Inspiration Diaries With Artist, Illustrator, and Writer Carolyn Yoo

I first stumbled across Carolyn Yoo’s beautiful, thoughtful writing and art when I saw her Winter Practice zine earlier this year on Substack Notes (see and shop her other seasonal zines here!). The bright colors, mindful and creative prompts, and positive energy created a bright spot in a dark Wisconsin winter, and I was grateful for it. We had virtual coffee a few months after that, and I left our conversation so inspired and thrilled to have met her. Her radiant energy shines through this Inspiration Diaries, and I hope you enjoy as much as I did.

xx Brianna

Read more Inspiration Diaries here →

Thank you Brianna for inviting me to be a part of Inspiration Diaries! This exercise felt deliciously indulgent, timed with the beginning of summer when so much life is bursting and blooming all around.

Before you begin reading: no, I will not be apologizing for the number of times Kate Bush appears throughout these diaries. Instead I wish for you to have a similarly all-consuming rabbit hole inspiration to guide you towards the pleasure of research this summer!

I’ve just returned from a two week writing residency in North Carolina, so I’m getting back into the swing of my home routines this week.

Every morning starts at my kitchen table, and I allow myself to linger longer here on weekends. I’m enjoying the roses that my partner got from me to celebrate my return and catching up with lunar journaling prompts from my own seasonal companion zine, Summer Practice. I’ve been publishing these seasonal zines this year, full of monthly rituals and reflections on how creativity changes with the seasons. It’s very grounding to sit down and answer these journal prompts every new and full moon.

Playing in the background is the 1978 single “Wuthering Heights” by Kate Bush, a song I’ve been obsessed with ever since my fellow writing residents screeched and wailed their way through this song during our last night of karaoke. I first listened to Kate Bush when “Running Up That Hill” made its resurgence on Stranger Things a few years ago, but it’s “Wuthering Heights” that is catapulting me into a full blown Kate Bush obsession this week. I mean, have you seen THE dance, and the many reenactments of it every July?!

Today is the summer solstice, so my partner and I try to spend as much time outside as possible. After a brunch date at Jeffrey’s Grocery in West Village, we walk to Hudson River Park and bake in the sun. The west side piers are always filled with gorgeous people working out, bear-crawling and ab-crunching post-run. I try to quickly draw some of these people until my fountain pen runs out of ink, then pass the time reading Pleasure Activism by adrienne marie brown.

I’m absolutely parched after a few hours, so we leave to head across town. I stop by Edith’s Sandwich Counter and grab a strawberry lemonade slushie. Incredibly life-giving. We meet our friends at Mala Project for dinner, then end our evening at Morgenstern’s, my favorite ice cream spot that’s back in its original Lower East Side location.

Started the morning with a class at Pure Barre. It’s my first workout class in two weeks, and it feels incredible to feel my lazy muscle fibers twitching in ways I forgot they could!

On my walk back home I admire all the hydrangeas that are starting to bloom in my neighborhood. These puffy flowers range from white to pink to purple, but the blue ones are the ones that remind me most of June. I’ve learned only recently that the bright blue hydrangeas require higher acidity in soil pH levels. Less acidic soil results in more purple or pink hydrangea blooms.

Much of my day is dedicated to catching up on emails and admin, such as packing mail shipments for customers and consignment shops like Minnesota Center for Book Arts. For lunch, I try making Caroline Chambers’ springy green goddess shrimp and orzo recipe. I love anything that includes fresh green goddess dressing so I’m calling this recipe a hit!

My Kate Bush obsession continues in the evening as I watch The Kate Bush Story, a 2014 BBC documentary about her career. She’s been making music for more than 50 years but has successfully kept herself away from the dark side of fame the entire time, fiercely protecting her privacy and refusing to compromise on her artistic vision. She’s an absolutely electrifying performer (her eyes!), so it blows my mind that she has toured only twice in her entire career due to stage fright.

As I champion going quietly public on the internet as a legitimate strategy for existing online as a creative person, I look to Kate Bush as a prime example of going against the grain while making great art and leaving an incredible legacy behind.

I have plans with my friend Sondra in the morning at a nearby cafe. I get there a bit early and settle in with early grey tea and Our Diaries Ourselves, a nonfiction book about why we write diaries and what use they serve beyond our individual lifetimes.

Sondra and I have a fun catch up — we discover that we share the same moon and rising sign! I head to vote at my local YMCA for New York’s primary election, then head home to prepare for a zine workshop I’m teaching later this week.

In the evening I head over to my sister Irene’s place in Williamsburg. We haven’t seen each other in weeks since we’ve both been away! I catch her up on my writing residency, and we celebrate her winning a James Beard award for her cookbook, Soju Party. It feels like a special win to me too, not only because I’ve witnessed the entire process of her creating this cookbook — I also collaborated with her on the book’s illustrations!

Today’s a writing day. I’m combing through pages of my diary entries from the residency to put together this week’s newsletter post. I decide to share from my diary directly, though I worry that it’s less of a tidy narrative. But reading Our Diaries Ourselves has been giving me newfound faith that the diary is a legitimate writing format of its own accord.

After finishing most of my post, I head to Jetset Pilates where my friend Kiara has kindly gifted me a guest pass. The class is just the right amount of hard. After I spin the wheel in front of the studio for a chance to win a prize. I win another free class! The universe is conspiring to help me work out this summer!

I take the bus to my sister and brother-in-law’s bar, Orion Bar, in Bushwick for the evening. Tonight’s the last South Korea group stage against South Africa. I’m rooting for Korea, my other home country besides the USA, as is everyone else at Orion Bar. Many are decked out in red soccer jerseys. I don’t have one of my own, but I don a red and white striped shirt and stick a Korean flag into my bucket hat to cheer Korea on.

The game is… deeply disappointing! We lose 1-0 to South Africa. I’ve seen Korea lose World Cup games plenty of times before, but it’s one of their worst performances I’ve ever seen despite having so many talented players in this World Cup.

Still, the vibes are immaculate at Orion Bar! I enjoy my frozen “Jeju Blast” drink and kimchi carbonara noodles. By the end of the night my voice is nearly hoarse from screaming alongside fans. I crash in bed as soon as my partner and I arrive back home.

Today I start the morning reviewing plans for a one hour workshop I’m teaching for The Interweb, a membership community for creatives and small business owners.

Workshop time rolls around and I guide the participants through making an eight page zine about one’s work or business. In between facilitating and keeping time, I follow my own prompts and make a zine of my own.

Later, participant Catherine LaSota shares how inspiring the workshop was and that she placed a few of her photocopied zines in her local little free library and coffee shop! I love how excited we can get over some written words, images, and pieces of paper. That’s my ethos in a nutshell.

At night I meet up with my partner at E-MO in Koreatown to grab kimbap before we catch the train. We’re headed down to South Jersey for the weekend, where my partner’s parents live. On the train ride down, I listen to Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love while reading Leah Kardos’ 33 ⅓ book about the album.

I start the morning with calls that I’ve been looking forward to all week—first with my friend Abbey for our monthly catch up, then with Emily Hall to record an episode for her podcast Soil and Stars.

Though I have a great time chatting, I am not a yapper by trade and my voice is tired once my calls are over! My mother in law gives me a Ryukakusan herbal throat candy from Japan which works wonders.

After lunch, I take my own “Summer Friday” and head to a nearby AMC to make use of my A-List subscription. Today I’m seeing Obsession, a new horror movie about a guy who makes a wish that his crush would love him more than anyone in the world. Of course, things start to go awfully wrong. I’m not a horror buff, but there’s so much to appreciate about Curry Barker’s film — the lighting, the intentionality behind every frame and movement — and Inde Navarette’s performance of the crush-turned-monster who’s actually the victim, trapped in a fate that she doesn’t have agency to leave.

For dinner I visit the local H-Mart with my in-laws and eat Korean cold noodles, one of my all time favorite summer dishes. Today is the first time I’m eating it this summer!

One of my favorite parts of visiting my in-laws in South Jersey is seeing the birds visit their bird feeder. So many creatures partake in the feast, depleting the feeder by noon! The blue jays and cardinals and crows will eat from the hanging bird feeder and throw around their weight, spilling seeds in their wake. Then the sparrows and chipmunks will eat spilled feed on the lawn.

Today is rainy and there’s a slow feeling to the day. I watch a new video, “the secret art to a slow, luxurious life,” from a new favorite Youtuber Brianna Attard. She talks about the guilt that we each have to notice and tend to in order to really allow rest and slowness into our lives. The somatic practice at the end is divine — how I love legs up the wall pose at any time of day!

I’ve also been making my way through Drifts by Kate Zambreno. The most succinct way I can describe this autofiction novel is that it’s about a writer who is struggling to write their book about “nothing.” The novel is very notebook-centered, almost like walking through a narrativized version of her commonplace notes and research across photography and philosophy and literature. In other seasons this sort of book might frustrate me, but it’s perfect for the languid mental exploration I want to savor in the summer.

By mid-afternoon my partner and I get ready to leave. We’re visiting our friends at their home in North Jersey for dinner before heading back home to Brooklyn. These friends are parents of a four-year-old and one-year-old, so the meal is expectably chaotic — Vomit! Zoomies! Rebellion! — but it is very sweet and tender too. The four year old explains his robot drawings to me in great detail and draws himself as a tiny dot on the page, to emphasize the humongous scale of his robots. The one year old delights in eating her first papaya with lime.

***

Connect with Carolyn here:

Substack: SEE YOU

Instagram: @carolynyoo

Website: carolynyoo.com

Thank you for reading The Mood Board! It means so much to me that you are here, and I hope you found bits of inspiration here today. Say hi on Instagram here, shop my faves here, and read my other writing here. And if you want to buy me a coffee, you can do that here. :)

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