Five things to improve happiness.
1. Be grateful. Write letters to someone who helped you in some way.
2. Be optimistic. Visualize your ideal future. Describe the image in a journal entry.
3. Count your blessings. Write down three good things that happen to you every week.
4. Use your strengths.
5. Practice acts of kindness. Helping others helps ourselves.
Greetings,
After nine months away Banteay Seri, Kabal Spleen river source and Ta Som temple were a deep JOY.
One day-in. One day-out. Delightful return feeling reconnected with ancient energies. Simple, immediate and direct.
At Ta Som I was delighted to be reunited with Rita. She was with friends near the East temple. They were hoping tourists might stop. Perhaps to say hello, see their hand-made items or get to know them. They sell before and after school. I met Rita in February. She is 14 and in the 6th grade.
We had a wonderful reunion. She said she still rides her bike, uses the whiteboard, markers and English books to teach the village children. They were gifts from Julia. "I see a leader in her eyes."
Rita looked radiant. She's a happy kid.
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Metta.
Rita, (L) and her friends at Ta Som.
Greetings,
May this find you. Find you well, dancing in the light. Delightful fall cool winds caress the ebony of laughter.
I am an unfinished symphony. I live with visual touch holding a small spinal kiss. Feathers on my skin. Shivers along my spine, because I loves this sensation. It is all sensation in my quiet world. This wild swan lifts off skin, its wings a flower opening a petal to light warming me.
Our love is voiceless. It is tenacious. It is the charity of lust and trust. Respect. Our silent joy is a breath. Exhaled. Released.
He comes to me in the heat of the day. I welcome him with my bright dark eyes. I welcome him with a gesture, a fingertip on lips..."quiet." We share brief moments. My passion is deep and strong. My language - a smile, eyes, hands, fingers, rolling sounds whispering:
Metta.
the last a thing a fish knows
is water
light bird song
she remembered struggling in Shanghai
with no formal education
searching for the perfect love
writing her story in Chinese
following her heart
after the rush of stimulation orchid
settled down into lassitude
misfortune wedding children
polite monosyllabic conversations
Greetings,
We met a guesthouse one morning. She started talking. "Amorous is my husband. He's sick. Something he ate."
Careful is 31. She was born in Xinjiang, China.
In 1991 while working for Ramada International Hotels in Beijing I traveled to Xinjiang to act in a movie about a hero who dies at his post. They needed a foreigner. My Swiss GM said, "Go for it." For ten days we filmed at the Chinese National Petroleum oil fields deep in the Tarim Basin. I wrote about this little adventure in my traveling novel, A Century Is Nothing.
She remembered the film and famous scientist. He developed a new drilling technique. He died at his isolated post surrounded by test tubes, mathematical scribbles, rusty oil drilling rigs and sand dunes. Then the Chinese Communist Party Propaganda Department had to approve film scripts depicting famous heroes. Especially dead scientific-political ones. He's in the Chinese national scientific hall of fame.
She's a freelance magazine editor in Shanghai. Amorous is an engineer from San Detour, California. He designs financial surf boards studying the effects of wave theory using electromagnetic pulse detectors. They met at a house party in Shanghai.
"When he came in I saw a deer," she said. She was the hunter and he was the prey. She is highly talkative. He is brilliant and taciturn. They dated for a year and married last year. First in her home town of Hubai province and then in Tomorrow Land.
They got her residency card. They returned to China and quit their jobs. They hit life's highway.
Careful remembers everything, especially the long ago past.
"When I was a little girl growing up in Xinjiang, all I wanted was a book. I grew up with mountains and rivers. One day I saw a newspaper floating in the water. I dried it out and tried to read it. I couldn't. Then, when I went to school there was a girl - her father worked with my father as a public servant - and her family was well off. She had books. I didn't like her but I pretended to so I could see her books. That's how I started to read.
"It was a real struggle for me in Shanghai. I had no formal education, but I could write. I forged a C.V. and got on with an advertising company. Good money. I was looking for the perfect love. Then I met Amorous."
"I want a home," she said. "We'll need to make a decison by May," he said. "We either return to the states or find new jobs in China."
"Look," she said, "I'm in my early 30's. I want to start a family. I need a child."
"First we need a home," he said. "Everything's in storage."
"Ok," she said. "After we're done traveling and doing this project, we'll decided where we want to live."
"Fine."
"It was my idea this project," she said. "Amorous agreed."
The project involves using various masks and props to create mysterious, surreal images around Asia. They plan their shooting schedule, Careful wears the costumes and Amorous makes the images in a raw format.
They won an Oscar this year for:
"Best Supporting Partner While Traveling For A Year in Southeast Asia While Working On A Crazy Yet Meaningful Artistic Project In Diverse Exotic Locations Using Bizarre Masks and Costumes."
Metta.
Careful in Lhasa, Tibet.
Careful in Cambodia.
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