Journeys
Images
Cloud
Timothy M. Leonard's books on Goodreads
A Century Is Nothing A Century Is Nothing
ratings: 4 (avg rating 4.50)

The Language Company The Language Company
ratings: 2 (avg rating 5.00)

Subject to Change Subject to Change
ratings: 2 (avg rating 4.50)

Ice girl in Banlung Ice girl in Banlung
ratings: 2 (avg rating 4.50)

Finch's Cage Finch's Cage
ratings: 2 (avg rating 3.50)

Amazon Associate
Contact

Entries in memory (49)

Tuesday
Jun142016

Ambition & Betrayal = Greek Tragedy

He hears foreigners process anxieties, fears, strengths (in limited proportions) and listening skills. After dark.

Famous Cambodian cultural saying: I am sorry. Goodbye and good luck to you and your family. Genetic engineering.

Courage.

I am the walrus.

I am a solitary clairvoyant.

Compassionate detachment.

Tai chi watermelon. Slow movement. Circle. Move.

Erupting like a volcano, everything I do is an experiment.

A writer has homework everyday. A writer is a word terrorist. They say what others are afraid to say.

Memory is desire satisfied.

Today your life and destiny are the same.

David Foster Wallace : Fear of fame. Fear of failure. Fear of being ordinary.

What was your original face before your parents were born?

I was born dead and slowly came to life.

I don't seek. I discover.

Mind movies.

Tuesday
Jun072016

invent a history

Inside laughter she cleaned his ears.

She's young, thin in a crisp white blouse with lipstick and recently married.

Men sweat. Women glow.

Her clean stainless steel tools removed babble, bike horns, whispers, ghost stories, lies, truth, encouraging symbolic metaphors, musical saws describing ice, a little hammer breaking ice.

INVENT A HISTORY

What's your greatest sorrow?

What's your greatest joy?

(Memory)

10 things you love.

10 things you dislike.

Confront your deepest shadow.

Tolerant and open minded. The greatest happiness = acceptance and gratitude.

You are a ghost here.

This is why people stare.

Everyone your age is dead.

 

Thursday
Jun022016

be the nib. be the ink. be the paper.

Women hack and chop in dark dingy kitchens.

Fourteen Khmer men sit at tables talking decibels.

The one who talks loudest is the winner.

Some sit silent staring into their vast repertory of memories. They are survivors.

A drama tv sitcom with a hero, girl, quest for love, understanding, medicine, food, obstacles, rising action, climax and falling action accompanied by dancing music and shadows from well worn speakers play out.

See with soft eyes.

A ghost scribbles old cursive ink stories.

Be the ink. Be the paper. Be the nib.

Tuesday
May312016

We are Stardust - TLC 80

He shared a universal story with Grade 4. “Many tribes love to look back. Passion and grasping creates suffering. It's a genetic molecule of fear, healthy doubt, fantastic uncertainty, surprise and adventure. Monkey mind. No worries, no memories. A child’s innocent curiosity lives in the present.”

“Every little thing is in front of us,” said a genius kid.

“Yes,” Lucky said, “focus on your essential needs not your wants. Imaginary wants manifest desire. Attachment and grasping creates suffering. Suffering is an illusion. We are all passing through. Humans look back in their vivid reptilian imagination hoping to see a ghost memory, a figment of their imagination.

Is it safe?

“Change is scary. They look back to remember where they came from. They look back because they are afraid they will never see the village and people again. They use their disappearing energy to look behind wondering and wandering and milling around in a perpetual state of shock and distraction.

“Humans seek clues at their personal ground zero. They’ve evolved from distant galaxies. Java man evolved here 40,000 years ago. Accepting an evolutionary premise, their DNA star chart continues its genetic dance. We are stardust. Never trust an atom. They make up everything. The world is made of stories not atoms. Oh, and one more thing. Don’t let school interfere with your education.”

He lived in talking monkey zones. They ate rice, drank water and fucked. They washed one set of clothing and hung it on bamboo. They killed all the animals and burned down all the forests. They bred, worked and got slaughtered. Shamans brought rain. Tropical downpours gave humans free showers. 

Food was cheap. Let’s eat mantra. This had nothing to do with simian behavior. It had nothing to do with two women sitting in a dark warung food joint near a private school facing a tall cinder block wall. Chickens goats and cats prowled pecked and foraged in garbage. One woman sat in a deep meditation as her friend cleaned her scalp. They took turns exploring and inspecting. This genetic ritual was practiced in world zoos, jungles and rain forests.

Chattering storytellers. Musicians played ancient gamelan tunes. Heal people with music. Music is the fuel.

Idle Indonesian males after washing taxis studied accumulated grime under long yellow curling fingernails. Waiting for passengers they played chess in Banyan tree shade. Checkmate, said Death, You lose.

Drivers visited the warung chatting up girls, devouring spicy rice mixed with tofu, chicken, veggies, green chilies and deep-fried snacks.

One lucky explorer created a Brave New World.

         Culture is what you are.

         Nature is what you can be.

He invented new futures with cold, detached logical intention and compassion. He survived in an assessment-of-process paradigm inside an expanding data based star cluster.

The Language Company 

 

Saturday
May212016

memory is hunger

I saw my first Cambodian woman with a prosthetic right foot. It was her gait.

How she dragged the green olive drab right leg behind her as she crossed the street. It reminded her of a lost condition where one whispers know more than they reveal.

She was maybe 40, give or take a moment. It was a moment years ago when she stepped on the invisible land mine. Her story evolved into family taking care of her. Relatives patched her up. They tied her leg with vines to stop the flow. A doctor. Blood. Pain. Tears and memory.

Memory is hungry. I need more victims, said Memory.

She absolved her faint transitory belief in Buddha and mysteries. I am grateful to be alive.

After she went to SR she got her new leg.

She practiced walking again. She developed the drag.

If her husband and family rejected her

she ended up in the city sitting on a sidewalk selling string

Begging

Stringing life line life time string