Scraps of Thoughts from the Drive Home

A haphazard assortment of musings on lightness (always), independent desire for polish, sensory variation, etc,.

Published May 21, 2025

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In a bit of a detour from usual Words Like Silver content—if there is such a descriptor—I wanted to freewrite briefly. A mind map but less intense, largely bundling the thoughts I had last night while driving back from a particular weekday tradition on the other side of the island.

Driving is always stellar for my creativity; it's like showering or that flash of half-dreamed insight right before bed in that you always have your best ideas while doing so, because you have to immediately voice memo / clamber out covered in soap / get up and ruin your sleep to write it down or else it will disappear forever. You'll remember the intensity of your desire to remember that one line, but not the line itself. Whatever makes it to the page—or document, in this case—is a small fraction of the glimmers of hopeful genius lost to the ether of an activity that makes drafting inconvenient.

Adam Alter, a social scientist whose work and research I'm fond of, writes about the activation of brain networks and how we jostle them for various breakthroughs. So when I go for a walk, drive, whatever—I'm engaging that. (My dad does the same, and will break away from his startup grind to walk 7 miles along Bayshore Blvd. in the scorching center of the day, lost in his own thoughts and calculations. Vastly important for his own functioning, and a way in which I am my father's daughter.)

Anyway, some bits that made it to my phone notes or the forefront of my mind, just a ramble that feels soothing to me. I'm trying to be better about scraps, not needing polish, and all in all being less of a perfectionist about process / interests / etc,. when writing on the blog, because here, I write for the love of it.

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My 'Little Piece of Tin'

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a view and a half

My car, frankly, is embarrassing. Its bumper is held together with zip ties. The street where I park is absolutely covered in trees, and the surface of the car is always dive-bombed by birds when I get in late enough that I don't get a clear-sky spot. As soon as I hose it down, it gets destroyed again within hours. My joke—beyond it being a classic island junker car—is that it's never going to be broken into (not that I would keep anything valuable in it anyway.) Perk also being that when someone side-swiped me in a hit-and-run, I did not care either. What's another dent? Someone who owned it previously took off the muffler, so it yells.

When headed to an event in town for my travel journalism (as the hotels nearly always do valet), I feel a flicker of shame and usually ask to carpool with whoever I invite. Because I might look like this at a hotel event, which is a funny dissonance. Once, under the previous damage section, a valet tag just said "All over."

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the girl vs. the car

Now that I'm slightly more stable financially, I've questioned if I should upgrade it, even by $1,000. Something more polished, and less embarrassing, and with a little more adulthood dignity? Polish and presentation is an interesting thing in the context of self-respect vs. social validation, because you can feel better independently by presenting a "together" front, but that's a reaction mostly evolved from social pressure in the first place, so I'm not sure you can ever say it's entirely divorced from the judgments of others.

But I do love my car, as much as I rag on it. It runs without worry, which is usually my main concern on an island like this. It was previously owned by a mechanic, so everyone who's ever looked at its interior thinks the engine and whatnot are in fantastic condition. I've only ever had to replace a long-worn tire.

When someone asked me way back in 2020 what the hardest part of living in Hawai'i was (when I had my previous vehicle), I said, "Car trouble." So I'm pretty grateful that I have a piece of junk that gets me from point A to point B without being a money pit at the mechanic's. I've already gotten my money's worth out of it and more, a dozen times over. Still, I think about this whenever I get into it nowadays, although I'll likely just run it until it (one day) dies.

Sensory Variation, and Driving at Night

When I drive back from dinner with friends on the other side of the island on this standing date, it's always dark and empty. The roads unspool and it's all just straight blackness. I know the signs and detours that take me by surprise and the rhythms and fractions I encounter on the way home.

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It's probably just rained, and the pavement shimmers. (The last few days, I've been blessed with the most stunning rainbows I've ever seen here.) And the sensation of that glimmer reminds me so much, vividly, of being in college and driving in the backroads of Virginia on a late, late night, body-tired and aching to be home. As I drift into the zero draft of Sun Guilt, my next book, I'm even playing similar music to then (because the atmosphere is very similar.)

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sensory lexicon example

Even the freshness of that—a new routine that reminds me of an old one—reminds me of these sort of ecosystems of sensations that we cycle through at a given time. My "sensory lexicon," as I call it, has been slightly different in each house I've ever lived in, with certain bundles appearing in specific seasons, or in a given place you return to.

It's probably why I think so much about "every you, every me" and the changing self, absolutely why I dwell so much on neuroaesthetics and how we shift our given material cultures, and also is a massive source of inspiration for me in my writing process, which requires a good bit of immersion since my books are fundamentally "cinematic" or "atmospheric."

So the hobbies I do, the songs I listen to, the flavors of my personality, the contours of what I dwell on—they're each subtly different for each work, and consciously tapping into or out of them brings up a lot of existential questions for me about what feels most "accurate" to you about yourself and your preferences.

I sometimes get stuck on whether someone really "knows" me if I haven't seen them in months or years, and the answer is no—not unless they're generous enough to give the time to change visibly in front of them and decide for me what defines my continuity as someone they care about enough to keep knowing. Because "knowing" is an active process, forever.

I also know that I'm particularly excellent at classically conditioning myself, so it's very easy for me to bundle sequences of habits or feelings or sensations, for better and for worse. So the textures of these evenings are predictable now in taste / scent / touch / timing / you name it. And I'll probably excavate that someday, with details slipping into a given narrative somewhere.

I just reviewed Peter Matthiessen's The Snow Leopard, and he helped found The Paris Review, which I've always loved. The social media account recently posted this quote by Ralph Ellison that I adore.

Lightness Is Such a Mixed Compliment

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Kind of bouncing off that "every you, every me" seasonal selves musing—which is a constant—I've been thinking about how the people who see me or talk to me most frequently have each said lately that I "seem lighter."

Everyone has said that I'm lighter. After [redacted] is over, like I thought.

And I knew that would happen. I referred to this process as a weight and as significant. A chip on my shoulder. I talked about how I didn't necessarily know if I would feel the sensation of relief, or the permission to rest when done—or if I'd ever actually be done.

(Spoiler alert: I didn't. I moved on, life as normal. There was no one big, dramatic moment of catharsis. I still don't even feel done. I just don't really think about it as frequently.)

During periods in which my book process was most intense, I knew that I radiated intensity and a certain gravity towards what I was doing and why it mattered. So I've always had a bit of sensitivity around the concept of being such an intense, solo, dialed-in person that it occasionally makes me less palatable or relatable to others. Understanding, in that sense, feels a little rare, because I don't often encounter people I feel like really "get it" in terms of my broader existential landscape, if that makes sense.

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Voice notes I'll look back on someday.

I like the version of myself that I am when in tunnel vision too. There are aspects of that zone I absolutely adore; it's my life's purpose so I do relish who I am in those moments or phases, and appreciating that—beyond the end result too—is still crucial to understanding me. (You just have to understand my endurance and hunger and need.)

That being said, I was excited to get to the other side of everything. Now that I have, I've been relishing routine and being more "in the moment" and other goals. I love that I feel somewhat "easier" to be around, although I know that the right people should adore me for the other version too.

It's such a strange thing to hear from people—a friend, a neighbor, my therapist—that I seem so different, when I don't really feel (?) all that different either. I feel very much like the same person as I was, although without that certain haze of anxious preoccupation. I'm sure that's what they're referring to, but even then: what am I supposed to do with that?

It does give me time and energy and buoyancy back to no longer spend so much of my day basically preemptively punishing myself for not reaching some standard that would "ensure" it all worked out. But knowing myself, I'll still do that in some other way.

Lightness is mixed in reception because it is a relief to be a "lighter" version of myself, but I almost hate the implication that the weightier version of myself is less deserving. (That's not what they're saying; that's what I'm saying, and why I'm so conscious of when I feel light / heavy.) And Milan Kundera puts it well in this description of lightness as being freeing but unmoored, with weight as being burdensome but also significant. Because I am chasing—or rather, have chased—significance, and the responsibility of being the only person who can do a specific calling in the way that I need to.

I'm grounded now in a cadence I love, but I do also love my tunnel vision self. I did spend far too much time apologizing for occupying that sphere of myself because I do know "it's a lot," but also—that's who I am too, even if I wish some people would occasionally see beyond that to the lighter, freer me?

But maybe that's easier to say now once I know the outcome—or that it worked—when so much of the burden/gravity/weight of significance was in being terrified that it wouldn't. That was what kept me up at night, or radiating intensity, or what-have-you.

And then it gets interesting, because I'll always be fighting for something. Even now, I know my next goals, drafts, milestones, etc,. (Spoiler alert: my next desire is a National Book Award. Too ambitious? Oops!)

My conflicts didn’t magically dissolve—though I’m ‘lighter’ now, with more capacity to handle them. But now that I've now conquered the core, existential hurdle I've centered my life around for years, I do have the satisfaction—you might call it lightness—of knowing that that particular fear of failure will never be in question again. I will never again feel that way, because I did what I always said I would. And I'm a person who does exactly what I say I will, so each confirmation of that fact feels affirming.

So, does that mean I'll always be a little bit lighter than I was in the fall, or rather that the proportion would shift? What happened was such a core confirmation of identity, or perhaps my favorite one, and that's where I feel we all get most bogged down.

And then you get into questions of who has witnessed you during certain periods, and whether people really know you if they've only seen a small portion or time that is very specific. But I talk about all that enough already.

Other Scraps of Thought

  • Been on an audiobook moment—rare for me, but good.
  • It's wild how quickly you can kick into a different self.
  • Already felt my soreness stiffening, so tomorrow would be fun. (Good ouch.)
  • I fear my associated craving for the Recovery Smoothie from Down to Earth on these nights I go over there will never go away.

More Organized Posts I Told Myself I Might Write When I Got Home and Didn't, But Will Probably Try to Write Soon—

  • Debrief of recent dance classes,
  • Book of the Month haul, because there have been some great ones lately,
  • Roundup of favorite audiobooks because I am very picky,
  • My updated book recs on my philosophy of sensory variation,
  • My reaction to the book list AI fiasco, which largely centers around what we lose by removing exercises in thought organization,
  • A love letters roundup including my favorite red tea kettle,
  • etc,.

1.

And then you can also treat yourself to the DFW-style rabbit hole of whether or not it's possible to even be clear enough to anyone.

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