The strangeness of this country is palpable. It sits like an unnecessary film of steel, guarding my body against escape. And yet, this strangeness has a potency born of curiosity. Colors match here in ways I have never seen. Heartbreaking pink of carnations sides with the harsh pallor of dry earth. Deep, almost bloody, green fronds of buko tree ply blue ripples of air under blinding white skies.

People explore things, and the things explored become like siblings, spiritually. Determined always to either disappoint or exalt, but never to be abandoned, a permanent attachment. And so we commit them irreparably to memory. The things we have explored. I have a sense that I am standing at the center of memory, in this place so strange and beautiful to me.