If I had to do the same again...

Once upon a time… we were young, we were lost, we were drunk, we were singing out loud ABBA's Fernando and we fell on snow. There were nothing there but snow. We were under a lot of pressure, assignments, exams, parent's expectation, student loans….. but the northern Ontario sky was full of stars, bright bright stars. 
"If I had to do the same again I would, my friend…"

Fall upon us

It doesn't matter what you call it, autumn or fall is my favourite season of all. There's something so perfect about a windless day when the light streams through the canopy and everything is basked in a honeyed glow. And, like spring, fall comes with this sense of fleetingness that makes enjoying it such an urgent imperative. Summer days can be basked in, but fall's shortening days command you to hoard and relish. Now that the clocks have gone back, I really feel it slipping away. But as long as the leaves cling to the trees, I'll cling to days like these.

Another day has ended

I read and write every day. I'm miserable if I don't. This, I know, will sound, very very strange, while I read and write but it's for a moment as if I've forgotten that there is anything beyond the here and now. Just as there exists in writing a literal truth and a poetic truth, there also exists in a human being a literal anatomy and a poetic anatomy. One you can see, one you cannot. One is made of bones and teeth and flesh; the other is made of energy and memory and faith. But they are both equally true.
Here at 7 o'clock in the evening, I realize this is how each day should end, in the fading sunset light, and my fingers still on the keys of my laptop…

The Peace of Wild Things

Stanley Park, Vancouver

The Peace of Wild Things —Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Wendell Erdman Berry, August 5, 1934, is an American novelist, poet, essayist, environmental activist, cultural critic, and farmer. Happy 82th Birthday!

Today has ended

This is how I end the day...

How curious. I had no idea! Today has ended.  —Gertrude Stein

There isn't much we can say about sunset. Whatever we say,
the sun still go down. It won't stay. It won't.

Unconventional living

A school house

a gas station

a church in London

a clock tower in New York

or a farm house in Spain

La Finestra Di Fronte (2003)

"Don't be content to merely survive....

You must demand to live in a better world, not just dream about it...."

The art of knitting

An oversize scarf

With leaf pattern

Buttons at the bottom.

Glimpses of spring

QE Park @ Cambie St.

Dunsmuir at downtown

春江水暖鴨先知

Venables Street @ Commercial

Beautiful sunny day, prelude to spring, some trees having shyly begun turning green, all kind of greens, nothing but the green. The wind is blowing lightly from the southwest, brush off white caps on the mountains. The air smells of green, literally and metaphorically. The ducks are happy, so am I.

$15. dinner for two, wine is not included

Fresh, must be fresh

Local oysters and smelts

with tempura ale batter

Walala...

Last night dinner, not much effort at all... just simply fresh and easy... yes the fava beans took forever to peel, twice... but at the end it worth it.

4 large oysters $6.
1 lb smelts $3.
1 corn $0.75
1/2 lb green beans $1.25
1/2 lb asparagus $1.75
1/2 lb fava beans $1.25
4 shitake mushroom $1.
total $15. dinner for two

Called this as Intuitive Eating (IE). Trust my body, eat what my body want me to eat. Or simply call this as "craving". Bon appetite.

Joni Mitchell - Chinese Café / Unchained Melody

Caught in the middle/ Carol we're middle class/ We're middle aged/ We were wild in the old days/ Birth of rock 'n' roll days/ Now your kids are coming up straight/ And my child's a stranger/ I bore her/ But I could not raise her/Nothing lasts for long/ Nothing lasts for long/ Nothing lasts for long…

Down at the Chinese Cafe/ We'd be dreaming on our dimes/ We'd be playing "Oh my love, my darling”/ One more time/ Uranium money/ Is booming in the old home town now/ It's putting up sleek concrete/ Tearing the old landmarks down now/ Paving over brave little parks/ Ripping off Indian land again/ How long, how long/ Short sighted business men/ Ah, nothing lasts for long/ Nothing lasts for long/ Nothing lasts for long…

Down at the Chinese Cafe/ We'd be dreaming on our dimes/ We'd be playing "You give your love, so sweetly”/ One more time/ Christmas is sparkling/ Out on Carol's lawn/ This girl of my childhood games/ With kids nearly grown and gone/ Grown so fast/ Like the turn of a page/ We look like our mothers did now/ When we were those kids' age/ Nothing lasts for long/ Nothing lasts for long/ Nothing lasts for long…

Down at the Chinese Cafe/ We'd be dreaming on our dimes/ We'd be playing "Oh my love, my darling/ I’ve hungered for your touch/ A long, lonely time”/ And time goes by so slowly/ And time can do so much/ Are you still mine?/ I need your love/ I need your love/ God speed your love to me/ Time goes, where does the time go?/ I wonder where the time goes?

Joni Mitchell Nov. 7, 1943 

Happy Birthday, Joni!