Chillin Like A Villain

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back and forth and back

To everyone who actually visits this space regularly, I will be moving back to my old blog. It’s got staying power, that’s why. See you all there.

a post-visit update

What was waiting for me there was exactly what I hoped would be there.

Home.

i’m going home for a visit

“There is a hypocrisy about the whole jobs debate, especially in Europe. The colonial powers invaded countries like India and China, pillaged them of their treasures and commodities and made sure their industries weren’t allowed to develop, so they would stay impoverished and unable to compete. Then the imperialists complained when the destitute people of the former colonies came to their shoes to clean their toilets and dig their sewers; they complained when later generations came to earn high wages as doctors and engineers; and now they’re complaining when their jobs are being lost to children of the empire who are working harder than they are. My grandfather was once confronted by an elderly Englishman in a London park who asked, ‘Why are you here?’ My grandfather responded, ‘We are the creditors.’ We are here because you were there.” -Suketu Mehta

aren’t we all homebound

“For being a foreigner, Ashima is beginning to realize, is a sort of lifelong pregnancy – a perpetual wait, a constant burden, a continuous feeling out of sorts. It is an ongoing responsibility, a parenthesis in what had once been ordinary life, only to discover that that previous life has vanished, replaced by something more complicated and demanding.” – the namesake by jhumpa lahiri

Twice now I’ve quoted jhumpa lahiri (although only one excerpt is actually visible in this blog – the other one was part of a tragic disappearing act executed excellently by wordpress). I have yet to look her up and see what her history is, but she is able to capture large bits of what being away from my homeland has felt for me in the last eight years. It’s a constant pushing and pulling, squeezing and expanding of my insides – being away from home, feeling like I’m finally home where I am, missing home again, here, there. It is an ongoing responsibility without knowing exactly what you’re responsible for.

I’m going home for a visit in less than two weeks and besides the boy and one of my brothers and his family, I don’t know exactly what’s waiting for me there.

driving the pretty colors home

I’ve had this image stuck in my head since last weekend’s drive home. It was one of those drives when I could swear every other driver was just as awestruck as I was with the landscape painted right before us. The reds, blues, and hints of yellow, the silhouettes of windmills and mountains and electrical wires, all there in the horizon, picturesquely and quietly riding with us.

It was just breathtakingly beautiful. I had my camera in my bag but it was the kind of moment that required undivided attention, like it was a crime to look away even for just a second. So here it is – or at least the idea of it, as best as I can render.

i’m well on my way home

you’ll be with me next time i go outside; no more 3×5′s

[The isn't representative of how I like my videos but it does get the message across. ]