Young tree sways.
Windless day in Kalpa, Kinnaur. Not a leaf moving.
Among the still chilgoza pine trees,
a young apricot tree sways,
whose leaves are a bright shade of green.
Youth making its own wind.
In the Norah Jones mood of love.
Some days, you are in the Norah Jones mood of love, you are all alone, listening to her and only her, and dreaming of someone.
You should take it in deeply, this atmosphere of love and all of its beauty, even if it is only a dream and not real. Even if it’s not real, it has a reality of its own.
You should take it all in deeply and enjoy it — for there are so many who have someone but can’t experience this even as a dream. This is how terrible their reality is. They are lonelier than you.
With greater freedom of the self comes loneliness, and a suspicion of freedom.
Delicious mountains.
Some photographs of the mountains around the Baralacha La Pass in the Himalaya — looking like ice cream, like a spread of variety of delicious desserts all around you. These were taken on my way from Himachal to Ladakh on August 15 2021.
I wish I had carried a spoon.
Delicious desserts of the Baralacha La Pass. Ladakh/Himachal Pradesh, India. August 2021. 
Delicious desserts of the Baralacha La Pass. Ladakh/Himachal Pradesh, India. August 2021. 
Delicious desserts of the Baralacha La Pass. Ladakh/Himachal Pradesh, India. August 2021. 
Delicious desserts of the Baralacha La Pass. Ladakh/Himachal Pradesh, India. August 2021.
How to express gratitude to the Himalaya.
I just thought, or rather I imagined — but this is not something I would like to imagine, rather the imagination came to me — but that’s not what it absolutely is, so I’d say — I dreamed — dreamed with eyes open and mind conscious — that I scraped the upper row of my teeth against the rough edges of an enormous slate-grey rock here in the Himalaya, and I could see in instants my own teeth become powder, I scraped away until my gums bled and the rock was covered in teeth powder and blood.
— this is how one should express gratitude to the Himalaya, this is the highest way. It’s a prayer.
Because of words.
Usually, I am happy to write in my head. It’s easier. In your head there are no difficulties to get in the way. But, as soon as you write anything down, the thoughts change, become distorted, and everything turns out false. Because of words.
— Agota Kristof
From a 2011 interview with Agota Kristof.
Two great miracles of life.
It’s a miracle that we can be sad. It’s a miracle that we can be happy.
It’s a miracle when I am sad, it’s a miracle when I am happy.
Three mango pickers.
A woman and her young daughter are picking mangoes off the singular tree in their front yard garden. I’m as usual on my balcony and their house is at a small distance.
Intense envy. I wish I had this. A mango tree in my front yard garden.
Suddenly, I see a man in a red shirt — the husband — fall from the tree along with a green branch. And I laugh.
(If I did not continue looking until the man fell from the tree like a giant red fruit, I would have never come to know that there were in fact three mango pickers. Perhaps there were more?)
Demands of little flower plants.
Little flower plants
Demand
And the sun comes out.
The weather
Changes
At the will of little flower plants.