Snow is as alien to me as one can imagine; born in a tropical country, in deepest Southeast Asia, my birthright is a deep green and mountainous jungle. All the meteorological clichés apply: steaming humidity, months-long monsoons, Cat. 5 typhoons that wipe whole fishing villages off the coasts of barrier islands with one bellowing tidal surge. And the geological clichés too, of course: jarring earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides that wipe whole villages off the map in one long guttural sound.
So when I see with taken breath this patch of snowfield that a friend posts on her Instagram stream of the present time where she finds herself—which is also my time right now—I wonder: what planet is this she’s living on?
Where I find myself living now is not far from where I grew up; it’s just a mapmaker’s inked flourish northeast across the Pacific from the Philippine island of Mindanao, to the Hawaiian archipelago. Here, I am on the favored island of the demigod Maui where, if one listens closely enough, deep magic still exists. Last week I went to watch a huge swell arrive at the north shore, and was not disappointed by the titanic clash of ocean and this puny agglomeration of lava that has for now maintained its contact with air. (Not very long from now in geologic terms, it will be an atoll, vanishing into the sea like those strung along the northwesternmost segment of the island chain.)
Sanna, somewhere in Sweden, posted her photograph around the same time I did my images of the incoming surf at Ho’okipa. These images, juxtaposed, are fertile ground for me as I am, at this time, poised between this and that, just as I’ve always been for all of my life of half a century plus half a decade. The images have appeared for me at a perfect time, and for a reason.
I will have much more to write about this in the coming days, elsewhere; but I wanted to put this marker here now, on this day, and at this site. It is a declaration of sorts. And, by virtue of these subjective incantations I make upon them now, symbolic. ;-)
