Freshly baked chocolate chip cookies.

The moment you read those words, it immediately clicks—
you know what that smells like.
And yet, not all of us remember it the same.

Everyone, at some point in their life,
has experienced this in their own kitchen,
or their grandma’s, or their mom’s kitchen,
paired with the encouragement: “eat as much as you can”,
to grow up strong, to become someone important,
to travel far away from home.

Just so one day you crave
those cookies, baked with adoration,
that take you back to the time when you felt at peace,
surrounded by people who care.

It is a symbol of love. Of home.

My favorite chocolate chip cookies recipe was modified from Serious Eats. They got the science down to a tee. *Credits:* *Serious Eats / J. Kenji López-Alt*

Clean laundry, still warm from being dried.

The moment you read those words, it immediately clicks—
you know what that smells like.
And yet, not all of us remember it the same.

Everyone washes and dries their clothes differently.
Some hand-washed, by their mom’s callused hands,
gently hung on lines, baked by the power of the sun.
Some machine washed and machine dried.
Some entangled with their cat’s fur,
still lingering in the dryer,
left untouched since she passed away.

It is a symbol of love. Of home.

Laundry can be dried anywhere in Viet Nam. *Credits: Sivan Askayo*

The ground after the first rain.

The moment you read those words, it immediately clicks—
you know what that smells like.
And yet, not all of us remember it the same.

It rains everywhere in the world,
on windowsills,
on cemented roads,
on open soil.

In Viet Nam, it rains almost every day during the wet season,
around May to October.
Sometimes, it rises,
flooding houses, roads, and schools,
parents driving children home on motorbikes
with water up to their shins,
motorbikes shielded by cars
through windy, stormy bridges,
country-wide donations of books and supplies
pour into Central Viet Nam, where flood hits the hardest.

It is a symbol of love. Of home.

Rain in Viet Nam floods the streets and its people, yet becomes an opportunity for love, for connection, for community. *Credits: VinWonders*

But your smell,
not as sweet as chocolate chip cookies,
not as crisp as sun-warmed laundry,
not as deep as rain-soaked earth,

and yet,
warmer, gentler, closer.

you smell like love,
like home.

-may 7th, 2026. for my love-

somewhere in Italy, i saw us, from another life.

That Vet Life 🐾

what lingers