I always feel so happy after talking to my dear, wise, funny, smart friend Heron, whom I’ve known for at least 5 years now. In this conversation, we talked about doing Palestine solidarity work in Taiwan, the sustainability and strategy of organising, ecosystems and networks, birds, Long Covid, being in our bodies, and looking at our child selves. I’m definitely going to be using “climbing cringe mountain” as my motto now too. Thank you so much, Heron!
If you’re reading this in newsletter format, click here for the properly formatted version: https://jiaqikang.mataroa.blog/blog/questions-for-my-friends-9-heron/
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The idea for this project is that I’m interviewing my friends and people I feel close to, who inspire me. There’s obviously a difference between this ‘on the record’ discussion, which will be published online for anyone to read, and the normal ‘off the record’ conversations we’d have as friends. I’m interested in the ways I might get to know you more through this slightly more ‘formal’ format and the choices you make in representing yourself. I’m also interested in oral history as a form, and in ways to preserve and archive intimacies and relationships in time and space.
Please come up with how you want to be called: name, initial, or pseudonym. I’ll be “Jiaqi Kang.”
The questions below are the 6 main questions I’ll ask you, but your answers will probably prompt some follow-up questions. Your answers can be as long or short as you want. The interview will be conducted orally, then transcribed using Loom and edited for length and clarity. You’ll get to take a final look at it before it goes up, and of course I can take it down anytime you like in the future (although it’s on my blog+newsletter which means that it will also exist in people’s email inboxes).
1. Please introduce yourself and your background, in any way you’d like.
2. How did you become politically engaged?
3. How did you and I meet?
4. What does the word ‘care’ mean for you?
5. What are some things you’re currently looking to learn, or learn about?
6. Is there anything else you’d like to say, or to ask me?
Thank you <3
This interview was conducted virtually in October 2025 and has been edited for length and clarity.
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Jiaqi Kang: Please introduce yourself and your background in any way that you'd like.
Heron: I am Heron. I grew up in Taiwan, in Taipei, in the city, near this big park full of herons and other birds, which is really nice. I have a white American father and a Taiwanese mom, and I went to an international school in Taipei growing up. I moved to the US when I was 15. I feel like that really shapes my background. There are various identity markers, one could say… But I love my friends. I love being gay and I like making stuff with people. I like feeling like I'm part of the ecosystem. So maybe I would say I'm Heron, I’m mixed Taiwanese and American and a lesbian and an animal.
JK: How did you become politically engaged?
H: Of the sort of questions that you have told me about, this was the only one I remembered. This is the only question that I've thought of over the last few weeks. I was thinking about [it] this morning. I would say, similar to a lot of the other [people you interviewed], it's been this kind of continual process with repeated unfoldings or openings. I feel like, in terms of me becoming politically aware, it was really shaped by the internet and the sort of similar corners of the internet that we were on. Moving to the US in 2015 and then the year during the beginning of Trump's first election cycle. [Also], being racialized differently [once I moved to] the US. I feel like [that was] the moment where I first started really thinking and understanding in a different, more conscious way.
The first time I started becoming politically engaged was in college, when I joined an organization that is no longer really active. It was a collective whose mission was thinking about science and social justice, broadly defined. I met them because they came to my school to give a workshop called ‘A People's History of Science’ that was talking about the inner connections between the ways in which science has been intertwined with colonialism, but also alternative ways of thinking about people that have done science in the world. I was really blown away by that. I went to them after the workshop immediately and was like, “How can I join you?” I ended up joining this organization that was doing a mix of political education and some more direct campaigns. The main campaigns that I participated in were trying to push against predictive policing technologies, the use of science and technology [to say] that it's objective, or even will decrease racism or something, which is so incorrect.
I was younger than most of the people in [this organisation]. I was 18 when I joined. Most of them were in their late 20s. But I feel like they really took me in. They took me to my first zine festival; they were willing to mentor me, and also be my friend. I'm so grateful for that, and I'm still friends with them. The framing [of the project was] destabilizing the idea of objectivity in general, and this centrality or prioritization of science—previously in my life, [science] had really been on this pedestal because of how I was raised, that was really influential to shaping me and how viewed the world. I learned a lot through [the organisation].
My last year of college was 2020-2021, with lockdown. I became heavily involved in this mutual aid fundraising [campaign]. That was the first time that I was taking on some kind of leadership role, instead of being the 18-year-old mentee. We were trying to push the school to change their grading policies and other policies for that semester, to acknowledge the really different experiences students were having of lockdown. Also, we ran a mutual aid initiative and raised and redistributed like almost $50,000 US dollars, which I am proud of. That was, I think, my first time really being in the weeds of confronting a big institution.
Many people in your interviews have mentioned [this as well]: the most recent big unfolding or opening in my life has been Palestine. I was in Taiwan up until recently. I was trying to push myself to see what I could do from there, and also feeling limited in certain ways by the lack of people [in this relatively smaller community] who were willing to take action there. But I think that being involved in that work has really transformed how I view the world and what I hope to do in the future.
JK: Would you be interested in elaborating a bit about your experience doing Palestine solidarity work in Taiwan, and maybe some of those challenges that you mentioned?
H: My first year, fall 2023 to spring 2024, I was involved in a group that had some Taiwanese people, but was largely international students, or other types of people that were [from abroad]. We were doing our organizational communication in English, although we did have a translation team. I felt like a lot of what we were doing was essentially trying to raise awareness—in the context of Taiwan, there was such little public discussion of Palestine [at all]. So even though it felt like a very limited task, it also felt like something that I had the resources to do, and I wanted to do it. So we were running an Instagram page and posting in Chinese, and we were doing a lot of translations of different posts into Chinese. Also, we were making a lot of zines, and passing them out at various places.
We collaborated with other organizations to organize larger protests and demonstrative actions. But basically, I think there was really never any discussion of more direct action, besides these types of demonstrations. Partially because there are international students involved, and they were on visas and stuff, people were concerned about risk, and so all of the demonstration actions that we planned were permitted by police. In some ways it felt limited in scope.
In Taiwan, I think that this kind of organizing is limited both in general [by] the fact that the quote unquote ‘left’ in Taiwan is really splintered by the issue of China. I remember, the first protests that happened, [in] November 2023, there were two protests organized by two different coalitions on two consecutive weekends in Taipei. One was this collection of people that included some explicitly communist or socialist groups who are maybe more amenable to unification or something in some way—versus really staunchly pro-independence people.
Because of the cycle of international students leaving all the time, and new people coming in, our initial group also kind of splintered and transformed. My second year, I was collaborating more with this group that was part of an international network of… I’m trying to avoid saying the name of the group. It was with my friend who was Filipino, and working really closely with Filipino migrant workers. They have an organization. They were also interested. My friend was a student, but [the Filipino workers’ group was also] interested in Palestine organizing. I felt also really happy to be doing events where we were doing translation into English, Mandarin, and Tagalog.
Then I very suddenly moved back to the US this spring, because of my mom, and I have not really been as involved. I know that there continue to be these protests every few months organized in Taiwan. I think the same types of fractures among the coalitions are still there, although I do think people are more willing to work together in order to have a larger event that attracts more people now [compared to] initially, so that I am very glad to see.
JK: Thank you. It's so interesting I guess there's also differences in terms of organizing for Palestinian solidarity in the very heart of the imperial core, in places like the US or the UK, versus Taiwan, where there might not necessarily be as much direct usefulness in terms of trying to appeal to the government…
H: Actually, that reminds me. We actually were trying to appeal… Maybe it would be different, for example, in some other non-Western countries, but I think Taiwan, in particular, because it's so intertwined with the US, it is more directly involved.
I had another friend in Taipei who was doing a lot of research about the connections between Taiwanese manufacturing and defense companies, the supply chain of [that]. There were lots of connections in terms of manufacturing various components that end up going into the fighter jets that the US is sending over [to Israel]. Also, some members of the Taiwanese government have this really bizarre position that Taiwan should ‘learn from Israel’ or something—this narrative of Israel being some kind of bastion of democracy within the backwards Middle East, and comparing [that] with Taiwan and China. There was this Taiwan–Israel congressional ‘friendship’ association that was formed… We did organize a letter-writing campaign [around that]; we did sometimes have campaigns that were directly targeting such things. But also, sometimes our demonstrations would instead be in front of the American office, or the Israel office.
JK: Thank you for that elaboration. I find that really interesting; I didn't know about those connections with Taiwan [and Israel]. The reason why I ask is because I wonder [how] you felt strategically, or in terms of where you guys were pulling your capacities. To what extent did it seem more urgent to, for example, appeal to the broader Taiwanese public (which is a really interesting dynamic, when it's a bunch of mostly international, more English-speaking [people], what does it mean to try to appeal to ‘the Taiwanese public’? Is there a tension between the expat community and the local community?) and then fundraising, mutual aid efforts for Gaza. [That’s A and B, two facets of solidarity work.] C [is] targeting the state, whether it's the Taiwanese state or like the US Embassy. D is any other form of boycott. There's so many different strategies. I wonder, in terms of just being like, “Okay, where am I right now and what can I do?” did you feel that there was a lot of strategizing [of priorities]?
H: I want to clarify that, while the particular group that I was meeting with the most was more international, there were other groups that were more Taiwanese. When we would hold big demonstrations, because we would try to have as much stuff in Chinese language as possible, it was mostly Taiwanese people who were speaking. For those types of events, a lot of international students would be trying to provide more background volunteer support.
In terms of strategy, I mean, it's something that I think that we really could have improved on. I think we honestly didn't have a very clear strategy, and didn't do a lot of that planning. A lot of the time, we were inspired by or interested in what groups in other Asian countries were doing. We were very interested in the work that was happening in Japan, where it felt like there were more regular demonstrations and larger scale events happening. Sometimes we would do something similar to what we saw happen in Tokyo or something like that. A lot of different groups had really different views about what would be important.
In terms of fundraising, there were a few Palestinian families in Taiwan that we were working with and trying to support, and who would speak at our events. We would often have fundraisers at the events; we would have [the money] be going through those families. But we didn't do a lot of really large scale fundraising, which is different than what's been happening in the US, and honestly, I'm not really sure why. But I also have seen fundraisers being organized there more frequently in the year since I’ve left.
We made this BDS zine that was bilingual in English and Mandarin, and tried to distribute that a lot, because we were interested in trying to promote BDS and raise awareness about that as well. It's interesting, because there have been a lot of other successful boycotts in Taiwan related to China and to Ukraine and Russia. Those really take off. So we were like, “Can we somehow…?” We talked about that in the zine. We were trying to frame it in a similar way. We were being like, “How can we harness this type of energy?” But I don't think that ever really happened. That speaks to Taiwan's particular position, that Ukraine- and China-related boycotts are way more appealing to people. Basically, I wish we had more strategy. I think it's something that, when I go back to Taiwan in the future, I really want to think about more intentionally.
JK: Thank you. That is super interesting. And I didn't know that you ended up getting connected to this broader network of the Filipino diaspora, and how that influenced what you were working on.
I wanted to ask, also, about the science political education org that you worked with. I was quite interested when you were like, “This org doesn't exist anymore.” I was wondering whether you wanted to speak a bit more about what you mean by that, and why.
H: This [science] organization: I think that's a case where it basically stopped existing because of burnout of the central organizers and a failure to pass on the responsibility to other people. Not a failure on the part of the organizers, but just, like, that didn't happen. I think it kind of faded out. The collective was founded by a group of friends back in 2015 and then it expanded. There was a West Coast chapter, an East Coast chapter. Peak activity was maybe up until 2020, and during lockdown. I think, also, it had to do with the two main organizers [moving] away from Los Angeles to different places and to start other things. A big part of what had made the work more sustainable was because, when we were all living in the same city, when we would gather to plan things, we were also hanging out and making food for each other and stuff like that. Once it became more online, I think that made burnout kind of accelerate a bit. Also, throughout the whole organization, even though lots of other people were leading committees, I think there was always the sense that the two main founders… People would still look to them for final approval. Ultimately, when those two founders moved away and stepped back, there was no one who was really willing to step up. And I guess that included me, because I also moved away at the same time. I was kind of aware, like, “Oh, I could have stepped in,” but I didn't really feel [comfortable doing that]. I just graduated, and I was just starting to teach, and I was also in a new city, so I didn't really feel like I was able to step into that role.
But I think the network is still really active. The people still know each other. I feel that it would be possible to activate this network of people in the future, in some kind of different way, maybe—not under the same organization necessarily. It doesn't feel like a permanent ending.
JK: Right, it doesn’t feel like a regret, or like anything like that.
H: Yeah, totally. I think it was still this really formative experience for me. The collaboration with the anti-predictive policing community groups, some of the individual people [from the organisation] are still doing that, I think. I don't really know that the organization could ever re-form in the same way, because I feel like it was so dependent on the founders. It would have to be something new [to] emerge out of these relationships.
JK: Because the network still exists.
H: Every now and then, the email people will send something on the email chain to be like, “Oh, can we fundraise for this person?” Or, “Does anyone want to work on this project together?” But it's just not really under the heading of this organization.
JK: That makes sense. I also wonder whether you wanted to chat a little bit about zines and the politics of zines, or anything like that that you wanted to touch on, because I don't know if there will be necessarily another point in the interview [to talk about it].
H: I learned about zines from the same people, through the science and social justice organization. I was making my first zines with them. At the same time as I was learning to decenter this idea of scientific objectivity, I was also learning [about] this idea of zines as something that can destabilize who we think of as an author—[who it is that] can make a book—and what we consider knowledge worthy to be in a book. I think that those two ideas were really connected [for me].
That is what I love about zines, is the way that it helps expand constantly and reminds me that everyone knows stuff and anything can be a book. I really like the long and rich history of zines, as you know, people standing outside of traditional, mainstream publishing institutions, and saying, “We're not going to deal with the limitations of those institutions and are instead going to just publish this ourselves.” I feel really inspired by that, also, as a model for how to live my life. So I love zines.
One thing I was thinking about in Taiwan, especially when we were making a lot of zines about BDS and other things, was, “I don't want to just make zines.” I really hold dear to my heart these expansive politics of zines. But also I don't want to fall into a… What is the word? Fall into this complacency that I can be printing stuff and distributing it and just do that, because it also is generally a much safer kind of activity. But I think zines are a really powerful tool, and also they're so fun, and I want to keep making them for my whole life.
JK: Thank you. I had this sense of embarrassment right after I asked [the question] where I felt as though I was, like, forcing [you to speak about zines]. I was like, “You're the zine guy, talk about [zines]!” I was thinking about that conversation that we were having in the spring, where we were like, “What does it mean that these things that we started out doing for fun have sort of become something that is expected of us?” It's like, “Oh, will [Heron] just spend the rest of their life being asked to talk about zines, on command, wherever they go? What does it mean to be seen as ‘the zine person’ when zines are fundamentally an accessible [often un-authored] kind of thing?”
H: Don't feel bad about asking me about zines. One interesting thing is that—yeah, especially because the idea of zines is that anyone can make it—I did kind of get to this point where people would be like, “Oh, [Heron], can you format the zine for us? Because you know how to do it.” And I was like, “Wait. Like… Let's do it together…”
What I love about zines is that there isn't really an idea of expertise. But then it is funny when people want to put me in a position of expertise in relation to that. I love leading zine workshops, I love teaching people how. I do also love teaching; that is really connected also to the stuff I was talking about, how the politics of knowledge—whatever that means—has shaped my life. But I definitely prefer it when people want to learn together, and they're not viewing zines as a service or something that I can provide.
JK: How did you and I meet?
H: It's a very specific answer. We met because I submitted to Sine Theta. I don't really remember how exactly I came across Sine Theta—I feel like it was probably on Instagram or something like that. I had taken a fiction writing workshop in college and written my first short story, and then came across the Sine Theta call for submissions. Because that was one of the peak eras of Twitter, I feel, where people were still using it—I was in my era of being like, “Every gay Asian diaspora artist on Twitter, I can befriend them!” And it was true.
JK: Yeah, it was true!
H: So anyway, I think that I submitted to Sine Theta, and we were corresponding because of that, and then we followed each other on Twitter. Then I also got into The Untamed and so our online friendship was also influenced by me sending you my Untamed memes or whatever.
Then we met in person in 2023 at [a] writing retreat, which was so lovely.
JK: I didn't realize that that was your first short story, actually. It was so good. I remember this moment [during the editing process] where I was really embarrassed because you had intentionally not gendered the protagonist, [but] I just thought it was a little boy. I was like, “He…” and you were like, “Oh, actually, I intentionally didn't use any pronouns.” And I was like, “Oh no, you're right. Oh god no!”
H: It happens to everyone.
JK: I'm so glad that we met. It’s an online friendship that has developed so much over time, as time passes, I'm so grateful for it.
What does the word ‘care’ mean for you?
H: I'm gonna walk outside now. This morning, when I read the question on your blog about “What does care mean to you,” my immediate answer that came to mind was: trying over and over. I guess it feels like it's about effort and not perfection, and also repetition and presence and coming back.
I think my relationship to care has changed a lot in the last several months because of moving back home and [moving in] with my parents when my mom was diagnosed with cancer, and taking on a lot [more] care work for my mom than I have in the past. With my mom, even though she is so tired all the time and in pain a lot, she still wants to cook dinner for us when she can. [I’m inspired by] how meaningful these types of care activities are to her.
The way that I think about [care] is also really connected to—(I’m running across the street! Oh my gosh, it’s such a nice breeze outside)—it's also really connected to understanding myself as part of an ecosystem, and thinking about all the things that I depend on, all of these processes that are happening. Part of how I understand care is wanting to pay attention to, or make visible, my interdependence with other people. I depend on people either way—I can be an active participant in that as much as possible, and care in return, because I'm already receiving a lot of care, as a result of the food that I'm eating and all of these things.
And the other thing is that my friendships have really shaped how I understand care. Being cared for by my friends has been the greatest gift of my life. I am cared for by my family also, but I think that, with friendship, it feels like such an active choice, and so it's so special. I feel like I've learned a lot about care from each and every one of my friends, including you.
JK: That's really lovely. Thank you. It's so nice hearing the things that get repeated and not repeated, and that are different, from [all the interviewees]. I mean, there are obviously always going to be similarities, because it's the same [word]. I like this idea of trying again and again. I think it's something that has been on my mind as well but [that] I'm feeling maybe a bit more burned out about, I suppose.
What are some things that you're currently looking to learn or learn about?
H: Sparrow flying across the sidewalk… I feel like I'm learning so much [right now] because I'm reading more for school, every week, than I ever have before in my life. The biggest thing is that I want to learn about [is] what the particular organizing scene and mutual aid landscape is [like] in the city I now live in, which I just moved to.
Also—essentially I think this is the project of my whole life, probably—how to put into practice, in some way, these like ideas that I talk about with my friends. I've been really returning to my Parable of the Sower era. I'm really thinking about wanting to learn practical skills. Me going to shoot archery later today—I don't really know in what specific context I would use [it but] archery feels good to learn [as] a physical skill. But also I want to try to get connected with a community garden and start learning again about things like seed saving and how to grow food. Just in general, how to build stuff. I really have a yearning to learn how to make practical things.
I want to learn Taiwanese or Hokkien or Taiyu, which I've been working on a little bit with my mom, and it would be so awesome to learn Cantonese also, although I'm not currently working on that. The other thing is that I currently have this dream of learning how to play the guqin. It's really difficult to buy a guqin in the US. It’s currently something I imagine. I got the chance to play it once in Taiwan, and I really loved it. It was so beautiful. And then I was reading about the notation system, and the notation system is so interesting and so different.
JK: Is it the numbers, like 12345?
H: There are numbers, and there are also other symbols that I don't understand. So I think [learning] that would be really fun. The other thing I would like to learn about, which I guess I am starting to do, is wanting to learn more about identifying local birds to this new city and other local plants.
JK: Starting with sparrows, pretty solid.
H: Specifically, there's this… No, wait. This is what I was gonna say for my “Is there anything else I want to say?” [question].
JK: I'll ask that [very soon]. It's really funny: I noticed an olive tree on an important/special day of my life. But then I realized that olive trees are kind of everywhere, actually—after I figured out what I was looking at, I've been seeing it a lot. I think it makes me both happy and sad. It makes me happy to see olive trees, in the same way that when I see pro-Palestine graffiti on the street, it makes me happy. But then it also makes me sad, because it's like, “Well, obviously, almost no one that's put up an olive tree is doing it for political reasons.” [So I’m just reading too much into it.] I've been thinking a lot about symbols, like signs and names, [linguistic and visual discourse], and how sometimes [signs and the ability to name something is] really activating, but then simultaneously [signs] can also seem very much like not enough. How [can] we hold the tools that we have at our disposal as human beings—which is the world of signs—how [can signs] actually hold all the things that are in our bodies and in our experiences?
H: Yeah.
JK: Is there anything else you'd like to say or to ask me?
H: I feel like you have just now articulated… I've been feeling that way [about] these signs and graffiti around my new city as well; in some ways it's nice, because I saw that in Taipei much less often, but also it feels like a reminder of the fact that I'm primarily working with signs [and] not much else. It's bittersweet every time.
“Anything else I'd like to say” that I was going to say—and actually I'm going to try to go see if I can see him right now—is: speaking of local birds, and my pseudonym for today, there is this great, great blue heron that I have been seeing every week near my house. I'm going to see right now whether I can see him.
JK: Have you named him?
H: Yes. Actually, I think based on a Tumblr post or something about somebody else who had named a local heron Lonesome George. I was like, “Yeah, I'll name him Lonesome George too.”
Going to see right now whether I can see him in his usual spot. I was really sad because I wasn't able to see him for a few weeks. But then a few days ago, I saw him again. It's nice to have a non-human neighbor that I see regularly. I think this tree is blocking my way. I'll have to go see later whether I can see him, but he's probably there.
I wanted to tell you that, recently, one of my friends visited me and was asking me about what writers I like and who I've been reading. I was talking about some writers. And then I was like, “You know what, one of my favorite writers is my friend.” And then I showed her your riso zine that I have
JK: That's so sweet. Thank you so much.
H: I truly feel that way, both in terms of your writing that I read, but also, even in our conversations, I think the way that you describe the way you view the world, it's like, “Wow.” I feel very glad that I'm able to hear it.
JK: I also feel so glad for our friendship, and I am always being like, “Oh, my friend [Heron] blah blah!”
I just finished reading, literally last night, this book called Memory Piece by Lisa Ko. I felt moved by the story of three friends whose lives intertwine, who fall in and out of touch [over all the decades]. It's very different, but I was kind of thinking about different kinds of friendships and different kinds of pacings or rhythms of friendships, and how a lot of the friendships that I feel really attached to are these ones that live in the long arc of history.
H: In terms of pacing and rhythm, I think it's really nice to have the fluctuation. Sometimes I'm talking to you with much more frequency, and then sometimes a long time of no talking, but we are seeing each other grow at these different points in our lives, and that's very nice.
JK: Thank you so much, and I hope you have a really nice time at archery.
[We hang up, but Heron remembers something they wanted to discuss so we call each other back.]
H: I think it connects to all the questions. This thing that has shaped my entire life in the last two years or so has been getting Long Covid. I'm doing better now than I was before, but still it's one of those things where it's difficult to pinpoint what has been caused by Long Covid and what has been caused by just other things in my life—life changes and mental health and stuff like that.
In terms of how it's shaped my political engagement, and also how it's shaped my relationship to care, in a lot of ways, it feels like Long Covid has decreased my capacity in a literal way, with my energy. Even in this interview, my ability to describe things clearly, or think about things clearly, sometimes feels kind of clouded—although maybe I'm comparing to a prior reference point that I don't need to compare, you know? I’ve just been thinking a lot about how, in some ways, it's felt like a limitation. I'm nervous about getting really exhausted at protests, and not being able to run away if something happens; or the fact that I take longer to do things.
But also, it's really shaped my priorities in that there was a period when my Long Covid was worse—when I didn't really know how much I would improve, or to what extent I would get better—where I had to really rethink what a meaningful life future would look like for me. I really had to let go of ambition, because I just had to be like, “Maybe there's a future in which I live with my aunt for several years, or the rest of my life, and just have to spend a long time in bed.” I had to think about: “Okay, and what would feel meaningful for me to do in that kind of life?” But it was also kind of freeing, in a certain way, to think about my priorities and what was important to me. Even now, me entering academia, I feel like that's part of why I feel less concerned about being like, too subsumed, because I'm like, “Yeah, no way that I'm gonna burn myself out and permanently ruin my health for this university, because I know that my health is precarious.”
JK: It's good to go in knowing your boundaries and knowing your limits, and already being able to adjust to that.
H: But it's also in terms of care… Being like, “How can I care for people when I feel like my capacity is limited?” I actually don't know. I mean, I think it's something I think about a lot in terms of, “Should I be doing more?” Another person you interviewed talked about making sure you care for people sustainably. That is a really helpful frame for me. But also, the amount of care that I've received in terms of people accommodating me and being understanding—it's really special, but also it's been a huge reminder of how much care I need. Because sometimes I can't get out of bed at all. It's really transformed my relationship to my body and therefore everything else.
JK: Do you feel that now, you and your body are… I don't know if the word is ‘in sync,’ or ‘in agreement,’ or ‘in dialogue’… Like, do you feel that you have a line of communication with your body?
H: Honestly, it doesn't really feel that way. One of the main defining experiences of Long Covid for me—besides the periodic crashes and stuff—something that's really constant is this feeling of disconnection. I feel way more like a third person observer of my life than I did before, and I feel way less connected to my inner voice, which is kind of surreal. It's harder for me to journal now. I feel a lot of fragmentation within myself. It's been interesting to see that. I still can maintain my relationships and do a lot of the same things that I was doing before, even though it feels so different for me inside. I don't really know what to make of that.
I think that I do have a better sense of… I think I learned, out of necessity, to respect [and] pay attention to how I'm doing—very specific indicators, like I'm paying attention to my heart rate a lot, and how dizzy I'm feeling, and when the last time I sat down was, and stuff like that. And also, I try a lot harder to get enough sleep, because I know that it really affects me when I don't. Making sure I eat enough. I think I have been, out of necessity, forced to pay a lot more attention to specific physical things, and I have learned all of these things I can do for myself to make things easier, like take the elevator more often. I don't know [if it] feels like communication. Maybe I should think about it that way, but I guess I don't know if it feels like communication or connection with my body, because I also feel really like I'm floating.
JK: That makes sense. I asked that because I feel like that's something that I am only starting to get into now, which is: What is happening below my neck? What is my body? What does my body feel like, what is it trying to say to me? I feel so much fragmentation. But it's interesting, because one of the ways in which I think I have become closer to my body is through actually developing a better journaling practice. I feel like that's the only way in which I've been able to have any kind of channel of communication [with myself].
The things that I'm paying attention to now, lately, I'm like: “Am I breathing? Am I breathing? Am I breathing?” It's this whole new thing of trying to commune with [my body] in the first place. So I guess I'm looking forward to what that's gonna become, and just the sheer number of ways, the infinite ways in which you can have this relationship, which I am just discovering now,
H: I think I would like to try to continue a journaling practice, even though journaling now feels really different than before, partially because of… Feeling like I don't even know what my inner voice currently is. Maybe that's the case for lots of people. Do you feel like you have an inner monologue or voice that you feel very connected to?
JK: No, I don't have an inner monologue at all. And I think that actually, a lot of this whole thing is impeded or shaped around the fact that I really struggle to… I have hangups about language. Basically, English is my best language, the language [in which] I think of myself and articulate myself as a person, but it really pisses me off that it is. I don't like it. I think that means that it's taken me a long time to even be like, “When I talk to myself, I talk to myself in English”—it's taken me a long time to even accept that, that that is the situation.
So I don't know, but I think that there's just so many things I don't know. There's so much to learn.
H: Sometimes I hang on to this idea of my perception of who I was before, which I think is quite unstable and probably unreliable. My perception [is] that I previously had this closer relationship to my own mind or something. Sometimes [it] makes me feel hesitant to journal because I'm like, “I don't have it anymore.” But also, that's not the only way to have a relationship to myself. Discover this new whatever [that] is going to come out.
The other thing about bodies… I didn't really talk about this in my background introduction, but being trans and having transitioned, I think it's also interesting [that] this all kind of happened in the same year. In 2023 I both got top surgery, and got Long Covid afterward. My body changed so much in one year. And before that as well, when I was on testosterone… It was actually because I previously also had this very disconnected relationship to my body. It was interesting to then be transitioning, and to both identify the desire to transition, but then also to kind of experience it honestly as…Some people take these daily photos or videos or something [to record their transition], and I didn't feel called to do that, and I didn't [do it]. I feel like my transition kind of happened—I wasn't even super aware of it. It was just happening. Identifying the desire to transition and then taking the action, and then to be like, “Oh, my body's really different now, and I am happier.” I think [all of] that has been connected to this process of developing a relationship to my body and learning to pay more attention to it.
JK: These two changes intertwined, where one of them [transition] is something that is so much about your agency, and another one [chronic illness] is this kind of undermining and transformation, or overhauling, of what we might think agency [is]. How both of that [are] so political; the body and the changing body is so political. I think a lot about disability, chronic illness and Long Covid as a reconfiguration of time.
H: Totally, yeah. A reconfiguration of time: transition, also, I think, is really connected to time. Both of them are changing the way that you think about your own future and the different possibilities of your future in really different ways. Also—especially for long covid—changing your experience of time in a really granular way as well: things take longer and you have an output and that you have to budget. Like, I can't assume that I can get something done last minute. I have to develop this more careful, but also more flexible and expansive, relationship to time. I have to give myself more of it, and also have to hold onto it less tightly.
JK: All this is stuff that I feel is so much more urgent for me to think about now than [I’ve ever felt] before. I've been finding experimental poetry to be a very fruitful place to feel and think about these things—not writing it, but reading it. A form and a medium that I never had the patience or wherewithal before [to engage with]. Now I feel as though [one of the only ways through which to think through] the un-untiable knots of all of these ideas.
H: I would be very curious about what poetry you’d recommend.
JK: I've been getting into Bhanu Kapil and also Don Mee Choi.
H: Bhanu Kapil is the one who wrote all the questions…
JK: Yeah, the 12 questions [from The Vertical Interrogation of Strangers], which was the only thing I knew about her until [my dream about her prompted me to find out more]. I also knew that she had this [almost] mythological presence in poetry. [Recently] I listened to her Between the Covers podcast. [Also], reading her work, but also the writing of other people about her… For both of these writers, it's about what they are willing to take dead seriously that I [conversely] have struggled to take dead seriously: for example, the body, intergenerational trauma, migration, these things that I sometimes think is too ‘basic,’ and I think that I'm, like, too complex, too cool to engage with it or something. But actually, just because I think I'm too cool for it doesn't mean that it's not actually something that has really shaped who I am in ways that I haven't begun to understand.
H: I think that's so real. What you were talking about earlier, before our interview started, about burnout—it was very relatable to me, also. In terms of a phrase that I've been using… My girlfriend (which is an update for you!), one of her friends uses this phrase: “You have to climb cringe mountain.” And I really internalized… It’s my motto for the fall, “I have to climb cringe mountain.” It's about lots of things. It's about doing things that are embarrassing, primarily, but also, for me, it's about pushing away my inner cynic that I have. All these narratives that I think are conversations that are very important about [for example] diaspora poetry… It's like, ultimately, I am a diaspora person.
JK: …And the poetry I write is diaspora poetry. Even the really high concept, super ironic ones, they're still diaspora poetry.
H: It feels like it’s connected, also, to what we were talking about, about listening to your body and taking your body seriously—but also taking these other really basic facts about your life more seriously. The basic emotions that are easy to reject and view as embarrassing.
JK: Yeah! I think that's my issue. For me, so much goes back to fear and shame. I will not deny recently having googled healing the shame wound daughter of immigrants, which was a very embarrassing thing for me to try…
H: But you have to climb cringe mountain.
JK: Yeah, cringe mountain is a very arduous climb! But actually, I think that that's such a good phrase, and also, girlfriend is something we have to talk about at a later date.
H: One of my other very good friends has recently been reading this other book that's called Unlearning Shame or something like that. I think a lot of my friends are kind of on this right now. It’s also the kind of book that maybe previously I would have been like, “That's self help psychology, whatever.” Now, I'm like, “Yeah… I have a self that can be helped.”
JK: I've been reading [some] self help books and being like… I'm reading it critically, but I am still reading it because if something resonates with me, it's gonna resonate with me, whether it comes from the self help book, or whether it comes from Don Mee Choi.
There is this one self help book that actually struck me; it’s called Are you mad at me? by Meg Josephson, and it's about being a people pleaser and fawning. This is something that I've been thinking about… When you have all these horrible emotions, or when you're just feeling really bad, your reaction is to be like, “Oh my god. Stop. Why do I feel so bad? This is so stupid.” But [reading the book introduced me to] this very radical thing of, “What if we were like, ‘Thank you’?” Like, “Thank you for these feelings. Thank you for trying to keep me safe.” In my life, it's so rare that I'm ever like, “Thank you for this feeling.” What does it mean when you learn to embrace that version of you that is so scared, instead of kicking this dog that is clearly terrified and, like, pissing itself? What if you were like, “Hey, thanks for being here.” I don't know, that’s kind of crazy and something that I'm still wrapping my head around, but I think that has already made an impact on me.
H: If I were encountering one of my younger siblings, or a child or something… It has emotions. And if I treated them the way that I treat myself, like, “Stop that”—that would be ridiculous.
Maybe not so much for fear and shame, but I think for some other negative emotions… Because of this massive dissociation that I feel all the time now, when I do have a really salient feeling of sadness, I am really grateful for it. And it feels kind of weird sometimes, to be like, savoring the sadness in some kind of way. Sometimes I'm like, “Is this messed up?” But I'm kind of grateful and relieved that I can feel it. I wonder if I can kind of extend that to things like fear and shame.
Another thing I'm thinking a lot about is even this feeling of disconnect or depression, and emptiness. Is that also a feeling that I can change my relationship to? Rather than being like, “It's a huge problem.”
JK: “Would you ever say that to an actual child, the things that you say to yourself?” I've changed my lock screen to a photo of myself as a baby right after I immigrated. It's kind of helpful to just look at it all the time and be like, “Who is this person? This is you?”
I feel very struck when I overhear, or witness in public, parents being honestly kind of shitty to their kids. Recently, I've just been feeling so sad, even sadder than I might have before, [when I think], “Oh my god. This kid is gonna remember all this stuff that you're saying.” There was a [maybe] two-year-old crying, and its mother was like, “No one wants to hear that.” These things [that] a lot of people will [do], either consistently, or just in a moment of frustration. [They’ll] be mean to a kid.
I've been thinking a lot about how fragile and vulnerable every person in the world is, but then my reaction to that is: How is the world supposed to function? Like, how is anyone supposed to pay rent? How are we supposed to have a society? But I guess that's the problem [as my friend R said, of capitalism as needing perpetual crisis].
H: I also recently changed my lock screen to a photo of me as a kid. First I changed it to a photo of me and my brother as babies. Then what I ended up doing [is], I realized you could make your wallpaper a rotating album. Now it takes [me] through some pictures of me and my siblings as kids, and then other photos of me and my friends now, but it's a different one every day. I really like it. It makes me happy. I think I should add more of me as a kid. I think a couple days ago the rotation was you—I have one photo of our retreat cohort that's in there, but also I have one that's us making a heart with our arms in the mirror.
JK: Oh, my god. That makes me really happy. Thank you. I'm gonna let you go now.