I wrote the first red essay in 2010 as I was preparing to move to California, and a year later, I felt it was not enough. The words on the page, the research, even the stories—my stories—fell flat. I wanted to make something tangible and concrete; something that physically existed in the world, so I designed an art installation for the Asian American Women Artists Association’s juried exhibition called A Place of Her Own that was shown at SOMArts Cultural Center in San Francisco in May 2011.

My place was two red doors 12-feet high with 83 red scarves falling out from the sides, and 4 red frames arranged like a window to the left. It was a liminal place—my red threshold—a symbol for the new life in California I believed I was on the verge of living. But, I was too protected to step through my own doors back then.

It took almost 10 more years of healing, education and transformation to write the next red essays and for the doors to open.

Through my research and exploration of the color red, the nature of grief, trauma and adoption psychology, the trope of the lost and abandoned child, fairy tales, my life in California, the healing arts, and love, I have come to new revelations about my personal experiences in relation to myth, reality and the concrete that are still held within the metaphor of the red frame.