In Thimphu, a full moon isn’t just a sight—it’s a feeling. An Aries moon rises bold and bright—fiery, fearless, and full of forward energy. In the stillness of night, it stirs the soul to act, to begin, to break free. In Thimphu’s calm glow, this moon doesn’t whisper; it dares. A quiet city under a restless sky.
April2025
Alone, yet not lonely—he sits in stillness while life flows gently around him. In Bhutan, even solitude feels connected.
April 2025
Two paths, one frame:
A monk in quiet robes, a Bhutanese man in a vibrant gho—each carrying a different thread of the same cultural tapestry. One rooted in spiritual stillness, the other in everyday tradition. Together, they reflect the harmony of Bhutan: sacred and lived, timeless and present.
April 2025
Caught this quiet moment in Thimphu—one man, one dog, and the kind of stillness that says more than words ever could.
“The dog is a gentleman; I hope to go to his heaven, not man’s.” —Mark Twain
19april2025
I must have been eight, maybe nine. That in-between age where the world still feels enormous but begins to take shape in small, sudden ways. My mom took me along on a visit to a friend’s apartment in Hanover, Pennsylvania. She was a college professor, though I didn’t really know what that meant yet. I just remember that her apartment didn’t look like anyone else’s. It was cluttered and colorful and filled with books. A kind of beautiful mess. The air smelled like coffee and incense, and every surface—tables, shelves, even some parts of the floor—was stacked with papers, journals, and mysterious little artifacts from what I assumed were faraway places.
I sat on the floor while they chatted. I remember that clearly—me cross-legged on floorboards, my eyes tracing the edges of a pile of paper next to me. They were student assignments, I realized, marked with red pen. Pages filled with sentences and crossed-out words, suggestions in the margins, underlined passages. It felt like a treasure map, like I’d found something important. Something private and full of potential. I don’t remember the conversation the adults were having. What I remember was the feeling in my chest: This is what I want to do when I grow up.
I wanted to be around writing. I wanted to live in a world where stories were taken seriously, where words mattered, where people shared ideas and someone—like this professor in the bohemian apartment—helped shape them. It was the first time I saw that such a life was possible. That you could have a home filled with books, that you could spend your days reading and helping others find their voices. I didn’t know how or when or even where—but I knew I wanted in.
Now, years later, I’m living that dream. Not in Pennsylvania, but in Bhutan, on a quiet hillside campus overlooking Thimphu. I teach writing to students who are just beginning to find their footing in prose, in argument, in voice. And yes—my weekends are often spent with a cup of coffee and a stack of essays, just like the ones I saw that day in Hanover. Figurative red pen in hand. (Sometimes it’s purple, sometimes green.) Words in progress. Lives opening up on the page.
It’s not always easy. There are deadlines and distractions. But then there are moments—small, bright ones—when a sentence lands with surprising grace. When a student writes something that startles me. I remember that girl on the floor, eyes wide, sensing something sacred in the work.
Thank you, universe. For the long, winding road. For the papers to mark. For the life I once only imagined.
Thimphu, Bhutan, April 2025
There’s something about a city before it wakes up—the hush in the air, the slow yawn of the streets. I’ve always found my deepest connection with places in these quiet, early morning hours. The roads still carrying the previous night’s heartbeat, the pigeons beginning their rituals, a lone wheelbarrow patiently waiting, ready to carry what’s necessary for the day.
Cities have a way of revealing themselves in these moments. No pretense, no noise—just the bare bones of who they are, and who I am in them. I walk these streets like I’ve known them forever, and in some ways, I have. The cracked tiles, the faded shopfronts, the brush of chill against my face—they speak a language that doesn’t need translation. I have been trying to explain this to people. The flashbacks of intimate relations with Brussels, Tallinn, New York City, Tokyo, Frankfurt, Dublin, Beirut, Lahore, fortunately the list goes on…At times I’m closer to cities than I am to people.
In these still hours, I feel most alive. I’m not just passing through the city—I’m a part of it. And it, somehow, becomes part of me. These walks don’t just ground me—they nourish my soul. They remind me that belonging isn’t always loud or crowded. Sometimes, it’s just the sound of your own footsteps echoing through an empty street.
Currently in Thimphu, Bhutan, but I could fall in love with “anywhere.”
April 2025
April 2025
2april25
When I first decided to move to Bhutan for at least a year, I made a deal with myself, that I would finally focus on my writing more. I knew there wasn’t going to be much street art, like what I had been documenting extensively for over a decade. And I knew I was going to be teaching writing, and I knew in general, life was going to move slower here. “Meditate and write,” I told myself.
And so I feel like I’m here, but not here. Present, but slipping. The past two weeks have been a strange kind of limbo—somewhere between dream and articulation, between the pull to write and the weight of existing outside of it. Words spill out, but they don’t quite land. Thoughts stretch, dissolve, reappear in fragments. Is it the altitude? But, how can it be? I’ve been good with it since last Fall.
I feel myself disappearing into the abyss of it—the writing, the feeling, the attempt to pin something down that refuses to be named. A breath caught mid-chest, not quite reaching its end. The edges of reality blur like ink bleeding into water. Some moments, I’m electrified, the words coming too fast to catch. Others, I’m staring at the page, knowing there’s something there but unable to pull it through.
Is it inspiration or exhaustion? Dreaming or unraveling? I can’t tell. But I keep writing. Keep sinking into the haze, hoping that somewhere in the mess of words and breath and blurred edges, something true will take shape.
Adding to this precarious state has to be the fact that I’m reading the new Haruki Murakami and his books are just one long dream, aren’t they?
23march2025
