This is not a post about pandesal
Sometimes life takes unexpected turns, and sometimes you have to hold on tight and enjoy the ride.
I planned to write about pandesal this week, the steamy-sweet bread rolls that are almost as ubiquitous as rice around a Filipino breakfast table.
But at 11:26 a.m. Friday, my plans changed.
An essay I’ve been working on — about multiracial identity, the limits of white privilege, lumpia, deviled eggs, mansplaining, racist grandmas (you know, my usual) — was picked up by the Washington Post. And it published much sooner than I’d anticipated.
Instead of perfecting my pandesal and running to my kid’s soccer games, I’ve spent the weekend answering tweets and doing my best not to get lost in the WaPo comments section (my favorite so far: “Yawn”) — while still running to soccer games.
I feel like a rookie reporter again. I went to Barnes & Noble in Fort Myers hoping to grab a physical copy of the Post, to touch the ink of my byline and feel the crinkle of the paper, but I got there too late and they’d sold out. I keep refreshing the digital version of the story. I’ve watched the comments grow from three to 29 to 89 to 704 as of late this afternoon, my heart catching in my throat with each increase.
Despite working as a journalist for 16 years, it’s like I’ve forgotten the feeling of reaching people, forgotten that human beings actually read our stories, that there are faces and lives behind the pageviews and clicks.
Like breakfast rice or yeasty pandesal hot from the neighbor’s sari sari, my writing has started to feel ubiquitous to me. Professionally, I’ve written about food for far longer than I’ve cooked and served it. As I mention in a past newsletter, if you search my byline in The News-Press’ archives, you’ll find my name on some 4,300 articles. I’m not sure what the exact threshold for “ubiquitous” is, but that’s got to be close.
Sometimes, when things seem to be chugging along, a change of pandesal plans / a story that posts when you least expect it to is exactly what you need.
The pandesal will be just as delicious next week.
Three things about the WaPo story
The editor who worked with me for the piece is also a hapa Filipina (a “Half Filip,” if you will!). I can’t say enough good things about Jen Balderama. From the piece we originally sent, she saw something much more personal and genuine. What started as a rambling news story on U.S. Census numbers became what it became thanks to Jen’s guidance. Please, go follow her. She’s one of us!
The illustrator who so perfectly captured the essay in her drawing is the Chinese-American artist Molly Magnell. People have asked me if I know Molly, because her work captured the story so perfectly. I do not. At least, not yet. But with a trio of Asian women working together, this piece is clearly bound for great things. You can find more of Molly’s fantastic art on Twitter and Instagram.
If you’re more of a listener than a reader, there’s an audio version of the story narrated by yours truly. You’ll find the play button at the top of the article. A huge thank you to audio produce Julie Depenbrock, who patiently and kindly taught me how not to sound like a complete moron.
And please allow me to introduce you …
I’ve been tiptoeing around what I’m actually doing with all this new and different writing. I’ve mentioned it a couple times: if you scroll to the end of my September essay in Catapult; if you read through my super profesh bio on my super profesh website. But this is my first time putting it into writing here.
…
I’m working on a book.
A memoir.
I don’t know why that’s been so hard to write.
I think I’m afraid of jinxing it. Part of me worries that if I tell more than the handful of people closest to me, then this thing I’ve spent two and a half years toiling at may — poof! — disappear. But if the whirlwind of the last 48 hours has taught me anything, it’s that there’s power in numbers. And maybe I shouldn’t be as terrified of those numbers as I have been.
So, yes. I’m working on a book. I’ve been working on a book. It’s about mangoes, BB guns and growing up biracial in a county named for Robert E. Lee. It’s about identity, immigration, grief and seeking quote-unquote “normality” when your childhood feels like anything but.
The person helping me shepherd this book into the world is my spectacular literary agent, Kayla Lightner. She’s the reason this newsletter and my website and the Washington Post piece exist. She’s the ever-optimistic, ever-believing, ever-woo-woo-ing human who’s pushed me waaay out of my comfort zone and, with some luck (and maybe a li’l more woo-woo), into a wonderful next stage of my writing career.
Thank you Kayla. Thank you, thank you, thank you.