Posts tagged “writing”

Growing Branches

Posted on 30 January 2018

I did something which I perhaps should have done long ago – I made a Facebook page and an Instagram for this blog of mine. If you want to see more photos, or hear more thoughts (in smaller doses!), give them a follow. Alas my busy life makes it difficult for me to give my travel writing, and this blog, the time I would like, but hopefully this year I will 1) write more (and travel more – I have plans!) and 2) these other venues will allow me to more frequently share words and images that I hope you’ll appreciate. Look for you there!

Categories: Life

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Halfway, Forever

Posted on 23 November 2013

That time right before dusk when the strange air swirls around you presents possibilities mysterious, romantic, dark, exhilarating, and final. Yet now, only this small gap of time and space matters. Nothing else because there is only this, this. This moment, it exists and it is dying. You know it and you don’t care. Throw your arms high and wide and laugh! You exist, solidly, in this instant, and that is something to revel in. It is so hard to force only now to matter, and by that, embrace the impending future rather than fight it and fear it. This is the trial of living your limited present, rather than scenes of what probably will not come to pass. The current moment is ever…

Categories: Life, Photography, Travel

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A Brief but Pleasant Exile

Posted on 3 November 2013

Once upon a time, in a city far from here but in a mind very much the same, I needed to move. My edges were fraying, slivers were snatched away by the rude indifference to my person showed by this large city exemplifying cruel contrasts. It stared at me with a blank, grey face. I walked for hours along the embankments, earbuds firmly in, aimless, avoiding eye contact, snarling at beer bottles floating atop the dirty waters. I lurched on corners, waiting impatiently for the no one who would allow me to dash across the road. I stared ahead into darkness as I descended endless escalators into a stuffy, subterranean world where I held myself stubbornly, elbows out. Rage swelled as obnoxious Hummers sped past…

Categories: Life, Travel

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Helsinki Behind Our Apartment

Posted on 12 September 2013

I was never truly bored in Finland. All through my computer-less months, when I was home by myself after Finnish class while friends were still at work, despite multiple re-reads of the English books on hand (luckily I can read Harry Potter endlessly), my oft solitary afternoons weren’t dull. I lived in Helsinki, see, and it’s too pleasant for boredom. Behind our apartment sprawled Kaivopuisto. Puisto, for those who don’t speak Finnish, means park. I needed only meander a few serene blocks away, and I would be striding by the gulf under the bluest skies. So, if I had nothing pressing to attend to—which was often—on went my shoes (never worn in the home) and in went my headphones (Ismo Alanko already queued up)…

Categories: Travel

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The Bridge and the Fog

Posted on 6 September 2013

We scaled the Marin headlands in our rental car, seeking an icon—the bridge, what else? Midway up, we hurriedly parked and peered toward the Golden Gate, which was obscured by a thick, blue grey white trundling mass. This sea above a sea, it calmly rushed over hills, over water, toward the city. “Sorry!” my friend said. “You can’t even see the bridge!” No sorry. Despite the fog, because of the fog, we could see so much. A rainbow hovered in front of us, arching over our shadows. The fog, presenting our alternate selves. Higher we went. A sense of adventure permeated the thick air, even though nothing was happening but the evening wearing on. And the fog flowed like a river, a waterfall over…

Categories: Photography, Travel

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