-architecturally speaking-

Walking beside the broken man who’s pain reflects the lives of hundreds. Prisoners in a world who were not allowed to live their lives fully, under watch from those who said they held the best interest. Minuscule our steps are next to the large cascading stairs on which the man stands. His journey is great and if you walk up to him, how inevitably bow in respect. How this reflects the world we now live in, as we stop to remember the pain they endured for the freedom of others. Sacrificing all even their bodies for the cause, in hopes that the regime may thaw. Through it all, they broke them down and blotted their stories out. They set ablaze and will not see their names burned out, and so the memorials represent the work for the country they have now. The architecture of the town is history walking. Monuments of moments that should be ingrained forever. Allowing you to participate in the continuation of their legacy. The fallen did not fall in vain, they were torn down but live on courageous. Running for freedom they paved the way and took on the beating for a hopeful future. Descend the stairs for the world tomorrow you may be attacked but you must get up, just like the broken man who still stands tall.

“Now it’s light, now it’s a shadow,
Now it’s night in my window.
Every day
I wake up in a strange land.
In to a strange near,
Into a strange distance I look,
Into a strange life
I descend the stairs”

-Naum Korzhavin

-around here-

Sip the water, it’s not what you expect. You’ll probably never quench for it but it’ll cure-all the fix of your problems and stress. Its endless flow allows you to always return, but what is so special about the minerals with a salty taste. Like the fountain of youth, the town claims it’ll change your life. I try to just sit back and enjoy what comes my way, but the incentives have me rushing to try and try their product over again. I’m a sucker for the world’s advertising and willing to try it all, even if it leaves me empty feeling its the experience that fills me up. Quick, rush and fill up your cup, all the way or just a little but drink it down to sooth your worries. The potion says ‘drink me’ and I do as it says, it usually doesn’t hurt at most it does nothing. It’s fascinating how the small fountains reel in thousands of people by the year. I am one of them, just a drop in the pool willing to go with the flow of the crowds and try new things. The springs are special to Karlovy Vary and to my memories now. The endless fountains leave you still to thirst but the ever flow allows you to drink from it forever.

“And if you close your eyes,
a river, a silent and beautiful current,
fills you from within,
flows forward, darkens you,
night brings its wetness to beaches
in your soul.”

-Eric Whitacre

-weekend miser-

It’s the weekend and the kids have come out to play. They stay up late though the sun goes down and uses their last bit of energy running around. Let them go and have a beer, you’ll find them hiding as they play a game of hide-and-seek. Soon the stars will shine and the parks will empty out. The streets will come alive with adults while the kids stay tucked in bed, excited to wake up and go out again tomorrow. We never stop playing, we just have new games to explore. There’s always too much to do and I always strive fun. Watching others spend their time doing one thing or another, I get a fear like no other. Am I missing out on something greater? To rid the fear and be a kid again running around in that park, no care for the time at all. I wish I’d stop wishing for more since this is already the chance of a lifetime. But I don’t have the stamina of a child who can run around relentless. Time is fleeting and sleep can only consume so many hours, the rest is meant for living. Run around like a little kid running from his parents, putting on a show as this one did. Spend your free time making the best of every situation, a little peek-a-boo to every opportunity that passes.

“Stars shine behind clouds
peeking through on occasions
the sky’s hide and seek.”

-Katie’s Haiku

-not from these parts-

So many views to choose from to pose in front of the castle. Where royalty once roamed and is still said to haunt it. Get the picture so the view is engrained in your brain forever. You don’t get to see this everyday unless you live here. Many rulers have come through these halls but the tower has never seen destruction. Now just thousands of feet walk up and down to get the best view of the city.

“There is a lady all in white
Holds me and sings a lullaby
She’s nice to see and she’s soft to touch
She says Cosette I love you very much
I know a place where no ones lost
I know a place where no one cries
Crying at all is not allowed
Not in my castle on a cloud“

-Les Miserables Musical

-small wonder-

I saw the fan from the bridge against her red shirt with the pink flowers in the background. The couple smiled and cuddled by the river as the sun set ahead of them. My mind began to wonder but my feet drew near to a point where my presence startled them in dreamland. I never asked but I speculated just as my grandmother would have done; “oh perhaps they’re on their honeymoon or celebrating the anniversary of their love.” Regardless of the occasion, the two were happy whether the love was new or had some age. Their love seemed to blossom like the flowers around them and spread like the wings of her fan. A contagious thing they had, but I wasn’t jealous like I might have been before. It was inspiring to see something so simple and calm. So innocent in their manner and reserved to the public, but her fan spread out like the peacock’s feathers. A small item but one she held near, “oh this little thing” she mentioned when I asked about it, but I could tell it was a token that was dear. They were reserved but I found their love inviting and special, one we often take for granted. How they smiled and gazed in one another’s eyes, they tried to be humble when I met them, but I could see it shine. Their love was in bloom like the spring flowers behind them, but it transcends seasons and lasts a lifetime.

“My heart was a desert
You planted a seed
And this is the flower
This hour of sweet fulfillment
Is it all a dream, the joy supreme
That came to us in the gloom?
You know it isn’t a dream, it’s love in bloom“

-Bing Crosby

-not from these parts-

Like new waters in an ever-flowing river, so we move on to new land with new histories behind them. The flow is the same, but something about this place is changed, less bustling with people all rushing to work. The city surrounded by the river is peaceful, everyone is on vacation and is out for fun. The change in scenery for all who comes allows us all to sit back and enjoy the small. Let the river ebb and flow below your feet, and take you where it must. Tourist city but all I see is a place of diversity, where everyone comes from near and far to experience what is offered. Meeting at the river’s bend we walk through town on narrow cobblestone streets. The bridges that pass over connect the lands with a compromise, to keep a peace that should flow into your veins as you enter. The magic of it all comes at the curve of the river, where you can go and stand in the waters. I wonder if it’s the same water I saw a few days ago in a couple of cities over, but the new location brings a different taste and aroma. No matter the place you stay the same, a river, but time is flowing like roaring waters and at the rivers bend you find you have new experiences to help you grow and prosper.

“But I surrender to the mad tides,
Hoping to find peace as they do,
But I feel a change in the tides,
And I see the bend in the river.
Fortuity comes in strange ways,
Like the river’s bend that day,
Gently cradling me from the flux,
Like a mother shielding her child.”

-Lakshmy Menon Chatterjee

-location notations-

Post thirteen and I still find fear behind my photography. There’s a pressure to make it perfect rather than just living in the moment. I’ve tried to be more cautious about sticking my nose in my technology. I’ve tried to experience the moment for what it is and not through a small digital screen. To capture a moment holds so many stakes because each moment is passing and the next is different, even if in the slightest way. My anxiety gets the best of me when I’m behind a camera. My obstacle is myself not the problems I can solve at the moment. I just have to learn to let go and take photos of everything like this here tourist. Lifting his camera to capture the scene, using the viewfinder as binoculars to see something closer. In the next week and next few years, he’ll always have this moment saved in a vault of photo collections. When I feel discouraged, I’ll remember these careless travelers, who just capture the scene, not try too hard to make it artsy. It’s the experience that counts because I’ll never relive the moment again. Finding the balance is the key to it all. The perfect light, setting, and subject will come and go, but my experience is what will help me grow. So these traveling family photographers should inspire me, to push myself past the limits I place on myself. Take a breath and make each moment a worthy photo op.

“It takes patience to wait for the perfect light.
Glance away and the image can disappear.
And sometimes the background isn’t quite right.
The moment missed is like a face out of sight
That against all logic we hope will appear 
From around a corner, bathed in perfect light…
And so we hold on to what’s passing out of sight,
The collision between soon and too late, the sheer
Thread connecting to the perfect light
In which the background is precisely right.”

-David Adamson

-weekend miser-

To the zoo, we go where the wild animals and children roam. I sit and reminisce on holding my papa’s hand as we stroll through and see all the animals behind glass walls. Now I stand 18 years later, in the zoo in Praha. Watching kids climb like the monkeys behind, wondering if they’ll ever know how free they are. Too excited to hold mom and dad’s hand because “look a lion up ahead!” One day they’ll be grown and wish they were the little kids who once ran around reckless. The world is the real wilderness; the zoo is just fun and games pretending to be a wild place. Its child’s play, a play of make-believe, where we escape to have the imagination of the young. Being tamed by society, we’re just animals locked in cages, in the zoo of growing up. Longing to play like a kid and feeling accepted do so here, I only wish my papa’s hand was near. The memories are, and his energy is nearby as the walk in the zoo no matter how many thousands of miles away. wild little ones running around my jealousy arises, I want to be that kid again ,

“Is tamed wildness 
And manufactured wilderness-
A plastic world
All my young son will know?”

-Sam Vaghi

-the nocturnalist-

A night on the river, but the water is wavy. So are the minds of the people who stroll by. Drunken they wander these docked boats or sit on the sides as if they were waiting. Waiting for the sunlight to tell them to go home, a signifier to me that the night it over. The river reflects the lights across the way, lighting up the dimly lit strand. Not ideal for the purposes I was there for, but the night is a blanket over the stumbling masses. They don’t look down to the mirrored waters; their faces wouldn’t be clear, but I did and wondered if the mirror in my camera could reflect such a picture. Lowering it carefully below the dock, like a sailboat getting ready to set out, I took a picture and hoped no one saw the reflection of the flash in the water. A serene scene for the chaos around it didn’t exactly match my eyes. But perhaps like the water’s reflection, it was better than what reality was happening. To be sober in the sea of drunken people, watching the boats waiting to go nowhere, I found this to be a metaphor for the situation. The glassy river reflects an untrue scene, it’s not quiet and clam, it’s noisy and rowdy, full of people going places but never fully arriving.

“We can see our coloured faces
Floating on the shaken pool
Down in cool places,
Dim and very cool;
Till a wind or water wrinkle,
Dipping marten, plumping trout,
Spreads in a twinkle
And blots all out.”

-Robert Louis Stevenson ‘Looking-Glass River’