Oh De'a'r

When the sky is blue, most likely the day is not.

I’ve been far too trigger-happy today, accumulating quite a trove of photos to sort through. Among the pile, few do justice to what my eyes saw. I have much to learn on improving my photography skills.

Contemplating Clouds

Between the gloomy oppressive titans and the carefree cotton candy buds, there are other kinds of clouds – one that is not too far, yet distant enough to appear like silent observers of human affairs, not intrusive at all and oddly reassuring.

I went Shooting Deer

While walking in the red deer park in Ashton Court, I managed to catch the deer going to their pool to cool in the midday sun.

The congregation at their mirror-like sacred pool.

Here is the close up of the stag in the preceding picture

This is the alert one that came closest to me.


Homesick?

Perhaps deeper down inside this berserk snapping spree was spawned by none other than the desire to be pleasantly distracted. In trying to capture the surroundings it awakens a sense of wonder and appreciation for the present place. In narrating the place here in the blog, I gain a certain psychological ownership of the place.

Emotions are fleeting things. There are many places that evoke a strange familiarity as if I can immediately locate it as an equivalent to the familiar places in Malaysia. Often, in a good way you feel as though here is where you have lived for all your life. Sometimes it feels so vain to clutch onto the memories of home and faraway people. Memories can be as distant as I am geographically removed from their associated places. Time zones away, at worst your homesickness is but a hollow attempt to miss something for the sake of missing.

Do I wish to be at the graduation ceremony? If I say no would be an outright lie. Do I miss old friends? I would feel like a fool to say yes in an age when people are only a phone call or email away. To think of it, the world is going further under the rolling pin. On such a pancake earth, perhaps what people miss isn’t so much the people or the communication with the person but rather the convenience and contempt in taking each other for granted. And in the same way, what people miss more might be the familiarity and convenience of a place taken for granted rather than the true value or attachment to the place. It is as likely that a sense of attachment to something and the tendencies to take it for granted are often Siamese Twins.

To open your eyes each day with childlike wonderment is perhaps a trained practice. Seizing the day is an acquired skill. Maybe it is not too far to say that keeping oneself childlike is an individual responsibility and a prerequisite for the promise of living to the max.

And to conclude this post, it is fitting to end with the promise of Spring.

The glorious cerulean sky by the river.

People are enjoying themselves in Brandon Hill, basking under the setting sun.

The very same tree I took 3 weeks back is in full bloom now.