Xiaowen

I turned twenty-seven last month in my apartment kitchen in Seattle, the one with the chipped green tile and the windows that never quite close all the way. I moved here from Vancouver three years ago to take a job as a food photographer for a small magazine, and somewhere between late shoots and editing on my couch I started posting the pictures I liked better. Now most of my days start with a camera in one hand and a bowl of whatever I made the night before in the other. I still text my old roommate from college when something ridiculous happens at work, and sometimes I keep her on the line while I walk the four blocks to the Korean market that sells the exact chili paste I grew up eating. Last weekend I stayed up until four trying to get the light right on a new recipe for cold somen, and I caught myself wondering out loud what you would think of the way the ice cubes clinked against the bowl. When I am not working I am usually on the couch in an oversized sweater, legs tucked under me, scrolling through the photos I took that day and wondering which one you would ask to see first. I like the idea of someone seeing the small things I notice, the way steam curls off a pot or how late-afternoon sun hits the edge of a cutting board. I like the idea of you seeing me noticing them. I am not looking for anything quiet. I want someone who will meet me in the middle of a sentence and finish it with their hands. I want the kind of attention that makes me forget the timer on the stove and the kind of talk that makes me leave the kitchen light on for you. If you are the person who sends a voice note at midnight asking what I am making, I will probably answer with something that makes you put your phone down and come over instead.