Trust

Hugs from Bon, all of 5, after his teacher said, T is leaving.
A small powerful hug from a dark haired smiling shy Lao boy.
Culmination.
A month of fun.
Dancing down 30 days playing, alphabets, songs, sharing, swimming, evolving, discovering inherent childhood joy.
Reading stories, drawing, hugs. Trust.

Lilacs purple green line the street dress
Silent theatrical gestures
Sent her home
Absorbing her tears, her art becomes alive
Stories, songbirds water the garden
Mindfulness in the moment
Ling sleeps off her sadness.

Letting go with emotional heart-mind awareness.
Blind eyes on a dark path at night.

wise girl

Explanations are a well dressed mistake, said a bright eyed connected Cambodian girl.

Her confidence, self-esteem and integrity looked at an optical tool. A shutter whirled.

She smiled. Thank you, you had one chance. Yes, said Orphan freezing Time.

What you don't see is fascinating.

You don't say.

Yes, I have nothing to say and I'm saying it.

31 flavored daze

yes, exclaimed elf, we made it through march. march was a real adventure.

what did you do, queried weary bleary eyed orphan. 

oh, i had so much fun with the kids, like us. they were young curious playful energetic experiental wild and free.

that's a long verbal sentence, laughed orphan.

life is a long laughing sentence, said elf.

can we go out to play now, asked orphan.

yes, let's take the day off and be creative, said elf.

please give me a hug, said orphan, people need five hugs a day for emotional well being.

elf hugged orphan.

orphan hugged elf.

one chinese girl

One joy about self publishing was selecting the cover photograph.

Her image spoke emotional honesty. She was trapped behind the steel grate, a hard grey Chinese educational formation of her childhood in the poor village of Maija in a remote area near the university. Her eyes held world secrets and potential.

She stared at the man, a stranger, a diversion in her universe. Her sisters and schoolmates pushed against her. She was trapped against the gate. It was locked. He was on the other side.

 He held a small black machine up to his eye. She heard a click. The shutter opened and closed, trapping time, trapping her image on a memory card. He smiled, thanked her and disappeared on his dirty black mountain bike.

She had no way of knowing. Her image finding a book cover. Her child eyes there for everyone to see. Stories about stories and the girl in some alchemical manifestation lived breathing and aware of her immortality. 

He’d visited her primary school to sing and dance. Speaking strange unintelligible words. His laughter and kindness were a relief after the autocratic, punishing manner of bored illiterate women teachers. They didn't want to be here any more than the kids.

No one had a choice here. You did what you were told to do in a harmonious society filled with social stability ordered from Beijing.

A long distant dream far away from a poor village where people tilled soil following oxen in dirt, mud and rice paddies. 

rest

Namaste,

Once upon a time there was a small village in Nepal. It rested on a mountain ridge between Kathmandu and Pokhara. Before the highway was built people walked from one city to another. It took seven days to reach the village from K, another two to P.

One day, everyday in the village a man carried a wicker basket full of rocks down a mountain to a construction site. A new kind of back breaking site with no connection to a spider's social network web.

He walked and walked. He dumped the rocks. He climbed the mountain and filled his basket.

In a noisy city filled with silent yellow temple candles a tired girl near her green vegetables and a lock fell asleep. She dreamed of education, clean water, friends and play in shadows. Where is her key?

Metta.