It’s been raining consistently this week and everything about rain gets me in the sweetest mood. The sound, scent, wind, splatter, breeze, cold and random drizzles. If the scent of rain could be captured, I’d wear it as a perfume.

A random stranger sheltered me with his umbrella across the street once. And watching a movie in an open field under the rain is an experience worth repeating. A rain-soaked dog might not smell like waffles in the morning but it sure as heck is comforting to massage its ears as your lap pillows its head. There’s something about the rain that brings people together, just like beaches and lakes.

So here I am—indoors—blogging about the awesomeness of rain because my sister canceled out on me and our little date to the outdoor cinema because she just got her wisdom tooth removed, feels drowsy with the painkillers and it’s raining. Painkillers, I hate you (sometimes). Anyway, I was looking through my little book collection and found a mini book of questions. Some questions were silly silly and others were interestingly silly. Here are some:

Which would be better: taking a cross-country train ride or a one-week trip to Disneyland?
A cross-country train ride, of course.

Which would be worse: being an impatient person or an inconsiderate person?
The latter. You can be impatient and keep quiet about it or be inconsiderate and lash it out on others… which reminds me, I was at Borders this morning and was contemplating purchasing Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman when a really loud and obnoxious man in the Mind, Body and Soul section broadcasted his phone conversation about funerals, being open-minded, wills, cremation or burial, taboos and casket packages. He was inconsiderate and I was impatient with my indecisiveness so I walked off.

Which would be better: living a simple life or having no worries?
Trick question.

Which would be worse: having no sense of humor or no common sense?
Having no sense of humor. If no one laughs with you, at least you could laugh at yourself. Besides, common sense might not be as common as you think.

Which would be better: working with wood or working with clay?
Jesus or Ghost. Jesus. Ghost. Jesus. Ghost. Yes, clay. I like Jesus the carpenter but I hate splinters.

Which would be worse: watching an execution or a fatal car accident?
Sick, sick question.

And, I’ve learned a few things this week.

Fiction: Guinness goes well with everything.
Fact: Guinness does not go well with mangosteens. Not at all.

Fiction: God makes/allows certain things in life for a reason.
Fact: Wisdom teeth and appendix.

That is all.

She is broken. Sometimes selfish. Usually misunderstood. Maybe bipolar. Maybe antisocial. Loving. Busy. Tired and in need of some rest. Prone to lie. Believes in confession. Understands adultery. Famous and infamous. Messy. Alive. Loose. Frightened and fragile. Usually trembling. Addicted. Romantic. Her knees, bent. Her arms, folded. Starving. Laughing. Occasionally overfed. Dirty. Self-righteous. Desperate and longing. Tender. Reaching. Bedraggled. Rich but poor. Thirsty. Good. In pain. Brokenhearted. Knows murder. Backstabbed. Kicks and screams. Misrepresented. Patient. Loved. Foolish. Undeserving. Under-served. Beautiful. Human. To die for.

She is most likely one of us. I don’t know if I like her, but I’m learning to love her.

Surely God has a sense of humor to love people.

I'm still talking to my difficult friend. And I still get tired out. She talks about how one mistake can mess up one's life and how it's the end of the world and I will tell her that it's not the end of the world. And she will talk about her mistakes again.

And I want to take a swim.

It's quieter there and even if I cry it won't be so noticeable. Underwater, things are quiet and when I need to catch my breath, I can float up to rest and surrender to the mass below me.

I probably sound like a desperate escapist, but if you knew me, you'd (probably) drive me to the nearest lake/river/beach/swimming pool pronto. I will show you how I do a somersault underwater and maybe we'd try to sing too. Or skip that and pass me the Wii.

I was talking to one of my closest friends' dad the other night. He speaks rather slowly and when he cracks a joke, he will tell it with a straight face, you'd wonder if he was joking at all. And then he will pause and smile. He gave me his two cents (and more) about handsome men. He said that there are two kinds of guys: 1.) those who are physically handsome and 2.) those who are handsome because of who they are and what they do/don't do. He said I should stick with the latter. He's wise and I couldn't agree more.

He then went on to dispense advice on marriage and love like I was going to elope the next morning. (Eloping would have been fun, but it didn't happen the next morning.)

So it’s true. I’m finally going to India in a month’s time. Thinking about it puts a smile on my face. Indian food. Curries. Bread (mmmm...). Dirt. Mud. Red earth. Cows. Banana leaves. Monkeys (I don’t like them). Bicycles. New faces. Unheard-of traffic rules. One week is too short.

And... here’s my Please Let It Not Be Too Cold In America tour in November (one month of unpaid leave. Yay.). I haven’t bought my plane ticket to the States yet but this morning I bought a ticket to the gods aren’t angry tour (L.A., November 13). I don’t know when I will reach or if there will be plane tickets on the dates I want. I hate planning ahead of time so I’m just going stick to what works: pray and trust.

This weekend: football match at the stadium with the kids. I couldn't be in a better place than here right now.

I've read somewhere about how salt of the earth refers to salt added into the manure (fuel) to enable the fire to last longer. Now I'm beginning to see a glimpse of what He meant. You get rubbed in all the wrong places, you get in with the seemingly undesirable. It stinks and it usually hurts.

I'm tired.

For the past week I have been listening to someone so adamant against love, hope and change, it's draining. I also read that sometimes you live to change the world and sometimes you have to live to keep the world from changing you.

Some things are simply beyond me and my heart is allowed to ache and break. So I'm beginning to see the cracks. Common sense tells me to seal up the cracks with putty or superglue, but these cracks are good. Water leaks from a crack, light breaks into darkness and grass pierces concrete.

As cracks are good here, salt is good for the dung. Even when they don't know what gives the fire its flame, meals get cooked, people are fed and kept warm.

Today I left the office early and went for a walk with my camera. I didn’t have to walk for long, but walks are good when you have nowhere particular to go and no appointment waiting.

So I spotted an old couple with their beat-up VW Beetle. They looked sweet together... he was wearing one of the thickest black rimmed glasses I have ever seen and her nails were stained with chipped pink polish. Way fashionable for their age. She told me in a hush voice of how her husband absent-mindedly left the headlights on and now their battery is dead flat.

“He and that damned car.”

Her husband was busying himself with a spanner, trying to get the battery out from the bottom of the back seat like it weighed an ocean. I know nuts about cars, but gave the thing a go anyway. It’s not everyday that I get myself greased.

Then she asked, “What is your religion?” A little taken aback, I told her that I believed in Jesus.

“No wonder. I guessed it... Jesus’ followers like helping people.”

I felt my perspective shifted and put into place like tectonic plates from a graphical diagram in the National Geographic, sending little quivers and quakes down my spine but expressed outwardly in goose bumps and a smile. Unexpectedly humbling. We went on to talk about faith and her weekend date with her girlfriends.

The heavily salt-crusted battery was soon dislodged and we waved goodbye. I watched them as they walked home together with the car battery in a trolley. Cutest couple ever.

How lost, how amazed, how miraculous we are.

Yes, I'm learning to pause.

There are two things I've been telling myself: breathe and love. Or rather, those were two things I've been reminded of these few days/weeks/months.

The children's home painting project was a disaster in every logical sense. I've heard more complaints than anything else. Some volunteers were complaining about how boring scrapping paint can get while some complained about the music from the radio. Others complained about being there.

(Teenagers.)

My friend tells me I have to filter. He's right. There's this giant invisible sieve hanging over me, reminding me to breathe and love.

There are also gems to be held from the filtering. Some pedophobic guys started to volunteer and my 13-year old brother decided to give away his comics to the kids because comics are/were important to him and the kids have only one comic book in their library.

So in the illogical sense, the home painting project was a success. I liked how we were doing it together, mothers, husbands, sons, daughters, brothers and sisters. Families don't always have it perfect, and that was what we were: family. Unknown to us at that time, we were following and being the hands and feet of the One who came down... literally covered in (His) dust and debris.

On another note, I received my credit card bill today and it’s one of the nicest things this week.

Total amount spent: $0

Love.

I had a good lunch with a friend yesterday. And this happens pretty regularly, come to think about it. We’d go for long lunches and talk, laugh, sigh, sometimes tear a little and eat and drink. A part of me lives for lunches like these.

We were talking about yesterday, who we were five years ago and what we will be five years in the future. I realized that I’m terribly shortsighted. I don’t quite remember much about the things I did and said five years ago. I’m very much the same person, but I think my outlooks changed. Yet the past seem like a blur… dusty even. The future on the other hand, is out of reach.

So we were there together. She was digging into her spaghetti and I was twirling my noodles. We exist now. Today we have each other. Today we live.

Today is all there is.

Today is now.

She suggested we write down our current state. She didn’t really explain why we should do that, but I think we both desire to remember who we were today and choose to be conscious of today.

So here goes.

Today I am:
◦ uncertain
◦ content
◦ yet a little bored
◦ eager
◦ hopeful
◦ smiling
◦ trusting
◦ holding on
◦ remaining
◦ a little sad
◦ a little happy
◦ tired
◦ ♥
◦ wanting to swim in a natural body of water
◦ overdosed on tea
◦ getting rid of ifs in my vocabulary

It’s been raining rather consistently lately and it’s just bliss. A stranger walked me across the street with his umbrella and new carps were added into the mini fish pool outside my house.

On the weekend I stumbled upon a second-hand book sale at the mall. I don’t like the mall in general (terrible artificial lighting, unnecessary spending and the crowd), but it’s kind of inevitable. I didn’t expect to buy anything, but I did. I left the mall with four second-hand books. I can be quite nerdy.

Here are my purchases:

Freedom’s Children: Young Civil Rights Activists Tell Their Own Stories
By Ellen Levine, RM3.00
This is a collection of true stories of 30 African-Americans who were children or teenagers when they fought segregation and discrimination in the South from the 50s – 60s. This book feels like a Ziploc bag on the verge of exploding its contents. If only all books can be so blatantly simple yet powerful. One of my favorite stories in this book (so far) tells of a black woman serving a homeless white man some food. And from that story, I found one of my favorite lines: “People are people, even though they are not always good people.”

Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith
Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year
Both by Anne Lamott, RM12.27
I’m currently reading Plan B and I couldn’t find Traveling Mercies at Borders and I love her writing. These two books are definitely a steal. I love the way she describes the unseen... the dust and wind and the holy. And how laughter is carbonated holiness.

Can You See Me? Images of Atlanta's Homeless
With introduction by Lee Walburn, RM5.00
Above is one of my favorite photos in this book. It’s by Louie Favorite (an awesome name, I reckon). The other photo of the two old men is by Billy Howard. Below are some of my favorite quotes from this book:

What is it that keeps the human spirit alive in a body that is always too hot or too cold, a stomach that is always hungry, and a hand that clutches a bottle always too empty?

What happens when they long for sex and reach to touch skin that is like peeling paint and smell the breath of decaying food and twice-tasted whiskey?

Do they fantasize about perfume and fancy colognes?

Or do they just want to go home?

+

I’ve been living under this bridge four years now. Every year it starts getting cold, y’all come around with your cameras. You take lots of pictures. And nothing ever changes.

During my short stint in Singapore a year ago, I lived with an apostate of Islam. She was disowned by her family in Malaysia and could no longer return to her homeland. But she lives freely today. And the whole Lina Joy case got me thinking about freedom again. They could break our bones and change our names, but they cannot steal our hearts. Freedom is more than living free from oppression. Freedom is to choose life when everything around you dies. And to choose to love despite having every reason to hate.

Before I left Singapore, she gave me five smooth stones she collected from Israel. It’s good to remember these things. It makes me want to... um, declare independence.

On another note, for the past few weeks I have heard far too many wedding ideas for one person to hear. A good friend of mine is planning her wedding and we find our conversations veering toward flowers, the color pink, door gifts, cakes/no cake/cupcakes, deco, bubbles, photography, more pink, invites, venue, honeymoon, children and all things pink/horrifying/beautiful/however you see it.

And I can only deal with this much pink.

Apparently, he hasn’t officially proposed yet. But she’s waiting. If you have no idea where to begin, The Postal Service’s ‘Brand New Colony’ is a great proposing song. I think.

Lately, I have the fascination with the word, 'good.' I don't know if there's another word to really capture the meaning of 'good.' But we say she looks good. That tastes good. He's got a good sense of humor. It was a good film. It smells good. We feel good. It was good catching up with you. A good man is hard to find.

Good is so fluid… yet we somehow know when something or someone is good.

Whether adjective or noun, you can either feel ‘good’ in your hands or call it a mystery. I like the idea of both. Yesterday I met some people who are living the kind of life that I could only call good. The quality of life they live defies the norms of a quality life. What they have or don’t have is not the good, but what they do and how they live with what they have or don’t have. I know many people who live this way and they make me want to spend more time with them. Something about them draws me in and causes my heart to race a little.

Some of them do not have a monthly wage. Most live by faith that God will provide for their next grocery purchase. A friend has only RM30 in savings. A married couple doesn’t know where their money comes from, but it always shows up whenever it is needed. A boy is adopted. A father cries in the bathroom because his son is safe. A husband makes a mistake and his wife forgives and loves him more.

On Saturday I met a 22-year old girl and her third baby. I also met her mom and her sixth child. Her children live in shelters. Not ideal. But I saw that her children are her good. And her children are good. This is good.

I love that good does not mean perfect.

‘Good ending’ makes no sense and is an oxymoron because good doesn’t have an end and it grows. The best movies and books are open-ended. Good is in us and in the world we come in contact with. Me, you, them, fish, horses, worms, pandas, frogs, valleys, mountains, sushi, trees, moss, rocks, water... all very good. I’ve come to know that this is true.

So I got my test photos developed and the camera is dandy. I finally peeled off the price tag. It’s a keeper.

I was just pondering about this thing that I’m doing—the just-in-case habit. Keep the price tag on, just in case you find out the camera is messed up. Take this along, just in case it rains. Keep this, you might need it one day. Write it down. Take a photo. Record it. Maybe I just desperately want to remember things and have the memories with me forever.

I’m a memory hoarder. Maybe.

Yet there are some areas in my life where the just-in-case habit doesn’t apply. My car has insurance that someone else is paying and I don’t have insurance because I can’t afford it. My health “is not covered” and they say anything can happen. I’d never know.

I don’t want to know.

There are things I can never take with me and there would be things that will follow me. Some things I carry unconsciously. Some things I leave behind by choice.

A few minutes ago I let my dog out to pee and caught the sky exploding in streaks of lightning. It was quiet and beautiful. White-yellow lightning echoed orange in the clouds. And I didn’t have my camera with me. Strangely, it felt good. I don’t want to photograph something out of the fear of losing it. It was me, my dog and the sky. I was in the company of greatness.

My dog, being blind and slightly schizophrenic (understatement), was darting here and there but it was a good moment. We have nothing to remember it by, but somehow, it felt “enough.” We have enough, we don’t need more.

I know, my scanner caught some dirty lately. But I'm in no rush to clean it yet.

I was at an orphanage on Sunday. The pastor who runs the home turned down an offer to a new Mercedes Benz for a bus so he could ferry the 100 children to school and back. They have bags upon bags of rice and countless school shoes near the cross at the sanctuary. That (above) is their Tamil bible and some eggs (trays upon trays).

I love it when charity is brought back to its original meaning of love instead of good works. I love it when we no longer help because of pity or conscience sake, but because it’s the only true thing. When we no longer see the need, but the faces, names and lives of the people before the need. When ‘us’ and ‘them’ no longer exist.

There are also some things I enjoy more than others. Here are some of them, in no particular order:
- cold water
- rain
- steamboat dinners
- steam escaping a cup of freshly brewed coffee
- my new flats
- jeans that can take me everywhere
- this isn’t the job I was dreaming of when I was in college, but it’s better
- Krispy Kreme (someone brought some back from Australia today. Mmmm… food that traveled across continents)
- ‘k’s to replace ‘c’s—like Kraftwerk, kontakt, etk.
- winding film in the dark
- waffles (basic or the Belgian kind)
- maple syrup in decorative tins
- the pure pleasure of cotton buds in my ears every morning/night
- empty white walls
- photos on walls
- Ikea’s RM1 soft-serve ice-cream
- stray animals
- corrugated boxes
- old books and magazines
- old photos
- new shirts
- being underwater
- running with nutty children
- airplanes
- ferries
- bridges
- tunnels
- empty roads at night/early in the morning
- my friend, Selina’s room

I could go on. But I shan’t. You people deserve better randomness.

After having lunch today, I walked into a second-hand shop just for the heck of it. And I came out with a Yashica FX-3 (RM155, batteries not included) in a pink plastic bag.

I also had my black and white Holga shots developed and printed. Here are some. For better (bigger) viewing, go here.

She passed away a year ago and for the first time, I'm washing the muffler she knitted for me. She started to knit when her cancer was at the last stage. She would sit on the couch and knit shawls and mufflers while watching tv soaps. Her hearing was deteriorating so she'd turn the volume up to 11 and have a reception bell by her side - just in case no one could hear her calling above the din. My muffler is white with orange-brown patches, warm colored and too warm for Malaysia's weather. I use it in the office mostly... but I will probably use it proper in November.

I love watching time lapse footages. What seem like forever is fast-forwarded into minutes of plants growing, flowers blooming, babies developing, sun rising and seasons passing. Little changes too tiny to be seen with the naked eye in real time now seem significant and vital to the bigger story.

For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

There are a few places in the world that captured my heart. One of them is San Francisco. Another is Cambodia. San Francisco because I've never really felt Chinese or Asian or anything till I was in that city. When in Hong Kong and China, I felt like a foreigner. In Malaysia, I'm mostly struggling to understand and live what it means to be Malaysian. I didn't feel foreign or local in Cambodia, but it felt right. When I was there, I didn't want to be anywhere else.

A can of Coke costs 0.50 cents. Internet cafes charge 0.50 cents per hour. Besides these two things, everything else costs one dollar. Scarves, books, a stack of postcards, tacky touristy t-shirts (I bought two, yay!), fried rice and a child (maybe).

I was on the airplane on my way home and all I wanted to do was turn back. I'm still missing Cambodia. I don't really know why. The country is poor, corruption reigns, undiscovered landmines in remote areas and mosquitoes are everywhere. AIDS, dengue and tuberculosis. All for a dollar. For the first time in my life, I was called 'madame'. I've always associated that term with snooty ladies with a pointy nose, an extremely long cigarette filter in one hand and a fat wig-wearing rich man in her arms. So that was disturbing.

Apparently, Cambodians like their pastors mashed.

I was at a meeting the other night and one lady was sharing about her experience at an orphanage. She brought her own kids with her to that visit so her kids could see beyond themselves and another kind of life. The 100 orphans live in two sheds built over a drain where the children sleep beside. Cleanliness is secondary to everything else: shelter, food, spirit. Instead of making new friends, her kids did not want to sit and be around the orphans. They squirmed and did not desire to be there. The lady was hurt... angry and sad not because her kids were bad, but that she felt as though she failed as a mother. I can't help but think that God feels the same way when we withhold love from others because of their lack. Because they have no political power, health, wealth and social network. Because their 'lack' reveals our lack.

I received an email today, detailing a one week trip to Chennai, India this August. Sounds all too exciting, but the tasks the trip entail seem overwhelming. I will sit on it though. What do I have to lose, right?

I was going to write about the land, food, people, children and the ruins but Blogger was giving me problems. I'm frustrated and will go read a book now.

Here are some photos. For more, please visit Flickr and Being (ever growing). There are more Cambodia photos in the latter.

I’ll be leaving for Cambodia this Friday and I’m so psyched, I can’t concentrate at the office. I’m too easily distracted. Seriously. As much as I can’t wait to be in Cambodia, I’m sure that when I’m there, I’d be itching to come home so I can upload some photos. This itch needs some restraint. Seriously.

My friends told me of some strange temporary monks and plastic pails of alcohol. I read about the landmines and the usage of pot as garnishing. (Pat, I hear that silk shawls there are US$2/each. Catch me before I leave!)

I’ve also been reading a well-worn travel guidebook that was handed down from friend to friend. I don’t even know the person who owned/s it. And apparently, someone who used this book previously circled some interesting places such as “Heart of Darkness” and “Manhattan Club” under the nightlife section. Dodgy. Oh, how I love used things/second-hand books.

(Side note: I once bought and Eastpak bag for my sister from a second-hand shop and the guy there told me that they get their goods from America. Then he whispered, “The Americans think that they’re donating to a third world country.” Ah. Right. I paid RM50 [approx. US$14] for a bag someone thought was going to charity.)

(The shop closed down sometime later.)

So I have a photoblog now. It’s called Being and you can find it here. (I’m still figuring out how it works though. And if you're observant, you will see that I added new links and changed a tab here.) I will try to be a little bit more consistent.

I’ve been extremely busy lately, but I had fun. We made body glitter with the kids on Saturday. I didn’t expect the boys to like the idea, but they were eager to have a go at a little shine.

Boys with glitter playing football. David Bowie will be proud.

My sister took that photo of me taking this photo. I didn’t know. Apparently, I don’t know a lot of things.

But here are some things I know (rather roughly):
- completeness and rest go hand in hand
- we live in a wreckage
- we can make it beautiful
- thunderstorms make me feel small, but that’s ok
- surrender is not a bad word
- free airline tickets are the best
- deadlines make me nervous

It was unusually good to wake up at 5am, make some last minute amendments to my shirt (cut and sew), skip breakfast and drive off into the sunrise. I like having dew on my car, it makes me think of mint and grass. But I think I like escaping the office more.

We reached Muar a little later than expected and everyone was waiting—the kids, teachers and the food. The flood came and left them with discarded computers, watermarked walls, clogged drains, lost records, deaths and an extremely dry season. By the time we passed out the stationeries, books and cookies, I was literally melting. I don’t know if I have any sweat left in my body.

Later, we visited another school in an oil palm estate away. It was built in 1941 and had an old building with a glass cabinet filled with taxidermy and dust. Strange, indeed. Fun? Of course.

As I was wandering around, four little kids stumbled upon me. Everything about them is so tiny, you could so pick them up with one hand and carry them off. I was talking to one of the girls and she’s got one of the biggest set of eyes I’ve seen. Really beautiful and arresting. Our conversation went something like this:

What’s your name?
Puteri (Princess)
And what’s your brother’s name?
Putera (Prince)
… And who’s the Raja (King)?
My Daddy

Good Friday is coming and she’s been on my mind.

She was a little quieter than usual, and maybe a little bit more serious too. She came into the room with a basin of water and a towel over her arm. What she was about to do seemed familiar in the imaginary sense, but none of my imaginings prepared me for this reality.

A little apprehensive at first, but I knew I had to get my feet in the water. It wasn’t comfortable and neither was it natural. But it was freeing. Something about it seemed so wrong, it must be right. Looking at her from where I was seated, I was looking at her upside down.

So this is what He meant.

After she washed our feet, we got on our knees and washed her feet. One by one, little digits and gaps. She didn’t ask for it, but we knew we had to follow. Not in the obligatory sense, but in the I-know-this-to-be-true sense.

That night, we washed each other of our skewed ideas of what it meant to love. Like a child again, someone else was washing me. Like a child again, I was learning and relearning, ready to love and be loved. It was as though we were ‘baptizing’ each other into each other in all our vulnerability.

We belonged.

I found a different kind of grandeur.

This was years ago, but it’s still ringing for me. Thank you for showing me what it meant to follow and be found.

*edit
I was at flea market and saw many fake Rolexes and old vinyls. I haven’t got my turntable fixed and could not carry off a fake Rolex so all I could afford was a spiffy glass with little chipmunk illustrations.

I’m going to Cambodia at the end of this month. Ecstatic.

My dad and I don't get along that much. When I was young, he left me outside a movie theater while the family went inside because I wouldn't stop crying because he wouldn't buy me some snacks that I don't remember because I'm probably repressing the memory. When I was slightly older, he kicked me out of the house because we argued over something I don't remember as well.

He's never the kind of dad who is verbally expressive or affectionate and I'm the kind of daughter who finds the term "daddy's girl" foreign. He'd say stuff, that my mom will later tell me, he doesn't mean. My mom knows him better than he knows himself.

We argue less these days because we talk less. Movies with father-daughter scenes still make me cry because 1) I can't relate and 2) I want to relate. Having said all that, he's not a bad father. I was just a difficult kid.

On Friday morning we visited his father at the cemetery. My grandpa died young in a barber's chair. He drank too much, partied too hard and worked too little—that's what my grandma said. My dad doesn’t speak much about his father, but he did mention that as a kid, his father would make him eat vitamins that tasted bad. My dad would pop them into his mouth and pretend to be a good kid. When his father wasn’t looking, he’d run to the balcony to spit them out. But one day someone discovered all the tiny tablets of goodness on the ground below. It didn’t make anyone happy.

So we were at the cemetery and the Buddhist temple. My dad brought the hell-notes, paper clothes and shoes and made a bonfire of it. Nothing really Buddhist about it actually, but it’s a belief that has found its way into tradition. My dad doesn’t see it that way though. We see things differently.

But we are so alike.

That morning he asked me to get some flowers for grandpa. He called it my contribution. It was like an invitation to join him in remembering his father. I was glad. It wasn’t a “grand gesture” but I enjoyed picking the flowers. I liked how my dad asked me with a smile. I liked that he asked me. And that he liked me.

And that I saw glimpses of another Father in him.

Here are some black and white photographs I took that morning.
And here are some happy colored photographs.
These are from the Buddhist temple. I thought pagodas and ornate doors are too familiar so I took a bunch of “rubbish”—my dad’s description of my kind of photography. Above: some thorny plant and below: a cup of burnt joss sticks. So my dad is right (sometimes), I know. But I like the way the colors turned out anyhow. For more rubbish photography, head to Flickr and Virb. My photographs are here and there. You can find some holga shots there too.

Unfriendly nuns are scary.