Yesterday was my brother-in-law’s birthday celebration. The house was full of all characters–karaoke singers, karaoke dancers, Filipino couples, Filipino-Dutch couples, Filipino couple soon-to-be married, Filipino teenager raised in Holland, a short Filipina with a tall guy for a loverboy, an Elvis (japorms and all) and then “there’s this fish…” (an inside joke I can’t really explain).

They were speaking in tongues–Dutch, Bisaya, Tagalog–of which only the latter I could understand. These people have come together, relating because of one fact, that they’re Filipinos. Wherever one is in the world, you’re kind of inclined to go back to who you are, and you try to find who you are in wherever you are. Living in a place other than your country makes you live life more excitedly. At least in my opinion. You put more life in to your everyday, knowing somehow that these are temporary, that you are not staying in this foreign land all the days of your life.

Maybe this is one of the secrets to living life fully: to keep on moving, such that you cherish every place, every person you meet, every food you eat, every handshake of a stranger, every new word you learn. Every experience, every moment is a moment that’s gone by.

I want to make photographs, but not just still photographs. I want to make moving photographs.

You might say I want to make films. But I just really want to create moving photographs, or shots of moments. Not movements, but moments in milliseconds, to catch the blinking of the eyes, the fluttering of the lashes, a smirk, a short smile, the flair of the hair, tiptoeing legs of a baby, a moment to sit on the pavement, a glance, a sweet glance, a pair of eyes looking up a stranger, the quick hurt caused by a glaring light, a soft touch on someone else’s cheek, eyes that water from laughing, growling of the coffee pot, a kiss from a rose.

Moments that define us, moments that burst of happiness, moments that don’t last forever and therefore we cherish them.

It’s Sunday today, and not just any Sunday. It’s Beatles Sunday. The songs, for sure, will play in my head all day today. It reminds me of the Sundays at home when my dad would hit the DVD player with Ed Sullivan’s The Beatles episodes. It reminds me of home… six thousand miles away.