i)
“What are you excited about in the next year?”
I was at my birthday dinner & answering our classic set of birthday questions, the tradition that started in Minerva and just passed on birthday to birthday, friend to friend.
I looked around at the table. Two chairs from me sat my high school best friend. Our friendship started 10 years ago, though it was a stretch to call it friendship then. We hated each other for a solid 1 year, competing for the same title at school. But maybe because we were both competitive and driven, once we were no longer in the same class, we grew to be each other’s confidant. A few weeks ago we just had a sleepover where we stayed up talking until 3 AM, about her job & my life but also about Singapore, different buried gems now excavated through someone with a shared history. I rarely see her now; she works crazy hours at a Big Bank in Manhattan. So seeing her at the dinner was especially meaningful - I know more than anyone, she made the most effort to be here. Seeing her I pictured a redwood tree, one that stood for 1000s of years, through the extreme swings of youth and idiosyncrasy and naivety, and one that would keep growing for years to come.
The majority at the dinner table were friends from Minerva. Some friends I made in 1st year, others in 4th. One I only became close after we graduated. But these people saw me in my first year with my half-burnt hair, bleeding on a hospital bed in my fourth, with too many pimples to count in my third. Now they see my beige trench coat & classy red nails & wool turtleneck sweater. To the outside world I’m 2 different people, to them I haven’t changed a single thing. With everyone at the table I felt like traversing through a lush jungle, towering trees connected through a tapestry of memories, personal and shared.
Then there are the new friends - people I just met in New York. I invited a few, & most couldn’t make it, understandably so in a city where every weekend is booked 2 weeks in advance. But the ones who were there blend into conversations butterly. Post-grad I’m on an existential search - how do I identify the same kind of people whom I have loved, in a city of 8 million and counting, how do I befriend them, how do I build this new community of Minerva-like non-Minervans. I’ve had varying success with different strategies, but mostly I’ve been lucky. A writing club became a place that sparks explorative conversation. A friend who bonded with me about loving Taylor Swift at a summer picnic got me lavender for our housewarming. A climate club in the making. A flux and flow of people and directions, & some feel like seeds that have started germinating, fresh green seedlings at the beginning of a season.
So what am I excited about? Tending to seedlings until they stand, watering the plants in season, pruning ends and raking leaves for the matured trees. Relationships are changing like the seasons of New York, they are alive, they are networks of jungle that I’m only a tiny part of.
ii)
I arrived in San Francisco at 9:40 AM the day after my birthday, went to a housewarming party & stayed until 11 PM. At the party I made a new friend who is making a flamethrower but mostly we bonded over composting. I danced Cuban bachata with 10 different people. There was a second surprise cake, where the message on the cake is Python code that prints out Happy Birthday.
We joked that I flew all the way from New York for this housewarming party. Not true, but I did go to the party for just 1 reason - to see Esther. She has the weirdest brain and the most beautiful one, I’m in awe of it all the time. But she is also at a juncture with lots of unknowns, & we spent the entire evening chipping at all the variables she is juggling with. After her story, Esther ended with, I don’t know, maybe I should see a fortune teller.
And so I told her about the last time I did a tarot reading - when I was deciding whether I should be in New York or San Francisco. I can’t remember the cards, but I do remember my conclusion walking out: whichever city I end up in, I would be happy. Whatever each city has to offer, I will embrace it. The common denominator is me. & so I’m not worried for Esther, even though she is still figuring so many things herself, because whatever path she ends up in, she will be great. The common denominator is her.
As I talked to Esther I was in awe - here she was at perhaps one of the most unstable places, and yet she was so calm, so sure of herself, so clear on what values she held, what kind of work she wanted. The chaos of the world met with an inner calmness, like a deep ocean with rising waves but is calm underneath.
It’s funny because we are in completely opposite situations, and yet with opposite feelings. Lately I’ve been feeling unsure of myself. I’m trying on new identities like I’m trying on clothes, but constantly feel lost about who I am. Maybe it’s the never-ending currents of New York sweeping me off my feet. The unnerving ends of graduation makes me question - what’s next, who do I want to be, what do I want to do? The expansive freedom in one direction (more money than I need to worry, closing my laptop at 6pm) meets restrictions in another (my close friends are all so far away, calling in different timezones is a nightmare, what do I do with all this time I have). So, how do I live? How do I spend my time? How?
My state of being is a calm surface with a tsunami underwater gulping from within. How do you live with that?
iii)
We sang Happy birthday 5 times in 4 days. The 5th was with my team at the start of our retreat. My cofounder has the same birthday as me, so I got us cake and we blew out wishes on a candle with a figurine cat.
Retreat was wonderful in ways I didn’t expect. We stayed in a beautiful AirBnB, 2 minutes walk from the Russian River, and spent the first day kayaking a solid 5 miles in the glistering water. I can feel every aching muscle of mine loosen, the knots in my back untangling.
But what lingers was when we visit a grape vineyard that uses biochar from a project that we fund. Biochar is literally the opposite of fossil fuel - a process of making coal and shoving it to the ground. And not only does it draw down carbon, but it also helps soil retain more carbon, and water, and other minerals as well. The vineyard was telling us how they were using half the water as the vineyard next door that is twice the size. That’s 4 times less water used per acre. In the drought-heavy soil of California, it’s every farmer’s dream. Not to mention, their wine was good.
My job as a software engineer consists of sitting in front of a laptop and staring at lines of code, figuring out bugs in abstract functions we have written. But there we were, looking at a pile of dirt, smelling the fertile matters, holding onto the biochar, tasting the wine, knowing, that all of that leads to this. All the intangible has an impact, someone, somewhere, somehow. It makes me feel so small, and yet so weighted.
All my existential ponderings seem to be of the same question - how do I matter? What will I leave behind? I’m thinking about problems so big but I am so small. Wren sends $5 million to climate projects this year. That’s more money than I can imagine, but still a drop in the scale of all things. Where do I find the strength in face of a problem that feels so insurmountable?
Still, I keep going back to the small things. Laughters echoing in our small living room warmed by steaming hot pot. A book gifted to me with the most beautiful photos of trees. The biochar I hold in my hand. To find strength not in the high, but in the daily reminder to push forward, in a friend, an inanimate object.
Tiny steps inching in a long road ahead.
❤️