Always we see times colliding and melting together. The woman on her bike in the early morning. The back of the bike is loaded with produce that she will sell today. As she walks down the street, the motor bikes whizz past her, all busy, all rushing. They are the predominant inhabitants of these streets. There are far fewer bicycles than there were 20 years ago. They no longer command the speed of the streets and take very few parking places.

The cars, of which this picture has only one of a quite moderate size invade and take up so much room. There are big ones–SUVs of the biggest variety that honk and push through. Everything else, motorbikes, bikes and pedestrians slow those huge monsters down, but they persist. They don’t feel like the trucks delivering or the buses picking up and letting off or touring. The SUVs feel like money being shown off. Rarely is there more than one person in those SUVs and that person is occupying valuable real estate. And currently, as a walker or sometimes motorbike rider, those SUVs are what puts the fear of god in me.

Walking around. Seeing stuff. Wanting to think, to ponder and right now just not up to doing much more than taking it in. Posting pictures is about all I can do. Recording. Setting something down so that I can think more later.

We do stuff and I am present for the doing. Digesting is another level. And when I sit down, I want to rest–it is still god awful hot although this is merely an observation, not a complaint. A hot walk, then rest, but shouldn’t I be reading the two books I brought with me or planning our next adventurous seeing. All I want to do is stream something undemanding and dose off.

I am restless without reason. I say I am present but my head is anywhere but right here.

And this is not a quiet place.

There are people who spend their whole lives in the same neighborhood doing what their family has done for generations and what all of their neighbors do. There are streets that only one kind of thing is made and sold. I look at these places and people and marvel. How do they do that?

A street devoted to funerals and flowers:

A suburb outside of the main city where the business is making clay things. Julia came from a province known for its clay making. Today, we spent the morning in that suburb, making something out of clay on a hand turned wheel. Julia needed a lot of help to calm herself down enough to patiently have a conversation with the clay. She has lost that patience to make things and this is a big loss. I sat with her today for hours and we turned the wheel together and made a little vase. It began as a lump of clay, we turned it into a bowl that collapsed as the sides became to wide. Then we pulled all the clay together and started again. I sat with her the entire time. I think if I left her to play and make by herself, she would have given up. And I talked a lot about having a conversation with the clay, to listen to it, to talk to it with her fingers. My heart breaks that she has lost the confidence and the patience to create on her own.