Someone once said that each day of our lives, we must do at least one thing that scares us. So I told myself that this year, I'll try my hardest to be honest, I'll teach myself to be brave. It's not easy. But maybe this will help.

My name is Anna. My heart is fickle, my memory is unreliable, and I tend to think of the past and look at the future ( Read more... )

The excitement that radiated from the sweaty skin of every single person in the vicinity was palpable, tinging the air with electricity. Laughter and loud chattering pervaded the crisp, summer air, and every few minutes or so an influx of people would arrive in large groups, making it quite difficult to move around. People pushed past each other to ( Read more... )

Over the week I listened to an old man talk about how things were like when he was younger. We sat and gave him our undivided attention, sitting on kitchen chairs and taking in everything in huge gulps: his tattered white shirt, tufts of balding white hair, wrinkled brown skin, and despite all the evident signs of old age, we were entranced by the ( Read more... )

Love crosses its islands, from grief to grief,
it sets roots, watered with tears,
and no one - no one - can escape the heart’s progress
as it runs, silent and carnivorous.

You and I searched for a wide valley, for another planet
where the salt wouldn’t touch your hair,
where sorrows couldn’t grow because of anything I did,
where bread could live and not ( Read more... )

The morning after Christmas, I heaved a sigh and finally put down Eat Pray Love after a month or two of reading it (yes, it took me that long) (school eats up most of my energy and time). It's an account of a woman's journey who, after losing everything she deemed important in life, literally flew around the world to experience pleasure (Italy), to ( Read more... )

You've always been so good at detachment, so here you go: books and walls and places and words and songs and sentences and photographs processed by just a subtle touch of pressure on a camera's button wrapped around moments, hours, and days to protect yourself from thoughts, feelings, and situations you'd rather do away with for now. Stop talking ( Read more... )

“If you could do it all over again, what would you change?” I asked. It was a long, dreary night and we were seated on her front porch, swinging our legs, whiling the time away, drinking coffee and chasing billows of smoke with our fingertips with the distant drone of television and chirping crickets behind us.

She took her time before answering, ( Read more... )

I should have written this entry ages ago, but I hesitated-- procrastination (one of the few things I'm good at, and also a habit I am trying to shake off) took hold of me again. But I digress ( Read more... )

There was a couple I remember seeing one afternoon while we were driving on our way to the store. The man and the woman were standing still in the midst of a crowd while everyone around them was bustling along. They were stuck in their own little world and everything else was a blur.

It was the kind of scene that belongs in movies and in books, the ( Read more... )

We've shipped the last of the three balik-bayan boxes, and the guest room I have been residing in for the last two months is slowly starting to empty of our things. There are three more days left and I am staring at the end of this dream (no, no, no this was not a dream. This was real) at the face. But before we go, I am leaving behind my big, red ( Read more... )