It really is true that you don’t appreciate things until they’re gone. I know this will pass, but at this moment my memories seem like they belong to a different world. A foreign world. A world waiting for me to explore, taste, and photograph.

I daydream about the time I went to Hong Kong and Japan and how unexpectedly transcendental it all way…particularly Japan. I felt as if I had come home. As if I had finally found my perfect place, and yet I was in an incredibly foreign land. In this land I was illiterate and uneducated to its customs; I was thousands of miles from where I lived; and I knew not a single soul. I was more alone that I’d every been and yet I was home.

It’s raining outside now, and I think of walking through Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Kyoto in the rain. Rain drops on open umbrella. The smell of wet earth. Alone in a city of 38 million. On a dark temple path atop a hill. The chilled air. The earthy tea along the philosopher’s walk. The peace inside.

I miss it. I miss it all.