Observations from the crossroads. Dreams of porosity. A memorial for the women I will never be again.
Every day I am strange to myself, like something turns in the night while I am dreaming the way grass, by dawn, looks slightly different with its crown of dew, its new bends and clusters.
In semper femina I trace the ways I’ve been moved and changed, surprised and transformed. In this is a collection of shed skin, souvenirs, read and unread books, my favorite bottles of wine, ghosts, love letters, self-portraits, confessions, and clippings of everything else.
I think of these moments of change as my spirit catching a fever; a struggle between the within and without that must run its full course. By then, something will have transformed. The crossroads I probably do not know I am in will soon make itself clear as long as I let this feeling pass unhindered. This is a humbling reminder that I am not a machine, and that despite systems and habits, I am an organic, mysterious being—mysterious even to myself.
Join me in discovering the edges of an ever-changing, fluid, free self — a resistance against the prevailing compulsion towards sameness.
woman is ever a fickle and changeable thing
I borrow my newsletter name from Laura Marling’s 2017 album Semper Femina. She in turn borrowed the phrase from Virgil’s “varium et mutabile semper femina” which roughly means: woman is ever a fickle and changeable thing.
about me
My name is Lian. I am a writer from Manila currently based in a small town in central Texas. These days, my time is split between working full-time at a local museum; writing poetry, this newsletter, and the occasional freelance project; tending to my tiny home, and; dreaming of the woman I want to now and eventually become.
support my work
Behind every post are hours of research and writing, years of studying and refining my craft, and almost three decades of life experience all distilled into an essay several hundred or thousand words long. Writing is rewarding, hard work, and I’m grateful I can share it with you.
Please consider supporting my practice through a paid subscription. Your support helps me buy coffee, ponder comfortably in silence, and sustain this publication. It would be much appreciated!
