Blogs and Short Essays
Happy Hearts and Gall Bladders
And so, one Valentine's Day, I visited her at her new home, a home she created all by herself in a shell of a house in a subdivision project. I felt blissfully warm inside because I see the Bing that I know in every furniture and furnishing that she chose and in every way that she positioned them, like a museum curator putting up disparate objects that help tell one story.
Joyuex Anniversaire, Ma Jolie Fille!
She's a child who was wished for, welcomed, treasured. But I had to leave her while she was still an infant and when I came back one-year later, I couldn't coax her away from her yaya. Somehow, the maternal bond had been broken. It took a while before I regained her trust and affection. And when I did, she clung to me like a barnacle to its rock!
My Kind of Gal Pal
I'm not saying she is a perfect human being. She has her "flaws," adorable ones, and we all indulge her in them. She loves casino gambling, for one, but don't get me wrong. She is not a high roller, but take her to a casino and she will find a seat to place her bet, press a button, or roll the dice. She loves mahjong and will stay rooted to her seat for as long as her eyelids can stay open. How I love to look at her bejeweled hands and well-manicured fingers shuffling the clacking ivory tiles!
A Family’s Legacy, Cast in White and Blue
Meraki is more than a picturesque retreat—it is a space carved out of both memory and myth, shaped by family legacy and sustained by local craftsmanship. It offers not just respite, but reverence. Here, amid hot springs and hushed mornings, you come to understand that true luxury isn’t just about comfort or aesthetics—it’s about belonging, however briefly, to a place that remembers why it was made.
The Making of a Leader
Back in high school, he was hardly the sharpest tool in the shed, and by his own accounts, he teetered on the edge of being a menace in college. If we were to vote back then, he might well have been tagged “least likely to succeed.” Yet even in those early years, his instinct to lead was undeniable—a quiet undercurrent that, in the end, carried him further than anyone could have imagined.
The Girl and the Shawl
And so I live this in-between life—born of the tropics, residing in the temperate, always negotiating with the air around me. The shawl, draped over my shoulders, has become more than just a shield against the cold. It is my compromise, my quiet companion, my badge of adaptation. It tells the story of a body that remembers where it came from, even when life has taken it elsewhere.
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Happy 250th Birthday, America!
