Serenity...

Today we found this secluded beach, off the beaten path, away from tourists, hotels and the sorts. Real Hawaii.

Thankful

At the beach. Sun is about to set. On a day of thankfulness. Thank you, God. For every good thing in my life...

on cider, turkeys and wooly hats

Skating rink, people wearing jackets and wooly hats in NYC. On winter days, I feel remote and extraterrestrial living in Hawaii. I went out and bought a turkey. Decorated my house with leaves and pumpkins. Even bought a Febreeze harvest scented candle. For nothing. I still look out on palm trees, ocean waves, the ever green background or foreground of my front yard. Yes, I live in paradise. But on days like these, around the holidays I feel ever so disconnected, so recluse and detached from reality. almost as if I were an alien looking down on people who go about their cyclical, seasonal lives, enjoying the highlights of what everything seasons have to offer. Living every holiday to its fullest. I am a little jealous, perhaps not jealous but overcome with nostalgia and longing. on days like these, when just the whiff of pine cones and the smell of hot cider brings tears to my eyes. Blame Marcel Proust.

Variations on the theme of...sea -a photo blog

on rainbows, faith and hitting rock bottom

I am not one to openly talk about my faith or impose my religious views upon friends. I view my faith as a most private, most sacred connection with the Divine. There are, of course, days, when one's soul seeks out a higher power more than on other days. Perhaps when you hit rock bottom, several times, there is only one way to look, and that is up.  I lift my eyes to the mountains, from where my help cometh" says the psalmist, and he is unmistakably right. Today, I was feeling abandoned, lonely, and as I looked up, I was graced with this image. A bright rainbow cast against the backdrop of my helplessness, my desperation. Bold enough to have asked for a sign, I raised my eyes to find it.

There is such thing as God answering prayers.

I'm disappointed

I am really, really disappointed. In the American political system. And in the American public. And here's why.

Growing up in a country under an oppressive communist regime, which decided unanimously that its leader would automatically be renewed for another four years without people's consent or expressions (so much for calling itself a People's "republic"), has fundamentally shaped how I perceive the game of politics and how I respond to it. Having lived and experienced the communist propaganda machine first-hand, I am perhaps more sensitive and more atuned to the undertones of mass-manipulation. A subtle monster, rearing its head via newspaper headlines, poll numbers, punditry on television.
 Today, again, I was treated horribly on a blog, by a bunch of people, liberals on this occasion, who proceeded, rather than answering the question the blogger had posed, to instead engage in ad hominem attacks addressed at my persona. Only because I expressed disapproval toward their candidate of choice. I noticed how quickly they got off-topic, searching to find someone they would unload their wrath upon. And yes, I get it. People are angry and rightfully so. But what struck me most was that, inspite of the facts presented to them, they remain incredibly ideological and stated they would readily give that candidate another four years, just because that was the party they belonged to.

I was shocked. In a country like America, which has not known a day without free speech, it is the place where free speech is most underused or misused, I should say.  I expected more people to allow themselves, by looking at the facts, to more freely change their mind on issues, or rather be more flexible.

I call that the right to free speech, the signal of an educated mind is the fact that it will come to its own conclusions, given certain facts and not herd-like follow blindly, with no direction or destination in sight. Perhaps it is my background,  my history that has marked me so badly, but I categorically refuse to have my intellect insulted and just blindly follow. Anyone.

on feeling empowered

Feeling empowered. Those forty pounds lost might just have something to do with it. Or not. I've never felt stronger and more on top of things than I do these days. I have come into myself. My opinions are my own. I stand firmly on my principles and beliefs, and while I admire people in high places, I refuse to be a sellout.

In the end, my own beliefs and experiences have guided me and continue to do so throughourt my life. And I will refuse to be a sycophant. or a brain-washed follower. Did I mention I question everything? and why shouldn't I? You only get one shot at this think called LIFE and you are entitled to question, to challenge authority, to not leave one single stone unturned in your quest for greatness, in your strive for perfection.

Yes, I have come into myself. Tens of thousands of miles away from home, away from my extended family's nurturing and guidance, I have found myself, coming into my own, birthing the new creation of self.

Next time we call a wandering soul "lost", we might just be kind enough to consider that that soul has actually found him or herself...and take a time to ponder on the greatness of that momentuous event.

monsters of our imagination

Men think women are strange, women think men are strange.

All this goes down while neither party talk or exchange nothing but assumptions. Ideas, false imaginations. All it would take to solve an issue, would be to sit down for a cup of coffee and hash it out. That, if people cared enough to clear the air. Or cared about the other person, at all. But no, let us instead live imaginary presumptions and question the other party's loyalty. It is so much healthier than actually sitting down and venting our feelings. or sending an email and stating where we stand. Or is it?

Just some things I have learned the hard way. When in doubt, talk it out.

dreams of autumn past...

Overcome by memories of autumns past, while listening to Eric Satie's "Gnossiene" on a quiet Hawaiian afternoon. Proof that you can live the life you want, even in the middle of nowhere. In your heart. All you have to do is close your physical eyes, while opening your soul.
For a brief moment, I allow myself to drift onto the sea of nostalgia, going back to days of fall, in my student years.
Ah, how I yearn for those cold days of fall, those long walks in the park, on a frosty autumn day, tweed jacket, and scarf, school books under my arm, hurrying to class. Leaves rustling under my feet, as if to remind me of paper-like thougths of yesterday, a past oh too present, crumbling beneath the rushing promise of tomorrow. A sky too dark, peaking behind those fiery leaves, a tree of many colours above me, shedding some of its glory. Upon us, mere watchers, bystanders in this grand display of chromatics. The dream ends too quickly, interrupted only by the sound of the afternoon monsoon washing over the island. Reminded of my present, while hanging on to a dear and sweet past...

on this first day of november...a memento of autumns past

November

by Elizabeth Stoddard

Much have I spoken of the faded leaf
Long have I listened to the wailing wind,
And watched it ploughing through the heavy clouds,
For autumn charms my melancholy mind.
When autumn comes, the poets sing a dirge:
The year must perish; all the flowers are dead;
The sheaves are gathered; and the mottled quail
Runs in the stubble, but the lark has fled!
Still, autumn ushers in the Christmas cheer,
The holly-berries and the ivy-tree:
They weave a chaplet for the Old Year's bier
These waiting mourners do not sing for me!
I find sweet peace in depths of autumn woods,
Where grow the ragged ferns and roughened moss;
The naked, silent trees have taught me this, --
The loss of beauty is not always loss!