Moscow, ID

These posts are rarely in real-time. Meaning, I could post about a place well after I've visited them. I have wondered if this multiverse like delay defeats the purpose of this little blog, "If a place you've visited could be your future home, shouldn't you write about it sooner? While the memories are fresh?" Each time the wonder sets in, I come to the same conclusion though, how I don't trust my recent sun-, sugar-, or sleep-soaked vacation memories. And then there's that whole "Hindsight is 20/20" thing.

In another world, my delayed vacation memories would often float up on yet another commute, another Monday. Today is Monday, and in this world of "wfh" (that feels close to "wtf"), there are no commuting daydreams. The memories now arise through related images, words, or sounds. "What about Moscow, ID? What do they think about this mess?"

Cartagena, Colombia

Oh boy. Looks like my new average is a post a year 🙃 But what really has my mind in a bender? For a fair bit of time last year I thought I had travelled to Cartagena in 2019. My cloistered mind failed to remember how both January and February of 2020 were technically in 2020 B.C.; i.e., Before Covid.

Some may conclude that my gap in memory and time is completely normal given our collective blackhole.   Others may say that time, as we knew it, is slowly dissolving because our days are less divided. (Will breakfast, lunch, and dinner become the next supper? A meal only mentioned in Victorian novels?) Maybe, and maybe. I have another theory though: memories condense time. And for me, memories with vivid colours makes me feel like I did something yesterday, even if some yesterdays are well in the past.

My reasons for travelling are usually art, sites, then food. But in the early months of 2020, I had this odd need to be in colour. Lots of color. Color and heat. Through these D.C. times (i.e., During Covid), I'm still in debt to my higher mind, and my friend who met me in Cartagena IRL.

Real or fake?

Aspen, CO

My cousin and her family had moved to a small unincorporated town (i.e., so small, it doesn't need governing people to govern them) right outside of Aspen a number of years ago. I didn't understand why knowing how little mortgage prices differ between a destination place and any place near a destination place. But like the pine that rooted itself besides a grove of aspens, it only took my friend and I a few hours in Aspen to realize why she moved where she did...

"One of these things is not like the others, 

One of these things just doesn't belong..."

Oaxaca City, Mexico

Last week I told a colleague, "I wanna work from home. I wanna work from the office.  I want all the options, all the time -- I want it all!" Four* consecutive sentences that begin with "I want" is my version of crazy. And right now, everyone is going c.r.a.z.y. Times are "unprecedented" they say, aka crazy. But the three and a half year old roommate I live with is the least craziest person I know -- and most of what he says begins with "I want". More often than not though, his wants are legitimate needs so someone always helps him.

I've always wanted to be an artist. And I don't mean an artist who makes pretty little paintings, I mean an Artist. Like O'Keefe because she was the only female artist I knew that had posters as big and wide and everywhere like Picasso and Van Gogh. For the usual woe is me reasons (i.e., family, culture, patriarchy, capitalism, earth, the big bang), I kept my want hidden and ended up making pretty little things on the side, even though what I really wanted was to be an Artist.

So this little roommate of mine makes me wonder: If I rephrased my wants into needs, would I help myself more? Would someone help me? Would it all work out?? Of all the places I've been drawn to in the world because of art, Oaxaca City is the only place that made me realize that some of our wants** are actually needs.

If I can find a costume made out of electrostatic non-woven polypropylene fiber, consider it paid.

Duluth, MN

"I can't tell the difference between negative 5 and negative 26." My brother told me that one morning. To help you illustrate the absurd between the first and second sentence, let me remind you that I'm brown; so naturally, my brother is brown. And we fellow brown bears prefer balmy winter temperatures (well, most of us). Then arre yaar, WHAT is my brother doing in -26°F temps?! Is he carbon dating ice cores in a Nordic country? Is he measuring polar ice caps? Is he tapping for oil in the polar north? Is he doing something scientific in some arctic or antarctic region of the world because most brown people do something scientific? Nope. He lives in Duluth, MN. And LOVES it.

But because I'm a vanilla brown person, I went to went visit him in July. When the sky was as clear as Lake Superior.

Barcelona, Spain

You know that thing that happens after "Red punch buggy no punch back!", how suddenly you see red bugs everywhere? I wonder if this is what's going with me and Barcelona. It seems like everyone I meet: old, new, or virtual is visiting Catalonia for this city. And of course they are. Because when I finally went with my family, friend, and cousin, it made sense why I was there with everyone else's family, friend, and cousin.

Barcelona is pretty hot and sexy.

Meat market

Meat market

Interlude

::cringe::

I still can't believe my last post was published on August 23, 2017. Did I sink in a vessel? No. Have I been traipsing around the world? Sadly, no. Have I given up on this thing? Hells no! Life being LIFE has cut me off from a few things lately, but it doesn't mean I've lifted my finger from this little blog.

Your (somewhat) regularly scheduled posts will return in a couple more weeks! Thanks for staying tuned like our friends below :)

Reason #56 why I should get a smartphone: to take and edit cool pictures like this one from my friend Shannon P.
Sculpture by Kelly Akashi at Sculpture Center, LIC, NYC, NY, USA (okay, I'll stop there)