My favorite onigiri that Shoko-san makes is the soy egg one. I like simple flavors. I don’t like cheese. I am not a huge fan of truffle. But I could drink a shot glass of suka. Disgusting. This makes my opinions on food invalid then, haha. A hedonistic ritual—a haircut and onigiris. When Christian, my partner, was here on vacation, he would brew us a pour-over to complete the experience. Shoko-san is the only person I trust with my hair.

I ask about her brown leather tool belt, the one she bought a decade ago in Tokyo. It carries all her scissors and combs, aging beautifully, like paper soaked in coffee.

We exchange stories. I tell her what I liked, what I didn’t.

She chuckles, “Selina-chan, you are a very honest person. It is rare.”

I let the words sit. It has been a week since my haircut, and I still think about what she said.

It’s funny—when someone tells me to do one thing, I instinctively do the other. Not out of spite, but because I trust my own rhythm. I won’t do what I’m told, but I will always be open, filled with curiosity and questions. 

The most rebellious act I committed in my teens was tricking my Appa into believing I was pursuing a degree in economics, only to secretly apply for an art scholarship behind his back. Bad ass.

I am headstrong. Cordial and respectful, never abrasive. Direct, but only when necessary. I speak when I have something to say.

Maybe this is how I avenged my childhood.

I was a quiet, socially awkward outcast, petrified to recite in class even when I knew the answers. Fresh from the province, adjusting to my family’s move to the “big city”, I struggled with language. My English was chopsuey and screwed. I could only speak Tagalog. Words slipped through my fingers like sand.

My Appa was determined to assimilate me into this new world, one of kids with drivers and maids waiting outside the school gates in their shiny golf carts. He bought pirated box sets of American classics, filling our house with Spielberg and Hitchcock. He gave me books by Hawthorne, Wilde, Twain. He was academic. He read philosophy, psychology, literature, history, science, anything really.

And the moment I saw Saul Bass’s title sequences from the 60s, I never looked back. I knew then that I would dedicate my life to art and creativity.

Years later, I entered industries where people talk over you, where presence is currency and dominance is expected and performed. But I don’t like overpowering people. It is simply…unkind. 

I won’t let anyone put thick black graphic liner on me—it doesn’t suit my monolids.

I have learned to hold my space. I won’t let anyone take my voice away from me again.