castle on the hill

beyond the photos.

the thing that is harder than taking photos is not taking photos.

what the camera sees is never a snapshot of true reality. it doesn't include the smells, the sensations, the sounds, and the feelings I had.

while I can always go back to that photo, I can never go back to that specific moment in time, unless I really make an effort to imprint that in my memory now, by actually immersing myself in it.

without a camera.

but it's hard.

so I spent a solid 2 days before classes strolling around campus to take photos of every possible corner where my yearning of taking photos may arise, so that, in the future, I can walk through those places camera-free and fully-immersed-in-the-experience.

chapter i. the sound of music

when you travel far enough,

you find yourself,

one fine summer day,

picking up the pine cones along the side of goodhart,

the smell of pine resin revolving around your fingers,

and you know,

you were ready,

to make this place,

a home from home.

chapter ii. come take a rhoads trip

đây là tất cả những gì em muốn nói,

khi em kể anh nghe,

về nắng trong vườn,

ngoài thạch lam,

còn ai,

vẽ nắng thật đẹp,

trong lòng chúng ta?

chapter iii. somewhere in northern italy, 1983

like hephaestion, who died

alexander's lover

now my riverbed has dried

shall I find no other?

— mystery of love, sufjan stevens

chapter iv. living waters

I did geography for a year back in high school. when he was teaching us to read maps and all things cartography, he said: you never go up to a river.

and I think it's true, if you really want to understand someone, you humble yourself and listen to their story.

september song

chapter v. lumière

let there be light,

and there was light.

— genesis 1:3-5

chapter vi. silhouette

for darkness restores what light cannot repair

― joseph brodsky

timelessness.

before there was a photo collection, I went through many stages: I took the photos, I delete them, lots of them, I transfered them to my laptop, I curated and organized them for the second time as I post them on my blog. lastly, I posted them on Instagram. Instagram only serves as a notification system for my blog, the start of the beginning and never its entirety, as I find it hard for readers to fully pay their undivided attention on such a distracting platform.

I don't really care about posting posts immediately on Instagram. I only do so when I already have a collection of posts, of which I would scatter them over the course of a few days or weeks. on this website, time don't really exist. I want it to be timeless, a vacuum from the actual flow of time, like how ants and insects are stuck in amber. even if time exists, it's only relative. from the moment I experience something until the moment you read it, a lot of time has passed. however, that's not really important, my life is not the news. I believe the best engagement arise when you went through some similar life experiences with me, and you need someone to talk about it. that's the time when you go back to my older blogs and see what my younger self has to say. the best blogs I've read to this day from Huyền Chip and Giang Ơi were posted a few years ago. when you spit facts well enough, that facts or truths stay relevant for years to come, and I find that hella influential.

I'm not really fond of the term "content creator", as that also includes your capacity to create trash that sells. I'm more into being a "story teller", as that stresses on the depth you have to take while telling a story, which makes it more meaningful.

going back to school has made it a lot more challenging to write blogs consistently. however, rhythm is something that I'm still trying to figure out. no matter what, I hope I can go at my own pace through the creative process.

if you made it all the way down here, I just want to say thank you, I deeply appreciate that.