Month of May Photo Challenge. Day 6: Something Young

I spotted this little fellow while dining at Spago in Caesar's Palace, eating spaghetti that his dad was cutting up into short strips. One of my earliest childhood memories was eating noodles, fed to me by my nanny while my parents were already at their general store in Viet Nam. Nanny would insist that I finished breakfast first before walking me out to my parents' store. She'd roll the noodles around the chopsticks and blow on them to cool them before feeding them to me.

By the time the kid was done eating, he had spaghetti sauce smeared orange all over his face, and his food-catcher bib had bits of noodles in it. It brings me back to a carefree time of childhood when everything was done with reckless abandon: eating, running, laughing, crying.

Month of May Photo Challenge. Day 5: Water

Water vortex displays at The Shops at Crystals Aria in Las Vegas.

I once read about a debate on which was the stronger element: fire or water. They both can wreak havoc in terms of fires and floods, but in the end, water came out as the winner because fire cannot put out water, but water can put out fire.

I have always admired water's versatility; it can change its form from liquid to solid ice to vaporous steam. In oceans and rapid-flowing rivers, it has the patience and power to erode away tall and rocky cliffs, smoothing boulders through time as it ekes between the crevices of hard things. I have always thought about the lessons that water teaches us: that even when blocked or dammed off, water finds another way around.

Month of May Photo Challenge. Day 4: A Living Thing

Tulip and cymbidium orchid arrangement at the Vdara check-in desk (right before I mooched off a room upgrade). I like how it's self-contained in its own glass ecosystem.

My mom designs artificial flower arrangements for a living. I learned the names of a lot of flowers as she took me wholesale shopping through my youth. I grew up in her little retail stall, surrounded by all the colors of the rainbow. I've grown an appreciation for fresh flowers even though her arrangements fed us, clothed us, put us through college. Fresh flowers with their unique scents are something that the artificial lacks, along with unique beauty that comes with all organic things, and as they quickly fade, remind us of the ephemeral nature of life.

Month of May Photo Challenge. Day 3: A Bridge

I've always wondered why the Golden Gate Bridge is red. Couldn't they have at least painted it yellow? On this day, it is partly secluded in mist, and I think of all the drivers on it, passing through a low-hanging cloud. Odin loves frolicking in the waters lapping Chrissy Field.

Month of May Photo Challenge. Day 2: Fire

At my National Honors Society initiation in high school, each initiate was given a candle, which represents knowledge. During the lighting ceremony, we dimmed the auditorium lights and passed the flame from one neighbor to another until the entire room flickered with candlelight. This symbolizes the passing on of knowledge from teachers to students, from mentors to tutees, from friend to friend.

The Greek Titan Prometheus risked himself and stole from the gods two gifts to give to humankind: fire, and the ability to heal. Giving us the ability to cook food, fire is a symbol of civilization and evolution. With candlelight vigils to commemorate a memorable event, it shows unity and hope. In storms and electrical blackouts, we revert to candlelight, a light in the darkness when all other lights fail.

Month of May Photo Challenge. Day 1: Portrait of a Family Member

I've always adored my husband's feet, with their plump roundedness and top arch like a camel's hump. I always joke that feet like his were destined for a comfortable life, while flat, angular, bunioned feet like mine were destined to a peasant's life of working in the fields. We are actually both tech professionals (make of that what you will in relation to my theory), but today, I reflect upon the connotations of bare feet. 

In horror movies, zooming in to bare feet magnifies the audience's awareness of vulnerability, the feeling of being unequipped, exposed, and unprepared to run. But often, I associate bare feet with practicing martial arts, most done without footwear so that you are aware of the sensations of the ground: textured mats, cool hardwood. It also evokes in me a sense of comfort and relaxation, of kicking off the confines of shoes, of being home.

Enter the Dragon

Yesterday, for Employee Appreciation Day, our Execs cooked us a pancake breakfast and then brought in a San Francisco Lion Dance Troop to bring luck to our company for the Year of the Sheep. As the drums and gongs started to play out a booming beat to articulate the story of a Lion Dance, I was taken back to a time during elementary school when another Lion Dance Troop came to usher in the Lunar New Year at a multicultural awareness assembly. Not having seen such a loud and festive performance with giant mystical beasts before, some of my schoolmates burst into tears and covered their ears.

Noise is such a big part of the Lunar New Year: drums keep the beat for a Lion Dance, cymbals add to the music, and firecrackers are usually lit at the end of a dance or on New Year's Eve to scare away the bad spirits of the old year and to welcome in the new.

As the large dragon's head came right up to me, its eyes blinking rapidly, giant and awe-inspiring, I felt my heart beat along with the drums. I felt strength and power looming before me. And I felt, even on a continent an ocean away from my birthplace, that I was home.

How often does destiny loom before us, perhaps intimidating and even threatening? How often have we feared the change, covered our ears from the noise, and wanted to shrink back from the huge unknown? Luck and chance will come to stare us in the face with large and luminous eyes. It's up to us to recognize this, see our soul reflected by courage, embrace what's meant to be ours, and enter the dragon.