A Different Kind of Abundance
Hello from my midnight desk, which is actually just my laptop on the couch with some sleeping cat puddles in arm’s reach. I’ve been seeing memes about parents who can only get time to themselves by staying up late and sabotaging their tomorrow selves. I’m not saying this isn’t true, but joke’s on them because I’ve been escaping the world in the quiet hours for the past decade. Some of my most comfortable memories from my 20’s are of staying up late and eating in bed, driven by the heady warmth of being truly alone and always, always to my own detriment the next day.
These days, staying up late feels like borrowing infinite time. I know it’s not true, but in the moment I can believe it.
This past May I finished up two big milestones that I’ve been slowly working toward, so my summer has kicked off with a sense of accomplishment and relief I haven’t felt since my school days.
First, I completed a nine-month long business course called the Increase Project with Livelihood NW. Somehow I was able to commit to being somewhere for several hours every other week (thank you, childcare) over nine months, but the main aspect I want to talk about is the business of being a creative, and how creatives often have little to no business support.
The TL;DR of this class is that it supports established small businesses figure out aspects like marketing, finance, and strategy while also considering and mapping out longterm goals and how to achieve them. There were some aspects that didn’t resonate with me, like “human resources” or Harvard Business School articles from the 90s, but my biggest takeaway is that all self-employed people deserve to have the tools to understand their business and take and choose which apply to them. I’m so thankful to have the opportunity to learn and grow my business with them, and I hope more opportunities like this become the norm.
It reminds me of the time I got to participate in a hostile environment and emergency first aid training through IWMF. I left wondering how access to education around safety wasn’t mandatory or readily available to the public, or at least photographers and journalists working in high risk spaces.
Which is all to say that I never expected life as a creative to be easy, but I also didn’t realize there was such a rift between the profession and the resources essential to do the work. At what point will our society be as invested in our wellbeing as much as they rely on what we can provide them?
Bringing me to my second May milestone: getting our Backyard Habitat Certification. This is a Portland-area program that educates and sets criteria for homeowners to support local habitat by planting locally native plants, supporting wildlife (i.e. putting our water dishes for birds and insects, keeping cats indoors or building a catio (yes of course we did this)), and removing invasive species. It took us three years.
Like the business class, there were some aspects of this program that left me white guy blinking, like who really has the time to do this? (Retirees and freelancers, apparently.) It’s often labor intensive to prep planting sites, pricey to buy plants, and the local Facebook group is a double edged sword of free plant advice and divisions, paired with the entitlement of the specific demographic who can afford homes and leisure time to garden. More specifically, I can’t stop thinking about how hard this group goes for native plants yet how little I hear about indigenous practices and people who have been doing this work since forever.
And so completing both of these programs has left me thinking a lot about the concept of abundance. I think we’ve been conditioned societally to believe that abundance is purely capital and wealth. It’s luxury. The ability to consume all we want without fear or limitation, and that money in abundance is our way to achieve that.
But as I’m scrolling between ads for a $380 taro-colored garden trellis then onto children in Gaza joyfully eating an entire crate of Indomie while humanitarian aid continues to be blocked, I have to think about abundance differently.
I’m thinking about abundance as bayanihan, or communal unity, where helping and being in community isn’t transactional, just a way of life. I’m thinking about abundance as in knowledge. How gatekeeping has been a blight to artists everywhere. Abundance as in thriving, not just surviving. Abundance like a garden, where seeds and fruit don’t ask for anything in return, and sharing enriches everyone’s lives.
I’ve been feeling down on myself for the slow seasons I can’t shake, thinking about how wealth in abundance would solve so many of my problems. And it would! I know money matters and can solve so many man-made problems.
But I’m finding peace thinking of abundance in other terms— rejecting the scarcity mindset that has scarred so many of us. I’m planting my garden to be wild and lush, roots deeper than we could ever imagine, reseeding freely.
An abundance I can more readily access.
Postcards from the road
We took a trip north to Astoria for Theo’s first spring break and stayed at the Bowline Hotel. We watched the ships along the Columbia from our room, greeted California sea lions multiple times a day, and spent our last morning watching 2000s music videos in bed.
Scenes from Yosemite where we stayed and biked along the Yosemite Valley, shared a really special kamayan (Theo’s first!!) with my kasama Camille and her family, and native dogwood was in bloom everywhere.
Recent Work
How nanobreweries are shaking up Portland’s beer scene, photographed for National Geographic Traveller UK
Portland Is Battling Food Waste — And Climate Change — With Fruit Trees written and photographed over the course of a year for HuffPost
News and Updates
Theo and I have been in peak garden mode. He helps me harvest the strawberries and peas, has his own little wheelbarrow, and we’re soaking in the superbloom of California poppies that have exploded in our backyard.
I’m excited to share that I’m a recipient of the Oregon Arts Commission’s Career Opportunity Grant and will be using the funds to support research for an upcoming project about displacement, the “American dream,” and my mom.
I finally finished the last season of Bridgerton and I have thoughts! Don’t hesitate to message me about this / any romance related news.
I’ll be in Philippines in January! I’ll be working while I’m there, but open to some projects and commissions, and would, of course, love any recommendations.
Thanks for sharing this space with me. Wishing you a happy solstice full of light, flowers, and the fearless joy of abundance.
Until next time,