Samsara, Fasting, and Eating Disorders

CW: discussion of eating disorders, weight loss behaviors, effects of colonization, religion/religious fasting1573 words, ~12 minutes At this point in my journey, I find more insights into understanding my experience through non-Western frameworks. In a respectful way, the Buddha could be considered an early icon for the eating disorder experience. (He’s iconic in many other …

ED Care in the Streets

Content warnings: eating disorder, weight bias Caption: 11x17 Poster from NPP's Etsy shop, speech bubble reads "I dream of a world free from eating disorders." "I dream of a world free of eating disorders." For years, I tried to wrap my head around my personal and our collective struggles with recovery. Why did it take …

Wasteful Gardening (The Parable of the Sower)

This recent Texas winter killed off a lot of our plants. When my mom and I went to a local nursery for some herbs and flowers, they seemed to be in good business, because everyone was replanting their gardens. I’ve been wondering about how to tend to/heal our inner gardens. Sowing seeds of hope in …

Interstitial Integrity

Photo by Todd Trapani I fell in love with the concept of interstitiality / interstices when I was working on my final design at Harvard's GSD summer program last summer. I wanted to confound the inside / outside binary and to push the boundaries that define space. But is there such a thing as pushing …

Tentative Beginnings

CW: ED symptoms Photo by Davide Foti Happy Daylight Savings, friends. This weekend was the first snow where I live. It’s a strange mood, and a tentative beginning to the season. I too, am undergoing change, having officially been discharged from partial hospitalization, ready to begin a period of intensive outpatient program. I'm thankful to …

Coda

This weekend, I bought a bicycle. My former friend, Woolly, had been worn out, through and through. Their tires had fallen flat time and time again, the rear wheel rattled, rust formed on their frame from the 70’s, the gears creaked and then gave out altogether, and to top it off, the chain fell off, …

Mount and Moon

Of course, when seasons of challenges are not so clearly demarcated, we still strive to make sense of potential patterns. Yet when I look back, this time of year is usually when I became overwhelmed by the seemingly impossible. ED is a bit different though. It's a mountain I love marking off as "finished," only you never step in the same river twice.

Growing Pains: Fire In My Bones

I did not expect to end my undergraduate career sleeping in my bed, with a belly full of growing pains. This is what outgrowing and moving on looks like: leaving Sodom in flames, without so much as a glance over my shoulder -- lest these old wineskins burst and ruin the new wine. Shaking the dust off my feet. When I was younger and still growing (height-wise), I would have leg aches. It made me want to stretch myself out, to kick something. My current body couldn't contain where I wanted to go, and it made me angry. Once again, my bones are groaning. Here I am, alive and kicking. I am out, restless and angry. Yet, what is this perfect peace that guards my heart?

An Interlude

Photo by Mae Mu My silence on this platform has been intentional. Maybe the day to share my grief will come sooner than I think. But I do not believe it is today. Abba, Your Spirit groans wordlessly within me. There You go, lifting my load again. You display Your glory within me. Let me …

Making Art: But Is It Waste?

Photo by Christopher Campbell Not long ago, I completed Design Discovery, an intensive architecture summer program at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. On the last day, after commencement, a friend took a video of me merrily destroying a bag full of massing models. It wasn't a cute little tote bag either -- I had …