so I wrote a book

I’m still trying to find the words to explain the complex reality behind my book of simple poetry, “Short & Sweet (and f*cking brutal)”.

It took me three years to finish this book — and a lifetime of emotions to write it. The idea actually came to be when I was about seven or eight. In an old journal, I wrote a letter to my brother who had recently passed: “I’ll write a book about you one day.” I had forgotten until I went back and read it years later.

At twenty-three, the title came to me with a vague idea of direction. At twenty-six, I published the 52-page book of short poetry, that shares the story of my experience in losing my brother at age six.

With a lot of mindless writing before and in between.

What sparked as an idea became a calling of something I knew I had to do. If not for anyone else, I had to do it for myself.

I had to share this experience in order to free myself of it. In some way. And I could only hope that it might reach someone else who could benefit from my words. Maybe it would allow someone to relate, to find that they’re not alone in their grief, or a way to process their grief at all.

And I couldn’t bring myself to make the experience any less real than it was for me, fucking brutal.

“Free myself of it.” Although, I still feel it and always will. Sometimes I feel it just as strong as I did twenty years ago, sometimes it’s disguised as something else, and sometimes it’s simply just love.

As my uncle shared his curiosity of the inspiration behind my book, it got me thinking. And really, I think it all comes back to love.

My love for writing has allowed me to express my love for life and my family, my brother. It has also allowed me to process the love that often shows up as grief.

While there are so many experiences I’ve found inspiration in; hiking the face of a snow-covered mountain, scaling the red rocks on a bike, roaming a different country, or meeting a one-in-eight-billion person — it all comes back to love.

And facing my fears.

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I’ve always loved to write. That is what frees me; the way that it gives me space to dump all of my thoughts and spill all of my emotions, good or bad.

Writing inspires me.

There is so much that we all hold inside of us and with writing, we’re able to see what we’re all about. We’re able to discover so much about how we truly feel.

As I wrote throughout the years; journal entries, poems, everything and in between — I compiled everything that I wrote while grieving my brother.

So I wrote a book.

A compilation of poems that tell a story about love and loss. Death and existence.

And I plan to write more books (as I continue to write as is), but I’ll let the next one come to me as this one did.

xo, Bai

The green butterfly on the cover symbolizes the green butterflies that were flying on the day of my brothers funeral, his favorite color is green. And I priced the book at $13.39 because his football number was 39. These things will always be a symbol of him to me and my family.

every body’s got issues: My psoriasis diagnosis

I was sitting in a doctor’s chair, only covered by a hospital gown. Three dermatologists stood in front of me before checking my skin and sifting through the hair on my scalp, one doctor on each side of my skull. The chief physician started testing the others, asking for probable diagnoses. It felt like I was on an episode of Grey’s Anatomy. Once they were through, all three in front of me again, the dermatologist tells me, I have psoriasis — and an eruption of perioral dermatitis.

“It’s a minor case,” he said. With his hands together and his fingers intertwined, he had a concerned look on his face. But I was just stoked to have an answer for the mysterious red patches and chronic itchiness. No kidding, I was smiling and nodding at him like he just told me that I was the healthiest person he’d ever seen. And I was stoked, I felt relieved.

But on my way home I started to cry.

I have psoriasis. It kept sounding in my head over and over again. I’d never been diagnosed with anything really, and now I have a skin disease. What about the pain in my knees? The stiffness in my neck? Do I have psoriatic arthritis too? My curiosity (and my fear, I won’t lie) dug itself a rabbit hole. And google supplied the shovel.

So, of course, I had to get some tests.

I knew giving blood made me uneasy but damn, I didn’t expect to pass out. “Just to give you a heads up, this kind of stuff freaks me out,” I said to the nurse. “I’m pretty sure it freaks everyone out,” she assured as she walked me to the room and sat me in her chair.

And it sure as hell doesn’t help that my veins hide too. She checked my right arm before switching to my left, here we go.

“I feel weird.”

My eyes blinked open as if I had just woken up from a dream when I realized I was in the nurse’s chair. She couldn’t hide the fear in her eyes as she asked if I was okay and sighed in relief that I didn’t break the needle in my arm. “I wasn’t able to get enough blood, so you’ll have to come back and do it again.”

Fuck.
I spent the whole next week overthinking a fucking blood draw. I even had my boyfriend come with me to hold my hand… pretty pathetic… kinda sweet? Luckily, this time went much smoother and my results came back pretty normal. Then why do my joints hurt so bad? Is it normal to start feeling joint pain in your mid-twenties? Maybe it’s from the amount of time I’ve spent scrubbing baseboards and bathrooms.

Whatever it is, I don’t really want to keep digging, especially through the veins my arm.

You know, I’ve gone back and forth with this a lot (like my brain tends to with most things), my thoughts dug so deep to the extent that I thought I’d have to give up snowboarding for the rest of my life. Quite dramatic.

Yeah, it makes me insecure. Flaky skin, dandruff, red patches — not necessarily flattering. Achy joints, itchy skin, not really comfortable. But it’s also not the worst thing ever. I know people who have it worse, little people. While I can offer myself grace and sympathy for the discomfort and insecurity, I have to remain humble. I am so damn grateful that I have the ability to move, breathe, see, smell, hear, etc. I am so damn grateful to have the simple abilities that comes with being human, that a lot of humans don’t have.

Now I just look at it like a health-gauge. When those little red patches start to show up, it’s time to let go of the stress. Notice my habits, where’s the root of the inflammation? Check in with my body, bring it back to balance. And it’s just that much more motivating to sit in frozen tub of ice.

Unfortunately, sometimes it has nothing to do with me and everything to do with Utah’s cold, dry air.

So, while I can honor my own experience with my body and this life, I don’t want to dig too deep. I don’t want to give myself more reasons to think there’s something wrong with me. Although we are born with god given abilities that should perform perfectly, no human body is perfect. And most every body’s got issues.

It only seems fair to share a few embarrassing photos.

xo Bai

the artist entrepreneur

I’ve always been the type of person who wants to try everything. Decision making hasn’t necessarily come easy to me. When I was seven, I wanted to be a veterinarian. At fourteen, the thought of race car driving enticed me (for a split second). Twenty-one, my love for snowboarding became somewhat of an obsession. How cool would that be? Sponsored at the very least. I even changed my instagram name to embody that persona, Doll Face. My mind was determined.

Now I’m twenty six. And none of those things have manifested into a paying career (or the others that weren’t mentioned). Not even close.

I’m exhausted. I’m exhausted because I wonder when I’ll ever get it right. It plays in my head, over and over like a scratched CD. My incomplete attempts, a mess inside mind. I can’t deny the truth that feels like failure. The truth that I’m on the constant prowl for fulfillment, no matter how full I feel. The truth that I feel so close to the person I want to be, then she dissolves right in front of me.

At twenty-six, I’ve surrendered. Again and again, until I get it right. I surrender.

I have to keep reminding myself that everything comes together in its time. That, maybe, I have too much focus on making something of myself and ignoring who I am already — an artist entrepreneur. Passionate and creative with an entrepreneurial mindset. An artist who knows no bounds. Or simply an artist which really means I’m just human. But at the very least, I am a writer.

My left and right brain have been at a constant battle, trying to find the balance between art and business, trying to understand how to make them work together.

Then it dawned on me that my passions don’t always have to be a product of money, they don’t always have to be something to strive for in a career. People need passions that are simply for enjoyment. And pursuing a passion as a career is an ongoing process and experiment.

So, once again, I surrender. With my hands up in the air. I want to always try new things solely for the enjoyment of the experiment. No pressure. There’s no guarantee I’ll get it right anyway.

To put it all rather simply, I don’t fit in a box or a specifically curated niche. And I prefer it that way.

xo Bai

BIG FISh: Back & better than before

Maybe you’re new here. Or maybe you can remember back to a few years ago..

I was 20 years old and it was November of 2017 when I had given my first attempt to blogging. I called it, Big Fish. I stole the name from a movie I watched as kid; it’s about a guy who tries to determine fact from fiction in stories from his dying father’s life. I also used that name to create a logo and print a few T-Shirts before I quickly realized I wouldn’t be a famous fashion designer — but I have to give it to myself, the logo I came up with was pretty sick.

I loved the name Big Fish because, not only did I love the movie, it also made me realize that I could be.. bigger. I was extremely shy as a kid and I had a lack of confidence, which made me feel really small. Not to mention all of the commentary I’ve ever heard about my height of 5’2. I was a small girl with big dreams and Big Fish allowed me to claim something bigger for myself, something bigger than myself. Then I realized that I am bigger. “I am bigger than my insecurities, I am bigger than my fears, I am bigger than my pain, etc., etc.” It was a turning point in my life for sure. And to my own surprise, it lasted up until June of 2019, I had no recollection of how much I actually posted until I dug up the time capsule to give myself a refresher.

I stopped posting because I started to care too much about what people think. I would get nervous and paranoid every time I hit publish. And, guilty to a fault, I wasn’t getting much traction which made me think that nobody cared and that I shouldn’t be posting anyway. I let myself become small again, in this realm anyway. But I have no doubt that things happen for a reason and that I’m back here now because I had so much to learn before.

In the past six years, I went to school and got my AAS in Journalism. So I didn’t stop writing, I just decided I needed a more educational approach. I loved college, it’s not for everyone, I agree, but it was absolutely for me. I learned a lot about myself and what I actually enjoyed doing. I think that’s because I really applied myself in the areas I was interested in. During my first semester I had some poetry, art, and photography published in the SLCC Folio Magazine; my english professor encouraged me to submit my work. Not only was it fucking awesome to have my work published in an actual “publication” for the first time, it was so empowering to have a college professor believe that I was good enough to do it. In my last semester, I took on a position as staff writer for The Globe Newspaper, and the Radio Promotions Director for RadioSLCC. Between writing articles and scripts for radio, I was feeling pretty sharp.

Oh yeah, I had also started a cleaning business in the meantime: Busy B’s Residential Cleaning, LLC. So, once I graduated from college, I decided to take a step back from writing and focus on my business. Being in that position was great for me, I was able to make my own schedule, charge per my price, and really just do whatever the hell I wanted. The downside of that was the physical demand and the fact that it was a one woman show. Cleaning houses is exhausting, please tip your maid.

We’re almost caught up.

When I heard my first podcast by Joe Rogan in 2017, an idea sparked. I thought it would be so cool to do what he does, just hang out and have conversations with all types of people all the time. So, naturally… I had to give it a try. I posted my first episode of The Endless Podcast earlier this year, in April. Of course, I wasn’t quite up to par with Joe, solely recording little snippets of my mind in my closet. Eventually I worked up the courage to bring a few guests on. After a while, it became pretty daunting. I set myself up on a tight schedule of posting an episode every Monday. Which I think is important, the self discipline needs to be fully present in these types of endeavors. However, I made an agreement with myself, before starting, that I wanted to do this for fun and the minute it’s not fun anymore I don’t want to do it (there could be some arguments there.. I know). It was pretty short lived, but I’m not giving up on it. It’ll just have to stay in my back pocket for now.

But I have to be honest, just this past year was tough. I went through A LOT of changes, and some of my most exciting moments were conflicted, due to situational reasons. After doing a year of therapy and getting back to a good place with my family, I just needed a fucking break. But of course, full circle moment, I’m back in therapy and I couldn’t be happier about it. And I’m back in a really good place with myself. I’m a scorpio, so death and rebirth is a constant for me. While I’ve made a few stops and pulled a few turns, I’ve learned a lot about myself and what I can achieve. And this is the rebirth of my writing career.

Here’s to having big dreams,

xo Bai

This is the logo that I printed on those ten or so T-Shirts.