my eyes cloud with the fog of myself, but haze drifts clear when I see you near.

I think I have been challenged quite deeply lately, in how I approach the world and people around me. There is a lot we carry, and a lot we hold, and I am reminded of how easy it is to hold tight but just how easy, if we choose, it also is to let go. Blindness and fear provokes so much in this world, and it is easy to look, judge, and then unknowingly perpetuate what we see, simply in our judgment and harsh contempt of it. Here, in our very affluent TEDA, its easy to get frustrated with people budging in lines, almost driving over your toes, honking at you while they barrel in their BMW towards you in your own bike lane, short change you in a taxi and play deaf when you ask for the change, spit, stare, and unabashedly insult.....but this is hardly everyone, it just seems to be a prevailing accepted norm amongst seemingly many. But there are a precious handful who somehow hold joy and sight. People's eyes say so much. I said to Ben as we were walking today, that I don't understand the many scrunchy grumpy faces, yet even as I spoke there was a nod and a smile back at my foreign face. Later, the tailor we went to see was full of expression and patience, his assistant was more than thrilled to chat and give any aid, a coffee Barista was eager to attempt her broken English, though shy and unsure, she smiled and served gladly. Yes, this is a very different place, one I cannot even begin to understand, but when you remember there are diamonds found in many places, you only must look, you can definitely see them highlighted and shining right through and just beneath the veil of silt. And sometimes, I am just as much adding to the silt, so who am I to judge. Somewhere, beyond myself is when I can only begin to become a diamond.