It's traveling time

 The Beach

3 piece acrylic on canvas

 So I decided that before I leave the beautiful eastern world known as Asia, I have to explore it.
I will be heading from the islands of the Philippines to Kuala Lumpur, after which I will land in Phuket, Thailand. From there I will take a ferry to Phi Phi Island, where I will meet a good friend, soak up the ocean and eat copious amounts of yummy thai food. I also promised one of my girl friends I will go see her mother. Where she will proceed to feed me more. And all the while I am there the World Cup will be happening, so I'm sure there will be tons of screaming, shouting, happy fans drinking their faces into the ground.
After Phi Phi Island I will bus up to Bangkok, but I will be sure to avoid the Red Shirts. I like to stay away drama and negative energy. From Bangkok I will fly to Taipeii to visit another friend there. I am hoping I go somewhere up in the mountains and make myself feel very, very small. Like I made myself feel when I went to the Grand Canyon. I often like to remind myself that I'm a mere speck of sand because then I don't worry so much about everything in Life. After Taipeii, I will come back to the Philippines and hug my family.
My dear, dear family who accepted me long before I could accept myself.
And then after that... I will just continue to create art until I have to say, so long Philippines, but I must return to my other home now.

Let me tell you about another one..

I woke up today at 5a.m. and fell back asleep. I proceeded to have a dream.


I dreamed that I was back in my old neighbourhood in Ottawa. I was dreaming about airplanes.
A friend of mine was trying to catch a plane to Barcelona but it was during work hours but the truth was he didn't want to return to work, so we wrote up a letter that we would give once he left the country. 
There were airplanes flying overhead and we flew to the airport. I saw him off. 
I also think I'm missing something here. 
Anyway, I returned to my home. The one that I moved out into, a friend of the family. She was waiting for me in her home. I climbed the stairs to get to the top floor and she was there. She said, "I don't want this house anymore, do you want it?" And of course I said yes, so she left me there in the house, with an elderly woman who was cleaning the mirrors. I loved the house I was in. It obviously was not the exact same as I knew it in real life, but this house was really beautiful. 


And that for the most part was my dream. Although, I do know I'm missing something that happened in it that I can vaguely recollect. I just wanted to share this one with you, but now I'm going to go back to drinking water, eating chips and singing songs.

Let me tell you about my dream..

Let me tell you about the dream I just had. It's 5p.m. and I've just woken up from a dream.

I'll tell you that it is vague now, but I'll do my best to recollect. 

There were trains. There was new concrete and all the stations were newly built.

There were security guards, making sure no one was walking alongside the train tracks.

But that's exactly what I was doing. I was walking with a man, a friend... 

He was tall with dark hair and he made me laugh a lot. We were walking side by side and he carried a guitar. I would sing and I would sing loud. People would hear it, but they didn't know where it was coming from. I can't remember where we were coming from, or where we were going, but we walked along the trains. Lots of them would pass. Sometimes, we would jump the back of them as they left the stations.

The stations were often under a tunnel. As if there were trains that would pass overhead as well.

I always felt like we had to hide. We had to hide from the people that would pass on the normal path, and we had to hide from the trains, the drivers and the security guards. 

But it felt strange. I feel like I'm missing an important detail here... anyway, it felt strange because well... I felt like I would fall asleep in my dream, with my friend. Or I would find him sleeping and I would wake him up. I feel like we kept going by the same stations and walking in circles. I would wake up even when I was walking. And it would seem like a glitch in my memory, as though it skipped a bit and I would wake up and continue walking. I know I was happy in my dream. I don't know if I dreamed of anything while I was sleeping in my dream. I wonder why that happened.

And that is it. That was most of my dream. Although I do feel like I'm missing something,,

I'll tell you that I felt happy. Even if I was getting caught by security guards and walking in circles, and even if I didn't know where I was going. I was singing and I was singing happy songs and laughing with my friend. So, I was happy.

Isn't that what's important in life anyway?

I remember.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Repeat. Deeper now.
Once more. Twice again. Third time around.
I love when movies take you to a better place.
Like books.
You know it's all so crazy.
Which is the dream. Which isn't?
Is it all just a dream? If that is so then I can make it all happen.
Can't I? Who says I can't anyway?
My brain. Society. You.
If it's you then I don't want to believe it. You should be encouraging me to be everything.
And nothing all at the same time.
Can you do that? Because to me, you are a genius. You are a bright shooting star.
I wrote two songs and recorded them. They remind me of you.
What? You don't believe you're a genius? Well... maybe not "you" then. Just whatever controls you.
Ah, your brain. The brain does everything doesn't it? It even makes us second guess ourselves.
It also makes us forget to breathe when it's got all of this thinking.
You know we are natural multi-taskers, but do we breathe while we're doing it?
Isn't that the most important thing? If we don't breathe how can we think properly.
Our brain will be lacking oxygen. I think I'm lacking oxygen a lot because often my brain thinks funny.
It thinks too much and makes me forget to breathe.
It can be helped you know. I don't have to do what everyone else is doing.
I don't actually have to listen to my mind. The universe will take care of that.
It's the enigma, the actual mystery as to what happens to us on a day to day basis.
Minute by minute we are changing. And then I think of eating a bag of fucking chips.
It's madness. All I want to do is to be able to enjoy nature and enjoy breathing and enjoy life
in a content state. I want to be able to balance the spiritual with the materialistic and I want to
walk with a pure mind void of judgment. Didn't I know that already?
What happened to practicing that? Ah, yes. I forgot all about it when I traveled across the ocean
and lost myself.
Yes. I lost me. In this hurricane madness... and the challenge was not getting here. It was not getting the job.
It was not being with family. The real challenge was whether or not I could find myself after the winds died down, the magma stopped flowing and the floods ceased.
I am still here after all. Breathing.
Thank the Universe. It hasn't given up on me yet.
Who am I. I am remembering again. I am loving it.
It's so ridiculously funny and exciting.
I am singing more. My heart is singing more to the beat of my breath.
Deeper I go.

The View Looks Different From Up Here

The View from Skywalk Extreme (Top of Crown Regency Hotel)
Cebu City, Cebu, Philippines
2010

The View from Beach Buns Restaurant
Mactan, Cebu, Philippines
2010

The View from F3 Mansion
Mactan, Cebu, Philippines
2010