A Man With a Guitar and a Giant Blonde Beard

A man with a guitar and a giant blonde beard, perhaps a little past the middle age, greeted me on the bus to church yesterday afternoon with a "How ya doin' m'lady?" He serenaded the whole bus with a song he wrote in Calgary that focuses on the concept of nature and how the mountains and trees and the wind can simply move with our lives, and how beautiful of a dual movement it is. Normally, I would've tried to snap a photo, or record it with my trusty bestie Socrates the camera, but I felt that it wasn't the right time to do so. I had the opportunity to just take in the entire song, and I loved every moment of it. It was disappointing though, to see many people trying to look away and ignore his smiles as he flashes them a couple here and there whilst he sung. Though I understand the lack of comfortability that grew by the seconds around this man as he was way too much of an open book to live in such a self-conscious generation. Can I just add too that he smelled so nice (really dark and dusty sort of smell of roses with hints of the smell of a marijuana, I didn't even know that was a smell that could exist!), and he was dressed to the nines, and his voice was A+++ would [listen to] again. After a few stops, he finished his song and said to me, "songs like these I write specifically for people like you."

Last Goodbye and First Hello

I never had the chance to put up my Document Your Life videos for the past months on time; but I do hope to post them up (in order!), nonetheless. In the past weeks, I had uploaded two. And, I must say, I'm very proud of myself. *pat on own shoulder*

December 2013: in which I watched endless hours of Doctor Who in preparation for the Christmas special, experienced the longest power outage during the driest winter season, and went penniless due to countless trips to Starbucks. Whoo.

Music: "Firing Line" by Cordelia Gartside

January 2014: in which I was participating to the extent in which I had little conscious time to catch enough memories, making this compilation of videos an unworthy representation of my month.

Music: "Leaves" by Snow Mantled Love

Imaginary Future

(via)

Artist Profile
Who: Imaginary Future (*used to be Imaginary Friend)
Genre: Acoustic Folk Pop
Social Media: official website // youtube // soundcloud // facebook

October and November

I'll get better with working on these videos in the future. I'm so up for the challenge; I can already see it happening. Really guys! 

Music: "Stepping Stones" by Luke Morris.

A Tune Only Caged Birds Know

she's beautifully composed / a tune that only caged birds know

my love goes free / my love goes free

"My Love Goes Free" by Jon Foreman

-

(I'm eternally in debt to Jon Foreman (/Switchfoot) for the past few years, circa 2007. And if you aren't, I slightly pity you.)

Winter Sighs

One of my favourite things to do is experience nature (as well as trying to do justice to their beauty with the photos I take, hence the photos). I especially love looking back on the photos I've taken of trees. There is just something so mysterious about them; I can easily take the whole day off just to sit in front of my window, watch the trees sway side to side, and create little stories about the trees while finishing cups and cups of tea. 

Take for example the tree right below: it caught my eye as I was walking to my usual bus stop one day. Every tree around was a colour of a brownish Castleton green, while this specific one (middle) was a distinct dark Persian green. I honestly felt a bit of guilt, wondering how on earth this odd tree never caught my attention before. It gave me a sense of eeriness, especially on such a grey day. But it was an awesome shot of adrenaline sort of eeriness, like sudden goosebumps across my skin. It was such a weird experience, I really can't do it justice with my limited capacity with words. 

Nature surprised me with a harsh snow storm one morning, and my day was literally made before 12:00 pm. 

I'm just over-blessed to be able to see these plants on a daily basis. When the time's right, they give me the simplest yet surprisingly most elegant explosions of inspiration. Call me a hippie-tree-hugger, and I'll rightfully accept it. They're just amazing to have around, AND they provide me much of the oxygen that I need, amongst other things, anyway. So worth my time and breaths to admire their beauty.

Untying Knots

These photos would most likely give no meaning to strangers who are unfamiliar to what I've seen last year, as I've tried to capture only the small details of the events. One can argue that I'm a tad poetic in a sense that I enjoy metaphors and symbolic meanings. But many of the subjects in these photos are not any more symbolic than they are pieces of a bigger puzzling event (some of which I still am trying to piece together). The puzzle is the the bundle of string and I am untying its knots, albeit very slowly.

I thank the difficult knots I had to untie in the previous year. Every one of them were all challenges I did not imagine myself ever facing; and am lucky to have had the opportunity to undergo such storms. The company of suffering is one I won't take for granted, and the abundant light and love that springs from this suffering is what I'll look forward to.