Recovered

I left this draft here a few years ago….
now all I remember that these were photos from a memory card that was lost for 3 years and then miraculously recovered.
no such luck later, when my camera drowned (and almost so did I). those photos were gone.
but probably doesn’t really matter anymore even about these photos, as the years tick by, everything only exists in memory.
that October full moon, never to be forgotten, even though I’m quite sure its all gone now.
well, not the moon, literally, just the festivities, as they were.
old world charm and all that.
you know, because we westerners prefer to keep others in their rustic ancient ways, just so that we can snap cute photos that we can reminisce over in our comfortable, cozy, preferably air-conditioned apartments thousands of miles away.
actually, as it happens, I never know anymore what I was going to say 🙂
that’s why I stopped writing. no coherent thoughts at all.
and I know for a fact that it doesn’t happen to everybody who happens to live with a small child, but it did happen to me.
I regressed not only into a cavern of darkness and despair…. but also lost the words to talk about it.
anyway…. the photos. Luang Prabang was what it was, and I guess it is what it is, even now. I don’t ever look back.

I 

Perfect

The thing is, I was given a perfect little baby and I am scared I will screw it up, and he will ask me why on earth I ever wanted to create him out of nothing.

I still cannot come to terms with the absurdity and near impossibility of creation.

And now it’s supposed to be easy, I sleep when he sleeps, I feed him when he smacks his lips, and I hold him close when he cries. But somehow I still find an hour or two every once in a while to cry my eyes out. These are the tears he knows, from when he was still inside, when I had hardly anything else circulating in my system to nourish him but tears, and he just stares into my eyes, innocent but still omniscient, and I cry even harder.

Spring explosion

Never really had the patience, all over these months, to take photos properly. Just a few minutes of playing around with snapshots, then lost interest. Even now, can’t really be bothered to choose the very best. But anyway, it took me by surprise, all over again, how quickly everything grows and changes and develops here. Everything is in constant turmoil and perpetual transformation. Forget the papayas that take over half a year to ripen, the flowers that keep blooming for weeks and weeks, the fruits whose seasons last half a year. Here, it is all out for a day, or a week, and then all gone, on to the next flower, the next fruit. Constantly in a hurry, constantly kind of “mourning” the loss of something that won’t come back for another year. It’s a very different state of mind. Very difficult for me to try to adjust. Feels like I’m losing something every single second, there is no time to get used to or get bored of anything, need to grab every moment to admire and exploit and gobble it up, before it is gone, before it is too late. I don’t even know what my favourite fruit is, never had the chance to find out, I just always devour the one that happens to be available this week. Over in Thailand, I did manage to figure out that it is mangoes and grapes. Because I had the time to figure it out….

In any case, I still did have the state of mind to contemplate how on earth it is possible that tiny seeds grow into giant plants, and they know exactly what to do and what shape of leaves to grow and when it is time to develop flowers and what kind of fruits those will transform into. I did advanced biology all right, and I know the theory, but I still have no idea how it is really possible at all in real life.

And of course, it also applies to my son, how can two people whose lives and personalities barely intersect still create something nearly perfect out of two single cells? It still baffles me. Completely.

Kids from yesteryears

I got so slack with blogging even though I had all the time in the world…. almost, so to speak…. and now that it’s stolen five minutes here and there, again, I feel a bit more motivated. God knows why…

My first batch of Thai kindergarteners are in grade 7 now. Time flies. They were special to me. The one with the curly hair, people often thought she was my daughter. Smart and insecure and emotional, so much like me. Then, the chatty little boy, naughty and pesky, but sharp and creative and considerate. I always said to people, if I ever have a son, I would like a son just like him. Always have been attracted to similar characters over the years, ever since. And then, the boy with the huge eyes, quiet, absorbing everything with some kind of ageless wisdom, making me want to be better than I was, try to come up to his image of me…. rather unsuccessfully, I would say. And the little princesses – I’m not supposed to have favourites, but I always do. I did have sleepless nights about them, and worries, and sometimes cried my eyes out. I hope they prepared me to be a better mother. I’m still feeling woefully inadequate at the moment.

I promise I will try to come back to blogging…. I need to keep my sanity, keep some kind of footing, grounding…. and I lost so much time, so many thoughts, again, just all that suppressed fear I had all along my pregnancy…..

Anyway…. my kids…. now I have my own, after all these years….

Fear of joy

Songkran is notoriously difficult to take good photos of, especially if you don’t have a waterproof camera, which I never did for this festival…. for the real deal, really need to google images for “chiang mai songkran parade”….. please do 🙂

It was an experience…. but then, after three years, I always preferred a trip abroad in the middle of April, after having been knocked off my motorbike something like 5 days before the holiday, on the way home from work. I didn’t feel safe anymore. I desperately wanted to be there but was too scared to. But I do miss the parades, the streets of the old city, where most people still managed to behave respectfully (more or less), at least back in 2006.

Every April, for a few hours, I’m there in spirit, seeking blessings, praying, and going for an all-out water fight with my students in the scorching April heat. I miss the joy…. that crazy outpouring of sheer joy that the photos don’t reflect. They were taken at the parade to the governor’s residence, not a main event. I was way too worried about my camera. Just feasting on others’ photos all the time when I want to remember.

 

I remember this guy above kept a chilled can of beer in his bowl, not offerings 🙂

 

 

 

So many moments of joy coming to my mind now, people and experiences I don’t have any photos of. Dancing in the monsoon rain. Chanting with the monks. The scent of flowers staining my fingertips yellow. The chill of icy water running down my spine.

I’ve had a good life, after all…. but the thing is, I need joy from the world, from others, from outside, I cannot just generate and create it for myself. I’m like a vampire, feeding on others’ souls…. and desperately trying to give back and contribute, just the restore balance to the world.

These days, I’m scared I will die soon and then who will take care of my son? I cannot send him back to his father, no matter how much I love him. There is never ever any more balance in this world. No way, impossible. I wanted to create something way too desperately and I’m still half expecting lightning to strike me down.

And even if I live, can I not put this burden on him, that he needs to make me happy and give me joy and give meaning to my whole life?

I’ve been wanting this so many years, and I thought my years of not caring about myself at all would help, but probably I’ve been on the wrong track all along. Or not sure what’s going on. I’m still terrified and not a single step closer to feeling all right about what awaits me.

Sometimes I fear that no songkran, no new years, no joy will ever help….

 

 

Unbleached

One night a few days ago, I sat up abruptly in the middle of the night, and three words flashed into my mind, out of nowhere, unhinged, derailed, bleached. Obviously, I’m not in the best of mental states, but whatever…. it is what it is. Bleached I did come across though a few days later, on the way to visit family. The landscape, all the colours. Everything looks like an old photo from the seventies, having lost its original colours through some lousy application of chemicals, or simply time. Supposed to be one of the best landscapes around here and never even thought of reaching for my camera. So devoid of life and excitement and all. But at least it didn’t make me sad or anything, I was just quietly observing things for now. I’m point blank refusing to think about or plan for anything beyond the next couple of months.

Still waiting for the other two words to make themselves more clear, though there may be no specific reason here beyond the obvious.

Well, at least one thing I’m enjoying here at home are all the bland, “bleached” flavours of my childhood. I don’t miss any of this stuff here that I enjoyed taking photos of.

Celebrate the light

It’s not really November full moon at the moment, but holidays and festivals always make me think, and today I was thinking about loy krathong. As I’m trying to graduate from fearful to fearless, and rise to the challenge of raising my son, I’m asking myself too many questions again.

I come from a family where we cannot and do not celebrate anything. When I first went to Asia, I was instantly captivated by the completely over the top, outrageous, colourful and boisterous and flavourful and insane festivals.

I was swept away by the community spirit, the openness, the emotional highs and lows. I had to learn how to celebrate things. Not just take photos or run for dear life when firecrackers are hurled into the thickest crowd, but also to think about their meaning, to connect with them, and make them my own. Hiding and pretending that nothing is happening is simply not an option.

So, now it comes to the point that I have established loy krathong rituals for those November full moon nights, but I still have no idea whatsoever what to do about Easter. But I would guess most people don’t. These original ideas of sacrifice and death and resurrection and forgiving and salvation are just way too serious. And somehow spring is not really around most of the time anyway. There is no community, most rituals and customs are tedious, people just seem to run these errands and feel relieved when they are over. I cannot feel that overwhelming joy that is in every lantern, every song, every candle or flower in any Asian holiday.

We just don’t have the spirit here. I feel blank. I have no idea what heritage and traditions I can pass on to my son. I hope the colours, songs and joy of Asia are in his blood already. And then we’ll figure out the rest together as the years go by.

Congratulations to damn wordpress about the new editing surface. I see a 3-centimetre strip of my photos and text, and have to painstakingly edit either code or these nearly incomprehensible cross sections of material just to make sense of my own post and pictures 😦  Fuck you all. Just to keep the holiday spirit. 😦  Way to motivate me to make the effort to try to post regularly, too. My mood is completely ruined and my blood pressure is up.  😦  

Dazzling whites

I believe last year I skipped whites from my colour series. In the tropics, it is really easy to overlook, put it down as a conspicuous lack of colour, but sometimes in the strong and dazzling December sun, even the whites dance and shine.

The elaborate dragon motifs on the temple roof are Chiang Rai’s famed White Temple, and most of the flower photos were taken at the New Year flower festival on the same day, among the million reds, oranges, pinks and purples – still one of my favourite events in Thailand.

Bonus photo at the very end: my sister’s snow white deaf cat (one blue eye, one yellow eye, still hoping to take a good photo of him one of these days soon).

 

    

 

 

May in the garden

Nope, I haven’t been entangled into a time warp, unfortunately; these photos date back to my first spring with my first ever digital camera. All of them were taken in our garden. At the moment, in real time, it’s just the first shoots, buds and leaves, and a carpet of violets, which is pretty but doesn’t really translate to a photo, so I really wanted to remind myself what is still coming.

 

Vibrant colours

Feels like I’m super busy and super tired, though all I’m doing is growing my son, bouncing back and forth between doctors and their stupid documents, cooking the occasional meal, and watching stupid movies…. there are storms of tropical proportions in my heart and mind, and it takes heaps of energy to try to keep up at least a semblance of sanity.

These tropical lights are difficult. Harsh and unforgiving during the day, no escape, but you still want to capture those moments dear to your heart. Giving you that golden hour at dusk, when you wish your entire being was a huge camera, able to absorb and reflect back all those lights. Stunning you out of your senses when the clouds roll in.

I don’t know why my destructive, overwhelming, unbearable attraction to the dramatic and over-the-top. Places, colours, people, experiences. Even to me, it does not seem to follow naturally from my personality. Still a mystery. But it is what it is. My life blown to pieces, my heart still yearning for those glimmering lights and colours that make me feel alive.

It’s gonna be fine, but being stuck this way, halfway, between two lives, just waiting… it’s sometimes more than I can take….