by Laura Chin ‘23

CW: implication of religious homophobia

I grew up on an interesting cocktail of religions. Every Sunday morning, my family would pack into our little blue car and drive to the San Marino Presbyterian Church. At night, my sisters and I would gather around my mother for bedtime stories from D'Aulaires Book of Greek Myths. At an annual family gathering in some glitteringly golden-red Chinese restaurant, I remember squinting at the jolly statue in the lobby. And, many miles across the sea, brushed with salt and a gentle island breeze, I listened, wide-eyed, to my grandmother’s tales of a whole new pantheon of gods: powerful commanders of the earth, wind, sea, and sky, beings as old as time and chaos and darkness themselves.