“I Hope in Your Time Alone Here, You Can Learn to Love the Island.”

AlexandraApril 21, 2025Comment

The World is Burning

Like the flowers,

Peaking through the cracks of the sidewalk

I too

Hope I can learn to make space for myself

AlexandraApril 5, 2023Comment

Shao Yang Disorder

To be half in

Half out

With one lung longing to exhale

While the other

Holds its breath

AlexandraMarch 31, 2023 Comment

Grieving

It’s harder than I thought it would be

To look death in the eyes

To see her coming, and yet

To step forward still

AlexandraMarch 31, 2023Comment

India Blossoms in Late Afternoon

You’ve peeled back my layers

I am all but

Raw and tender fear

Exposed

And stinging in the sunlight

AlexandraNovember 15, 2022Comment

Taking Form

I was laying on my back,

Watching the ceiling.

The tune through the headphones,

The speckle of ceiling tiles shaped

In just the right way.

I couldn’t tell you how it started.

AlexandraApril 15, 2020Comment

Breakfast in Japan

It’s always cool in the mornings

Old, thin walls and tatami mats

Only small heaters

For the bedroom

AlexandraApril 7, 2020Comment

Caught Between Two Cultures

In preparation for a trip to Japan, I’ve been reading Canadian writer, Will Ferguson’s novel: “Hitching Rides with Buddha”. It’s been a light and wonderful story of his adventure hitchhiking the entire length of Japan. It was chapter 6, however, that provoked me.

lifestyleAlexandraMarch 5, 2020Comment

The Railway to White Picket Fences

I awoke to blinding lights beaming through my window. The whole floor shook, something like an earthquake. When the train passed through, there was no ignoring it. The howling of the rails and the chatter of voices filled the night. I looked at my watch: 3 am.

lifestyleAlexandraFebruary 23, 2020Mexico Comment

My Mother, Who Cannot Cook

There’s no culture in the small towns.

None in the big cities either.

Not for the girl with light skin and light eyes.

AlexandraSeptember 8, 2019Comment

The Annual Migration

It’s the small talk at the dentist’s office or perhaps the hair dressers, “Are you a student? Are you visiting? Where do you normally live?” Our lives don’t fit these questions. Our lives are not of the conventional type. There’s no 9-5 job. There are no car payments. There are no student loans later followed by student debt. We don’t ‘live’ anywhere.

lifestyleAlexandraAugust 13, 2019CanadaComment

“ Treat one strand of straw as important and never take a useless step.” M.F.

AlexandraMarch 18, 2019Comment

Food as Medicine

My teacher Homprang takes us around her garden. Excited students follow her, smelling each flower, tasting the leaves. The herbs spread out across the property, are used for healing different illnesses. Turmeric grows beside the classroom, and tamarind trees by the road.

AlexandraMarch 18, 2019ThailandComment