Perfection

"Chiang, this world isn't heaven at all, is it?"

The Elder smiled in the moonlight. "You are learning again, Jonathan Seagull," he said.
"Well, what happens from here? Where are we going? Is there no such place as heaven!"
"No, Jonathan, there is no such place. Heaven is not a place, an it is not a time. Heaven is being perfect." He was silent for a moment. "You are a very fast flier, aren't you?"

"I . . .I enjoy speed," Jonathan said, taken aback but proud that the Elder had noticed.

"Your will begin to touch heaven, Jonathan, in the moment that you touch perfect speed. And that isn't flying a thousand miles an hour, or a million, or flying at the speed of light. Because any number is a limits. Perfect speed, my son, is being there."

~ Jonathan Livingston Seagull, a story - by Ricard Bach

book-self

dreams are..
illustrations from the book your soul is writing about you
martha norman

the magic of i

'What lies before us and
what lies behind us
are small matters
compared to what lies
within us...'
~ u n k n o w n

365

Every woman should develop the kinds of bonds that will allow her to know she has someone she can count on. Someone who will give her the best advice, even if it is unpleasant. Someone who will expect the most from her...and someone with whom she can celebrate life.

Maya Angelou

We celebrated our '365' together a month ago, and since then i've been trying to decide how to share my thoughts. As a partner, I thought that words could not justify what we shared. As a wife, I thought the feelings were personal and best left between him and i. As a blogger, I felt I must share the beauty of my life with everyone. As a writer, I felt frustated that I could not describe what was on my mind. Even though I feel as I've been suffering from a writer's bloc for while now, I've also come to the realisation that the best times of your life do not necessarily need to be documented by words or photographs or gifts or celebrations; it is about the 'aha' moments that you share everyday that you both will always treasure for life - etched on your hearts, imprinted in your minds.

7 days to go...

My last monday in a & my first apartment....I'm already missing our place...
- the sunlight reflecting off my plants.
- the horrible view from my window, but which i love because my friends knock on my window to gain back-door entry.
- our dining table with its director chairs.
- our comfy futon
- our kitchen, so small, that a & i cannot cook in it together
- our small home office which is still finding it way to perfection
- a's home office which he's done up in a way that has his signature all over it :)
- the books and magazines scattered in every empty space they can find for themselves
- my bamboo plant

even though i'll take all these things to our new home, it's how they found their place in our first apt. that makes it special. it was ours, mine and his...and it will never be the same..

Spaces...

Dead Space: where we forget
Empty Space: where possibilities emerge
My Space: where escape is everpresent
Shared Space: you know you it must be love
Wild Space: where i am constantly reborn
Doomspace: slug-a-chug-chug

Reshaping the box

"The secret of all effective originality in advertising is not the creation of new and tricky words and pictures, but one of putting familiar words and pictures into new relationships."
~ Leo Burnett

typography tricks

how easy was this for you to read? excuse what it says, i stumbled across it.

Lovemarks...

"Think outside the box" is a cliche most heard by designers, writers, architects, entrepreneurs, marketers and all other personas involved in the creation of new ideas or of re-inventing of the old. Every once in a while your ideas dry up and you find yourself looking at a blank slate. You reach out in different directions, looking under rocks, in an old musty corner, behind our pile of papers, underwater; looking for something different, something out of the ordinary to light the spark...last year, i went through this phase - it lasted a really long time. my bookshelf grew, i sipped on the most extreme types of chai, i rearranged my furniture a zillion times, i thought it was the lack of feng shui in my life, you name it, i tried it...it didn't work..

Then one day, my typical day, chai in one hand, morning paper in the other, i was hit with the simple realization that i was looking in the wrong places...the spark that i was trying to hard to find was already burning inside myself. i just had to discover how i was going to use my spark to light my creativity candle...and with each discovery came a different idea..and it was in the process of lighting my creativity candle that re-invented the old and shaped the new... it was about 'looking inside the box', the box called you, that is sometimes the most inspiring, the most creative and the most fun...

when you buy a really good book, watch an inspiring movie, buy flowers, handbags, shoes, how you share your excitement with someone. you go on about how they look, feel, taste, inspire you....isn't that the making of really good idea? we tend to overlook this mini-bits of inspirations that are a part of our every day.

if you love something, it'll leave a mark in your life and it can help you leave you mark with your latest project. happy lovemarking everyone!

a new minority..

i went to vote, for the first time ever on Monday Jan 23rd. I voted for a party that I didn't want to vote for, just so another party I didn't like wouldn't come into power. Democracy at it's best. Since I've just gotten married, well 5 months back, and changing your name is a crazy process out here, I received two voter cards, both with different last names, hence totally different identities. I was so tempted to cheat. I should have, if only one vote would have made the different.
So, the party I didn't like (to put it politely- I'm not one for politeness in politics, but I guess if I'm going to have to live with them, I might as well spend all my efforts praying that we don't become the 52nd state) was voted into power. And since then, the only thing different between what the Canadian PM and the American President says, is the time difference; ofcourse, our PM says it a day later... *sigh* i'm suffering from post-election blues..

on a better note, i was really excited to vote. when i walked in, card in one hand, ID in the other, all pumped up and with hope still lingering on the fringes of my very scattered emotions, I noticed that at every polling booth, the volunteer was from a different ethnic background. And for the first time, I really understood the meaning of 'the land of immigrants'...and that, my fellow Canadians, is the only thing that's keeping me going.

the time-life spiral

as we say goodbye to yet another year and as a new year awaits, ready to envelope us in its mystical fantasies: i resolve to see the world with another set of eyes; smell its beauty, taking in its alien scents; touch similar textures and patterns with a different feel ; taste new projects and sample the unknown and hear, what is unsaid...
this year is about learning about my world and my loved ones from a different point of view, their point of view and in doing so, learning more about myself.

a hippy happy new year to everyone; to more smiles and laughters, to happiness and peace...