The Ponte Vecchio (old bridge), dedicated in its past to butcher shops, it is charming beyond belief as it sits in bright colors over the Arno river. It reminded me fo Lego blocks, something else that makes me smile 🙂
Tag: boats
Do we live our lives in a way that our footsteps will be worth following?
There are places on this planet that cause us to reflect. On mountain tops, near river beds, in thick forests, and on beaches, we find parts of ourselves that we seem to have lost. I have always felt so lucky in my life that every morning the first thing I was able to dip into shortly after opening my eyes, was a jar full of inspiration. Inspiration causes a kind of effervescence that keeps me going and drives me to want to create and to want to be alive. When I find myself in a reflective place like this beach in Boracay, the first thing that gets refilled is that jar of bubbly inspiration.
River salmon has a very strange life pattern. It hatches upstream, swims downstream towards the ocean, matures downstream and then swims back upstream against all odds and strong currents, struggling and even jumping up waterfalls to make it back to the place where its life originated and eventually die there. I wonder if that’s the amount of superhuman effort needed for us to live our lives as they were meant to be lived, against all what tries to drag us downstream towards the oceans of mediocracy. To live a life aligned to human purpose would mean going against so much in order to escape being just another one amongst the lost.
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Day 22~ August 22nd~ Boracay
All we need is to stand on a seashore watching a storm brew over the ocean to realize that when it comes to the distribution of force, nature has the upper hand. We could be shaken, blown away, flooded, drowned, or dehydrated at any moment with minimal effort on the planet’s part. And I do wonder seeing how we abuse its resources without regard, when it might just be too much for our blue planet and it decides to flick us away or smash us as we would a blood sucking mosquito. Wouldn’t you if you were a planet?
When our children are very young we try to shelter them from the world, we introduce them to it gradually and with so many filters to protect them from what we perceive as harmful. We guard their innocence with all our might even down to the language that we allow them to hear. Then comes the time when they need to be faced with the ‘real’ world, the world we are leaving them with. The hardest job becomes trying to prepare them for what we think they might not be able to handle knowing that there will be a time when they will no longer want or need our help. That for me, so far, is the most difficult part of parenting.
Imagine if you will a place where children can grow fully supported to become who they were meant to be, a place where competition and the fear of failure do not hinder their growth, where only encouragement and guidance hold their hands. Can you picture a place designed only to further their growth, where helpers artfully help without counting the cost, and where the only unifying glue is human purpose and the wish for a better future…
Sounds too ideal? Maybe it can be, and maybe it was always meant to be.
photo taken: boy playing in the waves on a beach in Boracay
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Day 10~ August 10th~ Boracay
It is so curious how we sometimes obsess about making things straight when in fact almost everything is curvy on this feminine planet. Even a straight line curves to make a full circle if its ends were to meet. My apologies to readers and photographers who love to see a perfectly straight horizon, but the tilt intrigues and pleases me 🙂
On the river Mosel in Germany are a series of tiny villages each more charming than the other. It is the stuff of fairy tales, castles, towers, forts, cathedrals, tiny cobble stone streets, vineyards, tiny doorways, ancient ruins, green, green, green and a feeling of being stuck in the past. It made me imagine what life would have been like years ago when these forts were inhabited, when the castles were inhabited by royalty and when life was much slower than it is today. The overwhelming beauty of this place still lingers and cannot not take your breath away!
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Day Fifteen, February 6, 2011
Today was our last day in Boracay, and the island has gifted us the best weather possible on this last day. The sun was shining the whole day, the water was glistening clear blue, filled with fish and little sea creatures. Even the moon was a beautiful glowing picture book crescent. We could not ask for a better day. My daughter and her friend bid farewell to the beautiful beach right before sunset.