Finding Home by Ray Tsou

I sit in the living room of the small New York apartment I rent, freshly showered, my nails wet with polish. I begin to reflect on what “home” means; my mind wanders to the week before. One day last week, I woke up naturally, put on the most comfortable clothes I could grab, and headed out without a bag. I slipped my wallet, phone, keys, earphones, and lip oil into my pockets and took the subway. I returned to the small theater I often go to. As I watched a film on screen, I tallied up all the people I’ve been to this theater with, and what we saw: Two first dates (Chungking Express, In the Mood for Love), an outing with a new friend (Passages), my brother (Monsters), old friends visiting from Taiwan (Pink Flamingos, Enter the Void), and countless times by myself (Benedetta, Emilia Pérez, Memoria, The Lost Daughter, The Innocent…).

After the movie, I walk through a light rain and take the subway home. On the bridge where Manhattan meets Queens, the train makes my favorite big turn. I always try to sit in my favorite window seat every time I ride the train home to enjoy the view. Every day, I see this turn on my way out and back. From Queensboro Plaza to 39th Avenue–Dutch Kills, I look out the left window at my favorite nighttime cityscape. Once the turn ends and the view fades into the shadows of buildings, my reflection appears in the glass. I study my face, then glance at my reflection in the opposite window. I see myself, in comfortable yet cool-looking clothes, curled up contentedly in my seat.

At that moment, I think: To the version of me from five, ten, or even fifteen years ago, I’ve truly become the person I wanted to be. If I could go back and tell my teenage self about my life now—the experiences I’ve had and have, the mundane details of my day-to-day—she’d think I’m so cool. She’d look up to me. She’d be excited about her future. But what about me, today? Why am I still unhappy?

I’ve left the home where I grew up and moved to this city alone. I miss home, but at the same time, I came to search for it. I look for home in my morning coffee, in every new job, in the streets between New York’s skyscrapers. I search for home in the connections between reality and the internet; I seek it at parties full of strangers, in the perfume I wear every day, and in the half-asleep thoughts before I drift off at night.

As the train goes on, my thoughts continue to two years ago, when I went on a trip back to Taipei. I went to all the places I wanted to go, ate all the foods I missed, and saw all the people I wanted to see. At the time, I also had to write an artist’s statement for an exhibition. I’d never liked writing those—I found (and still find) it hard to define or explain myself and my art. Usually, I would’ve included something about how I was feeling at that moment - to at least capture some reality of who I am at that point in time.

But at that time then, in a haze of thoughts, I wrote: I decided to move to New York to practice letting life grow from zero, to practice being aware of every breath I take, every word I say. To practice letting the tree grow tall, so my friends can sit beneath it, reading or napping. I believe New York will arrange things in its own way; I also believe that as long as I sit cross-legged wherever I am, that place can be home.

Just when my mind wandered back to that place and moment in time, the subway arrived at my stop. I walked home on autopilot, ate a proper meal I cooked myself, took a shower, went through my skincare routine, and started thinking: What will I do tomorrow? What time should I wake up? If it’s not too early, should I curl up and watch another movie in my room tonight? Stretch or dance to some music I’ve been loving lately? Have a glass of wine and read a book? Or draw something to capture my current aura and state of mind?

I don’t remember what I ended up doing the rest of that day. But today, the last day of this year, I've chosen to sit down and type these words. As I type, I’m thinking about what to wear for new years eve, reflecting on the past year, and looking ahead to the next. In this kind of moment, I feel a tingly sensation, a vague one. One that is not entirely certain, but with a glimmer of possibility— that perhaps, potentially, maybe—as the thought filters through a smooth layer of chances - I am home.

Ray Tsung Jui Tsou is a Taiwanese multidisciplinary artist. She holds a B.F.A in Acting from Taipei National University of the Arts. She experiments with various mediums, such as painting, textile art, sculpture, photography, dance, and performing arts. Through visualizing images and words from her subconscious and imagination, Tsou’s work investigates the synthetization and transformation between subconscious minds, languages, abstract visuals, and physical movement.

Ig: @ray_the_unicorn_hunter