Show us a photo of somewhere you want to go.
Hydropolis and iPad. The World manmade islands. Souks and sultans. I will be there in 23 days... but who's counting?
Show us a photo of somewhere you want to go.
Hydropolis and iPad. The World manmade islands. Souks and sultans. I will be there in 23 days... but who's counting?
You can see it all too clearly from the plane, welcoming me home. Sigh.
It will be a relief. To be honest, I hated this program. Fasting is hard, and the point is to be someplace you're totally relaxed and where you can focus on yourself and on your experience. Instead, I was annoyed by everything (and not just out of fasting bitchiness -- that went away at day 4): the program grounds, which are inconveniently spread out (not to mention there's construction! Didn't I leave the dusty Olympic construction site that is Beijing to get some peace and quiet here?!), and the bungalow, which can be described as uninspiring at best. The mediocre beach and generally un-picturesque surroundings. This especially is a big drawback for me, given my new penchant for taking photos.
In all fairness, I've never found a fasting program I've really been happy with, which is why I try a different one each time. Turns out this schedule is jam-packed with lectures, which for a first-time faster is probably a great thing, but I've learned all I want to know about nutrition, food combining, and how awful alcohol and meat are for me. Yes, I agree that they will probably kill me -- and to a certain extent, I'm ok with that. I will never live on a tropical island on a raw diet of fruit and nuts, give Reiki and talk to my inner child. I came here to get away from schedules and do My Own Thing. Classes, aside from yoga, were not part of my plan.
What usually pushes me over the edge is the people who run these programs, because their perspective is generally so far removed from mine that relating on any level is nearly impossible. Still, I gave the first class a try, just to see. I'd heard great things about this woman and was curious why she has such a following... but she disappointed me by lecturing on information right in the materials she'd asked us to read. Fine, no epiphany here -- but I couldn't help thinking, why assign reading if you're just going to talk through it all in class?
The next day, feeling ridiculously crappy, I let her know I wouldn't be coming to class. She surprised me by _insisting_ I come, saying very forcefully how important the classes are. Hang on, I wanted to say, I'm not asking permission, just letting you know out of politeness! What is this, high school? Well, I didn't have any trouble cutting class then and I certainly don't now. *grins*
Anyways, you get the jist. It was still worth coming – I feel happier, healthier and altogether better for having fasted 7 days. If nothing else, the program made me happy to go back to my real life... and considering I was feeling a wee bit fed up with it before, that's no small thing.
]]>Life in any major city is sensory overload. Bright lights, honking cars, rumbling buses, banging construction, and the all-too-frequent whiff of something rotting or sewage-like. If you're a city person, this is part of what you love.
The tropics have their own kind of sensory overload. This morning I woke up to the most amazing cacophony of birds: aside from the standard cheep-cheep tweet-tweet variety, which were deafening on their own, there is a shocking variety of tone, song, and melody. My favorite are the woop-woops, whose deep and resonating, er, woop, is totally distinctive from all the other higher pitched tralalas of the songbirds. I was surprised to find the sex bird here too. I have no idea what the bird actually looks like, but when one lived outside Mom's apartment in Hong Kong she was desperate to get rid of it because it kept waking her up early in the morning. The call rises in pitch, intensity and frequency, and is remarkably similar to what you would hear if your neighbors got it on at 6a.m. every morning. If you ever hear it, you'll know what I mean.
Then there are the colors, which after the grayness of Beijing winter make me almost wince, they're so bright. The different blues of the sea and sky, the lush greenness of plant life that bursts from every possible surface. And the smells! Sweet honeysuckle whose perfume, I'm convinced, could actually make you drunk. The air is so heavy with warmth and wetness and sea and smells it is a joy to just breathe.
Every once in a while I imagine what it would be like to live in a place like this, and then remember that you can only love it this much if you don't come very often. Or so I tell myself.
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That's what this is all about. I tried not to pack anything unnecessary, and the majority of my (small) suitcase was books and bikinis. Other essentials included shampoo, conditioner, soap, toothpaste, toothbrush and floss. Noticeably absent were anything containing chemicals or that I use to try and look good: make-up, perfume, jewelry, hair dryer and other various accoutrements.
It's not easy to go au naturel for 9 days. I feel bad for women who *must* wear make-up to leave the house, especially if they put it on just to go sweat it off at the gym, or to get coffee in the morning. I don't think they're really trying to impress their barista (well, some might be) but guess they're so used to wearing it that they think they look bad without it. I'm not different from them -- I do look better with with makeup, so yes it is hard to feel like you look ok without it -- but fight the urge to try and look good all the time. It's important to be at least comfortable with yourself as you are, which for me is slightly pale and under-age looking. ;>
Fasting helps you reconnect with your body... in ways you don't even want to hear about. For me it's less about self-image and body than an exercise in reconnecting with your mind. My life revolves around food, as does most everyone else's (to varying degrees). Eating is one of our most basic, fundamental and enjoyable habits. When and what I eat dictates my schedule, my social life and how I feel. Remove eating and the complete structure and framework for the day is gone -- and for me, the elimination of that structure liberates my mind. Without getting too metahysical on this, it basically means I am free to do, think and feel without the barriers of regular life. Not eating does the same for the body -- without all that food to digest three times a day (or in my case, every two to three hours) it is free to focus on all sorts of neglected things that it just doesn't usually have time to deal with. It's hard to believe, but coming out of this you feel like a whole new person.
So, let the fast begin.
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In a few hours I'll be en route to what will certainly be the most unusual way I've ever celebrated Christmas: alone, on a beach, far far away from friends and family. Wait, it gets wierder -- I'm not going to eat. My season of indulgence will be spent fasting, hiking, doing yoga and reading in a little hut on the beach. To most people it sounds like the worst way to spend the holidays, but to me it is the best possible way to end an intense, exciting and challenging year -- resting and relaxing in preparation for the next one.
]]>I know I’ve been away from Shanghai too long when I can’t remember where mom keeps the cups.
Used to be I headed down from Beijing every couple of weeks for work. It’s a quick hop and a great arrangement because I get to stay with mom (which makes me happy) and clients don’t pay for a hotel (which makes them happy). Since moving back to Beijing this time, though, I haven’t been able to get back into the Shanghai groove – no clients here (yet) and so far most of my travel has been to the US or Hong Kong. Otherwise I’ve been staying put to set things up in Beijing.
So for my first weekend reprieve I headed down to say hi to mom. One of the best things about being back in China is being nearby again; though I’m still not that familiar with Shanghai (ridiculous since I’ve been here countless times), mom’s place feels like home.
I cleared out of work on Friday afternoon like the office was on fire, grabbed my bag and camera and headed to the airport. I specifically wanted to bring the camera since there hasn’t been much opportunity to use it except hiking (and hiking and... hiking). At the moment the camera and I are fighting; I’m trying to figure out how to create the pictures I see but it keeps capturing them they way it wants. Yes, reading the manual helps, but I’m more a trial-and-error type than a read-the-directions type, which means fiddling with the settings, delighting in the occasional good picture and berating the camera when it doesn’t do what I want (most of the time).
Walking into mom’s apartment reminded me why I love this camera. It’s not the equipment itself, though the fact that it’s easy to use and takes great pictures helps. The point of the camera is that it helps me see things differently. In the whirlwind that is my life, the camera reminds me to pay attention to things like light and detail.
Mom is a designer -- the kind of person with more aesthetic
in her pinky finger than the rest of us put together. Left alone in my
apartment she rearranges things instinctively (and automatically), which would
be annoying except that it’s hard to be mad when it always looks better her way.
I’ve always appreciated her design sense, but arriving at her apartment this
time was like seeing it for the first time. I snapped a few photos (ok, more
like a hundred, but lots were crap) of her place while we caught up. Here are a few of my favorites, and the whole collection.