do you know when the bus is coming?

the gentleman asks me as if he knows i just checked for it on my phone. he exudes an aura of warmth and joy: his round bearded face with a subtle smile, bright blue and gold kofia on his head, and a tan tweed blazer decorated with a colorful saxophone pin on the right lapel.

yes, it should be arriving in 5 minutes.

thank you. how are you doing today?

i'm doing ok.

are you happy?

again it seems he has read my mind or perhaps read the pensive look on my face. i let out a short nervous laugh and respond,

i'm trying to be...
are you happy?

yes, i am. i think it is a normal state to be unhappy.
but i try to have my normal state be happiness
because that is what was intended by the Creator.

that's a good way to think about it.

what makes you happy?

oh, i don't know. my family, my friends.

yes, of course...
are you an artist?

no, i'm not an artist.

are you a photographer?

i laugh again wondering how he can sense these things about me.

yes, i like to shoot photos.

oh that is wonderful. what are your subjects?

at 26 + 2 weeks

i still find there is much to gain when you pay attention to children.

kids chalking up the sidewalk in front of MoAD today.

"you can never grow too old for fruit-by-the foot,"

said my 7-year-old god daughter as she ripped me a piece of color by-the-foot last

night

age & travel

a writer friend of mine wrote that "the older he gets, the more he travels, the less he knows." i understand what he meant now.

it seems the more places i see and experience, the bigger i realize the world to be. the more that i become aware of, the more i realize how relatively little i know of it. how many places i still have to go, how much more of it there is still to learn.

maybe that's enlightenment enough. to know that there is no final resting place of the mind. no moment of smug clarity. perhaps wisdom, such that it is, for me, means realizing how small i am, and unwise, and how far i have yet to go.

~anthony bourdain (at the end of his peru episode in season 1)