I started exploring the idea of comfort in a couple of my print pieces. It started out with noticing the way I felt comforted by huge expanses and vast spaces. For example, sitting by lake Michigan,  sitting on a jetty at Pulau Ubin facing the sea, or looking up at a waterfall. What was it about standing before something big and great made me feel at peace? I felt like everything around me did not matter in those moments, and it was just me, and those vast expanses, both still and quiet and at rest.

Perhaps it was the way that these spaces seemed to engulf and envelop, and their vastness in comparison to the smallness of my being. They made seemingly huge, apparent problems or disturbances not seem to matter so much for I was simply a tiny human being in the grand scheme of the universe.

Perhaps it was the way these spaces were some sort of constant. Yes they do change over time – rocks get eroded as the waves hit them again and again, the planks of the jetty get old and creaky over time – but they were not going to undergo any major changes any time soon. I think the idea of constancy, knowing that if I were to go back they’d look and feel almost similar, was comforting.

Perhaps it was the way these spaces made me feel like I belonged, that I was not intruding, that it felt right to be there in those moments.

I thought about other less physical spaces in which I felt these similar sensations of comfort: coming home from a conference in another state to friends who have become family in Chicago, eating instant udon while everyone sat around and hung out; laughing along the streets of a family holiday about nothing in particular but just being glad to be together; throwing pretzel sticks at my roommates and them pretending to get mad and how we end up laughing after finding a sad pretzel stick in our laundry a couple days after.

I guess the similarity between these physical and not-so-physical spaces would be that they accept without question of any hints of doubt, who I am. There is no need for striving, for proving myself worthy nor fighting for my place.

With people, even family, those moments aren’t as consistent as being in nature, just because humans are humans – we’re fallible, judgmental, and make mistakes every so often. But I am ever so thankful.

If not, there is always a body of water nearby – if not the sea or a lake, perhaps a longkang will have to do.

Cover Photo by Hope Wang