Happy anniversary to me!
This July, my organization closed for a much needed and much deserved week of rest and restoration. Everyone at AYPAL has been throwing down tough, and this break came at just the right time. My kid and I went to stay with my mom for that week. This past weekend, we celebrated 2 years of becoming homeowners. We didn't actually do anything to celebrate. It was a typical weekend with my mom. But I acknowledged it with a lot of gratitude, by getting through a bunch of tasks around the house, and by spending a lot of time outside in the garden. My mom gets all the credit for creating such a beautiful, peaceful space.
It was taught to me that being a Khmae woman means that I have my own things. That I get the honor of inheriting land and the privilege to steward it. I think this practice and connection and access to land was disrupted by colonization and further disrupted by war and genocide. Most people know my family came to the US as refugees, and that part of my identity undergirds how I come to understand myself. Because of displacement and resettlement, my mom didn't have land to pass on to me. But that's alright. I learned to play the game well enough (on a non-profit salary!) to hand my mom some keys a couple of years ago.
Mom harvesting kaffir lime leaves and purple beans.
My mom is very rooted in Buddhist practices and beliefs. We talk a lot about blessings and karma and destiny. Sometimes this leads to interrogating language and we talk about definitions. Recently, we've had some conversations about what makes someone rich. "Rich person" in Khmae, អ្នកមាន, is translated to "a person that has" in English. A person that has… what? Money is implied, I guess. So sure, it is a person that has money, but I think it's more than that (also because money is made up, right?). Abundance looks a lot of ways, and lately, it looks like the space my mom has been able to create in our backyard with seeds she saved, rainwater we harvested, and the ancestral planting knowledge passed down to her that she imparts to me.
July 2025. Things my mom planted including: lemongrass, watermelon, zucchini, purple beans, Kaffir lime leaves, chili peppers, kabocha, and chrysanthemum.
This week, I uprooted a patch of lemongrass. My mom was going to compost it all, but ultimately decided the stems were still good and it would be a waste to just put the entire thing in the compost. So she got to separating them, and I got to cutting them down to propagate. I also harvested chrysanthemum seeds. My mom let the flower heads mature and dry, so I cut them to get the seeds later. I was starting to do the same with a kale plant. I harvested most of the seed pods but discovered a spider who made itself a nice home between the leaves. I quickly decided I was done that day.
A lot of this journey has been about getting closer to freedom, because like I said- I know what game I'm playing and what systems of oppression we're up against. It has also been about coming back to my power and my birthright as a Khmae woman. And being self-sufficient. And healing through co-creating this home with my mom. To say thank you for following this journey, we want to gift you with some seeds from the garden, if you are interested in receiving them. If you're already on the email list, please reply with your mailing address or send it through the Contact page. If you subscribe to the mailing list any time through September 22nd this year, I'm happy to send you seeds, too! It's free to sign up.