someday i will

[photo:someday i will: Dak Lak, Vietnam, August 2008]

mark says this reminds him
of when he was himself a boy
allowed to be a boy and free
to jump
in streams and rivers
forgiven for darkening his skin
bathing in the heat and sun
in a small town in Dipolog

gigi

[[string:by2:oh i want to feel what she is feeling

[[string:by2:so thrilled to be photographed

[[string:by2:oh i want that inner knowing

i don't really know her name
but i think i'll call her Gigi
look at her here
feeling pretty
and rightly so

she makes me smile

fishing for beads

photo:fishing for beads

good people around me fall sick
i am neither a doctor or nurse
but i fish for beads and with each i think
of good health to carry us all through

another step program

[[string:by2:we climbed this many

here a 308-step program for getting what you want:

1. Know what you want

2-308. To Be Defined

[photo: Point Reyes Lighthouse, Mendocino, California, August 2007]

be like the lichen

[[string:by2:lichens? i think.

a new mantra:

be like the lichen
happy just to be,
clinging devotedly
to a wind-whipped rock

---bill bryson

bidden

a great many things bid me from bed
but none is better than the morning light
in this living room,
the sunkissed woodfloors gleam
and the sofa invites me
to bask in the remaining shadows

bittermelon

[photo: Bittermelon. Bulacan, Philippines, February 2007]

in my language, this is called ampalaya
it's a curiousity that this vegetable was ever
considered for food for it
leaves a bitter taste in your mouth
that can only be made palatable
by soaking it in salt and lots of it

yet for all its bitterness
this remains a family favorite
and for my brother, who is a chef,
his comfort food
one mother used to cook for him
when she sensed
he needed cheering

bitterness and cheer
Who knew?

Waiting for a good wave

waiting for a good wave
one that will catch me right under my belly
and take me right back to shore
one will come I'm sure
if I just wait

One Day

Dusk at at the Citadel, the ancient fort, the two kites are the holdout to the day's kite runners. I sit at the hot cobble stones. I watch that boundless sky attempting impossibly to make out the thin string that holds them to the ground and the young boys whose mothers I'm sure were calling them for dinner.


It's as if one says to the other one day one of us will be lost to the other. It had always been you (lost) to me but this time it's different. Grace says it best.


One day
one of us
will be lost
to the other

this has been
talked about but
lightly turning
away shyness this
business of con-
fronting the
preference for
survival

of course I
want you in the world
whether I’m in it or
not your spirit
I probably mean

there is always
something to say in
the end speaking
without breath one
of us will be lost
to the other

-Grace Paley

Me. I really need a haircut.

Posting everyday is hard. Mostly because I keep debating what is appropriate content for a blog, which is a discussion I've read often among bloggers. Where do you draw the line between sharing too much and sharing too little? Must there even be a reason other than to seize the opportunity to practice writing, encourage once self to think about things just a little bit more critically to try to get to the bottom of why certain things resonate to you than others. So. Me. Need Haircut? Too much info? Too little? Too insignificant? You decide.

Simple

...sometimes is best.

Today I celebrate the last of my kitchen renovation payments. There are a finishing touches to be made (lighting, pantry cabinet doors, backsplash) but the general idea for the kitchen makeover is all done. I love this new kitchen. It has brown walls that I thought I would get tired of eventually but it's been close to 10 months and I still think the brown makes the room cozy and sophisticated. It provides a setting only made even better with the meditative qualities of making cafe sua da, Vietnamese ice coffee, slow brewed and sweetened with condensed milk. My neighbor Denise made that mosaic disk that is sitting on top of the table. It's on loan, but don't remind her that....

When boys grow up

They need bigger beds. Oliver has a big boy bed now. If you know his parents as well as I do, you would realize that he is their quintessential combination. He is smart, outgoing, smart, good looking, smart, good natured, smart. (Smart runs in both parents; They can fight about all the rest.) Oliver loves to read. His big thing now is to find the word car in this book that he likes and when you ask him things about the book he knows what's going on, remembers words even difficult ones like pedestrian and carefully. He uses the preposition to for everything. He hands you a candy bar and says with a cuteness that ought to be included in a penicillin capsule: Open to me please. I love it when you see a child grow up right before your eyes, the way they start putting things together in their heads, how they get excited about a word the way they do with new toys. I envy parents for this very novel view of the world.



Once I was in a New York subway train and I happen to observe a young new reader as she mouth the word exit silently. She tried a good many times before giving up and after her Mom finally helped her sound out the words, I saw her close her eyes, briefly and almost solemnly, as she entered that word in the brand new and enormously spacious database in her head.

In life, there is a place for critical thinking and questioning and doubt---even cynicism---but I would rather see the world the way these kids do. Presented with a candy bar of strawberry goodness, I want to approach the world the way Oliver does. With open arms and curious eyes I want to say:

Open to me, please. Open to me!

The New Amanda

Perhaps you may not have noticed her transformation from radioactive superhero to fashion icon. Note the leather cuff with the colorful stone. This is her rock chic outfit which by her now updated standards is not even her best stuff. So check back for the truly rocking stuff as the weeklong blog continues.

A Case for Sainthood

I met one of my own personal saints today at Hartigan Beach. She reminds me of my lack of due diligence on posting so I vow to write everyday for a week. As a jumpstart to the week-long blogging exercise and since today is Sunday I start by making a case for sainthood.

My personal saint is pretty cool. Her halo magically turns into a frisbee as shown above. She sings in a rock glee club, her clothes are funky and usually short and revealing unlike the marmish garbs of my other favorite saints (St. Therese, St. Ignatius) and just like the saints of that wild eyed Damian, mine can be conveniently summonned for drinks at Hopleaf on Friday nights by a simple cellular phone call. Of course the true question is what has necessitated the need to summon a saint in the first place. Well saints, as it turns out, are quite useful to have around. To begin with, they offer your roommate, your friends and your pets, even your local barista for whom you haven't broken a smile of thanks, a break from your insanity of the past couple of days.





Now the very idea of saints is a matter that has spurred division among big religions but this is not about that. This is a testament to the workings of what I can only call, obligingly for lack of a better word, divine providence, of how when we seek it, it is there in various and unlikely forms. Last week it was in the clear prose of Bill Bryson who comprehensively lays out fact after fact of the enourmousness of our universe making a case for how insignificant yet unbelievably lucky we are, the sheer randomness of how we came into being, the inexplicable way that scientifically we ought not be here yet, perversely, we are. Today it was in the lyrics of a Scottish traditional church anthem and a pep talk from a much loved saint who tells me I'm not a fool, that I am brave and that the heart will heal as all hearts do and that she is of me "proud as a dog in shoes" for daring to seek the person that I am born to be. Who that is is work in progress but I'm fairly certain it includes love and the constant pursuit of grace and kindness in all circumstances even ones that leave me broken and lost.