dear mom,
I'm on week 3 of my new home, new life. It's more like new home, transition life, as I've gone back to Oakland the past couple weekends, and I'm going again this weekend. All for legitimate and important reasons. I think it's helped me be a bit more at ease during the week. Every evening, I make the drive home up the mountain, make myself a proper dinner, and then tuck myself into bed around 8p just as the last bit of light disappears in the window. I barely have a sense of time during these nights. It's so quiet up here. It's lonely up here.
If you were close, I'd say you could come visit. I'd probably drive you because the mountain roads and windy and narrow, and sometimes people drift out of their lane and other times the sun gets right in my eyes. To be honest, I wonder if this is how I'll actually die. Some have warned me about the winters - rains, icy roads, foggy mornings. But I obviously wouldn't tell you this. I'd have you come up before the end of August while it's still warm and the days are still on the long side. I'd show you the house, sitting on an acre of land, the open kitchen and cozy living room couches, the lofted area that you would probably only view from a couple steps up the ladder. The back deck with the pool and the overgrown front yard with a chicken coop in the far corner. You may or may not like the residential pups because they are eager and might greet you with incessant barking. I imagine you would find them overwhelming. I wonder if you'd like the chickens though. Would it remind you of growing up outside the city in China? I'm only wondering because I remember one of the times we visited your family, laolao had several baby ducklings.
I've been growing a little pot of perilla plants, and thus for the past few days, I've been putting chiffonade perilla in every meal. Tonight I'd share a bowl of potato salad with you, using the last of my russets. I'd boil a couple eggs fresh from the chicken coup and slice up a stalk of the celery that I got a couple days ago to make vegetable stock. The dressing would be mayo, a spoonful of mustard, minced garlic, paprika, a touch of maple sugar for balance, a drizzle of sesame oil for fragrance, and 5-6 big perilla leaves. Easy and quick, save for the time it takes to boil potatoes.
miss you in these mountains,
amelia
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