Virtual Teahouse Interview

Comic Book Man says, "Best blog tag ever."

Beth, host of Virtual Teahouse, interviewed me, and I mean, really interviewed. Not what NYLON or something else annoyingly hipster would ask, but the kind of interview like, God, would give. Someone interviewed her first, I read her post, then commented, asking to be interviewed. Below are her soul-deep questions and my answers.

Wanna play? Comment on the post asking to be interviewed and leave a link to your blog or some way to communicate with you. I will then dream up some questions with whatever info about you I can gain from your blog or other sources that you give me.

1. What’s the secondary gain you get from being chronically over-committed?

Since the primary gain is to feel wanted and to have the appearance of being busy or useful, the secondary gain (and the root of pretty much everything I do in life) is to prove to the Critical Voice/internalized image of my father that I am a worthy human being who isn't lazy and is, instead, deserving of his love. It is a way to say, "You see? I am hustling so hard that I make myself sick." Only when I fall ill does my father (both the real one and the one in my psyche) allow me to take a break. Anything short of illness is just laziness and a waste of time to him.

2. Love the phrase you used 'the soul’s call for its mother.’ It’s obviously a deep call from the well that we all fall into…the well of personality, adjusting to cultural norms, and addiction to___________. Can you tell us, 1 year out from writing about your call, what is the Witness to your soul’s quest saying about your journey at this point? What do you know, without a shadow of a doubt?

I've been meaning to write a 1-year recap of 52 Faces and Beth's question is a clear prompt in that direction.

Wow. I never thought of reviewing the lessons of my year by accessing the Witness, but it makes the task so much easier.

Witness says:

The one thing that has never changed is that my friends are my family. They are still the way God shows his(her) love for me.

Even when I thought I gave up, I never did. Every setback was a step in the journey and I cherish them (another surprise revelation) for their role.

Though a little wearier, a little less enthusiastic of the mourning I still have in me, a little older (only a little ;P), and a little more disappointed, I am still thankful. There is still a little daily gratitude in this weathered heart of mine.

3. What do you know with a shadow of a doubt?

I think my father loves me, even though I can't feel it right now and I haven't felt it since that one moment of clarity during his two hour verbal lashing two months ago. (And that so-called moment of clarity I now chalk up to my beaten-down Chinese side trying to make sense of her parents' painful criticism.)

Actually, come to think of it, it is the converse that is true. I know that my father will never accept me, is disappointed in me and disapproves of my life, all with a shadow of a doubt. There is some tiny spark, perhaps the hope I use to survive, that says he might actually love me, might actually accept me and might actually, in the end, just want me to be happy. But it is only a shadow voice in the darkness that says, "I have no true father."

4. If you had to, upon pain of death, tell us your spiritual quest in one sentence, what would it be?

To finally know that I am loved.

5. Tell us 3 amazing things about being Chinese-American.

The question gave me pause for a moment and then I realized it was because I haven't viewed "Chinese-American" as an appropriate term for my identity for many years now. I see myself as Chinese and American. Identity for bi- and multi-cultural people is a fractured paradox at best. Integration is only because one skin carries all these cultures, it is not truly quantifiable with a hyphen.

With that said, I'll answer for each identity:

3 Amazing Things About Being Chinese

• Being skinny. (You fat Chinese, don't bother protesting, I don't know why you turned out that way - you had the genes, man, and squandered it eating nasty ass American fast food!)
• Great skin.
• Bitchiness. (You know what I'm talking about. We Chinese looove gossiping and taking smack about anyone and everything and it's funnier than 11 gay guys in a room with martinis.)
  

3 Amazing Things About Being American:

• The power passport! Go anywhere, anytime, and better yet - leave before the local cops get you!
• Safety.
• Arrogance. Other countries get it. We're American.
  

BONUS QUESTION for the over-committed among us: do you feel like you have been fully initiated into womanhood? Do you know where home is?

WOMANHOOD
Many times. I feel I've been fully initiated into each step, beginning with experiencing adolescent betrayal from other pubescent girls, which opened my eyes to the way women will sell a sister down the river for just a glance from a boy who isn't even cute. I've been initiated into heartbreak, repeated and numbing with its pain, and that lesson all women learn (eventually) not to be with men who do not, cannot love them enough. I've been initiated into loving so hard you forgive, almost involuntarily.

And the sweetest initiation, which unfortunately did not come until the mid to late twenties, of sisterhood at last and the delicate balance it requires. Fortifying the bond to other women is the initiation I hope to experience over and over again.

HOME
Heck no! I thought it was where Selena is, and so I live with her now. But unfortunately she lives in L.A., where I could never feel at home, no matter how comfortable the living gets. (And it's mindnumbingly comfortable.) I thought it was New York, and it is, but every time I go, I run away to California again.

I thought at one time home would be wherever my husband was, that I would follow him everywhere. But I'm not married and likely won't be until my early or mid 30's at least, so we'll have to see.

Uber-Bonus question: Where in the world do you want to be working and loving in 5 years?

Straddled across two coasts like I am now: a high-rise apartment right on top of a subway line in NYC and a single-family house with a yard near the beach in southern California.

Let me know if you wish to do an interview. Here are the instructions:
1. Leave me a comment to this post saying, “Interview me” and give me a way to contact you.
2. I will respond by e-mailing you five questions or leaving them on your blog.
3. You update your blog with the answers to the questions. If you don't have a blog, I will post your answers on this one in the comments section, or maybe make you into a guest blogger!
4. Please include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions....and on we go!