Sorting photographs: Slides, prints,dvds.  This week I’m spending approximately three hours each day looking at old photographs.  The process is a bit like living, or I should say reliving:  living through the pre-Singapore days, in the 60s, then the expanding world of the 70s, living in Singapore for four years with a first visit  to Europe in 1971, beginning with Russia and ending that trip in England before stopping off on the East Coast then back to California for a visit before returning home to Singapore for another two years. The Singapore years included time in Japan, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, with lots of pictures in all of those places.  Since Singapore, Margaret and I settled on the Eastern side of the U.S. before returning to California to live for the past 30 years in San Diego.  The years in Singapore introduced us to the world, and we have thought of ourselves as citizens of the world since the 1970s.  We've been back to Europe several times.  We sailed around the world on the Q.E. II in a four month cruise. We've been back to Singapore several times, and the changes there are remarkable. A trip to China was a crowning experience.  I've bicycled from Vancouver down to San Diego twice and have bicycled across the U.S. from the coast of Oregon to the Atlantic.  I've taken lots of photographs on all those trips.

I’ve spent two days sorting those photographs.  I’ve got another two or three days to go before I take the slides that I haven’t thrown away to be digitized, and before the single prints of all sizes are distributed to family members and albums are placed in easy to reach places.  Life is good.

I went out before going back to National City to our new home to take a look at the Melaleuca trees.  Of course, I took my camera to get pictures of the new paper bark on the familiar trees.