Viet Nam, Residency, and 2007

Joanna Buddha

My Turn!
Random acts of Buddhism
Saigon Cyclo
That's how the light gets in...
A few images from Viet Nam to start the 2007 blog off.
I had a dream last night that my application for residency was refused at the close of this semester. I couldn't sleep much after that. I keep trying to tell myself that those cracks, the imperfections that feel like defects are the only spaces in which the unpredictable can happen. I keep trying to brace myself to free-fall into one of those holes if that rejection of my residency application becomes a reality. But how do you prepare yourself for loosing the life you've dreamed you'll make? How do you smile in the face of blinding sunshine when you can't see what images will come into focus once your eyes adjust, your heart mends?

It could never be easy, right? I couldn't have fallen in love with a place closer? I miss my friends and my family. Weddings are starting to be realities that I will have to consider missing because of distance--money. How do you trade off the life that you love living with a life you wish you wanted? How do you know which things hold the potential for happiness in the long term? I'm terrified of the crack, i'm scared by the fissures I see forming and the terrible fall that will drop me into worlds as yet unimagined. I wait with anxious anticipation for someone to tell me that this, the life i'm leading, the dream i'm building is the forgotten offering. Until then, however, I refuse to believe there could be anything more wonderfully warm then the light streaming through the "australia crack."