Finding Wisdom, Courage and Grace on the road less traveled.
I’ve been obsessed with the Holstee Manifesto since it started circulating the net last year. They just came out with a wonderful video and I’m posting it below. I’m so thankful for companies, like Holstee, who force us to examine our lives and inspire us to make the most of our precious time here.
The Holstee Manifesto Lifecycle Video from Holstee on Vimeo.
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Big city living in Buenos Aires is a strange brew of high-energy excitement, chaos and commerce. Nearly a quarter of Argentina’s 40 million residents live and dwell here. The city is sprawling, dirty and beautiful. Immaculate apartment lofts coexist alongside open garbage piles. It’s a metro of dichotomies. One day I am dining with friends of ex-presidents and on the next am brought to tears by the humble love of the cleaning lady. I am enraged and heartbroken all at once, often at the extremes of human emotion amidst the poverty, excess and hardship that this city’s streets throw at me each day. I love and hate it here. It is a mirror that forces me to face the demons of my imperfection. Can I be compassionate, patient, open and strong? Will this city, with its anger and apathy, engulf me or will I rise above?
And then like a flash, a moment of pure innocence catches my breath. I am reminded of what is good and true.
Of God.
A little girl squeals with joy playing with her doll on a rooftop cement playground just after a rainstorm.
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A friend once told me that you can live a thousand lives in London and still not discover every nook and cranny of the place. Sure enough, I was reminded of this a few days ago after a work meeting when we wandered into Shoreditch, a too-cool-for-me neighborhood in East London.
There’s a new, industrial, hole-in-the-wall ad agency around every corner, and boutique shops and coffee houses with patrons that look like they’ve come straight out of Rolling Stone magazine. One minute you see a punk-rock ballerina with blonde hair, pink tank and polka-dot tutu saunter across the street and the next minute a mirror image of Lucille Ball from I Love Lucy walks outside to have a smoke, curlers still in her hair. And every single time I land in this borough I can’t help but feel like I don’t quite belong. Actually, I feel like a fish out of water. But that’s what London is. A city full of surprises.
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Septembers were my favourite. The walk home from work took an hour and required a diagonal cut through Hyde Park. Belgravia to Notting Hill.
Autumn had never felt more grande than during that evening as I looked down the long lane of tall maples that hugged Park Lane. The crispy crunch of red orange leaves and a warm cool breeze had me bursting with joy. I purposely left work at work; no laptop, no bags, flat shoes and a light coat. Nothing to weigh me down on this most precious of evenings.
After several minutes of walking, the park’s vast open spaces swallowed the traffic of the city streets. The silence surprised me. But for the chirp of a bird or laughter between lovers, I had no idea it was possible in a metropolis so big. Vast blue skies were possible too. Not a building could be seen on the horizon by the time I reached the Serpentine and suddenly the day’s worth of meetings, deadlines, phone calls and emails vanished.
On this particular evening, I strolled more slowly than usual, admiring the hummed chirp of summer insects as they readied for the night. On the grass friends gathered in their loosened ties and unbuttoned coats, joy washing over their faces as they sat with Tesco wine, paper cups and plastic wrapped cheese. Mist hovered softly over the grass, kissing their scattered shoes in the dying light of an Indian summer eve. I smiled for them, amused by the simplicity of their make-shift picnic out. A pang of loneliness came over me.
I wondered what it was that they laughed about as a peered at them from my bench. They’re bitching about work, I thought to myself. The usual chit chat after a long week. The nothing details in conversation that we are compelled to share with people we trust, nurturing intimacy as we open up about our naked, unglamorous lives.
I had left everything and everyone I knew behind to pursue a new life in a new land. I had opportunities to pursue, new places to see, new limits to test. It had been my decision to come here, my decision to start fresh. But in that moment, I longed to join them in their reverie, to be invited into something bigger than my hermit crab shell built for one.
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This is an excerpt from a creative-writing piece about my life in London from 2005 to 2009. The finished product is coming along very slowly. I’m posting drafts for practice and feedback; my slow-cook approach towards publishing.
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On the last eve of this 4th of July weekend, there sits a lump in my throat as the pop of fireworks reverberate around our neighbourhood. God Bless America is blasting on TV, the screen splattered in sprinkles of red and blue as Washington DC and NYC ring in this Independence Day. I am overcome with gratitude and awe.
You see, I’m in the final stages of becoming an official American Citizen. Just a few weeks late of the nation’s 235th birthday and on the doorstep of the celebration of my own 29 years, I will be swearing my oath of allegiance to this incredible country.
I am Philippine by birth, and Canadian in upbringing. We came to Canada as immigrants when I was 5 years old. Opportunity, warmer skies and the American Dream brought our family south.
Blessed by the love of relatives left behind, my parents arrived on this continent with nothing more than a few thousand dollars, sheer determination and an unwavering innocent hope for a better life. Like millions of others who came before us seeking work and equal opportunity, our dreams of stability and prosperity were realized. America (and Canada) did not care where we came from or the colour of our skin. It did not care what brand of English we spoke – broken or accented. It did not care what food we ate, how we dressed or what God we chose to love.
While studying America’s history in preparation for my citizenship interview, I was overcome with admiration and amazement. The establishment of democracy, the bill of rights, the systems of checks and balances in government; all of it is simply remarkable. The overwhelming show of American pride that once perplexed me as a Canadian means so much more to me now as I come to terms with what it means to be a citizen of this country.
I have a few more weeks to go before it all becomes official. Maybe then I’ll have the wisdom, clarity and presence of mind to express my feelings in more detail. Today, I am content with not having the words. Today, I am just very grateful to be here.
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While on an 11 day trip to China, my friend Jalin and I decided to spend a few days exploring the island of Macau. From the bustle of Hong Kong’s majestic harbor we ferried our way to Macau’s lazy tropical shores. Colonized by the Portuguese, it felt more like Mediterranean Europe than South East Asia. Tiled church squares, Spanish architecture and pastel coloured roads.
This photograph was taken in old Macau just a few feet from Lord Stow’s Bakery, known to have the best egg tarts on the island. Barring a few local visitors, we were the only ones on that street. The light was as warm as it looks. It felt like we had traveled back in time.
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When we travel, the simplest bits of daily life become magical somehow. The stray dog on the street, the fruit stands in the market, clothes hanging to dry on balconies and windows. Sometimes it takes a journey half way around the world to help us see the beauty in ordinary things. Travel is wonderful that way.
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I treated myself to some retail therapy today. Sometimes it’s not about the “stuff” that you get but the time spent with yourself on a long Saturday afternoon. Alone time for me has been rare lately.
I found this little treasure in a bookshop. Leather, green, tall and skinny. It’s an investment in grateful awareness.
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This is one of my favourite fortune cookie messages to date. I discovered it weeks ago when we ordered Chinese food for lunch at work. It’s the kind of fortune that can be applied over and over, every single day. Sometimes, we have to be sensitive to the little hints that the universe is communicating to us. They come in unexpected ways.
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For as long as I can remember, I’ve kept some form of journal or diary. In the 5th grade, I was determined to write a novel and somehow managed to produce 35 double-sided, hand-written pages of babble. I can’t recall now what I’d written about and whether it made any sense, but I remember distinctly how the crumpled pages felt in my hand. Half the fun was leafing through them over and over again so that I could feel their roughness, like worn paper money that would have been passed around in old, ancient markets. I loved that my words felt antique on those curled, greasy pieces of paper.
I didn’t know then how wonderfully I’d delight my future self with this journaling habit. Today, I can’t rummage through a shelf or box of things without finding a note, a receipt, a torn piece of paper with a little snippet of my history written inside. Just tonight, I leafed through a favourite paperback and out fell a business card from a cherished restaurant in Tel Aviv. I visited there 3 years ago. Flashbacks from that trip came wafting over me while I sat on the floor of my room. Masada. Jerusalem. The creamy feel of the water in the Dead Sea. Ripe fragrant guavas spilling from a cart on the street. Memories are like that.
I found half a dozen journals tonight. And as I leafed through each one, pieces of my younger self came to life. Shopping lists. Meeting minutes. Phone numbers. On one page, a mind map of the Gmail marketing plan for Romania (..600K, no, wait 200K mobile internet users, a goal of 50K new accounts…) and on the next page, a love letter I never sent.
I found a notebook of poems, of prayers, of gratitude. I found a book with a collection of French verbs (from a few years ago when I tried to re-learn the language). And a moleskin book of London, hardly written in (why?). Another journal decorated with stickers and quotes from a girl friend; it was a Christmas present. And a coil-bound book of lists.
All of them beautiful. But all unfinished.
An old favourite notebook, because it was small and soft covered and fit neatly in all of my purses, had only two blank pages left. The other hundred or so packed top to bottom in hand written words of mostly blue ink (I kept favourite pens, too). And yet somehow, the old me chose not to continue writing in it anymore. The last few sentences inside read: I am going to heal myself. I’m choosing now to let go of it all. It’s time to move on.
And another book, also unfinished, ends: And so, I wonder how this will all turn out. I am trying hard to live in the moment.
And another: I trust myself first because I know who I am now.
My heart breaks trying to remember the turmoil I must have been going through to have written such dramatic, all-encompassing words. And another part of me laughs because I know how the story ended and if I could just whisper in my old self’s ear, I would tell her Denise, I promise you, everything will be just fine.
Leafing through these books, there is a larger part of me who is proud. Proud of my old self for having the courage to walk away from an unfinished story so that she could start anew. Though I’m sure she didn’t know it then, the old Denise was trying her best to re-invent her destiny each time things didn’t seem to be going just right. Some of these notebooks are only a quarter used. Pages and pages of dead weight paper that will never feel the touch of a pen. Denise had to walk a different road, start on a fresh book of pages.
Reading through these old journals, I feel witness to the making of Me. So many unfinished stories, so many unclosed doors, so many possible endings. And beginnings.
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Hi there! I'm Denise. I share my name with Dionysia, the Greek god of wine, pleasure and joy. I'm a photographer, writer, marketer vagabond. I take photographs of enchanted places and the people seduced by them. This blog is an account of the wisdom, joy and grace that I've encountered along the way, and a place where I showcase some of my favourite photographs.
If you have similar stories to share, have questions about purchasing prints or just want to say hello, I'd love to hear from you!
