My Grandmother's Advice at 100
Her wisdom over the years, and what she says in between words.
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My grandmother’s hands tell stories. Her skin glows with vaseline slathered on like strawberry jam, streams of pink, beige, and yellow shimmering down her forehead. In each wrinkle I see a woman, a woman whose spine stretched alongside the stems of Kau’i, who moved to California to start a family, who lost a son and then a husband, birthed a plaque in downtown San Jose for the Chinese community and built a garden in her backyard, life budding into green and falling to the soil the way our fears and judgements fade over time. I see a woman who wields community like a religion, her phone book the bible, exemplified by the group of people gathered at Union Chinese for her 100th birthday, hailing gifts and blessings from as far as Oahu and Idaho.
We sit and sip on tea cups filled with wine. Shrimp covered in a sweet, white sauce, string beans glistening in garlic oil, and wide, starchy noodles decorated with long onions and soft strips of beef spin around the center of the table. We talk amongst ourselves, family and friends who have reunited at this restaurant, if not her house, for as long as we can remember. She smiles, stares at her food, and sometimes drifts off. When one of us asks how she is, she says she is happy.
At 100, my grandmother wavers in and out of clarity. There are days when she is as lucid as she was at 96, 97, or 98, asking about certain people or relaying new information herself (so and so has to have knee surgery; so and so just got a new job). And then there are days when her communication is limited to a mumble or hover of the hand, as she drifts in and out of sleep like a child in a stroller. Looking at her, now, I feel the urge to squeeze each minute like an orange. I hug her, kiss her on the head, and tell her that I love her.
I want her to know precisely how much she is loved, and how much she is valued, as though the size of that sentiment might stop time and memorialize every moment she has ever lived into something that lasts beyond us. The desire for more from our time together — more connection, more intent, and more moments that represent how much this person, this family, or these friends mean to me — is a means of coping with the idea that we cannot spend our entire lives with the people we love, and that our time with every person we know, including ourselves, is limited.
When I was younger, I used to obsess over life’s big questions, and often pried for my grandmother’s wisdom, filming and recording her answers: What makes a happy life? How does one cope with loss? Simple treasures repeated themselves like trite slogans on a Bed, Bath, & Beyond sign: Have fun; Forgive people; Be kind to each other, she’d say, in between telephone chimes that fluttered through the house like hummingbirds, the dial tones of her friends and family a core soundtrack to my childhood.
Being with each other is, perhaps, the most profound thing we can do. We call, we meet, we laugh, and we hug. We thank each other for being here, express how proud we are, how happy we are, and how excited we are, and bask in our love like a wide ray of sun, relishing in its warmth for as long as we can, until time calls it back beneath the horizon. I imagine this is what she means when she says that she is happy, looking at everyone gathered in the room, even if she cannot engage with us the way she used to.
I kiss her on the forehead again, happy that she is here, and hug myself, happy that I am here, too.
Capy Corner: The Xanax of News 🙂
For once, some good news — helping us be a little less stressy and depressy! Here’s a roundup of some wins in cultural diversity and representation for queer, BIPOC+, and womxn-identifying communities around the globe:
The Tube Girl is selling confidence — and her audience is lining up - washington post
Sabrina Bahsoon, known as "Tube Girl," has gained viral fame and over 400,000 TikTok followers for her videos of dancing on the London Underground. Her confidence and unique style have inspired viewers and led to brand collaborations and an invitation to Paris Fashion Week. Experts note that her videos challenge societal norms around women, especially women of color, taking up space, and they've sparked similar videos in subways around the world.
Licensed tent villages are aiming to ease California's homelessness epidemic - la times
San Francisco-based nonprofit Urban Alchemy has set up tent villages in Los Angeles as a step towards providing homeless people with safety, meals, and 24-hour staffing. These "safe sleep villages" are a less expensive and more immediate form of shelter than tiny homes, offering people living on the street a sense of privacy, nourishment, and autonomy. Although the organization has faced criticism for its rapid growth, the conduct of its staff, and its role in clearing homeless encampments, L.A. officials generally express satisfaction with its work.
The Inuit work with the Canadian government to reclaim their sea in the Arctic - guardian
The Inuit community of Nunatsiavut in Canada is partnering with the Canadian government to create the world’s first Inuit-protected area, a conservation zone spanning nearly 15,000 sq km of the Labrador Sea. The area aims to preserve Indigenous traditions like hunting and fishing while protecting local biodiversity and guarding against resource exploitation. The move comes as the community grapples with rapid climate change, which has resulted in diminishing sea ice and a shorter winter season, affecting traditional ways of life.
A new Latino sci-fi film challenges the power of AI - la times
"The Ballad of Tita and the Machines," a film by Miguel Angel Caballero and co-writer Luis Antonio Aldana, premiered at the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival. The film aims to challenge the narrative around AI and labor, emphasizing that some skills are uniquely human and cannot be replaced by technology. The work also seeks to spotlight Latino talent in cinema, particularly in the sci-fi genre, offering nuanced representation of the Latino experience in the U.S., including voices of queer Latinos and children of immigrants.
Playlist of the Week: 10 Songs for Spending Time with the People You Love 🎛️
This week’s playlist features Vesica Piscis (an electro-pop duo from Mexico), April Red (made up of Shao-Shih, lead singer and songwriter, and DJ Code Wu from Taiwan), and PinkPantheress (UK singer, songwriter and cultural sensation who you’ve probably heard on TikTok).
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With love,
Your favorite capybara ~ AKA Travis Zane
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Sleepover is a party that turns into a sleepover, a newsletter publishing cozy content to your inbox every week, and an occasional mixed media series promoting BIPOC+, queer, and womxn-identifying creators — produced online and in print.