A Child Is To Play

I've had just enough time to...   play

 

A child looking for play...

I remembered as a child

Searching for the meaning of Life

Then went outside to play

When the head gets too heavy

Leaving the thinking

For another day

I was always confident

There is time to be wise

But the play is not going to wait

To start another day

Now only I realized

How wise I was as a child

So I am putting down my books

To go out and play…

while grown-up prays...

I saw this small boy in his bicycle outside the same temple in Surabaya. He was just looking for someone to play with. I contrasted him with the old man I saw sitting forlornly in the balcony upstairs and feel kind of sad. I identified more with this boy and think back to my youth and is envious of him. In the end, I turned out alright but due to poverty and due to the well-meaning but misplaced worries of adults, I lost a large part of my irreplaceable childhood which is why a part of me will never grow up but I’m blessed for that. Life works in mysterious ways.

the Gods stays...

away from the affairs of man...

I Fell In Love With The Guitar Man

I've had just enough time to...   fell in love with the guitar man.

Taken in a hotel in Johore Bahru advertising the presence of the guitar man

I fell in love with the guitar man

Or is it his music?

I cannot tell which when he is playing.

The guitar man has me at his finger tips.

How can I love a man so much –

When he is playing?

And love him so little

When he stops?

Please don’t let the music stop

Please don’t let the music stop

Don’t let it stop…

_______

Who draws the crowd and plays so loud,

Baby it's the guitar man.

Who's gonna steal the show, you know

Baby it's the guitar man,

He can make you love, he can make you cry

He will bring you down, then he'll get you high

Somethin' keeps him goin', miles and miles a day

To find another place to play.

Bread

A Stranger Through The Eyes of A Child.

I've had just enough time to...   see myself in the eyes of a child.

Taken in Kunshan while wandering around

“He doesn’t like me”.

Maybe it was not because he does not like me. Maybe it was because I witnessed what he did. Or maybe it was because he was protective of his little sister. His sister, who was looking at me with questioning eyes.

“Who are you?”

“What do you want?”

“Why are you taking our picture?”

She could not figure me out yet. So she was hesitant with her response. Maybe she will smile if I say a kind word or two. Maybe she will run away. But I kept my distance. I have no right to intrude.

Her brother, he just glared at me. I am a stranger. I can be up to no good. I cannot do anything for them except getting them into trouble. So he challenged me with his look. If I put on a fierce expression. Maybe he will run away. Maybe he will call for his family. I am after all a stranger and an outsider. So I kept my distance. Smiled, and backed off. I am after all an intruder into their world and I have to respect that. (I was in Kunshan with a couple of hours to kill and I’m not going to do that watching TV in the hotel room. So I wandered out into the street where ordinary people lived.)

Earlier, I “caught” them playing with the stainless steel bolts and washers that they somehow dismantle from the railings of the steps and overhead bridge. I tried one with my bare fingers and found it to be fast secured. Maybe, they have found all the loose ones or maybe they did it with some tools though I did not see any. If they construct the railings so poorly that children can dismantle them, then it is not the children’s fault for you can expect a child to do exactly what they did. I did not want to encourage them though so I checked my smile and moved away wondering what did I learn from this encounter to have it so strongly registered in my memory.