WIDE AWAKE.

"Without new experiences, something inside us sleeps.
The sleeper must awaken."
- Frank Herbert.

i read this quote in the middle of this semester & its one im carrying on with me into the new year. perhaps some of us have become comfortable in our sleeping, predictable lives, quite content with the same stories, same people, & same experiences. but there's a big world out there, & it's ours for the taking. don't sleep through a chance to feel alive.

this year, let's wake up.

friends, happy new years.

a new life together

shot wedding portraits of my beautiful sister Candace & my new brother-in-law Adonis. taken in november at the palace of fine arts & baker beach. enjoy :)

thanks for the memories, 2009.

"Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road.
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go.
So make the best of this test and don't ask why.
It's not a question but a lesson learned in time...

It's something unpredictable
but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life."

Thanks for the memories, 2009.
Surely you were unpredictable, but still somehow, the time of our lives.

Here's to letting go, moving forward, growing up, but never growing old.

Cheers!

due to Love

“Here’s the thing about love, I don’t know a thing about love…”

These are the opening lines to a spoken word I wrote for an event about a month ago titled, “The Thing About Love." Initially when I was asked to write for this event, I struggled with it. In fact, I struggled with it for over a month and didn’t even write the piece until the week of the event. Who was I to speak about love? Out of all people, I felt like I was the least inclined to feel anything about love. A reoccurring phrase in the piece stated, “You tell me what I’m suppose to dream of, when I’ve experienced things such as these when it comes to this thing called love.” Having been deceived by loved, led on by love, left by loved, and having seen the death of love, I had no idea how to feel about love.

Fortunately, the winds of change blew through my life that week. And as time has gone on, Love itself has changed for me. At a point I was very cynical about love, feeling like I had given so much and still true love was out of my reach. But the quest for Love is a constant reaching, everyday. And there is a Love to be grasped; I was just reaching for the wrong one.

There is so much love in the world. For most of my life I’ve focused on one. Whether it be that one love from my father, or that one from a boyfriend, or from another boyfriend, or another boyfriend, there’s always been one. This love would define how I felt about love and what I believed about love. But when these loves would reject me or would suddenly leave me, love stopped making sense. This year, God has opened my eyes to the reality of the vastness of love. It’s not just in one person, but it’s in many people. It’s not just in one way, but it’s demonstrated in multitudes. And they’re all a little broken and they’re all imperfect, but they’re beautiful. Oh they are beautiful. And up until this year I have been blinded to the wonders of the intensity of love. I once wrote in a piece titled “Standing Still” that said, “It’s amazing to me, the things you can’t see, when your eyes are looking too hard.” This also portrays a little about what I feel about love. It’s amazing all the love we miss around us when we’re so focused on getting it from one specific place. I’m so glad I’m no longer missing it.

The spoken word I wrote for this event went through my journey with love; my optimism, my ignorance, and my cynicism. In the end, it ended with some realism. This is the reality…

“Here’s the thing about love
He’s all I need when it comes to love
And if you ask me what I feel about love
I’d say I can only still feel because of love
I am standing here only cause of love
I’m alive and well due to love
And the same God that’s given me His love
Is alive and waiting for you to love…

& I don’t know how to love
But still Somebody loves me
I don’t know how to really feel about love
But still Somebody really feels love for me….”

The love of God is different from every love we’ve ever experienced. It doesn’t hurt us, it doesn’t leave us, and it doesn’t give up on us. Instead it heals us, it runs to us, and screams to us how valuable we are. The love of God is all we need. & when we realize that, & truly know that through & through, we’ll see His love manifested through the cracks & creases of our brokenness, as well as through new, marvelous, unexpected things that are just waiting to take place in our lives. Truly, we are utterly surrounded by Love.

It’s amazing how someone can love so much, but not know a thing about love until now.

Let’s love.
We’re loved.

wonderful.

aromas of cinnamon candles fill the air, the taste of hot cocoa tingle my taste-buds, and the sound of christmas tunes echo off my living room walls... it's the most wonderful time of the year! i spent the evening decorating my house with my little brother, "rockin around the christmas tree," and finding obscure places to put a baby Jesus. i'm not sure what this Christmas season will mean for my family and i. this is only our second Christmas without our dad, and tonight i think it started to hit us a little. we often hear that the holiday season is the season of hope, miracles, love, & about giving and recieving or something else prestigious like that. for some reason, during the month of december, we're suppose to have this new found hope in the world, people, and ourselves. there's such a hype. we wrap up our love and our hope in this hype, tie it up, and seal it with a big red bow. for many, Christmas means something really powerful and life-changing to them. but i dont know. for some, maybe it's much simpler than all that. maybe, just maybe, Christmas time is just about being home, singing silly songs about reindeer with your little brother.

it's a pretty wonderful time.

the rug has been cut.

Cut the Rug for Cancer was SUCH A SUCCESS! Wow, i'm still in awe! we raised over $200 to go towards the City Hope Cancer Research Hospital, and we had such an amazing turnout, even we were shocked! every little bit really does count, even though we may never realize it. people had cancer victims' names on their arms and even wrote their name on the "in memory of/in hopes for" wall so we could keep those families in our thoughts. LA's Dj Kick Mix was there, we sold tons of awareness bracelets, had food and drinks, and the danceparty was unreal! kylie did such a fantastic job! thank you to all who came, showed support, and cut the rug with us! athletes & hopites alike! "that's what happens when you BRIDGE THE GAP!"

let's never stop making a difference!

"every hill a novel, every home a poem..."

"San Francisco itself is art, above all literary art. Every block is a short story, every hill a novel. Every home a poem, every dweller within immortal. That is the whole truth." - William Saroyan

tonight was my second night back in the city. after attending my highschool's annual talent show (amazing by the way), i took a drive around the city, & found myself on top of a hill overlooking the most beautiful sight in the world. there was no fog, the city lights were brilliant, and the air was chilly, clear, and wonderful. it was like falling in love for the first time. being home just does something to me. its emotional. its physical. its spiritual. things that used to matter, just dont. here in this city, anything can happen. theres no place like home... if your home is san francisco.

piano keys, epiphanies.

a close friend of mine & i had a piano jam sess the other day, & showed each other some recent songs we've written. one of her lines i cant get out of my head..

"this is my lot. this is what You've given me.
this is my life. i will not ask for another one."

wouldn't it be amazing if each one of us, the whole world, could look back at each circumstance in our past, and every hardship in our present, and think about our lives and say to ourselves, "i will not ask for another one." wouldn't that be powerful? what will it take for us to get there? i'm not sure what it'll take for me. some days i'm weaker than others, and i find myself blaming God for how some things have turned out. but in the end, this is it. this is my life. for some reason, whatever it may be, i've been given all this. and if my hope & trust is in the Lord, i won't ask for another way; i will not ask for different outcomes. and if there were the chance to trade it all in, not only would i have to give up the hard things but i'd have to forfeit the blessings too, the wonderful people in my life, and all the incredible oppertunities and circumstances that have come from each and every up & down. & i don't know if it'd be worth it. there's alot i wouldn't want to give up.... this is my lot. this is mine.

& in the end, maybe there's something beautiful
in not being in control...

sabrina's new room :]

as most of you know, my cousin sabrina has leukemia, and currently in the hospital going through chemo, and waiting to get a bone marrow transplant. recently though, she was blessed by the Make A Wish Foundation, that redid her room to create an "Asian/Mulan" feel, and she absolutely loved it! she was able to come home for a weekend to be with family & enjoy her new room. The Make A Wish Foundation is an amazing program that has blessed and "granted wishes" to children and teens with life threatening diseases for almost 30 years. Here are some pictures of what they did to sabrina's room...

please keep sabrina & the family in your thoughts & prayers

audrey speaks

"For Attractive lips, speak words of kindness, For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people, For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry, For Beautiful hair, let a child run their fingers through it once a day, For poise, walk with the knowledge that you never walk alone. People, more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed. Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you will find one at the end of each of your arms. As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself and the other for helping others." - Audrey Hepburn

... i'd have breakfast with her anyday.