Last Drops

The remainder of my time in Asia was a bit like sucking the citrus juice out of unwritten days.

Elephants became the official mascot of the trip,
with the etched textures in their skin,
reminding us to remember.

I remembered a pile of forgotten things.
To give more
and not take more than I need
because voids create vacuums
and love is all there is.

Laos was so green and alive,


despite the Secret War that left Laos one of the most heavily bombed countries in the world. Many UXO's still linger in the ground, which explode when humans gather them (knowing the risks) to sell them as the scrap metal is valued more than flesh. It is a sick story illustrating the sickening and evolving irony of capitalism. However, there are powerful organizations like COPE that spread hope in the form of free prosthetic limbs
to replace the warm skin ones lost in explosions.




In Northern Laos, we were able to volunteer at an Organic Farm, painting their bar and encouraging travellers to buy Mulberry Mojitos--all proceeds went to the local school.


And then the Mekong River lazily drifted us to Northern Thailand.

Our time in Chiang Mai was sculpted by Mollie's generous Thai family, as they fed and sheltered and taught us songs about fruit and wetting the bed.

We were delightfully usurped in their lives.

We fell into the Loi Krathong Festival, which celebrates the goddess of the water.
The full moon mirrors the rice paper lantern, as it fills up with the hot air that will waft it to the sky. We spent nights burning new constellations.


We released buoyant lanterns upon the river, carrying our wishes bobbing dangerously close to the water--bumping against all the other delicate desires.

Our final stop was the Baan Unrak Orphanage on the Burmese-Thai border, where we painted mass amounts of murals with/for Burmese refugee children:


A Magic door to the Center of the Universe/God's House


A "Hand"Scape Mural, where hand prints were added by individual kids and volunteers as pledges to take care of good old earthball.


Many small hands were transformed into leaves and flowers,
as kids promised to respect our planet.


Washing hands after was a crucial aspect of the activity.


The kids painted this depiction of their home in a harmonious fashion


And we squished out a calming Sea Scape,
which became very interactive even as the paint was drying.

Then the political conflict in Thailand bubbled over into a protest that shut down the Bangkok airports for 8 days, an interval in which I was scheduled to leave the country. After a long train and some other madness, I escaped from Kuala Lumpur and fled to London.

The UK served as a two-week reintegration station, with playful undertones.


And finally, home happened.

The past two months have been thick and rich,
with my roots curling down
into family and friends and familiar spaces--


finding new ways to fit into these old shapes.


I've just fallen back into another tiny world,
of warm faces and crumbling economies, cold air and heavy days and wild hopes.

I'm just now rapt up in the process
of reflection


while frantically reshaping the lump of my current clay reality.



Finding the balance between my rushed fingers scribbling plans and
trusting this evolving story to find its own bright path through the creamy fog air.

Shooting Out A Root

Since the South East Asian reunion of the scattered yipyiping Scripps graduates, life has unfolded into a generous clump of adventures.

First, we allied with time and conquered space by finding each other in Singapore in late September, unwittingly overlapping with the first-ever night time Formula 1 Races.

While this made it virtually impossible to find a room, it did have its advantages.

In response to the swarming crowds, the citystate (while normally immaculately groomed and conspicuously sleek) was cloaked in perfectly placed glitter and visually stimulating treats designed to impress tourist eyeballs.

Tengku Mahmud School in Terengganu offered different delights.

We team-taught a lesson dubbed "Each One, Teach One,"which had students draw blind contour portraits of each other and then fill them in with colours and writing about all the different things they wanted to teach and to learn. One student wanted be a computer hacker. Another, "to be the perfect boyfriend." Teaching skills included the cooking of various dishes, playing of assorted sports, and "how to die." The students were exuberantly shy and some spontaneous autograph sessions exploded at the end of classes.

We also painted a mural.

"The Promise Tree" encouraged students to make environmentally friendly decisions, while igniting constant joy in its aesthetic value.

There were some sad goodbyes, especially with the women that worked in the canteen, as they generously nurtured me in that warm dirty kitchen.

Our next stop was Southern Thailand, where we spent days in Chaomai--a small town of sea-gypsies,



and met a human named Sinchai (owner of Sinchai's Resort).

Our first 12 hours: Sinchai served us beers rather late at night and then surprised us by beating on our door yelling "wakeupwakeupwakeup!" at 6:30am the following day. He then forced us to eat and get on a boat, promising us we would be happy. We were. After several hours of groggy snorkeling, we swam through a pitch black cave tunnel and emerged into a pristinely turquoise lagoon in the middle of limestone cliffs.

Also, we painted a sign for him and he paid us in crabs.

Additionally, we saw the sky compromise in a overwhelmingly attractive manner:

simultaneous pastel moon rise

and flamboyant sunset.

Cambodia opened into another chapter.

Phnom Penh is a heavy city, with history coating the air like coarse dust. S-21 was an old high school that the Khmer Rouge converted into a torture and interrogation prison during the genocide in the late 70's. From this place I learned about the US's extensive bombing of Cambodia during the Vietnam war, and the sickening extent of human cruelty.

Pray not Prey

The Killing Fields was where many Cambodians were mass murdered during the four-year genocide that wiped out 20% of the country's population--particularly the educated. It is unnerving to walk in this quiet green place and try to fathom the atrocities that occured underneath the neutral trees and the sweet breeze that softens the brutal sun.


The reflection of sky over the skull-filled monument. This fresh history is still festering in all elements of Cambodian life, although it is constantly glossed over in Angkor Wat...

Angkor What?

Siem Reap is a crumbling town littered with the majestic ruins of 1000 year old stone temples. Blocks tumble into cubist landscapes.

Now, many of them are undergoing green redecoration of the natural variety, the tentacles of trees prying walls apart and dividing human effort with patient strength.

Also, the poverty of Cambodia has birthed a are a host of the most inspiring NGO's here. We stumbled onto an amazing organization to educate and empower street children, called The Global Child. We were able to do Past, Present, and Future self-portraits with the kids, and various stories spilled onto brightly colored paper.

These are not the kids we did art with, but they are indeed Cambodian students.

I also fell head over heels in love with Saray Tonle, an organization which empowers women to weave sellable products out of water hyacinth, an invasive plant taking over the Tonle Sap Lake. In this way, the plant's harmful effects are curbed, the women make money using this abundant resource, instead of fishing the shrinking fish population, which is another environmental issue. So good.

Once again I'm inspired about the power of art to impact positive change,

and the creative abilities of humans to work together to promote a sustainable and peaceful world, while acknowledging the depths of violence.



The tree on the left was chopped down, but its neighbor shot out a root and has kept it alive. Word.

Stacking Up Into Stories

The section of my life with the working title“Teaching English in Malaysia” is nearing its bittersweet end. This short story has seeped into a sketch-book that lives with me, and I now invite you to a guided tour of its contents.

I fell off my world, and into another one.

(Falling off the edge of my own tiny world.)

It is rather anxiety-producing and disconcerting to pick up roots

and land clumsily onto other land, but…

(you can't be very grounded if you want to fly).

*collaborative piece by Zoe, Joe, Jackie, Ken, and Jon.

This new world is fully equipped with spectacular characters bursting with potential interaction.

However, I am also very aware of the reverse truth:

(...I'm just a character in everyone else's story).

Existing as a character in other' lives means that I often feel like an unmarked canvas

for people to write their own winding stories on.

(Hi, I'm the new blank being for you to project on to.)

The hardest aspect is the solid distance from those I love,

but when physical truths limit proximity,

it is an opportunity to explore a landscape inside.

(Spaces split faces, but minds seam them together).

I have found many faces places wishes and memories twitching within.

(Being, not giving,

twisted up in my own chest,

thin but infinite).
*It's a haiku, count it

One time, when I was trudging around my inner landscape
I realized that the secret to enjoying life
is to let life be what it is.
Much of my last year has involved accepting the new world.

(As long as you let the dream change, you can always live the dream).

*Zoe did the majority of this

The new world is different. It has new words, and a delightfully user-friendly system of grammar to wrap them up in (no tenses, no genders, no verb conjugation ever).

(Bawang = Onion...my favorite word in Malay)

This place has new ways of treating race and religion.

These labels are obvious neon flashing, facts, unapologetically separated

(No one can marry a Muslim without converting first, there are different uniforms issued for the Chinese and Malay students)

into neat little pictures, like refrigerator magnets.

(Races dismissed as glossy calendars.)

The new land has new rules.

Following the new rules has distinctly clarified the old ones.

Women's bodies are encouraged to be concealed or revealed,

but its always another placing judgment on the vessel and controlling sexuality.

Two sides of the same coin.

(Conceal Reveal)

New rules carry new consequences.

Aspects of me that were previously uncontroversial (displaying shoulders, drinking beer)

instantly lit up as secrets when I stepped into Terengganu,

the second most conservative state in Malaysia.

(Entering Terengganu, my secrets multiply...)

This world is in communication with other worlds, it has pertinent roots in other stories.

(and relevant wars fester in nearby borders.)

Which highlights the thick lessons to be learned, and help me readjust my priorities

(love, hydration, mangos)

(The practice of loving is the healing force that brings sustained peace. -bell hooks)

Sometimes you have to fall off of your own world to

(remember).

Life is a series of moments

stacking up into stories.

(Fill them carefully).