This page contains longer, titled posts that I have made to my blog, so as to more easily separate them from other posts that I make here. If you would like to subscribe to the feed for this page, point your RSS reader here.
Sunday, April 21, 2024
I sit here in 2024 in a house in Portugal, and a piece of music transports me back to 1985, to a hiking hut somewhere in mountains of the Southern Alps of New Zealand. Almost forty years have passed, but the memory is vivid and the effect of that time on my life feels as real now as it did all the way back then. Let me give you some context.
Sunday, April 14, 2024
Monday April 15, 2024 Dear Friends, Being home, being back in Britain, always fills my time. Whether that is sitting talking with my mum, catching up with friends (on the phone and in person), or going for walks. Routine is not so present in my life and I find that with that my writing diminishes. I want to write, but find myself either too tired to concentrate or in need to wind down from the last social activity.
Sunday, April 7, 2024
Monday April 8th, 2024 Dear Friends, Well the weeks feel as though they are creeping up on me quicker. Though this one could well be because I have had a lot going on. I am writing to you from the opposite side of the world. I have returned solo to England for my mother’s 90th birthday celebrations and am spending a couple of weeks here to catch up with friends and also some work as well.
Sunday, March 31, 2024
Monday April 1st, 2024 Dear Readers, I had to laugh this morning. It’s related to the post that I put out yesterday around busyness (see it below). I had been trying to slow myself down, to be focused and get done what needed to be done, but obviously it was not working. I forgot that this newsletter was going out today. That’s humbling and at the same time an opportunity to try that little bit harder and see where I can improve.
Tuesday, March 26, 2024
Benaulim Beach, Goa, India. A month ago I explained how I was capturing the slides that I am using in the “Story behind the Photograph” series (all of which can be found here (RSS), or under the map emoji 🗺️ in the menu bar above). Well I have now found a gadget that I was given a number of years ago. Its purpose is to digitize slides and negatives. Due to the device’s age, the scans are probably not the best.
Monday, March 25, 2024
Monday March 25, 2024 Hello and welcome to another weekly roundup of posts to my blog. This has been a wet winter and as such some outside jobs that needed to be done in the garden have been sitting, waiting for the weather to clear up. Seasons here in Hawaii don’t have as clear a delineation as more northerly latitudes, but there is a definite change in weather patterns. In the part of Maui where I live the weather becomes wetter, and although the day time temperatures can reach the high 70F(21C), mornings and evenings are cold and the trade winds that blow through the islands can be chilly.
Wednesday, March 20, 2024
Every Thursday night I sit in a weekly men’s group. I’ve mentioned before the value that I get from sitting with this group, but of late I have been reminded of something else. Maybe it’s the same thing but I am just now finding words for my experience? It’s simple, common sense advice to “keep the company of good friends”. That is, the influence of those around me, rubs off on me.
Tuesday, March 19, 2024
Waiting at the border crossing I was going through some more slides of my travels last night and this one has stuck with me through the day. Taken in July 1989, I recognized most of the faces, as well as the nationalities of some of those standing there, but could not put names to them. I found myself wondering where they are now? What happened to them after we parted ways on our respective travels?
Monday, March 18, 2024
Monday March 18, 2024 Hello there. It is David Johnson here with a weekly roundup of posts to my blog. It has been a wet week here on Maui, especially in the area of the north shore where I live. This region is one of the wetter parts of the island, but even so this week saw more low cloud and persistent drizzle than we normally have. I love the moody weather, probably because of growing up in England, and anyway sun is not in short supply here on Maui - the change is welcome.
Friday, March 15, 2024
A rallying call since the devastating fires here on Maui last year has become “Maui Strong”. The words have lended themselves to multiple funds to help raise financial help, material supplies and volunteering possibilities, all for the immediate and long-term recovery needs of those effected by the fires. These include, Hawai‘i Community Foundation, Maui Strong Fund, which as of the State of the County address by Mayor Richard Bissen, Jr.
Wednesday, March 13, 2024
A lot happened during my short time in Bodhgaya, and so I am spreading this section of the travels over a couple of posts. Arriving into Bodhgaya with the top of the Mahabodhi Temple peeking above trees One of the first things that we (myself and Ray, an American who I had met on the road and was currently traveling with) noticed on arrival in Bodhgaya was the number of people who walking around with patches over one eye.
Tuesday, March 12, 2024
Maui has so many microclimates, and with that the weather can vary in a very short space of time. Yesterday from what I could see most of the island was covered in cloud. Where I live there was a lot of wind, but I had to run Upcountry and there the air was very different. It was still, so still. Even the landscape felt still. Being March there was a little chill in the air as well.
Monday, March 11, 2024
Monday March 11, 2024 This week has felt like a real mixed bag - work being done on the house, a visit to the doctor - both of which have follows this coming week….And then for my wife’s birthday we spent a night on the island of Oahu, in Honolulu. The Hawaii equivalent of a visit to the big city. Maybe by some world cities standards Honolulu is a baby, but for me coming from rural Maui the island metropolis is a visual and aural stimulant.
Monday, March 4, 2024
Monday March 4, 2024 Well it has been a long while since I sent out a newsletter to subscribers. The pause was initially caused by an illness last summer when I got pneumonia while visiting Portugal. Then that pause turned into a larger gap. I am now remedying this omission but with a slightly different frequency. Previously I sent out the newsletter on the first of each month with a hand curated selection of posts that I had made to my blog that month.
Wednesday, February 28, 2024
A little over two weeks ago The Wall that Heals, a touring replica of the Vietnam Wall Memorial hosted by the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, arrived in Maui. It was here for five days, and I went to visit it the day before it left. I saw the actual Memorial in Washington DC almost forty years ago, and although then I knew no one connected with the war and indeed little about the war, I found the Wall very moving.
Thursday, February 22, 2024
A slide being projected onto a wall in a darkened room. When I set off on my travels in the mid 1980’s, I took a SLR camera with me. From my memory I had two lenses, a 35mm and a zoom lens the size of which I cannot remember. I believe that I also had a couple of filters with me. I did not know a lot about photography, though had been reading a little on the subject, and wanted to take the best photos that I could to remember and give me a flavour of my time away.
Tuesday, February 20, 2024
Road from Gaya to Bodhgaya from the roof of a bus Following my time in Patna, I continued my journey onto Bodhgaya by catching a train to the city of Gaya. I travelled to Gaya by train along with an American, Ray, whom I had met in Patna. I had an omelette for breakfast in my hotel room, settled up with the hotel owner and then caught a rickshaw along with Ray to the railway station.
Thursday, February 8, 2024
I’ve just left Mahatma Gandhi’s ashram situated just outside of the small town of Sevagram in almost the geographical center of India. I had spent a couple of night’s at the ashram as part of a pilgrimage around India that I had set out on, to visit places connected with the life of Gandhi. He has been a big influence on my life, and I have read a lot by and about him.
Monday, February 5, 2024
Photo of a slide projected onto a wall. It was mid November, 1989. I was four months into my journey through Central Asia. With my visa expiring, my time in Nepal was drawing to a close. Not feeling ready to go home, indeed a deeper sense of purpose and exploration beginning to arise from the trip thus far, I decided to travel down to India. I had left home with a few vague goals of things that I wanted to see or do, otherwise I was following my nose and seeing where the adventures would take me.
Tuesday, January 23, 2024
This is my first post and try out of Vincent Ritter’s new blogging platform, Scribbles. I’m not sure that I need another blog, but I love Vincent’s other offerings - Gluon, Tinylytics, and Shoutouts, and so couldn’t miss out on trying Scribbles. I was outside at dawn this morning and all of a sudden heard this deep swoosh sound somewhere above me. I looked around and could see nothing. And then to my right a flock of birds, maybe pigeons, flew low and fast on their way to an unknown destination.
Monday, January 22, 2024
The original of this image was a slide. I projected it onto a wall and took this photo. I initially posted this photo on September 3, 2023, but offered no context for it. Following the reception to my story about a photograph that I took of Mt.Everest at sunset and encouragement of Miraz and Maique, I have decided to revisit other photos that I have posted of my travels, as well as ones yet posted, and share their story.
Saturday, January 20, 2024
Towards the end of last year the iOS/Apple Watch app, Watch to 5K, was offered at a discount and it got me thinking. I wanted some easy accountability to get me exercising. This app essentially puts a Couch to 5K program onto an Apple Watch, with a companion iPhone app holding all the data from each run. What I found compelling about the app was that all I needed was my Apple Watch when I was out running.
Friday, January 19, 2024
Yesterday I posted a photograph showing the last rays of sunlight catching the summit of Mt Everest at the end of a day. After putting it up online, I was reflecting on the story behind the image, and thought that I would share it. The year was 1989, the month September. I found myself in Nepal at what turned out to be a little under halfway through a journey that would take me through Pakistan, China, Nepal and India.
Friday, January 12, 2024
Yesterday felt cold here, this evening there is a real icy blast…for a home only about 640 ft above sea level, in the Hawaiian islands. Of course it is not the sub-freezing temperatures that parts of the North American continent are facing, but the wind has a cold punch to it. Coming from England, I finding the colder weather strangely comforting, taking me back to dark winter nights, warm and comfortable at home or wrapped up against the cold as I go out for the evening.
Wednesday, January 3, 2024
Here are the books I finished reading in 2023. I’m a slow reader, not living in a family of readers (which slows me down more), but I love reading and am happy with this achievement.
Wednesday, December 13, 2023
Almost twenty four hours after sitting down in the theater to watch The Boy And The Heron, the movie is still sitting with me. I chose to see the dubbed version so that I could concentrate on Miyazaki’s sumptuous drawings and the story. I still missed a few plot points and character connections, which I had to clear up with some background reading afterwards. I feel that the film can be read in so many different levels, and for me some of the movies that come out of Studio Ghibli have an elemental feeling about them, touching one subconsciously.
Monday, November 20, 2023
I’ve said this before on this website, for example here and here. So why again? As much as anything, I repeat myself because I need to remind myself. There is something unintuitive about meditation. Meditation is a method for reprogramming our heart into different ways of being. We are swimming up stream, going against the flow. It’s hard work, and as such we might want to try and make things happen, force change.
Friday, November 17, 2023
I had a dream last night in which a good friend, Maique Madeira, was sitting on the floor reading Harry Potter to his daughter, surrounded by a larger group of intent listeners. Not only that, but through the power of the internet, people were listening all over the world (I remember an Apple HomePod Mini positioned next to Maique, which I assume was doing the transmission?). I also assume that by the power of the internet Maique’s reading was being simultaneously translated into whichever language people around the world understood?
Wednesday, November 1, 2023
This piece started to take shape towards the end of the summer. It is now the last day of October. I was just coming out of recovering from pneumonia, which I had contracted in Portugal though at the time I did not know what I had, and wanted to document for myself what had happened to me over the space of a few months over the spring and summer. Why? Because the experience had been so…so many things to me…debilitating, frightening, humbling, helpless.
Friday, October 27, 2023
Some more images from last week’s visit to Estremoz Saturday market.