During my Summer trip back to Vietnam, I kept finding stillness inside the noise. Under all the motion there was a steady heartbeat, and I could feel it everywhere I went. Naps across plastic stools at noon. Aunties up before sunrise, moving in sync. Flowers packed so tight they held each other up.

I came back thinking about the translucency of rice paper, sesame scattered on rice crackers, banana leaves, lotus rising out of mud, fabric lanterns with their tassels, the fringe on the old lamps in my hotel, floral wallpaper, and the hum of tailors on every street, doing this generations before me.

This collection is how I held on to all of it and brought it home. It’s for a woman who knows how to slow down.

Christine Alcalay