Tag: memories

Categories
children contemplations inspiration morning coffee talk Photography story

Daily Coffee Talk~ 81/365

Do you ever have flying dreams?

I had them so often as a child and every once in a while as I got older. The feeling was so intense during my childhood that I completely believed that I could fly. I used to close my eyes and kick off with my feet and just hang there in midair doing swimming like motions to float up towards the ceiling.

This felt so intensely real that I know on some level, at some stage of our lives and in a certain state of reality, we can.

It always felt like a secret I had to keep but then the older I got the more stories I heard of others having experienced this.

A bit more from the mystery box of life…

Categories
children contemplations Fine art inspiration Malaysia morning coffee talk Photography street photography

Daily Coffee Talk~ 57/365

fading memories~

Hi again, I almost forgot how fast projects like this go when you start them and how merciless time is…

How much of your childhood do you remember? For me it is short salient moments of intense emotion, some life changing moments that left permanent scars, or pleasant memories like the smell of my swimsuit when my mother took it out of storage for the first trip to the beach…

Why are we designed to forget? It could have been easily tweaked that we remember everything, couldn’t it have been? I do understand the need to forget pain, but what about everything else?

And most importantly, if you do believe that this is not your first life, then why do we arrive here empty?

At my age you sometimes forget what you’ve set about to do moments ago, so this memory thing needs some thorough investigation, don’t you think?

Categories
CHINA contemplations Photography

Why do we forget?~

If we were asked to recall the events of the last 5 minutes, we can play them back in our minds where they are recorded almost perfectly. Then if we were asked that same question a year later, all details become blurry and most of the story is lost. Why is that? Why do memories fade? Is it by design? Or did something go wrong along our line of evolution?

Day 63 of 365~

Image taken back in 2012, in Shanghai, China

Categories
art Germany inspiration Photography Travel

The walk of selective focus~

the walk of selective focus
the walk of selective focus~ Duesseldorf~ Germany

In our now, every event that happens seems to be of vital importance, every step we take, every little thing we see, every person we meet, all that we touch, smell, come across; but then we move into our future and most of these small significances begin to slowly blur into oblivion. What we are left with are very few salient moments that remain vivid in our minds and hearts for so many different reasons. But what lies hidden in the blur carries so much significance. It may lay dormant in our unconscious, but it is very much part of who and what we are today isn’t it?

 

 

Categories
inspiration life New York Photography story

Day 30~ November 30th~ New York

those days
the new york city of then

With the last  New York post from this month, I am realizing how much of it is still in me. It has been one of the most personal months in my blog so far, so I will end it with a photo from then, from the time I was 21 and celebrating every single second I had in the city that never sleeps. We explored New York with so much openness, with inspiration, with joy, with boundless energy and that does something to you. I love photography because it captures moments that take you back, to feel, to remember to relive.

~ I am the one with the blond wig 🙂

Categories
New York Photography story

Day 26~ November 26th~ New York

New York City Metro

Ask anyone who rides the subway for more than one hour a day and they will be sure to have some strange stories to tell you. I have a few. I realize that with this month’s postings a lot of memories and stories keep floating by, and that is because I left them there. On the subway at the age of 20 I met the first and hopefully last flasher. It was evening and I was engrossed in my Herman Hesse book ( Narcissus and Goldmund) not realizing that I was alone in the subway car after everyone filtered out, when I felt a shadow looming in front of me. I Looked up and there was the classic open raincoat with an extraordinarily large man standing in front of me exhibiting his pride. Funny how react in expected situations, and me being totally caught off-guard, I cried. Then I ran to pull the emergency brakes which caused the train to stop, the doors to open, the giant man to run away and I was directed to another car with people in it. I was then hugged by a big bosomed African American lady who giggled and said: “relax darlin’, that was entertainment for free!”

And there were the other stories, but one is enough…

Categories
art contemplations inspiration life New York Photography street

Day 23~ November 23rd~ New York

blurred shadow~ New York

Why is it that our memories fade and blur like shadows of what has been, and only moments of passion and pain remain vivid in our minds?

Categories
congo life Photography story

Day 16~ April 16th~ Congo

depth

Some images print themselves in our minds and on our hearts because they affect us beyond the surface of visual impression. They go deep, they etch a mark on our soul…

If you were to ask me what moment in my journey to Congo was the most haunting, I would say this one when I took this photograph. This child was one of the youngest in the center for demobilized child soldiers. He never spoke, he just stood there and let his eyes that stared without blinking, the scar on his chin and his cloud of melancholy speak for him. His gaze was steady, his look far but near, his mind unreadable. It was a child who spent far too much time in the playground of the lords of war and cruelty.

Categories
Egypt inspiration life Photography

Day 30~ March 30th~ Egypt

a journey like no other~ boy on a camel in the desert~ Egypt

There are some places you travel to that remain alive in a very special place in your heart…

It really was a journey like no other, this adventure in Egypt. The pyramids, the sphinx, the desert, the camels, the ancient ruins, the mind boggling architecture, the friends, the strange carvings, the sense of being so different to the ancient culture that has been, the bedouins, the Nubians, and most of all the children of Egypt.

Our life experiences come together and culminate to make us who we are. This journey for me in this year to collect the salient bits of pieces of 12 of my life journeys, one a month, and to go through the process of examining them as one would a sand painting, with different colors, different essences and experiences and to then brush them away into the archives of my memories, hopefully learning a lesson in the process.

 

Categories
Egypt inspiration life Photography story street

Day 24~ March 24th~ Egypt

bedouin children~ Egypt

Imagine having a makeshift hut or a tent for a home, knowing that your home is where your belongings are, it is not a place, it is a moving entity…

Growing up in Lebanon I have always been fascinated by the lives of Bedouins. I watched their children play on dusty roadsides, barefoot, in and around tents, knowing that as the weather got colder, they would pack up and move again. I knew them to have a great honor system and to be extremely hospitable.

We were lucky as children to have a bedouin nanny named “Mahasen” live with us to help take care of my 2 younger brothers. Mahasen used to have very long black hair, a gorgeous figure and she danced with a jug of water on her head in the most elegant way. She spoke a language unknown to us and her arabic was colored with a unique accent that my little brother eventually picked up. Mahasen enchanted us all with her charm, entered our hearts and became part of our home, until the horrible day came when her father took her away from our family by force. I remember driving in our parents car years later in Beirut, Lebanon’s capital and seeing her with her own child on her arms begging for change from the passing cars. We froze, she froze, she ran to our car kissing my little brother and tears were flowing out of everyone. That was the last time I saw Mahasen until I was in Egypt a few years later and I saw her in every Bedouin child’s face, in their deep eyes, in their rags, in their brown skin and in the warmth I felt radiating between us.