Reluctant to leave the tranquility of Sapa, I was nonetheless eager to continue my travels southward down the Viet Nam coast. My next destination was by bus 700km (438 miles) south of Hanoi, the old city known as Hue, the imperial capital of Viet Nam between 1802 and 1945 and the cradle of power for the Nguyen Dynasty.
I had been looking forward to being in Hue for a long time, not only because of its history, but also because of its architecture, it citadel and because it was home to one of my most favorite Vietnamese dishes, Bun Bo Hue (a beef and pork noodle soup).
I had picked probably one of the worst seasons to vist Viet Nam. It was the cold and wet months. But although my days in Hue was constant with rain, from drizzles to downpours, it felt perfect. It simply enhanced the romantic atmosphere and walking in the rain never felt so good as it did while walking along the banks of Song Huong (Huong River).
I had this sudden urge today to start painting again. It's been over thirteen years since the last time I touched a brush to a canvas. Been too terrified to start before. I've kept in the store unopened tubes of paint, unused canvases and virgin brushes for the last couple of years in the hope of making peace with this long lost friend. But what the hell do I paint? What is so meaningful that it merits me abandoning my fears?
For certain reasons today, I felt my life disrupted. I felt things were not the way my life should be. I guess perhaps this deviation ignited a chain of emotions which brought the need to paint back into my life. And so...what do I paint?
The first few base colors are down already. Let's see...maybe, just maybe...
There is a very special home, run by a group of dedicated Catholic Sisters, for abandoned and abused young girls in The Philippines, known as the Capuchin Family Home. I had the honor of being a part of their lives, an experience that I will cherish all my life. How anyone could hurt or give up any one of these girls is beyond my comprehension, for each of them are unique precious gems.
He once dreamed a paradise, once thought he knew what heaven meant, a place where two birds flew amidst an ocean of dancing lilies...
...where the colors of the sky never remained the same, a kaleidoscope of rainbows flowing across their path in all directions, where nothing mattered except the wind keeping them afloat. He once dreamed of something everlasting where nothing in reality mattered, where life neither started nor ended, a place where time knew no existence, a never ending journey engulfed in that that familiar gentle touch of rain, cleansing away all history, all pain, all fears, all loneliness, soaring through an endless universe of love. But that paradise faded from him as fast as it came when the other bird fell away. She fell far and fast away from him until soon she could not be seen. She was gone forever.
It was then that he realized that there was always only just one bird that existed at all, only one that flew alone. His dreams, his desires, were but ephemeral wisps of gentle warm air which brought him to new heights, only to then drift away, and without the air beneath his wings, he would fall back to the depths of his loneliness, his fated place in this world to exist as one and only be as one.
The colors faded to gray, and then finally to black. The sounds diminished into emptiness. Darkness within his reality would always prevail.
Just to break away from the photographs I took while visiting Viet Nam earlier this year, I wanted to share with everyone these shots which I took while visiting my parents in Abu Dhabi, U.A.E. These were the first few pictures I took with my new Nikon D80, which I so deeply love! I hope you will enjoy the lines that run through these shots as much as I enjoyed seeing them in person.
Vietnamese. American. Asian. Western. Disastrously romantic. Periodically self-destructive. Impassioned observer. Senselessly enamored of what may come tomorrow..
...where the colors of the sky never remained the same, a kaleidoscope of rainbows flowing across their path in all directions, where nothing mattered except the wind keeping them afloat. He once dreamed of something everlasting where nothing in reality mattered, where life neither started nor ended, a place where time knew no existence, a never ending journey engulfed in that that familiar gentle touch of rain, cleansing away all history, all pain, all fears, all loneliness, soaring through an endless universe of love. But that paradise faded from him as fast as it came when the other bird fell away. She fell far and fast away from him until soon she could not be seen. She was gone forever.
It was then that he realized that there was always only just one bird that existed at all, only one that flew alone. His dreams, his desires, were but ephemeral wisps of gentle warm air which brought him to new heights, only to then drift away, and without the air beneath his wings, he would fall back to the depths of his loneliness, his fated place in this world to exist as one and only be as one.
