This photo right here could describe one of the reasons I am completely smitten and constantly drawn back to Cuba. A place with many layers, colours, history, and complexities. Once you peel back one layer, another more impressive intricate detail is revealed. It only makes you more curious to learn what it took to create these impressive urban spaces and imagine what it must have looked like back in the day. No need for a book on architecture, it’s all visually there. Able to see different eras in time from Art Deco to neo-classical. As an artist myself, this is my favourite part of traveling. Observing and inspired by all the artisans, designers, masonries, painters that create spaces, and places. As a flaneur, I try to take time to really observe these things. It begins with appreciating the smaller details to understand the bigger picture. It’s about taking it all in. Not just skimming the surface but going deeper and unraveling the layers one by one

While trekking solo in #Vinales, I tend to wander off the beaten path. I want to say from time to time I get lost, but lost is a strong word when you never really knew where you were going in the first place. That's the idea of wandering. However, at this moment in my trek, I had been walking through muddy trails for an hour and was seeking a different route to get me home. I came upon this farmhouse and decided to try to get a general direction. When I came up to the house I was greeted by the most rural image I had seen in a while. Two cowboys sharpening their axe, a horse tied to a post, and a family of pigs. The one farmer gazed up at me, likely curious what a gringo Canadian girl was doing on their front lawn. :) I smiled, and quickly asked which way to Vinales, as they seemed focused on their task at hand 😉

Back to work and feeling a tad off-kilter after the holidays.? That's alright, it really comes down to how you perceive it. Life isn't always picture perfect. The road is not always straight but made up of different angles and perspectives. It's wonderfully textured with layers of beautiful imperfections. It's embracing the uniqueness of each moment for what it is. There is beauty in everything.

Hola Amigo’s, Hola December, Que Tal??? New month, new season. In with the new and time to let go and process the old. Fresh back from Cuba, with stories, documentation, and experiences. Catching some monumental events and missing others. Times are a changin. whoa…can I just say, November was one to remember? American elections, the passing of the beloved Leonard Cohen, and the death of Fidel Castro

As I made my to the Malecon one day for golden hour, I took one of my favourite routes. I paused for a moment on the corner and thought. It all seemed familiar. Reminding me of a place that I live now #montreal and a place I grew up next to #detroit . Perhaps that’s why I was lured back to the spot. A place of comfort. Almost like three worlds coming together in one beautiful strange dream that has multiple layers. Like the Trumen show where the actors and language changed but my role is the same, and the landscape is similar. It’s funny when your past and present converge. Like it was all strangely met to be

“The crowd is his element, as the air is that of birds and water of fishes. His passion and his profession are to become one flesh with the crowd. For the perfect flâneur, for the passionate spectator, it is an immense joy to set up house in the heart of the multitude, amid the ebb and flow of movement, in the midst of the fugitive and the infinite. To be away from home and yet to feel oneself everywhere at home; to see the world, to be at the centre of the world, and yet to remain hidden from the world” - Charles Beaudelaire.

““ If you trust in Nature, in what is simple in Nature, in the small things that hardly anyone sees and that can so suddenly become huge, immeasurable; if you have this love for what is humble and try very simply, as someone who serves, to win the confidence of what seems poor: then everything will become easier for you, more coherent and somehow more reconciling, not in your conscious mind perhaps, which stays behind, astonished, but in your innermost awareness, awakeness, and knowledge.

Happy Canada's Day. A place I AM proud to call my home. A country I've discovered from East to West and back again. I have climbed a few mountains, swam, and fished in some lakes, rivers, and oceans. Hiked, canoed, hitchhiked across the country. I've slept under the stars, beside a fire with the sound of a loon in the distance. I've walked with the company of a few wild animals. All of it reminds me of its vastness and incredible beauty. I have stepped away from it to travel, only gaining a deeper perspective and admiration for it.

““If you do follow your bliss

you put yourself on a kind of track

that has been there all the while waiting for you,

and the life you ought to be living

is the one you are living.

When you can see that,

you begin to meet people

who are in the field of your bliss,

and they open the doors to you.

As a photographer, I try to stay present and capture the moments as they happen. You have to be ready, patient, lucky, and sometimes just at the right place at the right time. Some photos come to you and others you need to search out. As we all know, things change, so to capture the same or similar moment twice is rare...well this is what I thought until I started traveling to Cuba. Described as a city frozen in time, where if things change, they change slowly.. so slow that you almost do a double-take that any time has passed at all.

The other day, I took a stroll down to a local cafe in Montreal. Not necessarily to get a coffee but to hang out with myself. On my return home from some recent travels, it was brought to my attention that I had been hanging at Kahwa cafe for the past month. Apparently, in rare cases like this, you can be two places at one time. To be greeted with such an incredible piece straight back from a solo trip abroad seemed fitting and metaphorical in ways. I couldn't help but compare this painting and photograph to my experience as a solo traveler.

The hummingbird has landed on Canadian soil once again. Back from a month-long adventure in Cuba. Each time I go, I experience something new, old, the same, and different. As we all know, Cuba is on the brink of some potential big changes, and to have been a witness and a ( Flaneur ) an observer, in ad mist of all that, is special and rare. Just like everything, you have to take it for what it is. Like any adventure or experience, you need to enter it with an open mind, without judgment or expectations, and just flow with it. This was my intention. I didn’t go there anticipating the Cuba I had known or Cuba I think it would become.

That moment…. you arrive on your favorite beach, and there is not a soul in sight. It’s mid-afternoon, the sun and sand is hot, and the water is glistening. At first, you can’t believe you have this piece of heaven to yourself, but then you slowly start to just enjoy this ultimate moment. You lie out your beach blanket, crack open a refreshing beverage, shed all clothes that get in the way of letting the sun’s rays drench your skin. You take a deep inhale and slowly release the exhale

On October 15th, I participated in the eye contact experiment in downtown Montreal. A event being held over all over the world with the simple intention of making a connection. There weren't many instructions, other then a basic sign stating, "where has the human connection gone, sit with another for a minute and make eye contact". I kind of knew the drill as I had practiced this once or twice in past Yoga trainings and workshops, but for me, I welcome any opportunity to connect with another human even if its brief. The timing was pretty perfect as well, as I'm only a week away from launching my retreats on this very same intention "Observing"

So here it is, the second entry to my new blog. This is a new way to express myself, so I'm pretty excited to be putting my thoughts, ideas, and stories down for all of you out there. I've been thinking about doing this for a while as it's been a regular habit of mine dating back since I was a child. I’m not sure why or when it started but I've always had a notebook to jaunt things down here and there. Starting off as journals, then to random ideas on my phone to full documentation and observations of my travels.

In Spanish, MIRER, means to Look. It is something you hear quite often on the streets, in urban or rural settings in Cuba. It is their expression to get your attention and well... they certainly did, eventually, it became my mantra and reminder to do just that...TO LOOK. It was also one of my intentions for my month-long trip to Cuba. To be mindful, and to fully observe, feel, listen and experience all that surrounded me. Like a modern-day flâneur. Flaneur is a french word that I came across last year. I fell in love with it knowing that it describes wonderfully my actions and feelings when I was in urban and rural landscapes abroad and even here in my own city.