Morning in Asia

This morning I think I fell a little bit in love. And no, I'm not cheating on Ben, I mean I fell a little bit in love with Asia.

The sunrise here is beautiful. The sky turns a beautiful pink, then red and purple. The air is hazy and thick with humidity. As I walked to school it looked like I was trudging through mist. On my iPod suddenly came "Anthems for a Seventeen Year Old Girl" (and Dave, if you're reading this, yes I still listen to the music of our high school days and I'm not ashamed of it. Those were good days with a beautiful soundtrack and I don't need to prove my musical wanksterdom by always finding new stuff when the old does me just fine). At that moment my heart panged a little for Canada and the world I had left behind. I started to feel sad thinking about the person I was when I was seventeen. And then I kicked myself in the emotional butt.

The person I was at seventeen is the reason I'm on the other side of the world right now. She would be pretty damn proud to know that I obtained two degrees and at the age of 24 had found my way into an adventure like this. And yes, I'm far from home and yes, that is sad as hell sometimes. But it's also exciting. You can't let the beauty and the goodness of the things you are leaving behind be weights to hold you back, they aren't reasons to mourn but to give thanks that you had them in the first place.

So I opened my eyes and looked around me at the lush, green plants that seemed so exotic upon my first arrival and have already begun to be common place. I looked at the stray cats that always seem to have half a tail that pounced on small lizards in the grass. I took in the colours and the smell of garlic and chili and curry that permeates the air even at 7 in the morning. And as I walked further a small boy crossed my path, looked and me and stopped. He bowed his head to me and I recognized the uniform of St. Hilda's and nodded my head to him as he scurried away.

There's just something about this place that you can't really hope to describe. I miss in my bones the land of Canada, the air there, for some reason I long for fall and the feeling of crisp leaves and cool air. I know that in Canada right now it will be Easter Weekend and that slowly the ground will warm, the sun will come out and the snow will melt. Fresh green growth will start to rise from the dead ground and the world will feel awakened. But where I am now, it never goes to sleep. It stays living and thriving and breathing and greening all year round and there's something really beautiful about that too.