dArk

My mom and her friends would say that I was “dark.” “Nee how hei,” literally, “You so black.” would greet me like a big slap in the face every time I entered any of my  “aunties’’‘ houses for a visit. Thus began the dysmorphic relationship to my body. I thought I was ugly because I was dark. I thought I was ugly because I was fat. I thought I was ugly because I laughed with my mouth wide open and cackled, so unladylike, so un-Chinese.

As my thoughts grew somber and dark like my skin I began skipping school. I hid in the horse trail behind our Spanish stucco courtyard, hidden in a gated community on the cliffs. Sitting cross legged on the prickly tan bark, whiffing unseen horse droppings,  I listened to music from bands in a faraway place called England where it was foggy and  dark and somber all the time, much like my moods. Voices wailing of “girlfriends in comas” and “bizarre love triangles” and of “love that will tear us apart again” spoke to my loneliness.  That music saved my life and empowered the darkness that was within and throughout me. Somehow, those years spent sitting in the dirt on the horse trail dodging my formal education, something magical happened. Somewhere within dark ugly flat faced chinky self,  the self that had no esteem and  no authority, another voice began to surface.  My higher self rose up and whispered in not so many words, “you must endure and by enduring, this shall pass and a wondrous life will reveal itself.”