It was in June 1996 that my father, my mother (pregnant with my brother), my sister & I migrated from The Philippines. I interviewed my parents for this special piece that tells the story of how we came to be two-time migrants.

I can be restless at home, but here, I find a strange comfort and a settling; a deep grounding in my bones despite the flurry of activity, of comings and goings, of hellos and goodbyes. I do some of my best writing, thinking and being at airport gates and on airplanes, several thousand feet above ground.

In finding myself in active or outdoor spaces on a regular basis, I have noticed how there are fewer people of colour (especially women of colour) sharing these spaces with me, especially in the predominantly white mountain town where I live.

Last week, 8 people (6 of them Asian women) were killed at three different Asian massage parlours in Atlanta, Georgia. There has been a significant increase in anti-Asian sentiment, as well as an increase in assaults against Asians since the rise of COVID-19.

Like many of you, the last few weeks have weighed heavily on me. Now is not the time for my voice, but I wanted to share why I feel so strongly about the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Regis Korchinski-Paquet and countless other BIPOC who have died at the hands of the police.

This has been my longest hiatus from writing on the blog in years. Today, the words flow, so here I am, ready to share some of those swirling thoughts with you.

21 years ago I sat with my 3-year-old sister in the waiting room of a hospital in Auckland, New Zealand. I would be late going to school if this was going to take a long time, I thought. I fell asleep. Upon waking I panicked, first checking that my sister was still with me.

It's going to be hard for me to put into words the depth of my love for the mountains. The unexplained affinity I have for these tall piles of ancient rock and how it is that I'm drawn to them in the first place, as a woman born in an archipelago of 7,000 islands who spent her entire life in countries surrounded by the ocean (amongst zero mountains).

With just two weeks to go until I leave for Borneo, I've finally written about why I’m trekking for orangutans in Borneo.