Moving

After much consideration, I am now officially moving my blog to here. The reasons for this move is because I'm able to post photos of higher resolution there and also because I prefer the layouts that tumblr provides.

It would be in conjunction with the changes in my life at the moment and as reflected in the blog name, Of Rivers and Roads, it will be to record my journey and growth.

I have enjoyed sharing bits of my life with you here and it'd be nice too have you joining me at my new blog too :)


*Photo taken at a camping trip I went on. I'll be sharing more photos from that as well as other travels on Of Rivers and Roads soon!

green veins

For reasons I can no longer remember, I hadn't been too keen on hiking up Cavehill when my friends told me that they were making a trip and asked me to join. I think it was something to do with what I know of my stamina and how I had never been particularly fond of hiking, but on the day itself, I woke to my alarm and prepared myself for the day out. 

When we stepped off the bus at the stop beneath the hill, it was clear that we had left the city. The green lounged around us, parts of it lit and parts of it in shadows. I snapped a photo of some trees that looked like they were made of a million glitter spots. 

Belfast castle was also at the foot of the hill, and it was there that we headed towards first. There wasn't much to see, just the grounds, so we started our hike, stopping every now and then to nibble on some snacks we brought. 

We would also stop every so often, such as when we came across these massive fallen trees and took a group shot. My friends insisted on including me in a photo, so I went and climbed up the trunk. After the photos were taken, I tried hopping off and scratched my fingers along my way down. My friends immediately asked if I was okay but I felt like it wouldn't really be a proper adventure without a few scratches here and there and thus brushed their concerns off. 

I also kept stopping to capture foliage that glowed in the sun. 

We could see a bird's eye view of Belfast city all the way, but that wasn't as impressive as when we climbed a wall three times our height into a cave. It was literally like cliff climbing, our hands and feet searching for groves in the vertical rock to hook onto. It was also a lot more terrifying coming down than it was going up. Before climbing up, I'd made notes of the spots where I would be able to grip onto but when I was coming down, all I had was the directions of my friends as to where I could place my feet next (which I was really grateful for and couldn't have done without) and the fear of falling was so real. It probably seems silly, as there was really nothing in the cave but some wrappings litterbugs left behind before us, however, it was the thrill of scaling the rock wall that we went for. 

I remember being completely stressed out the days before, by work at my part-time job as well as the pressure to get a full-time job within these few months. This day out opened my eyes again towards what I had to do, the way life works. I remember hiking, placing one foot in front of the other and repeating that motion, step by step, and it didn't take that much effort to reach the top. Then I realised it was the secret in the steps. All I had to do was take a step. I was surrounded by nature where it's so easy to feel at home, and I had my camera and the company of friends. There were times where we wandered up little hills that were more like stages along our way up to the bigger top, just so we could see how it was like from up there before making our way down again. There was no rush; everything happened in good time. It was remembering my heart pulses at its own pace, and that it was these manageable steps we make each moment that add up. 

A fluffy bee, moss and marbled rock. 

One of the last photos I took was of a tree shaped as a wishbone. 

I was so glad I went. I arrived home feeling that satisfying ache in my body, and felt really energised for the next few days. 

~

*I've been trying to find ways to post photos with higher resolution on my blog while maintaining them at this size, but I'm not too sure to. Let me know in the comments if you happen to know how. 

seedlings

A couple weeks ago, I bought a pot of roses that were reduced to 80p at Tesco. They blossomed after a few days, and after watering them, I watered a pot of orchids that belonged to my friend in the kitchen as well. To my friend's surprise, the orchids started to blossom. 

Both of us began to discuss excitedly about something we had always wanted to do, and I decided that it was time we started. Therefore, a few days later, we made a trip to the city and bought a few sacks of soil, pots and packets of seeds. 

As soon as we arrived home, I got busy mixing the soil and picking the seeds I wanted to plant before sprinkling them into the soil. 

They then started sprouting the days after. Each day after I returned home from work, I would water and check on them. It was such a simple yet lovely delight to have something so uplifting to care for, and this love is probably something I inherited from my dad who enjoys gardening so very much himself. Here are some photos of the seedlings. 

So in an attempt to practise patience, I found a photo and sketched it out last night. Besides rediscovering skills I wasn't sure I possessed, I also discovered a new favourite photographer. 

x

pushing pins

Sometimes, I almost envy those people who able to live small, just getting along by life, remaining in the town they were born in; growing up, going to school, getting married, bearing children and spending their time out at the tip of a pin pushed into the world map. Isn't that easy? Not having to spend weeks that rush into months, yearning for something bigger, missing someone. I know that it is perhaps not just as it seems and that everyone has their own struggles, but once in a while, I catch a glimpse of that sort of life and wonder if it is as simple as it appears to be.

After almost four years spent away from the place where I was born (home isn't an easy word for me to use, being as complicated to define as it is), I have come to realise that no matter how, we will always come to miss the place so familiar we once thought we knew everything about; the place we'd sometimes been so eager to leave in search for the ones where the buildings were more charming and the people more romantic the way we had always read and heard about. I've been imagining my feet in the warm sands, waves licking my toes the way my dog back home sometimes does when I spill something on them, being with you, being with you, always being with you and seeing it all together.

Instead of saying on the verge of tears, I tweet edge of the waterfall for the times I miss you so badly, as well as for the times I feel so afraid of being average all my life. I don't know if anyone else has ever felt this way, or whether everyone feels this way. It was only rereading an old letter from my penpal where she had, in conjunction with one of our personal festivals, listed out all the favourite things of hers that she had received from me, that made me realise that perhaps, perhaps love is enough. To have touched another's life in an uplifting way, and not just one but more than that, may be one of the best things we can do in this life.