Howdy, folks!

It’s getting steamy here in Southern California. I’m already longing for those cool, crisp autumn days, though “fall” and “winter” here are generally very mild.

Lately, I’ve been immersed in launching my sound therapy and private psychotherapy practice, surrounded by singing bowls, drums, my keyboard, and guitar as I prepare to share more music and sound videos. What I didn’t anticipate was how much audio engineering would become part of the journey! The microphone I purchased barely picks up my Tibetan singing bowls, my ring light decided to call it quits, and I’m still trying to determine whether the culprit is the microphone itself or the M-Audio interface and phantom power. It’s been equal parts frustrating and humbling, and the learning curve has been much steeper than expected. Still, I remind myself that I’m slowly making progress.

In the midst of all this learning, something unexpected happened. I was invited to the Taiwanese American Memoir Book Club for a Q&A about my memoir, Beyond Two Worlds: A Taiwanese-American Adoptee’s Memoir & Search for Identity. I hadn’t spoken publicly about the book in quite some time, and I assumed it would simply be an opportunity to revisit a chapter of my past. Instead, the evening became something more. It reminded me that while I’m building something entirely new, I’m also carrying forward parts of myself that have quietly shaped this next chapter all along.

It’s hard to believe that nine years have passed since my memoir was published, and fourteen years since I stood in Taipei and met my birth family for the first time. So much has happened since then, especially over the past three years. Sometimes I wonder what that earlier version of myself would think about how far we’ve come. I think she’d be pleasantly surprised and proud.

One of the first questions I received was, have I gone back to see my family in Taiwan. It was almost embarassing to reveal that I have not. I did not want to share personal details why; I did not anticipate that I would not return for so long. My marriage had much to do with my inability to return; however, last year, post-divorce, I planned to take a trip to Taipei during the Lunar New Year. Chronic exhaustion prevented me from so doing. It was a disappointment to my family as well as to myself. Returning to work after such a trip, as amazing as it would have been, would have caused further exhaustion, and I did not want to increase the symptoms of burnout. Sometimes the heart is ready before the body is.

I was genuinely grateful for how kind the book club participants were. There were other thoughtful questions, some I had difficulty answering. One that I fumbled over included how my daughter has developed her own cultural sense of identity. It made me reflect on how disconnected I was from my own cultural identity for much of my life. Inevitably, that shaped the way her father and I introduced our daughter to her multicultural heritage. My hope is that one day she will be curious and take a greater interest in celebrating her multicultural ancestry. It took decades for me to embrace my own birth heritage and only after finding my “secret” adoption contract. Thereafter, I was insanely curious and longed to learn as much as I possibly could about Taiwan and my ancestry.

As the years passed, I slowly drifted from my Taiwanese roots. Career demands, everyday responsibilities, and for many years, simply surviving took center stage. I never really found a Taiwanese community here in Southern California, and somewhere along the way that part of myself became quieter.

At the end of the Q&A, I realized that the invitation hadn’t simply brought me back to my memoir. It brought me back to a part of myself I’d allowed to become dormant. Perhaps that is where all new chapters start, not by becoming someone different, but by listening for the parts of ourselves that have been waiting to be heard. Somewhere in that quiet, I suspect another book is longing to find its voice.

Perhaps this invitation wasn’t simply an opportunity to revisit my memoir. Perhaps it was Taiwan calling me home again. This time, I’m listening.