Central Coast Livin' Be The Shit To Me!

After landing in Australia, Roy and I immediately hopped on a train headed for the Central Coast, a region north of Sydney consisting of a vibrant network of towns and smaller urban areas. We were specifically headed for Wamberal, a colorful beachside community right next to the popular beach town of Terrigal, to visit our friend Alicia. We only stayed one night before heading back down to Sydney to meet up Ed and Casey, who flew in a couple days after us, but it was enough time to fall in love a bit with the place, and wish we had stayed longer. I'm a sucker for small, quaint seaside towns. I will live in a place like this someday.

Central station, in Sydney.

Some locals -- college kids, I would guess -- playing a game to kill time. Reminds me of when we used to play games like Ninja.

Alicia's porch in Wamberal. I miss porches. I need a porch.

Same porch, the next morning.

Brekkie, as the Aussies say, with Alicia's friend Sarah, who was game to hang with us despite a wicked hangover.

Terrigal beach.

The Skillion, a promontory that looks over Terrigal and the neighboring towns on the Central Coast.

Climbing the Skillion.

The rocks below.

Afternoon tea with Alicia's very nice and very generous family.

Alicia's little sister Holly tries to teach us how to ride her rip board. Despite her best efforts, it doesn't go so well.

Her mother Sherry and stepfather Paul keep the most wonderfully cluttered garage.

Plus, this beast lives in there. A classic Holden, which is a company that started out making saddles in the 1800s before expanding to automobiles in the 20th century. General Motors would buy the company in the 1930s.

I expect to see these tracks again someday.

Gracious host.

A Pinch Of Oz

Back from Australia. It was a great two weeks. I'm not sure if there's anything I want to say about the trip. Some things are colored better by memory than by words, and don't carry a need for reflection. Not sure if this was one of those things yet, but here's a small preview of what was seen and what times were had. More pictures (if not thoughts) to come later, probably.

Home Flies

I've been doing a lot of flying lately.

Anyway.

I don't blog much about my family. I'm not sure if there's a specific reason for this, beyond the simple reality that I write mostly about days of my life and I happen to spend most of my days interacting with people who aren't family members (except for Roy, of course). For whatever reason, I typically like to keep my family life off the Internet, as if it's something that I need to keep guarded. Maybe it's because I grew up used to seeing my extended family only under certain contexts -- for holidays, at restaurants, at my grandparents' house, etc. -- that I never transitioned into incorporating them into my online existence. Maybe I even worked actively to avoid it in an attempt to keep my relationships with them somehow unsullied by the complex vagaries (Facebook friends I'm not really friends with, close friends I'm not Facebook friends with, etc.) of the rest of my life in the Cloud. Maybe it's because many of them aren't burdened with as sadly thorough an online presence as I have. Maybe it's because many of them were born and raised in Taiwan, and that cultural and linguistic difference is unable to hurdle the uncannily complicated cocktail of slang and shortened keystrokes that is Internet lingo (what is, after all, the Chinese equivalent of "lol"?). I guess it could be any of a number of things. Which isn't to say we aren't close or that we don't share an intrinsic affection for one another, but it does illustrate a certain distance between all of us, I suppose. Our lives are our own, and -- except for a couple of exceptions -- family time, for many of us, is its own separate realm.

I got a lot of quality family time last week. It's always good catching up with the cousins, and seeing how you've all somehow grown better able to relate to one another since the last time you were together. And at the end of it, how much closer you've become, no matter how short a time you got to spend with them. Despite the different experiences and completely different lives we all lead, there really does seem to be something shared flowing within each of us. And that's a very warming thought.

Some pictures from last week:

Sky above L.A. (if you squint, you can see it).

It apparently takes my entire family to figure out how to take a group picture. We're discussing chair orientation here.

Figuring out where to put the little ones.

My cousin Chia-Ying seems to be pointing out something that has everyone enthralled. Except my dad.

Chung familia.

Trails

Dirty Sneaks

Look Up

The Beginning Before the End

Escape

Treedom

Belated

I didn't realize it, but the one year anniversary of this blog's birth (or rather, it's resurrection) passed on March 1st. Not that that will mean anything to anyone other than myself, but milestones -- and, by extension, traditions -- should be important, even the small ones. Reminders of the way we've come.

On Expression

Expression is hard. Regardless of whether you're trying to do it through words, art, or action -- it's hard. Even those of us who make a living out of expression struggle with its elusive nature. But it's the entirety of what we need. More than anything, we need to be understood.

It's why we make friends. It's why we fight. It's why we fall in love. It's why we break each others' hearts. It's why we pursue our dreams, find a career, buy a car, or post our lives on the internet. We bare our souls, and, to varying degrees, we demand an audience. No matter what results from our pursuit of it, though, at its root, it's a simple need.

Whether it's through paint and pencils or tears and tantrums, whether it touches on the profound or dwells in mundanity, the little pieces of ourselves that we put out there just want to be heard, to feel some sense of reciprocation. Because we feel so strongly. And more often than not, we have no idea how to capture that sensation and reproduce it; how to bottle it up to put it on display for everyone -- or just a select few -- to see. To say "Look! This is what I mean! This is why I am!"

But we try. Not always knowingly, and not always with the best of intentions, but we all try. We hold a sliver of our hearts up to the light, to examine and wonder. Does it look the way we thought it would? Do you see me the way I see me? These experiments can end in disappointment, but rarely in defeat.

We keep trying. Against reason, against doubt, we try.

We hope. Boldly and fearfully, we hope that those fragments resembling our truest selves that we send out into the universe will one day reach a destination. That someone will receive it, absorb it, and see what we've been trying so hard to say all along -- that we are here, that we feel, and that we want to be felt in return. We want to know that we are not alone in this. Because no matter how personal expression may be, it is, in the end, an act of communion.

Those pieces of ourselves, floating and lost between us, don't always find a home. But we continue. Against the fear of wasting away, we continue, because we know when those pieces are found, by us or by others, we are made fuller. And so.

We speak. Or, in our silence, we yell. We write. We sing, dance, cry, laugh, scream, and shudder. We create. And in creating, in trying to convey who we are, we become. And it's in the trying that we refuse to give up.

The Burden of Having Something to Say...

...is not on my shoulders today.

So how about a picture book instead?

Up near Westpoint.

I enjoy ducks. They amuse me so. I know not why.

Amber doing her thing at Rockwood. I inexplicably have another picture where she's managed to convince Roy to wear her clip-on earrings. I don't remember taking it, but that's not saying much.

Cold air and a little natural light remind me of the quieter days in the city.

Everyone's got a blog these days.