Lamma Island, 3:15PM – Sunny.

Entry 65

Five frozen chicken breasts in a plastic bag. Five hours later the five chicken breasts are less frozen, sweating in my sink, an 85-dollar commitment to an act of adulthood I have thus far avoided - cooking. They look like what Mom used to pad her bra with. They feel like it too. They are not a new year’s resolution.

I used to be afraid of knives. I don’t think about the power of the blade as I chop and slice, no, don’t. I think about reshaping a pink blob, sculpting. Silly putty. The knife slipping, drawing blood. No, I do not go there. And at the same time, I think how the vegetarians would laugh at me. But meat or not, a knife is just as sharp.

While I chop, I listen to LeVar Burton re-enact an interview James Baldwin once gave. His voice is as thick as a summer’s night. A night that clashes with the glow in the blobs beneath my fingers. I remember listening to LeVar Burton read The Cay when I was in seventh grade, I remember him refusing to read aloud the words “boss” whenever the old black man addresses the young white boy. A small bur that has clung to me all these years.

Panfrying is a thousand radios turned to static. I can’t hear LeVar anymore. I switch Spotify to something I know by heart and let my mind fill in the gaps while the daybreak pink blobs turn to broad-daylight white then evening brown. 10 or 15 chunks of beige sunset in my pan. Hong Kong January skies. My kitchen smells like pepper. I wish I had known it was this easy. I message an ex to get some validation and to pinch myself before switching LeVar back on again.