Sometimes your morale makes all the difference — The gun fires and I start slowly, one small step after another. It is a mountain race through the Ifugao Rice Terraces in the Phillippines. I’m not expecting to finish among the Top 3 runners — or to win a “podium” as they call it — but I want to…

The mountain is a strange, serene place at midnight — At midnight, I began my ascent of the 9000-foot mountain ranges of Nueva Vizcaya. It was early spring and the wind was chilly and the night was cold so I wore multiple layers of clothes and walked at a brisk pace just to keep warm. On my back hung a…

Living to the fullest despite life’s difficulties and responsibilities — Some time ago, I met a guy in Ho Chi Minh City, the largest city in Vietnam. The guy is a chef from Oregon, and he had recently retired from actively managing his restaurant chain. He was traveling the world on vacation for the first time. And he made a…

Polyamory is never about dating more people — When my five-year relationship ended, I confirmed that I was polyamorous. It’s more natural for me to love and commit to several partners instead of one. It’s a feeling I’ve always suspected from an early age, even before I met my then-ex. But it was in our third year together…

I am alive today while others are not — The first time I almost died, I was trying to save my then-closest friend from drowning in a pool. We were a group of high school friends at a pool resort. We hit the deepest pool even when some of us couldn’t swim. The pool had a long slide, which…

It now gives me a confidence boost — When the call came, the first thought that struck me was: Is it happening? Is this like one of my teenage fantasies where my crush calls from out of nowhere saying she needs my help on something? And I’ll help her and we’d both fall in love in the process? …

The kindness of strangers helped me pay my rent and set my path to becoming a full-time writer — In the summer of 2019, I came across a group of university students wearing preppy summer dresses. The “summer ladies” were on one side of the pedestrian lane, and I was on the other. The afternoon sun cut through the skyscrapers in shades of orange and yellow. And as the…

At 13 years old, Alice realized happiness was like an alien disease — At 13 years old, Alice realized happiness was like an alien disease to her. She was so used to hardship that her body didn’t know how to handle anything else. Every day after class, Alice helped her mother sell meat at the public market. On the weekends, while her classmates…

A list of “useful” fiction books — “Popular fiction nowadays is not useful.” This is what my friend said when I asked why she stopped reading fiction books. She took an MFA and has published several books (fiction books, ironically) through a relatively large traditional publisher. But she has almost exclusively stuck to reading non-fiction for the…