and i dont even know what to do about it.
Sass is getting mad on her social media that “allies” aren’t speaking out, but i dont know how i can help the cause. but i want to.
so i will tell you about the first asian girl i ever fell in love with.
her name was Ae and we met in Switzerland.
a girl i met on a bus in Iowa, Risë, and I had become pen pals. She did a year abroad and invited me to visit her. i was just about to turn 21 and had nothing better to do so i said hell yes. this was so long ago they didnt even have color film.
as soon as i met Ae, Rise’s roommate, it was love at first sight. she was so smart and so sarcastic and funny and because she established immediately that she had a boyfriend, for some reason the tension only got hotter and hotter bc there was nothing we could do about the fact that we were both madly in love with each other.
which is what i told myself. but who knows.
her french was amazing, actually both of theirs was, and we took a train to Paris and spent 5 days there. i was the butt of eveyrones jokes because i was ridiculous and my french was so bad. but i tried. and as i tried everyone laughed and laughed. then we went to lyon. or did we do the opposite. who knows. Ae was incredible.
she was the first stranger i connected with immediately and it never unlocked.
so much so that when we parted ways and i took the train to Oktoberfest i met a pretty girl there who just wanted to get drunk and make out and… even at 21 i was like, nah. because i had had the real thing, whatever it was, down there in gay par-eee.
and that thing was intellectual stimulation which for me is the bullseye. the heart of the matter.
back in those days there was no email so i called her once or twice and we exchanged a few letters but im pretty sure when she got back to america she married her guy because i gave up on her quickly and that could have been the only reason why.
anyways ae was incredible for that week and i even remember her man’s name, thats how obsessed i was with her.
magic’ll do that.
since then i have known and loved lots of people, including asians. we are all people. we all want the same things: to be loved and respected and allowed to live.
i dont see why thats such a hard thing for people to understand.
the older i get the more i rethink how i feel about a certain type of american.
and i wish they had met the people that i have had the chance to break fromage et pain with outside the louvre while struggling to open a bottle of wine with a swiss army knife.
and i thank God every day for letting me know all these reflection of light.
