Treasures

Not all treasure glitters like gold, and for a person like me who suffers periodic boredom and melancholy. I need to be busy most of the times. Okay I got myself into graduate school, though I am not the best in my class all I can say is I am the toughest, I still got knuckles that can break hard wood you know and K.O. any stupid MD student to fool around with me..and the tongue as long as Gene Simmons (see photo to prove that!)....

Aside from fooling around, I count me treasures. But unlike the loot and bounty that those pirates are looking for, my treasure is not of the "glimmering" kind, some looks pretty awesome..some looks fat..(and ugly when you see them in the first break of day light), while other just love to pick their noses with me in public (yeah I know, cool huh? Wait tell you see us placing that finger inside our mouths).

Like the pirates of Old, I travel to different lands to look for treasures, and indeed I have found a handful, and all of them are priceless. Some of the treasures I have captured with me, some are just kept hidden in my treasure box where only I can locate. People tend to become lonely, and the purpose of their lives become absurd. People become bored and they think that life has become a routine, people become bitter because they do not have anything to share to someone. That is why for me, I am lucky to have the brightest stars in this part of the continent. My treasures sparkle more than the brightest of the stars. They keep me sane in my times of greatest madness, and they make me insane in my times of uttered seriousness.

Yes, treasures can tantalize you. gold can tempt you, it can unleash the greatest greed in your life. And I should be honest, my treasures have transformed me into a greedy beast and hunger for memories that I can tell the future generation. They have transformed me to become thirsty for adventure about what lies beyond the boundaries of human capacity.

In this lonely planet, all of us are in a journey, we are in the progress of finding our nesting place. We are travelling to find our niche, to look for that place where we can say "home" and I know you are looking for that place too, that place that you can say you belong. But as for me, I may have not reached that paradise, and I may never reach it, but my treasures showed me that even though the course of my journey is not as what I expect it to be, they can assure me that when I turn me head back I left a trail leading to that treasure box to where I hide them.

Lonely Nights

I heard you ask a common friend of how am I? Well here I am still me, the poet, the writer, the thinking person less the "you", I can still manage to smile, thanks to some people who makes me smile and there out of this world jokes....but....

When you said goodbye and told me everyone, including me, are just temporary and will just pass you by was the day you won the game and the night I know you spoke the words "checked mate" on me. I sometimes feel I am so wasted, I keep thinking of those nights I spent with you, the laughs that we have, the games that we played, the music that we both listen together and even the songs that we sung.

I miss the strums of my guitar, where I used to play the tune for you. You are a very strong person I guess, you know when to let go and when to hold on but someone like me who cherish every memories shared, and treasure all the time spent.....I am sorry I can't...its too difficult to forget...and most of all its too difficult for me to forgive, to simply throw away what we have shared is quite difficult for me....

But I must learn to let go, I need to let go and I have to let go, otherwise I will fall into my own ruins....well I ever find someone like you again? Time will tell....But for now, I have learn to live without you, I am been able to wake up in the morning with only a few of memories of you left, I am able to sleep in the evening without thinking of you...I am getting used to laying on my bed without someone there to say "goodnight, see you in my dreams..."

I guess I am slowly recovering now.....And I realize that life, like time, is like a candle in the wind, so delicate and so fragile, when the wind blows so hard, you need to protect the fire that keeps it alight, otherwise it well die with the passage of the wind. To keep the candle lighting the four corners of life, you need to keep it safe from the harsh, blowing and painful realities of goodbyes because if you do not know how to protect it, the wind will take away your life source and you will forever live in the dark, afraid to light the candle up again in the fear that another wind might just blow it away....

But with these lonely nights ahead of me, of sleeping alone after making my day...as I put to rest my tired body....I keep hoping that someday, somehow...I will find someone like to keep me warm during my lonely nights....

To That Place....

I was sitting down, I feel happy and I feel something was accomplished, there I was a nobody, a stranger, I live a normal life there, people do not know me. For the past 25 years of my life it was all that I wished for, a simple and normal life, a life where I will wake up in the morning and smell the scent of the grass, drink my hot coffee (except that they have hot butter milk which absolutely tasted like JESUS CHRIST!) go teach in a provincial school high up in a mountain or a state owned college in a remote areas of the hill side, where the greens are waiting for the white fairy snow to fall in winter.

I look at the white capped laden mountains and asked myself: "What is waiting for me back there Bangkok? What will Manila offer me? Will New York give me the same happiness as I felt here? What About Geneva? or London? Will they make me smile?" There, in that place, I was happy, happy because even though no one knows me, people see me as something that can be of great help, even though that I am a stranger, I can help people live better lives, mend more broken strings and at the same time live nearer the trees, closer to my real mother: the Earth. The thing between me and my dream is this green passport and sky blue color ticket bound for Bangkok. (Click Photo for a bigger view)

What was I thinking, well I was planning to strip my ticket into half and throw my passport outside the cliff and ran back to Thimpu. Go back, meet my friend(s) and sleep to the bed where I woke up. NUTS? Yes I am, but may I ask you, if contentment and the happiness of simple living was in the grasps of your hands would you let it go? Will you give up everything and anything just to have that feeling of being a human of being mortally simple? Will you do anything, even stupid and illogical ones, just to keep the things you have dreamed of in your life? For me yes I do, even carve my heart out of my chest and bargain it so that I can stay. Yes, the temptation was so strong, my urge to run away and live as a fugitive there was the loudest cry of my soul.

Unfortunately, I did not stay, I cannot stay, I know deep inside me it is wrong and I have a mission to do on my way back, not just the post training evaluation report, not just the meeting with regional high level people from different countries, I have a community to go back to, a community that will not be complete if I will no longer step my foot back. But then again the nostalgic feeling of "Will I ever step foot on this place again?" makes me want to run away back to the place where I was, to that clock tower...to that area where those betel nut chewing old men spit red saliva on the floor whom at first I thought he was suffering from hemorrhagic convulsions and that I panic in the kind intention of saving him from further harm only to discover myself being spitted on my slippers...with his red betel nut covered saliva, they looked at me and apologize stood up and went back splashing my whole leg with water.

Compassionate people, kind people, there is an air of mystery in that place, something that I wanted to unravel. Unfortunately, I did not have much time, I was only given 5 days to train some selected few there, when deep inside my heart I hoped that something will happen like the ones in the movie film, some man would come up to me and offer me to stay as long as I want. But reality sucks, it bites! And so I have to settle down and accept my bellowing defeat. I have to leave my dog, Dinner, to the mercy of those kind people who will offer food to him.

5 days was given to me, 4 nights of preparation and 1 night of discovering life's gift in that place. But I will not crush out the possibilities. I am waiting for an opportunity to go back there, I am wishing for an opportunity to be back there, I am hoping for an opportunity to stay there. There in a place high above the mountain, where the blue sea of poppies sways in the airy cliffs, to that place where the sky kisses the mountains, where the spirits run free and wild, to that place where simplicity is valued over complexity, to that place where your foot steps will echo the songs of the trees, to that place where the golden sun touches my skin and the silver moon brushes my hair, to that place where I am cradled by the mountains, to that place where I fly with the crows, to that place that captured my soul, to that place where I left my heart...To that place...to that place....

Numb....

What can you do more when a person you love is sick and you are far away from him? You got that "W-T-F" feeling, right? The feel of you cant do anything and your so helpless because you are far away.... Yeah I know it sucks. When all you can do is read long distance messages of "I am sick" and you reply "you take care", I mean what the hell! these words can't even help in reviving an unconscious man! It can't help lowering down fever, but there is one thing it can help: it can make someone feel better.

Healing is not only taking medicines, there are two types of healing: Healing of the wound and healing of the heart. When wounds are healed it sets us free from physical pain, it soothes us from the stimuli of being hurt but then again it cannot fulfill the emptiness that we have inside, the pain outside is gone but the hurt inside still lingers.

The second healing is the healing of the heart, it is the healing which medicine cannot give. The healing of the heart sets us free from ourselves, it releases us from the emptiness we feel and gives us the feeling of fulfillment. The healing of the heart may not set us free from physical pain but it surely can sustain us to live, it gives us strength to look forward for the next day. When death comes to embrace us, those that experienced healing of the wounds shy away and fear the dark gloom of dying however to those who have experienced healing of the heart death seems to be a good old friend revisiting, embracing the beauty of dying.

Healing of the wound happens when we drink medicines, we put medicines on our wounds and we are assured that everything will be okay and thus move on to our everyday lives seeking to fill the empty parts of our soul. On the other hand healing of the heart begins when someone makes an effort to reach out to you and you reciprocate the same effort by receiving it. Healing of the heart fulfills the longing of the soul, it gives you hope....

The measure of how the heart is healed is not by distance or time, it is measured by love...and how it gives you hope to wake up for the day and live, it gives you strength to move forward, it makes you wake up for the days to come because you know that deep inside you there is love, and you know that someone loves you...who maybe near or far away....you know you are loved and you fell it inside....

I hope you feel the rays of my love, even if your love for me has faded away....

Bhutan Street Fashion (BSF)

Bangkok at a whole new level! Just went to UNESCO Reginal Office in Ekkamai Avenue and seen the people there, I met Philips a 21 year old super smart kid who is taking his masters degree in Harvard School of Public Health. Now he made us wow when he said that!

It was a long and fun meeting, with so many interactive games in between, so no matter how my friends where shitted out last every night by overdosing in alcohol we all have the energy to ran around the UNESCO compound. But as I see these guys wearing their suits, long sleeves and neck ties, I on the other hand goes to the meeting in a t-shirt, jeans and slipper and worse my t-shirt has awful statements printed on it and so everyday people wait for my grand entrance to read whats on my t-shirt print:

July 5 T-shirt print: " Hello, I'm Awesome!"

July 6 T-shirt print: "Mosquito sucks, because they spread malaria" (a more W.H.O thing)

July 7 T-Shirt print: "I am just a love machine"

July 8 T-shirt print: "I am on the naughty list"

People giggle and laugh as they read my t-shirt and give them a wink and a smile of course I have to show off my dimples (A god given gift for attracting attention). People see me as the kid who gives statements through what I wear. I realize that corporate lifestyle is fast pace and with suits that are plain boring this makes me realize that you are what you wear, and the aura of your clothes will also influence the mood of the people around you.

So always remember that what you wear also makes an impression to the people around you. Let your creativity flare and your sense of what to wear, because when you are happy with what you wear, you will not care about how people will brand you, you emulate an aura of content and happiness which will make an impression on how people will interact with you.

BHUTAN STREET FASHION