Taipei Cafe Dreaming

 

Every now and then I have an out-of-body experience.  This isn’t to say that I actually leave my body and experience the supernatural.  Rather, I am suddenly thrust into the realization that the life I live is truly what I’m experiencing.  It isn’t someone else’s story that I’m reading or watching pass by.

No.

This is my life.

And a pretty spectacular one, I might add.

I may not be a millionaire or billionaire like Trump, and I may not be famous or supermodel status (definitely nowhere close, if I can be frank with myself).  But I can have no complaints.

For example, I’ve been traveling abroad since I was an infant. (I say this quite literally; Mom managed to take 4-month-old me + two suitcases + all other baby materials to Taiwan by herself and back. She’s superwoman.)  I’m highly (some would say overly) educated, and I live in one of the most expensive areas in the United States.  I have a lot of first world problems.

But I digress.

What I’m trying to say sometimes is that I do find myself somewhat bewildered that my life is what it is.  Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?  I’m ever thankful for the life I’ve been given.

Each new experience is savored, like the droplets of an ’86 Bordeaux . . .

Oddly enough, though, I seem forget many of the details of what I experience immediately after I experience them.

Bam.

Good-bye, moment.

Maybe that’s why I love photography so much.  The hoarder in my mind is grasping at every and any opportunity to retrieve some of those thoughts and experiences and relive them.  And each snapshot is one more desperate window into my past.

Reviewing old photos, I relive those moments, relishing the wonderment I experienced as if I were there all over again.

My hope is that I never lose that wonderment.

I think photography helps with that, as well.  I’m pushed to think and see from different perspectives, so that the ordinary becomes extraordinary.

I’m never bored, that’s for sure.

//Top photo, 35mm film photo taken at the Huashan 1914 Creative Park in Taipei, Taiwan, in January 2016.  It’s a totally “Me” kind of place.  Edgy, artsy, and a little bit all over the place in a controlled confusion.

//Bottom two photos were taken from inside at the same cafe/shop with my iPhone.