REALLY?

Vanity "02
Mountain Wolf "07
Jade Print " 08
Peruvian Man "07

Has it really been almost FOUR months since I touched this blog?? Maybe it's due to the menu of options in my life right now......... "move to Hawaii" is what the little person inside my gut said........ booked flight/ left studio/ quit job/ and then drove up to Vail.... didn't get on the flight . The same person inside my gut said "DO NOT get on that plane"

I am currently looking out onto a crisped snow field about to head further into the mountains of Buena Vista, CO. I guess no sun, warmth, growth, surf, and Aloha for me after all.

Stay tuned Bending Grass.com is about to shift into an entirely new world filled with art/ photography/ the written word/ charity projects/ and music.

No words of wisdom/ advice or great insight into life. I am just slowly watching the prayer flags hanging out over the deck at a friends house, sipping tea, and looking at the white, dark gray sky. Lack of color I had expected to be viewing, but by no means lack of richness.

The Menue of Options

I woke up from a dream this morning, ringing through my head, and it has me in shackles because I can't seem to set it aside.

It goes something like this:

I was at a local restaurant here in Boulder CO with a good friend of mine. She couldn't figure out what she wanted to order and so she hesitantly ordered a salad. I couldn't decide and so I told our server to come back in a bit. When the salad came Annie then said she didn't want it and it's not what she had ordered.

Meanwhile the menu continued to stare at me, popping out many different dishes. Almond, squash and black bean soup. Tofu and snap pea Indian curry. The menu was full of variety and although I couldn't make up my mind, there were many choices of delicious dishes to choose from. They were all attainable, presented to me in clear fashion, all I had to do was decide on one and the server would plug it into the computer, the chefs would make it and then I would eat it.

I wasn't sure what kind of mood I was in and I was afraid that the dish I would decide on wouldn't turn out the way I expected it too, like Annie's salad, and then I would be stuck eating a dish I didn't want in the first place! YES, worst things have happened.

I never ordered. I woke up.

The reason why this dream continues to play itself out within my day is because it has an important message for me. I can HAVE whatever I WANT. I just have to sit down, listen to what I am feeling, and decide.

Have you ever been in a restaurant or in the grocery store and been oddly overwhelmed by the options that you get to pick from, then ordered or grabbed something off the shelf, continue to wait for the meal or stood in line to pay and the realize, "oh, I don't really want this!" and run to the server or back to the isle of goods and exchanged it? The sense of relief is silly but incredible.

That is a metaphor that can be moved throughout our lives on many different levels. You don't HAVE to eat the meal if you don't like it. It's a choice. You don't HAVE to buy something or choose something you are not 100% sure of. You don't have to do.....................anything.

I know drastic or just plain obvious but I guess that is the greatest thing about being US. We have so much choice it's ridiculous and yet oddly beautiful or even still, strange. Anything you would like to accomplish, anything you would like to do this lifetime is up to YOU to get it done.

There are many options. You don't have to chose the first one presented. Sit with it. Feel it out and then once decided, chose it. In time it will follow, you just have to be patient and trust that everything happens all in due time or never at all. And if never at all, never meant to be I guess.

Deep and profound thoughts from your bending grass gal.

Crossing Over

My objective this morning was to get started on some grant writing, converting one company over to another, and working on the new Bending Grass Project website. I flipped open the black leather cover on my journal expecting to see a bunch of miscellaneous writings, a "to do list" of sorts, but instead, ink drawings popped out of the page, transporting me back into Nepal. I seemingly grabbed the wrong journal.NEPAL...... It's a place...word.... time in my life that keeps repeating itself and I find that no matter what I do or where I go these days, this little nook settled in between India, and Tibet crosses over into my present world OFTEN.

Roaming through Upper Dolpo, with no camera to capture the experience with, due to a leaky tent with a lot of rainwater, I resorted to good old fashion ink and paper. It was more time consuming and hard to stay in one place, both physically and mentally, as my eyes and feet wanted to do more wondering then sitting, but sitting and sketching was what brought the spinning world of the Tibetan Plateau to rest. Presently I don't have to scroll through my photo files to remember what my trip consisted of. I scroll through unorganized compartments within my mind, sifting through the memories like a 1953 home video projected on a wall. Instead of the click clack of the shutter opening and closing, soft sounds of scratching filled the air around me colliding with the roaring river, horse tails swinging at flies, or the clanking of stoking of the fire. I slowly began to SEE what I had been walking through and sitting in silence, like a sponge absorbing it all, my Upper Dolpo moments are seemingly ingrained into my being for lifetimes to come.

Don't get me wrong. I love my camera and I love photography. It's an art and skill that only comes with time and an innate ability to capture life in a blink of an eye. Photographs tell of stories in more words then a written description and can become so moving that the image stays with that individual for the remainder of their lives. BUT it's fast. Rather it can be fast but so can sketching for that matter. By sitting down I allowed my eyes to stop bouncing around like a pin ball machine and rest, in a soft gaze, on the slate rooftops, dried warped wood stacked in clean piles, or placements of hand carved designs etched into wooded doors and windows. In complete awe I began to stare at the art that weaved itself in and out of the villages in Dolpo. Everything was intricately crafted. A lot of intention went behind all that was created. The entire plateau was an art gallery and it only made sense that I too should put as much intention into what I was creating. Pen in hand I began to capture my days, but soon along with my camera, the pen slowly began to join the camera deep within my backpack and the only thing that remained were my eyes, ears, hands and nose.

Yesterday I created intention as my feet and fingers found small holds on a rock face wall sitting deep in Dream Canyon. My mind and body are usually used to SEEING the next hold labeled with a vibrant color of tape, strapped along holds on a make shift wall in a climbing gym. It's easy for my body to automatically reach for the next hold just moments after landing on the present one. It's also fast. So fast, that I when I reach the top of the route, I am perplexed on how I got there. Being on the rock face yesterday, a river raged below, and the stillness of the canyon brought me back into that flat space of calm, the kind that I experienced so often in Dolpo. There was no red, turquoise, or gold tape highlighting the best place to place my body. There was only the pure rock or grey and mossy green concealing any possible jutting ledge for rest. I began to sink back into the present moment. Nothing else was going on except the air on my neck and the feeling of crunching fingers into a crack in the side face. I glided my fingers over the jagged rock, and although I could feel the first few layers of my skin start to peel back, my body relaxed as they secured a solid hold. My toes felt around for a steadier surface.

"Attention" the oboe bird repeatedly articulated, in Aldous Huxley's book, Island. Climbing and Island go hand in hand for me. I started climbing during my second year at University just about the same time I began my philosophy courses with professor Baylor Johnson. He changed everything in my world and so did that book. Tuning IN and paying "attention" is exactly what happens on a rock face wall. Rushing won't work. Steady movement, created by full attention to the moment, is the ONLY thing that will keep your heart and head calm and encourage focused intention on placement of the next hold. It's a kind of "walking" or "doing" meditation.

Climbing inside vs. climbing outside might be the same thing as photography vs. drawing. While I enjoy fast moving things like my oddly fast typing skills, the ability to fly down a hill on my bike, or the way a fully composed song will manifest seemingly out of thin air when I sit down to play my guitar, I also have noticed that cross country skiing, strolling in the forests, or the hours of prep that goes into cooking food or creating a painting is more my style: SLOW.

I crossed over into Nepal this morning through the turning of pages in my sketch journal. I crossed over into a really beautiful and quiet space on that rock wall in Dream Canyon yesterday. Emotions, thoughts, memories, and everything that has been created or that will ever be created, will do so at their own speed but with clear and peaceful intention. If I can remember the ability to be mindful and artistic within rock climbing and painting, I can remember to be mindful and create the same intention within every moment this lifetime. My life is but a canvas and I am the artist. I won't rush the placement of things. I'll take time to step back, see the colors that I love and the colors that I don't, and figure out how to reconstruct my life so that it’s a life that allows me to cross over into different countries, artistic encounters, and into more adventures.

OK, back to my "real" work

"Great Truths Are Distruibted Into Smaller Forms of Chaos"

A lot of laughter was to be had at high altitudes and although there was lack of oxygen there was by no means a lack of silliness. That ability to take ourselves lightly, cured us from the aches and pains that went hand in hand with the hours of trekking that day.

The Stellera chamaejasme L is from the family known as Thymelaeacea. Medicinal usage of this plant is to relieve disease and pain from swelling. It is used as a antiseptic for open wounds, poultice for swellings and fractured bone. Although it's slightly poisonous, seemly all plants in the Upper Dolpa are, and can cause headache if smelled, was one of the most vibrant plants we came across.

The funny thing about medicine is that it's main usage is for relieving, treating or preventing disease.

Last night a friend and I had the opportunity to see an exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver. As we walked up to the second floor, echoes of our feet and breath dragged behind us in a whisper, bouncing off the cement and metal that acted as the stairwell. We arrived to the Damian Hirsh exhibition. Eyes roamed past a few instillation's and rested on the wall across from us. Directly in the middle of the wall, large white shelves had been installed and various prescriptions were displayed. It could have been any ones medicine cabinet or any of the multiple drug stores that sweep across this country and those of others. I vividly remember walking into a Tibetan "hospital" and seeing this same display of bottles. Some where bandages, small glass bottles with medicinal plants resting within, and westernized antibiotics. There, in front of me last night, plastic bottles and cardboard containers were labeled with terms that are roughly unfamiliar to me, although I did happen to see an underlying theme. RELIEF. "constipation relief" "head ache relief" "relief of fever or swelling" "relief of pain" "Prozac" and "zantac".

I couldn't help but recognize the theme that is running through our country. People are constantly seeking relief. Relief of heartache, cold, sickness, stress, anxiety, bodily aches, emotional pains, or economic relief. If we get a cut, we stick a bandage on it. If we get a stomach ache, we take something to subside the discomfort. A fever = take Tylenol. Sleepless = sleeping pills. Infection: antibiotics. It's interesting to see that we have forgotten that these symptoms are our bodies way of communicating to us that something needs to change within our daily lives to restore order. We are seeking external material to restore an internal issue.

A fever is a good sign that the body is heating itself to kill off a virus. A bodily discomfort is the bodies way of saying "something isn't right here, what ever you are doing please stop" A stomach ache could possibly mean an allergy to a food. Stress could be a clue that you need to take more time for yourself and encourage time for reflection and ways to include more peaceful activities into your daily life. To be constipated could me various health issues but it could be as simple as adding more fiber and water into your diet. Many people turn to food, shopping, drugs or alcohol in order to suppress emotions.

While we are eager to get our hands on external remedies we aren't as easily ready to make the change within that might be able to prevent our ailments. Take the presidential election for instance. We are putting a lot of pressure on just one man to relieve our countries aliments. It's like saying, " Tylenol or Advil ". McCain vs. Obama. We can continue to pop a pill but the pain won't stop, it will only be suppressed and will continue to show itself until we get to the root of the problem. Our countries problems are not the result of just one man. Absurdity is what I call blaming a wrongful president for ALL the current chaos of our country. If we should point a finger it should be at ourselves. If the PEOPLE are unwilling to make the change there is no way the President of the United States can make it for us. If we are unwilling to understand what our bodies are telling us the pills will do nothing but mask the destruction.

Take consumerism for example. The average American wants food, clothes and gas at the absolute minimal cost. The result is overseas manufacturing ie. child labor in China, Indonesia or Thailand, while also creating less jobs here within the United States. We want organic or natural foods but won't support local farmers because it's too expensive. In order to satisfy a growing interest of less toxic foods, the FDA diminishes the regulations for an organic title, allowing major companies, previously not adhering to sustainable methods and growing mass amounts of foods with pesticides, permission to slap on the "FDA approved Organic" sticker. The result is mass produced "organic" foods and local farmers who go bankrupt in the process.

We say we don't want on or off shore drilling within the United states. We say that we don't support this war. We even get it printed on a bumper sticker. Those of you who use a car but don't support the war.... do you realize that the war exists partially because we "need" more oil here in the states? Do you recognize that you pumping gas results in more American and foreign deaths every day or are you not yet willing to take any form of blame? Step away from our cars, step away from foreign reliance and we can step back from the war. But we are not yet willing to step away from our cars or our spending. We are not yet willing to minimize our spending we are not yet ready to reel in our consumerism mentality. Our entire country is a walking contradiction and please don't get me wrong, I fully acknowledge that I fall into this category. We consume, consume consume.

There is light at the end of the tunnel.....or so they say. But if your eyes are closed you can't see the light and if you don't walk the tunnel you won't get out of the tunnel. Unless we acknowledge that more things; drugs, food, gas, clothes, homes, cars and accessories will not bring us true happiness, then our country will continue to head down the same path it has for decades. Bringing a new president into office won't change that. Another prescription won't get rid of the disease. A new job. A new outfit. A new car. A new house. Things will not bring constant happiness. They will not change anything. An external solution will not solve an internal problem.

There is always a door to be opened and a door to be shut. It just depends on if we are willing to close the door on a room that no longer serves us. Unless we are ready, will we be able to fully push back the door to a new room; a new way.

Reaching Within

I am learning to embrace stepping within.

To Find A Balance In Life During It's Constant Movement Is A Challenge.

Not Impossible.

Everything that ever was is defined in terms of contrast. Dark vs light. Good vs bad. Right vs. wrong. Awake vs. sleep. Happy vs. sad. Love vs. hate or rich vs. poor. Are all of these things not just words that are taped on the side of a box; a defined square of judgement withholding emotions or visions that the human language labels? They sit in a box cluttered in a restrictive category, entangled in guilt because they can be nothing other then the label on their box.

When is enough enough? When do we say, "what's the difference"? One laughter is an others howl. One sound is an others deafness. One closed heart is only an others open heart. Balance is tricky but it's not unattainable. The "vs" within the contrast of two items is what keeps them separated. What if we took out the "vs" and just left it as is? Happy next to sad is basically saying happy IS sad and vise verse. Balancing could be as easy or as hard as walking a plank that sits on a sharp edged stone. Maybe the best place to have your feet planted is somewhere in the middle, either that or taking the plunge off the one of the sides. Is it possible to find the balance in extreme difference? Is it possible to find find steadiness in constant movement?

Escaping

I have been writing about a home grown life vs. life on the road. Is it possible to have both? Is it possible to roam the edge of the world and then come home and grow a vegetable garden? Who would maintain that crafted home with the wood stove and the compost pit next to the chicken coup while the other half of you is gone roaming around and shifting the world? Would one life abandon the other life? Would the door swing open, everyone jump ship and leave one life behind? What if you want both? What if you want to pull back that swinging door that sits on the edge of the cliff and slam it shut?

Getting Entangled

A friend recently said to another friend, "I want to get all entangled in your life".......
Isn't life entangled either way? Aren't we all just moving from one experience to the next wrapping ourselves in each others lives and leading a spool of thread on our trail? Life is meant to be a web of thoughts and ideas, friendships and careers, intimacy and connection. Wouldn't it only make sense to get yourself entangled?

A perfect example would be my hair. It's curly. Straight. Flat AND fro, all in the same moment. It's entangled almost 99% of the time. It's messy. Dramatic . Graceful. Soft. Crunchy. It gets caught in friends earrings. It gets caught in spiky branches in the trees or in the thorns down low in the forests. I have most of my day stuck in my hair. It's as symbolic and as beautiful as having lines on the face of older women and men who gather up years as they continue to stride forward. You can't really show that you have lived this life without proof. So again, isn't the saying wanting to get "all entangled in your life" one of the most fluid, graceful AND beautiful things that you have ever heard?!?!?!

I say GET ENTANGLED. Get as deep and lost within someone else as humanly possible. Get as captured, mixed up and involved with all of life, as you can.

That's my profound "ah ha" of the the week.

Skipping Over The Lilly Patch

I have been writing about the past. A fogged up memory of something that once was and as beautiful as that image is, when is it time to truly let go of something that only exists within a compartment of you brain?

When is it time to sift through your photographs, emotions, and dreams that no longer are?

When do you hit that delete button?

Choosing to Swim

I am ALSO, besides everything else, in this constant, slash stagnant, place within my writing. For the past two months I have been stuck. It's not like I have been stuck within my life although, is being stuck within my writing an example of being stuck within my life? Or is this "stickiness" a classic example of writers block? Is it normal to throw out so many questions knowing very well it's not like the the black hole within this satellite connection is ever going to answer me?

So I keep asking myself, "Do I even write at all?" Do I sink or DO I SWIM....even if it's only doggy paddle?

I have been writing about hearts opening, closing and re-opening

I have been writing about things that should be more black and white but ARE NOT


I have been listening and writing,with pleasure, the rustling of death in the trees

I have spent hours writing about the constant color and beauty in my life





I have spent hours writing about the ground and constant movement in life



I have spent hours writing about LOVE.......

I have ALSO written about:

Art. Brilliant people. Creative concepts. The color of EVERYTHING. My mind is racing with new things to write about and constantly shifting and changing it's topic every 2 seconds.

Change IS an inevitable process of life. Aren't we always going to be in constant flux? Isn't it silly to hold on to anything be that an idea or relationship? Isn't it silly if we never wanted to change at all: too afraid of what lies ahead but knowing that movement is what is necessary for growth?

How boring would we be or how boring life would be if there wasn't some sort of movement to it.

Our summer has shifted into Autumn. Leaves are turning a crazy collage of color. Each leaf being dipped in it's own separate compartment of paint. Each one falling at any given moment but the right time for the individual leaf. They fall after they peak. While a lot of folks are driving around to involve themselves in the "LAST " weekend to go hunting for a golden red fire in the hills, there are those of us who are also about to peak emotionally and physically. We then start to make room for winter to come in with a soft and silent presence as all signs of a fast paced summer burns itself out.

Seasons all have their peaking months. Jobs peak. Songs and books peak... do we all in a sense "peak" within a relationship, job, creative form, athletic time, or as a whole on a specific time or date? I'd like to think that it's best to leave a social gathering when it's at it's prime. That way you don't over extend your stay and all the drama that takes place later on in the night isn't something you have to carry on into the morning. BUT what if you place such a high or low expectation on the "peak" experience that you never actually get to live the peak experience because you cut it off before it has it's chance to play out? What if you end the job, relationship, creative form BEFORE it peaks?

My hands often find themselves wrapping around multiple tree trunks a day. I like holding on to things that let me hold on to them. Have you ever tried to hug a tree that pulled away before you were done hugging it? But the point of this side tracked story wasn't the hugging of a tree. It was about discovering perfectly bright orange and green streaked leaves and finding running fingers latching onto these leaves, tugging on them so that they would "fall" into my hands. Do I push the peaking to meet my own needs? Do I push and pull too hard because I THOUGHT that the leaves should be in my hands rather then complete it's cycle? YES. Why?

Why do we think we know when something should be over, removed, moved on from or let go? We make constant plans that all take place in the future, in a "time" that hasn't even manifested itself yet and while we do this we also make a ton of unknown expectations. I wonder what would happen if we literally just LET GO. What if we took everything in this one moment and surrendered it over? What if we let this moment reach it's full potential? Would we all be wiser, kinder and more compassionate to allow the day to play itself out before we had the chance to capture it in a cage of meaning?

I have written about being ungrounded. Grounded. Sinking and swimming......

Being thrown off guard. Being hurt. Sad. Liberated. Excited. Heavy and light all in one sentence


As the weather seems to be reflecting emotions these days, the lightness has settled in and the laughter is constant. Some of the most incredible art presents itself when emotion reaches an extreme low or high. There is an on going joke with the brilliant musicians and artists in my life. The joke is this: Thank Jimminy Cricket, god, and the universe for the heartache. Tragedy. The falling. Crying. Worthlessness. Thank god for the disaster. The unexpected in greatness and disappointment. The lack of loyalty. The friends and intimate relationships that PUSH so hard there is no where to go but down and then back up again.

I wouldn't have the material. I wouldn't be the artist that I say I am.

The greatness in my life is reflected in my art. This is art. This expression. This chaos. This structure. This ability to let it ALL JUST GO......is my art.

Some of our best work comes out when we least expect it because the door is left swinging open minus the expectation. Some of us need to do a better job of letting go of our judgements of ourselves and to be, ONLY, ourselves.

The truth lies under all of our layers. Remove them for a second. Can you feel that the breath just created a little bit of space within the corners of your life? Did you get a glimpse of balance?

Are you reaching within?

Uploading My Life

Uploading photographs on a slow Internet connection is kind of what it feels like to be in my head right now. I have tried to wrap my hands around the life that I have been living the past year. Kind of like the way a piece of seaweed clutches to sticky rice. The rice being the experience and the seaweed my hands..... the experience isn't sticky enough for my hands to grasp, nothing has settled, and so everything just kind of hangs there, uncomfortable with the obvious.

I now sit in a small, white, rocking chair out on open marsh land in St. Michael's, Maryland. The Chesapeake Bay stretches across the horizon, my lap top stretches across my exposed thighs. Fireflies latch on to my obnoxiously bright screen and little itchy red bites forming around my ankles due to the beloved mosquito. I upload my photographs like I upload my thoughts and every now and then the connection shows four bars instead of one, and then all is lost. My reality is all jumbled up in a field of wild flowers. It smells beautiful, it looks beautiful and it is beautiful, but by the gift of chance.

This is my life. The photographs posted happen to be part of it and the only thing I can share with you during my one bar time.

Same Same BUT Different

I hate to say it but I A. don't have their names and B. I can't tell if the computer made these photographs too dark or I did. Either way, will modify them when I can.

At the very beginning of my trip I noticed, and wrote an earlier post about it, my lack of motivation to photograph the people that covered the streets of Nepal. The lack of motivation wasn't actually due to physical stamina, although I wish it had been, but by the overwhelming guilt that I had for the richness of my life AND the severe poverty that lingered around every corner and crack that I came across.

In those around me, I was painted with an air of wealth and instead of my usual roaming eyes, they stayed secure to the ground in front of me. Roaring with sadness and helplessness I turned off my camera and hid it in a bag in my hotel room. For over a month both camera and heart remained in hiding. Partially due to malfunction, the obvious of what happens to a camera when it sits in rainwater for a night in a leaky tent and partially due to the hardness that took over and the walls that I built in order to keep my tears under control.

No matter where I stepped or what road I traveled down, my pant legs and arms were tugged at by little hands covered in dust and sticky with sweat and fruit juice. They roamed the streets eager to find a foreigner with some extra rupees tucked deep in their pockets. I was once convinced of buying a tattered book after I had stupidly asked to take a look at it while my cab driver sat in traffic. A book that turned out to be fairly interesting but seemed to be lacking pages 130-172 and then consistently being out of order there after. By the way, I highly recommend bypassing buying books from kids selling them in the middle of street lanes, during rush hour traffic in Delhi. While I got accustomed to over tipping rickshaw drivers and buying extra bananas at the local veggie stand so that I could hand them out on my way home, I never could get accustomed to my lack of eagerness to sit beside these people and learn of their stories. And no matter how many times I walked passed the same person on the street to say namaste or give away some food, I never quite got the courage to take their photograph.


Present Day.

The same three smiling men walk or hobble up and down one main street in Dharamsala, India. I walk by them daily in my mad dash to my Thangka painting class. The first few times I smiled, my hands to my heart, bowed, and not out of character, kept my eyes to the ground. The next few times I would walk by them afraid to dig through my change providing either too little or too much of what I had. The other night I knew I had a bill of 500, ran into one of them, told them that I would find them tomorrow, then felt guilty and ran to the nearest store to grab some smaller bills and chased him down.

Today I took a seat next to two of them, names of which I will have to add later, my Hindi isn't the best and I say that with a smirk. There were onlookers and those who didn't notice, but we slowly began talking a bit about their conditions. One, a man who loves to talk to you in Hindi even though he knows I don't have much concept of what he is saying, I can read his gestures. In his broken English he told me he has a little boy of six years who attends school and is looked after by his mother. His hands have been filed away to near stubs as his feet showed the same condition. Leprosy is his genetic curse, a disease that often casts one out of society and leaves them fending for themselves in the street. It's been 11 long years.

The other man had to have his leg removed when he was 24 years old. He was hit by a truck and a very old prosthetic hitches on to the very top of his left thigh baring the little he has left. He is 39 years old. The third, of who I have yet to get his full story from, I find out, had polio at a young age. Bow legged and large square blocks as feet, he moves unsteadily on his crutches. A tin can is always clutched in one hand along with a beautiful crooked, toothless smile. Unable to open or carry an umbrella when the monsoon rains fall, he moves quietly drenched in downpour. He is the one that moves me the most. Hearing their stories I nod in apology as If I had something to do with their misfortunes and then we all nod together in understanding. Such is life.

Feeling like I had just made some friends I asked to photograph them, explaining that I write about my travels and the people I encounter and that I would like to write about them. I told them that once it was up on the computer I would take them into a Internet cafe and show them the "article". Which I still plan to do. The photographs are haunting and graceful. Full of laughter, sorrow and sometimes awkwardness of the camera that seeks to capture something no words or image could capture. (I provided you with a few, there are more in my care which I may or may not share with you.)

I do not have missing limbs and do not need to beg for money on the street, but there is a saying here in this part of the world. "Same same. But different." We are all the same experiencing this life but no doubt in different ways. We have ups and downs, joys and sorrows, mothers and fathers who are still with us or who have passed on. Children in school, brothers and sisters in different towns or on different continents.

If one looked at some of the photographs of these men they would see two ragged beings, mangled limbs and begging for a better way of life. But if one would just look a bit longer, a bit deeper, they would see a story of two beings that are very much like everyone else. We all have a history, a story that goes along with the life that is present. I no longer see poverty and mutation as sad or even hard to look at. These men have made me see the absolute beauty even in all of their pain. They smile with each other OFTEN. They collect money for their families, for their children's education and more food on their plates. And while I once thought that I could never even begin to make a difference within the lives over here, my eagerness to ask them questions and to sit with them, to not just throw them some change but to engage with them, has made all the difference in the world. They have a story to tell and few who will listen. I was able to provide an outlet for that.

Nearing to the end of my trip my walls no longer hang too high. My camera and I have reunited and my sadness doesn't take me by surprise like it once had. I have learned to fight my way around the traffic of cars that crowd the narrow streets, banging on the side to let the driver know I am passing them. I no longer jump when a jeep or bus horn blasts in the back of my head, but move quickly and unfazed out of the way. My eyes no longer search for something more pleasant to keep it's gaze but more often find their way into the soft and kind eyes that sit in contentment on a side stoop.

I can never again judge a book by it's cover. I can never again just hand out a banana or some spare change. My journey has proved successful because I have been forever changed. I have not mastered, but understood that underneath all the pain still lies the beauty and while pages often go missing the overall story stays the same.