Yunnan ’17 (一)
originally posted on august 4, 2017
short check-in here…
these few months have been a beanboozled mixture of no sleep and books and writing and plane rides and learning and pictures and meeting new people and studying and laughter and honestly, if this isn’t how life as a (newly!) sixteen-year old is supposed to be lived, then i don’t know how else it possibly should be. although, at the beginning of this whole journey - “young adulthood” - i swear… i knew myself better than i do now.
life. is. moving. so. fast. it. is. incredible.
future derek, you better take all this everything one day and write something magical from it.
the last trip i took was to a village atop a mountain in Yunnan - a province in china bordering vietnam and laos and a few other places. a few buds and i spent a fortnight here, taking a break from the modern world, acquainting ourselves with the locals, hearing their stories, learning a lot, creating art, and just - living.
words - and iPhone pictures - hardly do this place any justice. honestly, when you stand atop these mountain ranges and look out in the vast expanse - life slows down, the world comes to a stop, and heaven pulls itself a little closer to the earth’s surface. and it is, it feels - sublime.
if there’s one lesson i’ve taken from this whole experience, it’s that coming from a society that is so quick-paced, money-oriented, and modern - that whole concept of consumerism becomes irrelevant when put next to all the natural beauty and warm souls this humble community has to boast.
upcoming: the aforementioned iPhone pictures that hardly do the beauty of yunnan any justice.
(to be continued............ with slightly better pictures not taken by iPhone that still hardly do the beauty of yunnan any justice)
more pics from yunnan will soon find themselves up here. until then,
thank you, and good night.