day 719 | November 18, 2014 | Cagayan de Oro and Marawi

A simple life that follows the consistent rhythm of the call to prayer, sustained by fruit trees, roots and vegetables in the backyard. River, mountains, rice fields, 30 minutes away from Marawi city, it feels like we've stepped 30 years back in time. These are the stuff of my dreams, pleasant and otherwise. A backdrop to running, tripping, and falling headlong into the unknown, to sinking immobility, and flights of fancy. More flowing words, and more images. So much beauty -- from a far-away, little-known place, even less understood.

Our dreams disturb us 

because they refuse to pander 

to our fondest notions of ourselves.  

The closer one looks, 

the more they seem to 

insist upon a challenging proposition: 

You must live truthfully.  

Right now.  

And always.  

Few forces in life present, 

with an equal sense of inevitability, 

the bare-knuckle facts of who we are, 

and the demands of what we might become.  

~Marc Ian Barasch

Lake Lanao

Images from my last visit, Everybody was still a kid, including myself

Mindanao State University grounds at night

Marang found! :) Yum.

Dinner

Sunrise

A wedding painting from about ~50 years ago.

Fields, hills, cotton clouds, and a huge expanse of blue blue sky

Simple joys

Marawi City

Ordering our lunch

Typhoon Sendong hit northern Mindanao in 2011, causing flash floods and landslides that killed more than 600 residents of Cagayan de Oro and Iligan City.

Watching lunch get caught...

So fresh, it's still alive!

I'll take the dream I had last night,

And put it in my freezer,

Blue on blue on blue. The way the color changes very quietly, the subtle lines of the mountains in the horizon.

So someday long and far away,

When I'm an old grey greezer,

I'll take it out and thaw it out,

This lovely dream I've frozen,

And boil it up and sit me down

And dip my old cold toes in.

~Shel Silverstein, "Frozen Dream," A Light in the Attic

Sunburst! Like how my heart feels