nhiều chuyện, by angel lin

adj. to be nosy; having a big mouth; to be talkative or to have a liking for gossip.
direct translation: many stories.

for most women in our so-called post-feminist new age, the sentiments articulated in Virginia Woolfe’s “A Room of One’s Own” are intuitive. whether the discourse is taking place within the sterile walls of academia, begging for attention in the latest issue of teen vogue, or isolated to an interaction between two strangers in the comment section of a tiktok video, Woolfe’s message is clear: a woman’s freedom is intrinsically tied to her means. in order to cultivate art, love, life, and ownership, a woman must have a room of her own. that is, economic independence, leisure time, technological access, education, or bodily autonomy.

you can’t write fiction without having the time for introspection and free thought. you can’t create sculptures without having access to a $2,000 kiln to fire your pieces in. you can’t be a dancer if your feet are worn out from nights of taking on extra shifts at the restaurant. one’s stream of consciousness cannot be plagued by the demands of a crying baby or cut short by the customer calling you to their table for the fourth time during your midday rush.

art requires time. art requires patience. art requires the means. art requires a room of one’s own.

what I love most about this visualization of having a room of one’s own is the implication of space. that is, the physical space encompassed by a room of one’s own; the idea of taking up so much space that an entire room is filled to the brim with my overflowing stream of consciousness. a room where i can dance and sing and leap and scream and wail and cry and mourn. it’s exhilerating, really. that these walls propped up can only barely confine the wildness that is my being within its bounds.

what is being a woman if not being taught to take up less space? what is being a woman if not being taught to constantly be aware of others perceiving you? to consider what the others will say about you showing up to school looking like that? to put on longer pants because the uncles are coming over and do you want to look little slut? to fake an orgasm so that he gets the confidence boost he needs because he had a hard day at work? to please and accommodate?

I am fully aroused by the thought of the seclusion and isolation that a room allots. the freedom to look at myself with my own eyes. but the same time, i am terrified. an entire world of potential hidden away behind a door that could give shape to either beauty or treachery. I cannot help but wonder about what types of thoughts I would have if I were truly given a room of my own. who am i outside of the watchful eye of the observer? what kind of thoughts would i finally have the courage to play with? what kind of selfishness and rage could i finally indulge in? what catharsis could i finally acheive? what characters within myself will I come to discover? with the space to do so, would i come out finally free enough to give voice to my anger? in this space that I create for myself, will I recognize the version of myself that I become? what sort of villain will they paint me as once I leave my room? what kind of art could I create?

I have always been particularly excited by anger as an emotion; the rush, the power, the anticipation, the passion, and rawness that accompany it—the idea infatuates me. the emotion itself allures me. perhaps, because I have never been fully abandon myself to it—to give myself the space to surrender myself to an uncontrollable storm of rage. perhaps, because I look upon it from afar. perhaps out of fear of causing too much damage.

the anger I hold simmers at a low heat. a constant but suppressed held breath. it comes in the form of pessimissm or cynicism or self-sabotage or imposter syndrome or internalized hatred or insecurity or—

it’s an anger that i’ve held my entire life. it’s an anger that my mother held. an anger that my grandmother held. it’s an anger that was passed onto me by every woman in my family who was never given a room of her own.

in vietnamese, we reserve the phrase, nhiều chuyện for our women. we tell our girls who ask too many questions that they need to hush. we tell our daughters that they must uphold certain responsibilities and that telling stories is not one of them. we tell our mothers that sharing their experiences of abuse will only jeapordize the rest of the family. we tell our women to be quiet and save face.

and yet. we loudly sling gossip across nail salons and watch gleefully as they fly through the dust in the air from the nail files and land into the women’s eager ears. the piercing songs of cải lương that mothers wail to their children rock the babies to sleep at night. the tearful testimonies of months spent floating at sea without food and water escaping a war torn country make their way piece by piece into the minds of hopeful american children.

what of our culture would still exist if not for our mother’s stories? if not for their courage to share their hushed truths? if not for their resilience in forging spaces for their families in this foreign and unknown land? if not for their insistence on decorating their new american homes with red lanterns and flowers each lunar new year? if not for their persistence in packing smelly thịt kho in our lunch boxes to eat at school before recess? if not for their entrepreneurial grit that created the Little Saigon’s and Lee’s Sandwiches of the world?

in Alice Walker’s “In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens,” Walker pushes against Woolfe’s piece. if the production of knowledge and art necessitate a room of one’s own and money, how have generations of black women—who have historically never had anything close to the means Woolfe describes—been able to cultivate a legacy of art through music, storytelling, quilting, braiding, and crafting? these life-giving sources of beauty are the gardens our mothers planted when they were not given their own rooms. the most beautiful of lotuses that bloomed in even the swampiest of marshes. rather than waiting to be granted the optimal conditions to do so, they forged paths of resistance in order to create art.

our responsibility, then, is to find these gardens and renew them. to recognize the scars of anger that are buried deep beneath them and seek out their justice. to tend to the wounds of trauma and plant seeds atop them. to actively create spaces for us to explore our personhoods, even when the world gives us a hostile response. to create art does not mean seeking out complete independence and isolation from the world—it is to honor the legacy we have grown from and create anew.

my mother’s garden is made up of the painfully detailed and devastatingly tight braids she would etch into my hair every morning before school. it is the foam heart that she carefully pours into every cup of coffee she makes with her espresso machine. it is her song she performs with red-faced passion every time the aunts get together and sing karaoke. it is the arrangement she makes using the flowers she finds growing outside of our apartment complex. it is the precision with which she squeezes the limes drops into each daquiri she makes working late nights at the bar. it is every nail she hammers into the walls of her cafe to hang up the latest oversized landscape painting she stumbled upon while foraging through a garage sale. it is the nostalgia and reminisce that she shares with her sisters as they laugh over bottles of heineken and stories from their first years in america as catty high schoolers.

when I think about what has kept me from writing—from taking part in the production of art and knowledge making that I have always distantly flirted with—it has never been about attaining the means. I have been more than lucky enough to have the platform, language, education, and resources to express myself. it has been fear. fear that I won’t write well enough, that I don’t have anything important to say, that I have nothing original to tell the world. when I think about these fears compared to that of my mother, who at 26 was left alone with two daughters in a country where she barely spoke the language, I cannot help but laugh at my own self-pity. like, please—grow a pair.

arent our futile attempts at originality simply a denial of the influences that created us? a denial that we are our mother’s daugthers? to confess that I am wholly unoriginal almost quiets these fears and insecurities—I write from a long line of women with many imperfect, incomplete, and unoriginal stories. I can only hope to do the same.

I am writing to tend to my mother’s garden. to write words she will never read but will have full ownership over. to share ideas that are as unoriginal. to have the courage to explore my own personhood. to share my opinions. to share my ambiguity. to share my rage. to share my love. to forge a room of my own. to share my many stories.