KIDS...

TRIP Part 1 ---- FACES...

The Father

The Critique

An Old Friend

...Kas Kas Diay?

The Family of A Friend

MARCLE AND KEN... the antithetical cousins.

Marcle: the young, the restless, the searcher of things, the brave one, the twister, the initiator, the giver of life, the lover of things.


Ken: The mature, the stalwart soul, the teacher, the sensible one, the gentle being, the patient one, the lover of life, the giver of essential things.

With Family and Friends...

TRIP (part 2)


Moonshine

The Promise

And you poor little thing did what?

The Great River Somewhere in Vietnam

The Staple of Would-Be Kings...

Me Beautiful Apsara

...here, there, and back.

Somehow, it feels like I just woke up to a new life. Like it was all a dream. Did I imagine all the things I did? Did I imagine my past life?

It took me fifteen years, two months, and twenty-eight days to say goodbye to my one true love. And yet it still felt like I did not want to leave. Yet I know that I want to do it for my own sanity. And for other people who now surround me. And for her. (Remember our promises and our hopes...)

Now I'm back here in the US. I don't really want to talk about the trip just yet. I'll write something about it soon though. Suffice to say, that I have come home from a long trek, from a distant land, from a distant memory... I set out to reconnect to my past, my old world, my old home. And if there's one thing I achieved in the trip, is this ---that I am more whole today than the fragments I was before.

In short... I'm home, finally.

We so often say that "home is where the heart is" but I don't think we realize the extent of how it's very true. This expression takes on a whole new level of truth for me. I have always wondered why I never felt home here in the US (Yep! Sad, but true). Ever since I left PI, I think I was never able to plant myself again. Just like slow-moving turtle that kept to its shell. Or a seed that never wanted to grow. I lived my life, but often times I thought I was a "living dead." Routine, mechanical, bored, just moving from place to place, day by day. I left my friends in PI, I left a lot of good memories there, I left someone so very special, I left my place in the world... in fact, the moment I boarded that plane over 15 years ago, I left myself.

Now, fast forward to 15 years, 2 months, and 5 days. Here I write my last blog before I go back to PI. I took a day off work to catch up with myself. A lot of things happened this last year. Things have slowly unraveled before my eyes. Of course, I fought with my self, and all the defenses I put up in between me and my soul, which may even span the length of the Great Wall and as high as the satellite routinely passing by in the sky. And somehow, in the midst of letting go and not giving up, I'm finding myself back again. Myself, the mixture of biochemical gooo, electrical impulses, and disorganized behavioral patterns, has slowly taken back form to a clean-cut simpleton with the mind of a man and the heart of one, all shaken down together, self-organized to a stable pattern which can be seen through the lens of a phase portrait and a gaze into one's soul.

Finally, after all the nagging and seemingly hopeless nights of people watching over me, caring for me, loving me... I am home. I find that home is not only a geographical location (whether it be a house or a region) that a person goes to. It is also a place in time. Yet we live in the present moment. My problem was that I was never present in this spatio-temporal reference point of now, and with this I can never achieve my unity of being with the world, including you and the rest of the gang. But it's okay now, it's okay. I'm home, baby. I'm home.

I'm sorry it took me too long to find my way back. But what's important is that I'm here, with you. With you, wherever you are, wherever I am.

The place we were before is not our home. Nor should the memories of old be mistakenly called one. We can reminisce, or course! And we should. That's our right as middle-aged people, remember? (SMILE!!!) But our home is here ...together ... now. In our hearts, in our minds, in our willingness to engage with each other, in our constructive nature to create life ---for each other, for the children, for the world. In between the past and the future lies the present, and that is us, now.

So to all my friends and foes alike... Watch out! I'm back!!! ---SMOKIN!!!... (but just about ready to quit). I'll see you all in the light of day!!!