Week 15: Life/Death

Life (left: Mary)

We were perched high up in the Himalayan Mountains, sitting around a fire in a small hut used by shepherds as heavy rain, snow and hail fell outside. We were drinking tea and discussing life.

‘Life is for learning’, Ayub, our new Kashmiri friend, said. I smiled and instantly agreed. He shared a Kashmiri phrase that explains that when you come to the mountains, your fists are closed, but when you leave, they are open. He extended his arms and as he sat there with his palms facing the sky, I thought about how true and beautiful that was.

To greet life every day with outstretched arms, to seize moments, both good and bad, is to live. For me, this is life.

What moments are you taking hold of these days? What does ‘life’ mean to you?

Death (right: Sarah)

Death is the most curious certainty, isn't it?

We travel through life grasping at vitality, wrapping our slowly withering petals around greener vines. Time thieves us of our supple beauty, bones creak, vision fades, and minds are lost...

In some cases there is no slow process - life ends in all of its brilliance, still full, and yet emptied of promise.

We know we will go, but when and how? And what will happen when we get there? We can all speculate, but we can never really know.

What do you believe? What happens when you cease to exist here on earth?

Week 14: Noise/Silence

Noise (left: Sarah)

Korea is called "Land of the Morning Calm", which kills me, cause it is by no means land of the calm any time of the day. Pshh. It should be called "Land of the Morning Grandmother out Bashing her Giant Metal Rings for Some Completely Unknown and Probably Ridiculous Reason" OR "Land of the Morning Somebody Come and Shoot This Wretched Cat Cause She's Been in Heat for, like, EVER!" OR "Land of the Morning Hork the Entire Contents of Your Body Out and Rid Yourself of Disease." OR "Land of the This Building has Been Under Construction for 27 Years and it is Likely to Continue for the Rest of Your Days so you'd better Invest in Some Earplugs." Orrrr, "Land of the Morning Every Single Citizen Plays Piano or Violin and Can and Will Practice Whenever They Feel Like it."

Get the picture?

This place is NOISY.

Tonight was Korea's first game in the World Cup and national pride sends people screaming and honking into the streets and hurling their voices off of every single balcony! It's pretty exciting, and Hey! They won! FIGHTING!

Silence (right: Mary)

‘There are times when silence has the loudest voice’ Lerow Brownlow

Silence is a powerful thing and these days, I revel in it. Whether it is a quiet day reflecting by the sea, lying in a hammock, or walking through ancient ruins, I’m constantly discovering old stories and dreaming up new ones.

Figures in walls tell stories of ancient empires come and gone, their kings and those who served them, the wars they fought, the beliefs they held and the artists who laboured to make them. All of this without any words being spoken or heard.

Sometimes, silent stories are the most intriguing; it’s all in what you or I make of them. The above image could mean something completely different to you than it does to me, and both of our ideas could be different from what the artist intended.

Making stories from silence is a powerful thing. Therein, lie so many possibilities.

Where are the silent moments in your life taking you? Anywhere exciting?

Double Dose

Well, it's going to be a double does of PP next week as our techie is deep into the mountains for the next few days. (It's my fault for sending my picture late. I admit it.)

Week 13: Disgusting/Delightful

Disgusting (left: Sarah)

The streets downtown are literally littered. A mess with flyers, business cards, posters and discarded everything. There are no trash cans to be found so people make ooey gooey trash piles. Next to the ooey gooey piles are oeey gooey blobs of hork and an open sewage system that in the summer smells like exactly what is.

When I think of the things that are most disgusting to me it always comes back to waste - human waste, wasted things, wasted time, and wasted energy.

The times I feel most disgusted with myself is when I waste ideas or opportunities. As of late my ideas are all too often wasted, feathers stolen by the wind, whirling around with no place to cement themselves.

How about you, had any bright ideas lately?

Delightful (right: Mary)

When I think about delightful I think about a slice of my mom’s warm apple crisp, curling up with a book on a rainy day, or having a good conversation. But, one of the biggest delights on this trip has been our interaction with the kids we’ve met along the way.

I’m always a bit reserved when it comes to taking pictures of strangers, so I’m careful to ask for permission. The usual response is an enthusiastic, ‘yes’. So I take pictures with both the SLR and with the Fujifilm Mini (which prints the pictures immediately).

Kids especially love to have their picture taken. Not because they are aspiring models but because they love to see their beaming faces on the little screen. Real delight, though, comes when they get to hold a picture of themselves, put it in their pocket and take it home.

At first, before the picture develops, their faces stare bewildered at the blank film. Slowly, as the picture emerges, their faces begin to light up. They look up at me astonished and then once they appear in the photo, they get hysterical with giggles. They run about showing off their new treasure to mom or dad all while glancing back at me with the biggest smile.

Who knew such a small gesture could translate into such pleasure for them and especially for me.

What are some of the things that take you by surprise and bring you great delight?

Week 12: Wet/Dry

Wet/Dry (Mary)

Southeast Asia has two seasons: the hot & dry and the hot & wet. We’re currently baking in the hot and dry season and really craving a little rain (although, sadly, we likely won’t experience much of this until we get to Sri Lanka in July).

During our three months of traveling in this hot season, we’ve experienced the dry, dryer, and driest areas of this landscape. Fields are brown and sun-scorched, dust swirls in the streets (and into our nostrils and eyeballs), lakes evaporate and the earth cracks and crumbles.

Soon, the rain will come. New life will sprout up, the air will clear and the ground will drink its fill.

What is it that quenches your thirst when you feel parched? What fills you up?

Wet/Dry (Sarah)

I don't have anything to say about being wet or dry really, they both have their time and place.

But the thing I do see in both of these images is the way that the sunlight transforms something simple into something lovely.

There have been several moments in my life that I have looked at something that I've seen many times (and perhaps never taken proper notice of before) in an entirely different way. The way an object or person is illuminated or cast into shadow, the atmosphere, the sounds or smells that are present can all play a role in how you see something, or someone.

When was the last time you saw a person, place or thing in a different light? How or why did it change? Was it you that changed, or them, or it?

"The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it" Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

Week 11: Hot/Cold

Hot (left: Sarah)

All I can think about is one of my mom's most infamous lines ... "I'm not evil, I'm HOT!". Any woman who has ever had a hot flash just might be able to relate to that. Anyone who lives, or ever has lived in Korea in the summer just might be able to relate to that as well. It's hot here, damn hot. Sweaty, sticky cracks and crevices hot... uggghh, I shudder to think about the season that is just around the corner rearing it's ugly, steamy head.

I don't do well with super hot temperatures, but one way I can handle the heat is by way of delicious, spicy food... and this country also has that in abundance. These hot red peppers find their way into many dishes and sauces. YUMMMMMMY!

Cold (right: Mary)

Heat envelopes me; a tight grip. It takes the air from my lungs and forces me to attempt deeper, longer breathes. I can only bear it in short bursts. Everything sticks. An icky film forms and a drip of sweat slowly makes it's way down my forehead before falling to the floor.

These are the (all too frequent) moments where I find myself manically searching for relief. To remind my body that it's not aloud to spontaneously combust. Relief may come in a glass or a cone, a pool, river, ocean or pond, and if we're really lucky, it can be found in a hotel room coming from within a sweet little box, pumping out cool refreshing air.

The glorious cold, how I love it in all it's forms these days. I love how it feels against my skin or as it makes it's way all the way down into the depths of my belly. Absolutely brillant on a day, just like this one.

(Currently in Ho Chi Minh City AKA Saigon, Southern Vietnam. Temperature around 38 degrees)

Week 10: Constructed/Natural

Constructed (left: Sarah)

When I think construction I see 'manmade' and when I think manmade vs. natural, I seem to recall a conversation I had with my father many moons ago. I know, I sound ancient. I digress...

The gist of the conversation was something like this. What makes an apartment building, block of houses or a grocery store any less natural than a bird's nest, or beaver's dam or a hole for squirrely's nuts? We humans are animals too after all, building shelters, storing up food for the winter and feeding our young. Sure we have better technology, and more complex brains, but we are still animals.

We are a part of nature, using materials and principles derived from nature to build and expand.

And, as I type this, I question ever having had this convo, or if I just somehow dreamed it up. (Dad, care to confirm?)

What's your take, what do you consider to be natural, or constructed, or are they one and the same?

Natural (right: Mary)

When I hear the word ‘natural’, I think of beauty, or at least my idea of it. I think of a genuine smile, dense forests, billowing clouds tumbling over mountains, kindness and creatures big and small.

I think of this planet on which all of the above can be found. From Mother Nature to human nature, and the ways they interact, I am humbled and awestruck when I take the time to see.

What have you seen lately?