Spin Your Wheels

I have a spaceship here in SR.

It’s disguised as an old reliable small black Japanese made folding bike with 20” wheels and five gears.

It cost 50 bones a year ago at the used bike market across town or, if space travel is your lingo, across the universe. It’s fun to spin the wheels.

Considering many Khmer vehicle operators have a death wish, riding the bike is more akin to playing Russian roulette in traffic. Slow is the mantra.

While walking is the preferred way to travel especially for street photography the bike is fun.

Every kid needs a bike.

Like Laos, it’s a motorcycle culture here with many young immature zombies talking on phones while driving at high speeds.

Caution is advised. Traffic laws are nonexistent.

You do see the occasional partial roadblock by police when they stop drivers w/o helmets.

The tender gravity of kindness says howdy hi howdy ho.

Buddhist Khmer are soft and gentle. They live in the now. The advantage is being present.

The challenge for them is to focus on more than one thing at a time. This unpleasant fact is illuminated by their dopamine addiction to phones + everyone talking at once w/o comprehension. Embrace chaos.

Gadgets make great babysitters.

For the majority it’s about entertainment distractions not information.

Relationships here are like adopting a child.

All the adults need childlike supervision.

Angkor Wat Photo Book

Angkor Wat, "City of Temples" in Cambodia is the largest religious monument in the world.

It was built between the 9th and 13th century. Originally Hindu, it absorbed Buddhism into the art and culture in the 12th century.

It is estimated 1,000,000 Khmer lived, worked and created 1,000 temples honoring kings.

The city had the world's largest population before the Industrial Revolution with a land area exceding 280 square miles.

My new photo book explores the magic and beauty.

Angkor Wat, Cambodia

The Garden #8

I met Omar, a Touareg Berber and ghostwriter in Morocco on 9/11.

We created truth-stories from the future.

Thanks for listening.

Published in: Weaving A Life, Volume 1

Here for the ear.

The Garden #8

Fragrance

Khmer woman 70 in wheelchair

Dances her smile
Extends worn plastic basket

Grateful for .50

Her smile a fragrance

Beauty remembers graciousness
Facial treatment waxes poetic
Edges of bi-lingual tongues express calligraphy

Older now a Khmer woman
Still carries a bathroom weight scale

Around Siem Reap
Step on it
Small money enough for rice

Strangers destined to wait
Confront their deepest fears
At the intersection of Courage & Creativity

The menu is not the meal

Grow Your Soul

The Garden #7

Ah, how sweet it is to explore, laugh, share and love.

Chapter 1 in "The Language Company" is longer than a river.

Here is part of a part of the amazing tale.

Listening for thanks.

The Garden #7

Published in:

The Language Company