YOUR LIPS MY LIPS, APOCALYPSE

You greeted me on my birthday. 

I didn’t know because Whatsapp had been uninstalled from my phone for three months now… I tell people I have privacy concerns, but in actuality, it’s because it reminds me too much of you. The conversations that start at midday and end at four past midnight, the endless jests, you accidentally calling me “mommy” that one time, me getting annoyed because you kept calling me “child”.

You wished me well in your greeting which left me feeling a surge of affection for you; nostalgia for a relationship that seemed illusory on my end but might’ve actually been something real.

I remembered why it had to end. Now that I’m 25 will I finally be old enough for you? Will I no longer be out of place in your circle of friends? In your tight knit family? It was my age that held you back, am I one degree more worthy now that I’m a year wiser?

You’ve read Dante in elementary school and thus you know ‘amor ch’a nulla amato amar perdona’. I had asked you to translate this for me, though I already knew what it meant:

love which compels whoever is loved to love in return.

This was my way of telling that I remember everything, and I still long for what could’ve been. I long for you to know the magnitude of how I still feel for you, and how much I hope that there are still remnants within you too.

You evaded the request, but in turn asked me to listen to ‘Apocalypse’ by Cigarettes After Sex. How odd and unwarranted it seemed, but as I came to realize, you wanted to send a message too.

“Got the music in you baby, tell me why

Got the music in you baby, tell me why

You’ve been locked in here forever and you just can’t say goodbye.”

(Featured photo is the Chao Phraya, 2019)

October 29, 2020October 29, 2020 by Daniella Reyes Categories: journalTags: apocalypse, bangkok, cigarettes after sex, love, Love letters, romance, thailand Leave a comment

GIVE YOURSELF TIME || LOY KRATHONG, WAT ARUN, AYUTTHAYA, THAILAND – NOVEMBER 2018

How wonderfully you have grown since May of last year. – Morgan Harper Nichols

I believe it’s a fairly universal emotion for young adults to feel like we’re running out of time to accomplish our aspirations in life. Society glorifies the ‘30 under 30s’, painting these outliers are the vantage point for success.

Deadlines are important in keeping us accountable and productive. However, based on how I’ve planned my life (so far), everything has to be done by the time I’m 30… and that is where it stops.

If my recent encounter with a fairly serious injury (on my face) has taught me anything, it’s that time is the key to everything.

Time heals, and time is a great teacher.

Time heals

The deep wounds that a bacterial infection inflicted on my nose took three weeks to heal. Deep scars took the place of these wounds, and day by day I noticed they are getting smaller, slowly lifting up, and generally getting less ostentatious. I am still healing.

I was so incredibly stressed during these three weeks because I had an upcoming trip to Spain. In addition to reasons grounded in vanity, I was nervous because I might be considered a potential health hazard by the Spanish government. However, prayers and a week-long course of fairly strong antibiotics worked, and the final scab fell off on the plane ride from Dubai to Madrid.

This experience taught me that healing takes time. It simply cannot be expedited and this applies wounds both physical and emotional in nature.

Time is necessary for us to heal from the habits, and mindset that hinder us from being completely ready to step up to the demands of our goals and dreams.

Time is a teacher

Much like the week-long, pretty strong, antibiotic + regular cleaning, medicating, and gauzing course that I had to do for the infection, healing habits and mindsets require proactive intervention.

Forming new habits (physical and mental) takes effort and commitment which might take weeks, even months. And as we go through these processes, we learn not just new and better ways of doing things, but also new dimensions in our identities.

Our greatest stumbling blocks,

Our threshold for pain,

Our grit levels,

Our creativity,

Our why power,

How desperate we are for our goals,

What we really want out of life

Allow yourself some time to grow into the person needed by your dreams.

Time makes us worthy of the goals we’ve set out for ourselves.

Time makes us worthy of the person we aspire to be.

(Here are some photos from Thailand, taken on November 2018. Loy Krathong festival, Ayutthaya, and the incredible Wat Arun)

May 5, 2019May 5, 2019 by Daniella Reyes Categories: journal, UncategorizedTags: adventure, ayutthaya, bangkok, exploration, loy krathong, nature, photography, thailand, travel, travel photography, wat arun Leave a comment

On Dreams – Bangkok 2016

Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist is one of my favorite books. My copy came from the trash as someone from my High School decided to throw it out on our locker-cleaning day in the final days of school. Indeed one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, ha!

The book follows the story of Santiago as he crosses the Desert to reach the Egyptian pyramids where treasure is supposedly buried. This was revealed to him through a dream, and he decided to follow this dream with burning passion. In his journey he discovers the Soul of the World and meets an Alchemist who teaches him how to understand and be one with this timeless truth. As expected, his journey was anything but smooth and there were moments where he lost sight of his dream (his personal legend). In the end, he achieved his personal legend but not in the way one would expect.

There are two truths I learned from the book, and these two will continue to guide me as I go about life.

There is one great truth on this planet: whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, it’s because that desire originated in the soul of the universe. It’s your mission on earth.

When you’re on a journey to fulfill your Personal Legend, the whole universe conspires to help you achieve it.

Ever since junior year of college I knew that I wanted to work on an international capacity. This desire stems from a mixture of loving travel, exploration, and photography, and also wanting to do good in the world. I wanted to join either the United Nations or National Geographic, and just travel and explore frequently. I envisioned myself getting lost in foreign lands whose language I don’t speak, and whose people look drastically different from me.

I was ready for it, and after graduation I was determined to get a job at an international NGO. I blindly applied for various positions even though I was aware that I’m incredibly unqualified for all of them; and as expected I never got a call back.

Life happened and I ended up in a soul-crushing job at a BPO.

At that time, I sincerely thought my dream was dead. Life was a hard teacher and I wasn’t prepared for all its lessons. I’ve always seen the world as very Disney. My innate optimism has made me naive and the heartbreak became overwhelming.

I had given up.

But Life has other plans, and it brought me to my current job which has strong ties to various UN agencies and other international governing bodies.

I remember my interview vividly, especially the part where my current boss asked me if I was okay with traveling. I remember answering YES with a gigantic grin on my face.

Last year I was given the opportunity to visit Bangkok twice to represent the country, and our organization, to two meetings. It’s a great honor as I’ve only been with the organization for a few months.

Here are some of the photographs I took when I explored during my free time.

February 26, 2017February 26, 2017 by Daniella Reyes Categories: journal, travelTags: bangkok, dreams, mobile photography, ploenchit, pratunam, street photography, thailand, travel, travel photography, urban photography Leave a comment