The last time I visited the San Diego Zoo, I was intensely mesmerized bythe flamingo. Of all the hundreds of animals, and their various, natural talents, this creature was THE MOST impressive. They eat, sleep, and breathe on one leg! Maybe I have a thing for balance because not too long after, I found myself trying to stack river rocks. When this activity failed to give me peace, I made this piece instead. 

Here's to finding balance--one of life's greatest teachers!

(Let me be clear: giraffes are and will always be my favorite animal. So, maybe I have a thing for necks. Or legs.)

Flamingo Fun Facts:

Young flamingos are actually gray. 

Males and females take turns sitting on nests.

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The day after the 2016 presidential election results, I found myself talking to teachers, parents, aunts, and uncles who aren't sure what to say to their children in a moment when our country, our home, was so divided. ⠀
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In the madness, I found solace in making and in a Huffington Post article: Ali Michael, PhD ~ "Tell them, first that we will protect them ... Tell them that we will protect democratic processes - and we will use them ... Tell them, second, that you will honor the outcome of the election but you will fight bigotry. Tell them bigotry is NOT a democratic value, and that it will not be tolerated ... Then teach them how to speak up, how to love one another, how to understand each other, how to solve conflicts, how to live with diverse and sometimes conflicting ideologies, and give them the skills to enter a world that doesn't know how to do this ... Finally, remind them that not everyone who voted for Donald Trump did so because they believe the bigoted things he has said this year. Many of them voted for him because they feel frustrated ..."
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I have friends and family on either coast and am currently residing in the nation's deep red. From what I can understand, buried in the heart of the matter, each side desperately wants to be acknowledged, respected, and feel safe. However our beloved country moves forward, may it not be out of anger and fear, but out of love.

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When I was around 9 years old, I learned I could control my dreams. I had dreamt I was in battle and had been wounded in the leg by an arrow. Surprised that I felt zero pain, I realized I was dreaming, which meant that I was the one in control. So I cued for back up and had a grand Hollywood finale, which, of course, led me to victory.

Waking life works the same way, but just the opposite: feelings and pain signal me to remember what I am in control of and to let go of what I'm not. It's taken me some time to realize that the stories that make up our lives are illusions. And instead of choosing a Hunger Games like nightmare, I can row my boat gently down the stream. 

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The first time I let a boy make me feel small, I was five. Carpooling home, my classmate Nathan asked me if a truck had run over my face because my nose was just so flat. Stinger: up until that point, Nathan was my first crush! And as a result, I didn't want to hurt him back, so just looked out the car window hoping the boy I loved wouldn't see me cry!

Apparently, I got over it quickly because when I got home, I took one look at my Barbie and knew I had work to do. I worked some magic: I took a pair of scissors, cut her hair short like mine, and colored it with a black marker. Then, I did something absurd but brilliant. i actually cut off my Barbie's nose! My grandmother was horrified at the sight of my Barbie Frankenstein, but I'm told I said, "Now, she's beautiful. Just like me." Now, that's what I call magic!

Unfortunately, there were other Nathans, and some I let make me feel much smaller for much longer. But I have to thank all my brave, loving friends who would call me out if I was losing my magic. You know who you are. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU! I LOVE YOU!

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The time my mom learned I was a very curious kid—I was young, had just learned to crawl/scoot around on my own. I’d watched her put on make up, and when she wasn’t looking, crawled over to her vanity to do the same. But instead of grabbing eye shadow, I smeared RED NAIL POLISH all over my beady baby eyelids! (Also the time she began claiming I was a very vain child.) Upon seeing her little girl screaming with red marks all over her eyes, she quickly realized it was my own doing (and not the devil’s) and gently washed my teary face with warm water and forgiveness.

It’s possible I’d used up all my forgiveness cards as a child because I became someone who had nothing but tough love for herself. A few years ago while teaching, I noticed that the kind of compassion and tolerance I gave each of my kids--I had no clue how to give myself: Mistakes were unacceptable. I blamed myself first, shamed myself second. I was too concerned with perfectly adulting to play, be curious, or dream.

But around that time, I also realized I had an inner child still. I’d argue that we all do, in our bones, our memories—this glimpse into our original selves. And when mine couldn’t bear being ignored any longer, I sat during a meditation and listened. She said sweetly: Be kinder to yourself. Play. Dream BIGGER.

Sure, curiosity as a child can nearly blind you. But disregarding it can certainly numb you. So here’s a reminder to be childlike (but not childish) and to mix curiosity with wisdom, tenderness, and courage--that’s the stuff that makes childhood dreams come true. I didn’t quite know what she meant that day but I knew that that (inner) kid was right. And today, I can whole-heartedly say: Oh my GOD, am I glad I listened!

(Clues that I’m doing ~something~ right: Recently at a very adult dinner party, the only child there, a 6 year old girl named Cha Cha, asked me, "Are you half grown up, half kid??? Cuz you LOOK like a grown up ... but you're FUN like a kid!")

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"Nice girls don't get angry." That is something I and too many other women have heard growing up. But let us not confuse poor angry behavior with valid feelings.

One week when I felt particularly frustrated with others and myself, I turned to my inner Frida. But while working on this piece, I just could NOT get the color combinations right; a bummer because playing with color is one of the most enjoyable parts of my process. I took a break and went to a boxing class to try to save myself. No such luck; I couldn't shake the defeated feeling and could feel the body chemistry in me changing, my blood quite possibly boiling.

Turns out I just needed to connect with being upset. And as the passion from the storm lifted, some clarity came both in my life and with the colors for this piece. The reds were exactly what I (and my inner Frida) needed. Color therapy: what alchemy for transformation! Infinite love for the beautiful, rebellious, and incomparable Frida Kahlo!

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Reflections from teaching sex ed to 12th graders at a NYC public high school: After a semester of building community/trust, I asked my students to anonymously submit ANY Qs they had about sex. I studied them to formulate my lesson plans.

Their Qs were beautifully honest: Can I buy birth control for my girlfriend? Can I call myself a virgin if I've had oral sex? In the experimental stages of sex, is it unwise to go “full boar” on your partner? They pondered: to shave or not to shave? To ask your partner to get tested before sex or avoid bringing it up? To try growth pills or not to? And then the most frequently asked Q … How much sex is TOO much sex? (Aiy, how much sex are ya'll having? Except it actually made total sense--teens want to know what’s “normal”.)

A week of being vulnerable, discussing these Qs together, then I covered the very sparse required curriculum. Which had nothing to do w/ emotional openness, shame, trust, manipulation, power, consent, or the expression of--ugh, don’t say it--LOVE; all things that kids deserve a safe space to explore. If I were to do it over, I’d also tell these students (all artists, mind you) that sexual energy has more outlets than just sex. That *sexual energy is the same as creative energy.* That both are the desire to connect. To bring something to life. To share with others. Picasso declared this and channeled it into his art. Ghandi believed this and transmuted it into higher states of consciousness. Even Napoleon Hill, author of “Think and Grow Rich” wrote that the key to genius/success--transferring sexual energy to all other areas of life. (And anyone see that Seinfeld episode where George harnesses his sexual energy and becomes brilliant?)

So here’s to getting more comfortable talking about sex. Here’s to opening ourselves up as a society to intimacy. Here’s to coveting rather than demonizing sex--the sacred place from which we all came. And here’s to tuning into the life force behind all of nature and expressing ourselves from there. Let's drop the shame. We deserve to make love in every thing we do.

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Here's a story that starts dark but ends happy. A few years ago, on my birthday, I was living with early stages of cancer.  (Emphasis on the word "early"--very lucky.) After the first surgery, I pushed myself too hard because it was the only speed I knew then, and fainted. Unfortunately, I was in the bathroom. I came crashing down on--you guessed it! The. TOILET. 

When I "came to", I ran my tongue over the area that use to hold my two front teeth. I screamed like a small child does for her mommy, except mama was thousands of miles away. 

At the ER (2nd visit of the week), the doc told me the GREATEST thing I've ever heard: "Maggie, I've never seen anyone faint, knock out her teeth, and NOT split her face open. You don't even have a busted lip. Only logic: You must have been smiling on the way down."

:)

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Why wait til retirement to believe in a life in paradise? My life NOW is paradise to SOMEBODY, so it might as well be me. I was working at my computer one day and looked out the window to see my neighbor across the street had line her yard with gorgeous, tropical canna lily plants! Lovely reminder that at ALL times, there's plenty around me begging to be enjoyed, if I remember to look. 

What's more, the flower's official symbolism: to confide in heaven.

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When I was a baby, a name specialist in Taiwan gave me the name 維 荏 (pronounced Wei Jun). No clue what it meant as a kid, so when I learned how to use a Chinese dictionary, these two characters were the first things I looked up. I found multiple definitions for each:

1st character: “sustain”, “safe-keep”, “stay”.
2nd character: “fragile”, “weak”, “soft”.

"Weak"? ... cringe. But I was a child raised with Batman and X-Men, as well as penance, so I chose the most altruistic, superhero-like possibility of combinations to serve as the meaning of my name: “sustainer of the fragile”!!! (Yeah, still cringe worthy.)⠀
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THEN I spent years trying to live up to this. In time I’d learn that there is NO power in carrying the burden of others. That it takes much more strength to admit my own weaknesses / be courageous for myself. That soft emotions like love and kindness can counter aggression and force. That I can feel unbearable pain and also be strong. And so, I’d return to the definitions for my name’s characters to pick out a different combination: “Stay soft”.

Nature shows us that survivors of brutal storms aren't the hard and rigid branches. It's the soft that are most resilient.


Bonus lessons! My name follows my essence element, Earth, and incl. my last name, it has 37 strokes (and coincidentally so do both my mother and brother’s names!) 37 is a SUPER auspicious number. Finally, what do you get when you break down the second character of my name, "soft"? The root words: “responsibility" and "plants."


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What does it mean to be a woman? When I was a very young girl, in a pre LGBTQ era learning to categorize people as girl or boy, man or woman, I’m sure I asked myself this: what does it mean to be a woman? Well, I distinctly remember myself drawn to 2: Jessica Rabbit and my mother.

I know, on the outside, they couldn’t have been more different. Jessica with all her curves and killer confidence--yeah, I was totally with Roger Rabbit. I was also literally staying with Roger (a family friend) the first time I watched Who Framed Roger Rabbit?. In a small town in Kansas, I, along with my baby brother and mother, were temporarily crashing with Roger’s family after the fall out of my parents’ marriage. The same day I crowned beautiful Jessica Rabbit as “woman”, my definition grew as it was also the first time I saw my mama cry. She was hurting, but I remember thinking somehow she was still SO beautiful.

My mother, with her tiny frame, standing barely 5 feet tall, had a different kind of confidence and beauty. The kind that could start anew, put her kids through private school and college, and survive. LIKE A BOSS. While Jessica Rabbit hasn’t aged, real women, like my mother, do. And no matter what life throws at her, to me she is still so very, very #BEAUTIFUL. Here’s to you beauties: Jessica, mama, and anyone who’s ever identified as a woman.

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Dear 2016,

Thanks for teaching me that nothing is for certain and how to make peace with that. You were the greatest and the most challenging year I've lived so far. (Except for maybe 2005 ... and 1999.) You turned my life upside down and inside out. I left my decade long career in education, left the greatest city and friends in the world, and began living based on gut instincts. I regrounded in the KS home I grew up in and my mom and I became the best of adult housemates. And city shopping was the way more fun than I anticipated. Somehow, you felt both generous and cruel. But as rough as you seemed, I'm glad I listened when you told me to make room for such amazing new projects, friendships, and connections.⠀
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2017, I'm so excited to meet you. And LA ... I choose you! Here I come!

Farewell with love,
Maggie

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I was blessed to have been raised in a house that held three generations of females: my grandmother, my mother, and me. Each of us had our distinctive behaviors and traits that reflected the times that influenced us and time itself. Yet if you lined us up, one could certainly trace the similarities. To an outsider, one might call this passing of genes and tradition beautiful, but to young me, a first generation daughter of immigrants in middle America, I remember wishing I could wash it all away. And at times, what stood out was not this line up of stellar women but the male that was missing from my single mother home. 

Thank goodness, I would learn that it felt much nicer to love all parts of me, there or not there. All parts are carriers of history, of experience, of generations of strong, beautiful women and their lovely lady lumps. 

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My own take on the serenity prayer. It runs parallel to the 3 As: Awareness, Acceptance, & Action, which apparently ONLY work in that order. But you bet I used to skip over that 2nd A--jumped from awareness right to action. I used to believe I could problem solve my way out of AAANYTHING. A product of the tiger mom generation, so talk about all As. More like all A+s! And skipping? Well, I skipped all of 4th grade! 

BUT I’m here to share that while it’s not the smart, educated women we typically think of as “victims”, ugliness gets taken out on them behind closed doors, too--maybe in her workplace, maybe in love, and, as a result, in her own mind. I so wish that others had spoken out about this when I was younger because the it-could-never-happen-to-me syndrome is real. And society’s obsession with striving only fueled my denial in one messy relationship after another.

Now, I’m grateful to say I pause for that 2nd A. The following is my favorite story about acceptance: A team of firefighters and its captain began running from a forest fire that had grown out of control. As it swallowed up the team, the captain tried hard to think of a solution but finally accepted the fact that he couldn’t. He stopped running. In that moment of humble surrender, clarity came to him--a technique he’d never heard of before. He set fire to the ground in front of him, stamped it out, took off his coat and drenched it with water from his camelbak. He crouched into the burnt patch of ground and hid under his coat. Seconds later, the fire hopped right over him and the captain not only survived but walked away that day completely unscathed.

Women--May we trust that our lives have more purpose than putting out everyone else’s fires. That confusing courage with self-importance burns. And that to be truly smart is to accept humility.

This piece is my serenity prayer for you.

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A longer story, but it’s for my g-ma who taught me that slow cooked stew is better than microwaved hotdogs. She would've turned 97 today.

As much as my grandma was always there for me, at times, she confused me. Mostly because I was young and thought that she was really old. During her morning tai chi, sometimes I’d follow, thinking, “She dances so slowly … 'cause she’s old.” During her daily meditation practice, sometimes I’d poke her, thinking, “Grandma fell asleep sitting up again … 'cause she’s old.” I'd actually beg for fast food as she was making dough from scratch!

As yrs passed, I chalked it up to us being on different rhythms. But the space between us frustrated me. Then in August of ‘99, she passed away before I got the chance to say goodbye--the ultimate frustration. I felt powerless. Even though I was a teenager who could care for herself, I didn’t know how to grieve without the woman I knew as my rock. But I participated in my family's grieving practices: We made her offerings--put out meals, burned fake money (which I folded into origami boats & animals, in case she wanted to sail or own pets in the afterlife). And we each wore a white ribbon for 100 days. Apparently the deceased stay near family for 100 days before they finally depart to wherever it is they go. The white helps them recognize their loved ones.

Day by day, life continued, but one night months after her death, she came to me in a dream. She was alive & well, and I had no idea she’d passed. She came to say goodnight, like she’d done every night, but instead said, “Maggie, goodbye.” Confused, I corrected her: “You mean good night?” “No, I mean goodbye.” I shrugged, we hugged, and she retired to her bedroom.

I awoke sad, remembering she was gone and relayed the dream to my mother. She was stunned: “Have you been counting?!” I didn’t know what she was talking about. She of course was referring to days. And can you guess what day it was? It was day 100.

I’ll forever consider this my g-ma's final lesson to me: To trust in the timing of things, the powerful timing that makes our world go round.

Grandma: I meditate & cook your recipes & I tried taichi. Took some time, but I get it now. Happy birthday. And good night.

(January 3, 2017)

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A year ago, I took a bus to a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in upstate NY, desperate for the monks to help alleviate my annual winter blues. I was stumped: I was in a warm, loving relationship, spent my days with students and friends I adored, and shared a city with 8.5 million people. But ugh ... I was still SO damn lonely.

After a few hours in the beautiful temple, chanting prayers in a language I didn’t know, I felt even lonelier. Among welcoming participants who’d spent years practicing, I was an outsider using their sacred practices to escape my own pain.

But the moment we concluded, the head Lama, whom I happened to be seated next to, turned to me and excitedly asked, “HAVE YOU SEEN KUNG FU PANDA 3, YET?! A group of us are leaving now to watch it. COME!” And that is how I found myself in a NJ mall movie theater, sitting next to the man appointed abbot of North America’s most holy seat, giggling our way through the latest DreamWorks animation. Afterwards, he graciously led a 2 hr discussion over blessed bowls of vegetable soup. Now, this ... THIS was my language!

I left the monastery with a new understanding that loneliness is not about the company of others; it’s about NOT being able to express what’s deeply important to you. For me, that was *creative expression*. And ironically, the best route to creativity was seeking solitude.

Each day over the last 6 months, I’ve tried to do this (being in KS helps), and I’m happy to say it’s the 1st yr in a long time without winter blues! The feeling of turning into dust has been replaced with feeling rock solid. My take: Learn to be so ok with your aloneness that you treasure it. Listen to what your soul has to say. And speak from this place of truth.

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Around the time I decided to become a full time artist, I spent a whole week feeling intimidated but also daydreaming about whales. (You could say they were over-whale-ming me.) I figured I had to draw one but wasn't sure why, so I looked up what the massive creature symbolizes: the whale teaches you about listening to your inner voice, understanding the impact your emotions have on your everyday life, and following your own truth. 

Simply extraordinary.

As an artist, or just as a human, I find myself comparing, striving for more, racking brains and body to do ordinary things in extraordinary ways--all of which obscures the fact that each of us begins at the level of extraordinary. And each of us had a simple purpose before anyone had an opinion. 

May we be reminded of the extraordinary that's already there, that's found in the simple and the ordinary. 

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One day, on my morning walk, I spotted some mushrooms that were NOT there the night before. To those people who say they don't believe in everyday magic, I say, "Puhpowee."

This piece was also a reminder that in my art making, the aim always is to capture the invisible life within form.

Puhpowee is a word from the native American language Potawatomi. It is the native tongue of Kimmerer, the author of Braiding Sweetgrass. She writes about her deep longing for Potawatomi when the English language and language of science are not enough:

But beneath the richness of its vocabulary and its descriptive power, something is missing, the same something that swells around you and in you when you listen to the world ... The makers of this word (puhpowee) understood a world of being, full of unseen energies that animate everything.

As a speaker of Taiwanese, another disappearing language, I get this and I cherish the words for which there are no English equivalents; words that their makers deemed worthy enough to give them their very own syllables. 

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On a chilly, sleep deprived NYC evening, I wandered into a clothing store on my walk home from work. Completely out of it, I bumped (very hard) into another woman. We were both so embarrassed! We made eye contact and I thought, “Oh, she’s CUTE! Cute jacket, cute updo, cute apologetic smile. That’s when I realized that I'd actually bumped into … A MIRROR!

Worst part's what followed: I watched in horror as my reflection totally morphed in front of me. Like a veil of the harshest criticism slipped over my eyes, and the cutie before me just vanished! But for 3 whole milliseconds, I saw myself the way I see a fellow human--beautiful and complete! The sweet and tolerant way I try to perceive others had literally been reflected back to me. Disturbing how that beauty disappeared when reflecting my own perception of myself. ⠀
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Take aways: 1) Experience the world beyond the 5 senses; they can be deceiving. What I believe inside shapes my reality on the outside. 2) Be as generous with myself as I am with others. 3) Make more eye contact!⠀

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This time of year, I think of all my teacher friends at the last stretch of the school yr. Final projects/exams, AP exam prep, regents exam prep, parent-teacher mtgs, exhibits, performances, fielding kids w/senioritis, GIGANTIC piles of things to grade. It can feel like a race against the clock, plus personal and family matters to boot. But year after year, class after class, day by day, student by student, TEACHERS: You. Move. Mountains.

On days I was teaching and especially overwhelmed, I would force myself to take a break, lock myself in my closet between classes, and do a few yoga poses--even if it was just mountain pose. Yes, if a student had peeked in, it'd just look like I was standing with my eyes closed, palms out, but look up the proper way to do this pose (Tedasana) and you'll find 12 whole steps--what any good recovery calls for.

The name of the pose always stuck with me--that standing still could elicit the power of a mountain. That taking the time to acknowledge such a simple act could be so monumental. It gave me appreciation in breaking every little thing down and doing every bit well and consciously.

Whatever the mountain in front of us might be--getting the students to the graduation finish line, taking the first of 12 or many steps, or simply standing upright, may we be comforted in knowing we only ever have to do one thing at a time. And, bit by bit, it will be done.

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Reflections on being a woman and how that's changed over time. 3 generations ago in Taiwan, my great grandmother began the custom of binding her feet somewhere between age 5 and 7 when her feet were still small and her bones soft.
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In 1912, the practice was banned, but out of fear, some women kept up this practice on their own with their girls, even faking their daughter's feet by stuffing her shoes during inspections. My grandmother was lucky to be exempt from this but remembered walking the streets, smelling her neighbors' gauze airing out at night. My mom remembers seeing 3 inch "lotus shoes" next to her own little shoes being sold at the shoe store. Now in my generation, Taiwan has its first female president. And my feet, while they used to embarrass me for being oversized, I've learned to thank each day. 

But old habits and harmful beliefs take time to undo for my grandmother made me wear a clothespin on my flat little nose as a girl and the last factory to make lotus shoes closed in 1999. ⠀
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To all women everywhere, kisses to your beautiful, unbound feet! Now, let's walk the walk and dance the dance of what it means to be authentic, beautiful women!

"I love this! Thank you for sharing your story and history! My grandma also had her feet bounded when she was a child! Love and gratitude for reminding me the importance of my also giant feet for they too have brought me to many a great adventures." -Sandra

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Around age 11, I had the simultaneous privilege and burden of helping care for my grandpa in the last years of his life. At my young age and in a society that rarely talks about death, I fearfully watched a man slowly detach from himself and his pride. Asian, female, first born; caring for elderly is an assignment. But during this time, my grandpa and I took on worrying like a duty. ⠀
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The written word in Chinese for "Worry" is the combination of the two words "Heart" and "Autumn". I guess, if I were a tree, saying goodbye to every single one of my leaves would make my heart grow heavy, the same somber way it does when worrying. But I bet even trees have to let go of worries, as I'm sure my dear grandpa had to. And when we shed all but the bare essentials, we may be all by our lonesome but can STILL brave the winter, resting in peace.⠀

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Probably not a surprise to many, but I was a very sensitive kid. It was tricky in a stoic Asian household, but lucky me, I had my Grandma. She showed me how to make things--dumplings, a garden, clothes, origami. Making soothed me, still does; drops me down into my fingers out of my tiny head. At best, things get so quiet, I can hear my heart beat.

You'll hear wise people talk about listening to your heart. My interpretation: the heart is not a voice but the sound of being. I'm not listening for what I think the heart has to say; I'm just listening to the magnificence of the heart beating. 

This rabbit is a sweet nod to my grandmother and my childhood lessons of meditation and making. I'll always be sensitive, and I'll always make something out of it.

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When I moved from the Midwest to the East Coast, I didn't realize that one of the things I'd miss the most was sky. I used to love observing how it would change from day to day, from hour to hour. (Did you know that sky right before a tornado arrives is emerald green and tangerine?) Some find driving through the Midwest to be a death trap reserved for lonely trucks and trains, but even as a kid, I was in awe of the saccharine colors that drenched sky and how they moved from morning to night.

During a road trip in the 90s, I noticed a change underneath the sky too. Behold, majestic wind turbines sprinkled across the horizon! Against a backdrop of a changing sky, humans striving for change in the foreground. Round of applause for renewable energy, but there's something else entirely captivating about these structures; they make my heart sing (almost as much as e. e. cummings). 

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I am the product of broken relationships both in family and love. Both chosen for me and by choice. But crack me open and have me raw because I am just what I was looking for. 

My mama knew what she was doing when she named me Margaret. In Sanskrit, it means pearl.

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The name on my birth certificate reads, "Margaret Ping Chang", but I've gone by many other names:

Maggie, Mags, 維 荏 (my Chinese name), Marge, Margi, Margo, Jie Jie (Mandarin for big sis), Ping; my last name was in question when I was 12 and my single mom wondered if I should forgo my dad's name for hers; also there was Miss Maggie, Ms. Chang, my married surname, and this year, I was granted permission by the state of New York to reclaim my maiden name.
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So earlier this month, after hours at the Social Security Office, my name was legally changed to (this is not a typo) "Margaret Ping CHANG CHANG". Yup, that's a DOUBLE Chang.⠀
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Call me crazy, but I'd like to think it was the universe winking at me, affirming our need to belong to oneself--one more push towards wholeness.
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(If you're wondering, I did get the mistake corrected; though I have to admit: "Maggie Maggie Chang Chang" has an awesome ring to it!)

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