Happy Mother's Day

I took this picture of my grandma Elpidia several years ago, as she was en route to the Philippines.  She says the funniest things, partly because she knows she can away with these things.  

Example 1:

Grandma is staring quietly at me over the breakfast table. It is a week after my first trip home from Cambodia.

Me [aware that she is staring]: What is it, grandma?

Grandma: You're not as dark as you were when you arrived.  Your skin is getting back to normal.  You no longer look like you were toiling in the rice fields.

Example 2:

Three days ago during a telephone call.

Grandma: You're old, you know.

Me: Yes. Is that news to you?

Grandma: You're old. Is this . . . is this . . . just how you are?   
 

(I still don't know what exactly she meant because she wouldn't elaborate, but I think it had to do with my work abroad.)

Happy Mother's Day to my crazy mom and grandmothers!  I love you.

Breakfast in Kep

This weekend, we're staying at an organic pepper farm in Kep province.  Mornings are glorious here. 

Ermie at Beklina

via Beklina

I am digging Jennifer's new pieces and the ease of the cuts, especially the longer hemline in the back.  While in Cambodia, the momentum to buy, buy, buy slows down considerably.  Or, at least, for me it did.  It's partly because the work keeps me busy, shipping is expensive, dress is casual, and nice clothes take a  real beating here.

While I do not buy as much in Cambodia, I've grown more inclined to buy only what I love - to invest in pieces that may be more expensive, but are more special.  Because, in the end, those are the pieces that I keep for 10 years or so.  Those are the pieces that survive purge after purge.  I kid you not: I still have a favorite pair of MJ flats and a Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress that I bought, with my pennies saved, in 2001!  Some of my favorite 3.1 dresses were Philip Lim's first year out of the Development line, years ago.  And, don't get me started with Mayle...

I cannot wait to receive my Ermie spring tee in the Talitha print. Care package, where are you?

a smattering of thoughts and images

Life. Right now.

Images 1-2: Homemade tortillas with vegetable fajita filling (random veggies sauteed with a dash of red wine and adobo chipotle peppers imported from Los Angeles)

Image 3: Shoes sitting in my closet. I must remember to wear them.

Image 4: "Cookie" - the feral kitten who has taken over our terrace.  He looks harmless, but he is a terror.

Image 5:  For the past few days, the sky has hung heavy with clouds. Rainy season is here, I suppose: green and flowers everywhere. The trailing vine on our staircase is out of control!
Image 6: I crave dim sum.

Erin Considine SS 2012

via EC

Simple lines, so clean and graceful.  Lately, I've been drawn to cleaner shapes.

The Shabd dress isn't bad either.

markers

This was over two years ago??  Since then, some of my dearest friends in Portland have moved, switched careers from law to medicine, been hitched - and one of these lovely ladies will soon be a mother.  Today- by her doctor's count!  This is another marker of time.

Time is passing quickly.  In some ways, I do not recognize this picture of a pre-Cambodia me devouring clotted cream and lemon curd with utter abandon.  (I paused briefly  to take the picture.)  This picture brings me back to my expectations at the time in my life, what I considered acceptable and unacceptable, where I thought I would settle, etc.  In my two years in Cambodia, I pretty much took all those things and tossed them up in the air.  (I didn't throw them away, but I suspended the need to define everything now, in the most rigid and steadfast terms.)  Life has changed drastically since that day spent in the Portland-suburb tea shop and along with it, I have changed in ways I could not have imagined.  It's a strange sense of freedom and openness that is both wonderful and scary, light and weighty.

I'm aware that my time in Phnom Penh is winding down.  The meetings and receptions in Manila were, in many ways, a culmination of the work I've put into this project/case/research in the past two years.  In Manila, I was also fortunate to meet other lawyers, researchers, and advocates working on similar issues from Kyrgyz Republic to Mongolia to Sri Lanka to the United States to the Netherlands.  We are a small group of people. 

Finally, the meetings drove home the fact that this case - and this work - will go on for years and years to come.  It's important to take breaks.

I am looking forward to my break in Indonesia and India, to a summer of being a plane, ferry, and train passenger to and through countries I have never been.  I'm looking forward to glimpsing the  majestic Himalayas with my own eyes  and breathing in the crisp mountain air.  I am looking forward to sipping a hot cup of Darjeeling tea in  the hillside town of Darjeeling and to rummaging through markets in Indonesia filled with batik textiles.  I am looking forward to walking the cobblestone streets of Ubud.  And even though my heart is heavy with the thought of leaving this work for now (an opportunity to work in Manila has presented itself and I am passing), I am excited about starting our life in Bangkok, Thailand.

Back

Back in Cambodia after the diplomat-dance in Manila all last week. There's a lot to process, but I am glad to be "home" in the sweltering heat of Phnom Penh, where my mornings are greeted by little notes and waiting cups of  coffee.