lives I might have lived
Frequently when I travel, I end up wondering what paths my life might have taken me down if these new places had been formative parts of my life. It was especially hard not to do that while wandering around the campus of Stanford U. It's big, beautiful, full of confident young girls and guys on bikes (and the quarter hasn't even started yet), sun gleaming off of buff stone buildings and peeking between the spears of palm trees lining avenues. I'd have to have been a different person to go to school there, and I'd be even more different after I came out, I'm sure.
I also wandered through nearby neighborhoods, as I am wont to do, and snapped a bunch of photos and even took a few short videos. It feels a bit like Manila to me, but I don't know how or why exactly. I mean, I know there are a ton of Filipinos in the area - my cousins are among them - so am I extrapolating? It can't be the weather, because even though it was warm today, it was hardly like Manila's overwhelming heat. It's not the houses themselves. It's probably the exuberant plant life: palms and spiky shrubs, thick gnarled trees, hedges of flowers, trees with giant blossoms or hanging with fruit, the colors of green and pink and red and orange and white.
I'm such a sucker for new places. They make me want to reinvent myself and my entire life.
I also wandered through nearby neighborhoods, as I am wont to do, and snapped a bunch of photos and even took a few short videos. It feels a bit like Manila to me, but I don't know how or why exactly. I mean, I know there are a ton of Filipinos in the area - my cousins are among them - so am I extrapolating? It can't be the weather, because even though it was warm today, it was hardly like Manila's overwhelming heat. It's not the houses themselves. It's probably the exuberant plant life: palms and spiky shrubs, thick gnarled trees, hedges of flowers, trees with giant blossoms or hanging with fruit, the colors of green and pink and red and orange and white.
I'm such a sucker for new places. They make me want to reinvent myself and my entire life.