of

Rule #1 about Twin Flames

Your twin flame may be someone you already know and you have no idea that they are your soulmate / your other half. While you’re out there looking for “the one,” your twin flame might be floating around in your orbit, hiding in plain sight. They are not on your radar because they are not what your ego is looking for. Therefore they may seem like someone you would never date. They are not your type..

I had a nickname for him. Richie Rich. Because the guy was young and was a new money techie. And he had this unflattering way of showing it.

He was wearing a gauche burgandy velour LV tracksuit when he sauntered in my dungeon. He told me how he was able to power his volcano vaporizer in his Mercedes and get high while driving over to our first session.

Who the heck gets high before a session? The audacity.

He was an objectively good-looking guy. Tall, wiry build, brown hair and deep set eyes. But all of that was negated by the way he carried himself. His gait was floppy (maybe because he was high). But it was really his voice that killed any possiblity of attraction. His words sounded squishy in his mouth. Like his tongue was too big for his own mouth. He has a lisp.

And then the he laughed at his own joke, I can’t remember what it was other than it wasn’t funny. His laugh was loud and grating like a hyena’s.

What a terrible shame and waste of all the other winning qualities he had going for him (young kinky and physically cute) I thought, it’s crazy how incredibly unattractive he made himself without even knowing it.