Words For My Pictures

Dear Kettlebells You are getting heavier and heavier. The more I lift the heavier you get but I will keep lifting you up until the last second. Even if I can no longer lift you I will never drop you on the floor doing so will break my spirit. I will hold on to you as if my life depends on it. It might be painful but I will keep on lifting you or would hold you in the rack. I do this not because I love you in fact at this moment I hate you! It is because by holding on to you build my strength in mind and body. I learn not to give up for a meager pain which feels like it is internity.  I am in the zone now I am taking one lift at a time. Now I am not thinking about anything but how to lift you up above my head or hold you to my bosom.  At this moment noting matters that much anymore because I have concentrated my mind in you only, the past or the future doesn't matter anymore. I am in the moment. I will throw you away hard on the...

I didn't like dead flowers but they fascinated me at the same time. The reason I hated them is it reminded me of the last hours of my mothers' life. My mother was gasping her last breaths lying unconscious in the Intensive Care Unites of Black Lion  Hospital. Close to her hospital bed on the dresser, there is a bouquet of dead flowers in a vase which someone brought earlier in the week as a good gesture( of course they didn't bring the dead flowers but the flowers died and no one bothered to replace them or through them away).  I sat next to her watching her and watching the dead flowers which were in a way were there as a symbol of life's end. End of my mother's life. Hours later my mother passed away. I wish she had died without suffering but that was not the case she died in pain and it had been more painfully for people who know her and who were close to her. From that time on dead flowers to me is death but what is the mean...

Here is a  story of a fellow who had his feet into a cold lake on a warm summer afternoon. I have my feet into the cold water. It is a huge relief to plunge my feet into the cold lake especially a hot summer afternoon like this. Plunging my feet into the lake is not just to relieve myself from the heat of the afternoon. It was also an attempt to relieve myself from the heat of life that I had to endure. I wish I had plunged my whole self into the lake to cool down my soul and cleanse my suffering. A simple act of plunging my feet into the water this hot afternoon relieved me of the pain that I had felt before coming here. The cool water somehow calmed me down helped me to be in the moment. It helped me to admire the natural beauty of the lake and the ducks floating on it. I opened my eyes to see and suddenly everything is beautiful. Even my feet look better dangling in the cool water of the lake.  

Where do you find lonely people the most? Big Cities! It is ironic that you have a lot of lonely people where you have a large number of people living relatively in very close proximity. In big cities, even though people are surrounded and live with a large number of people close by they don't interact with strangers that they are surrounded with. Friends and families they have are also not available due to work or just because they are into their busy lives which doesn't give room for social engagement as much. Social media doesn't make it any better for lonely people either. Social media is meant to make people be with people without being physically being together but it mostly works to the contrary. The fact is that it makes people anti-social by limiting real interaction and conversations between people on a normal day to day activities sans smartphones and computers. Old and retired people are more prone to this ep...

This is not about a rock or a pop group. It is about a project born out of tragedy.  Susan and her husband started the Love Rocks project after losing their two daughters Anna and Abby in a tragic accident on October 20,2013. Even though they were devastated by the loss they chose to keep the fun and joyous sprite of their daughters alive by making Love Rocks and sending them out for all who need love. I found my Love Rock at my workplace at Bellevue WA, left for someone to find it. That someone happened to be me. I suspect it was left by a special Olympic athlete who was competing in the USA Special Olympics competition held in Seattle in June 2018. When I found the rock I had no idea what it was. It had a cut fabric in a shape of a heart glued on a shiny black river rock. Lucky Love Rocks were written on the back of the stone and I googled it. What I found is a touching story of tragedy and love. I saw that the parents who had to endure the greatest tr...

Being at Fort Jesus is like stepping back in time to East Africa's history and the pre-colonial years were Europeans were just limited to the costs of Africa. The fort was built by the Portuguese between 1593 and 1596 to control and protect the old port of Mombasa. Through time the fort had fallen to local sultans to Omani Arabs and then to the British who took over Kenya in 1895 by declaring a Protectorate of Kenya.  The different occupants of the fort had made their mark in the fort from wall painting to buildings within the fort.  Being at the fort will also take you back to a time where controlling the east African cost was so important for Portugal and the Omani Arabs in order to preserve their trade interests. For the Portuguese trade with China and India and for the Omani Arabs trade between Arabia and the cost of Africa. 

Usually, two madly in love couple go to a bridge or anywhere close to water where there is a place to lock padlocks on. They lock one or two padlocks representing them on a bridge or a fence and throw the key into the water. This is to symbolize their never-ending love for each other. Like the locked padlocks they are bound in love and the key to free them from their bondage has been thrown away out of reach. But who wants to lock a single padlock in a symbol of love and write "I will Love You Endlessly"  and throw the key into the lake? Is it a rejected lover? Is is it a lover who broke up with his love and can not move on? Is it someone who has lost a loved one? Here is a story of a young man madly in love with a girl who doesn't share his love for her. Let us call him the Lover since that is simple and because that is what he is after all. We might even call him The Desperate Lover but that i...