I’d go to any lengths to catch the sun at its brightest—even if it meant staying up late or waking up well before the wee hours of morning. And so with this undeniable obsession comes the craving to fill up my gallery with pictures of the sun from where ever I travel. During my visit to Portland, I managed to grab this little scene. It’s not the most stunning sunset I’ve seen, but it’s the sunset, and catching it is always stunning.
Our most beautiful moments come when we least expect it. Sometimes, we may spend all our lives searching for happiness and contentment when all the while it’s just round the corner without us realising it.
The reason: we pursue. Our society always taught us to chase life, and to strive to make our own path. To create our own luck, and to forge ourselves the future we dream of. And so we do. We toil day in and out, focussing on the one thing that we think matters the most to us, while we miss out on the small everyday, ever-present, pleasures coexisting with us.
Aiming only for the destination, we fail to appreciate the journey. Serene experiences stem from absolute lack of preparedness. Spontaneous actions, unplanned adventures, bring us serendipitous memories. We don’t always have to create a path—it’s okay once a while to let an unknown path lead us where it may. It’s the unexpected joys of spotting a squirrel or running into a friend that makes any journey worth taking.
When we begin to notice, and let nature influence our course of action, we grow. We learn from the people we meet, the conversations we have, and the coffee we share. And all these occur by allowing things to happen as they do, and not jumping to rash conclusions. For when we are open-minded, devoid of judgement, and fearless to embrace unfamiliarity, we find meaning in this trip called life.
I haven’t travelled too far and wide, but from what I’ve seen wherever I’ve been, nothing’s made me happier than the view of the River Gorge from the top of Beacon Rock. Though I’ve only experienced it once, I think it qualifies as my happy place. Not jet because of the stunning view of the flowing water, but also because the image is plastered in my mind. It’s the first thing that comes to my mind when I think about waterways. It was so serene that I couldn’t have asked for a better place to rest my mind and soul.
“He wandered away in wonderment, pondering awondering…”
“Oh, that’s tacky. Writing like that will get you no where—shows how desperate you are to establish yourself as a writer. Don’t do that. Just be cool.
Huh?
Unable to decipher the critic’s reasoning, Julia observed the writer’s crestfallen face from a distance. She was perplexed. The sentence sounded fine to her, even ambitious with the coining of a new term. Writers always took the poetic license—it was their nature.
“Write the way people speak. Be natural.” Came the critic’s afterthought.
Ah! The times they’re a changing, realised the time traveller.
My first and only time in the US, everything caught my eye. And everything that caught my eye made me catch my breath. The largeness of it all left me gaping and wondering, looking up at towering structures and gulping down amazement. It was like living in a movie—with a dramatic, exaggerative story.
