Khmer-Krom farmer, activist, and urban dweller, this is my story:

Gardening is a link to the past. I garden to remember to stay rooted to my culture and birthplace, Kampuchea-Krom, current-day South Vietnam. 

I left home with my family when I was 10 years old for a new life in the land of wealth and riches. What I left behind, I realized now was also a land of incredible wealth and riches – a different kind of riches. It had beautiful green forests, rice fields, and farm animals. That was 1996, today green forests are replaced by roads and houses while motorcycles, mopeds, and tractors replaced the lively scenes of country living.

As a kid, I remember the gardens my sisters and I would help to weed. The guava fruits, the mango trees, palms, bananas, pineapples, and the sheer abundance of everything which we now have to buy from the stores.

My return to gardening now, as an urban American in my late 20s ( 2016 ) is sprinkled with touches of nostalgia, a love for nature, and the joy of being in touch with the Earth.

It is my meditation, and connection to simpler times and pleasures. I find subsisting off the Earth with the help of Mother Nature to be enjoyable and truly relaxing.

When I am not out gardening, you’ll probably find me reading current events, and social issues, or watching old historical docs and fiction.

Why I Decided To Continue Blogging

LOVE. Love and Passion! Two words that mean so many things to so many different people, to my surprised can actually be measured. Whether we are talking about relationship love, compassionate love, or familial love, they all require one thing to nurture it. Likewise, in our passions, with so many ways that we can dissect and categorize them, we will find that it too requires this one rare, but measurable recipe to grow it. I suspect in your mind, you already know what that mysterious thing is that I’m talking about, but if you have not guessed it by now, I’ll give it away, it is a thing called Time.

Yes, Time is scarce, but for the last 9 months ( as I write this, today is December 31, 2020 ) since the global pandemic began and the lockdowns and quarantines came around, I find that time was actually all I got! Naturally, with its nurturing nature, I slowly begin to develop new skills, habits, routines, and tools which have allowed me to grow and mature my different passions.

It is my wish to use this blog as a medium to make a contribution with these passions and love which I hope will be filled with culture, conversations, love letters, monologues, inspirations, resilience, and motivations, the kind that sets each one of our alarms every morning to get up for another day.

Most of all, what I hope that you’ll take away from my posts is that there is Hope. The future is bright, so long as we believe in ourselves, and stand willing to receive and give help when needed.

Please read on to enjoy my small and humble contribution. If you want to be a part of this journey with me and share your own passions and loves, I’d be honored to post your contributions to this blog.

Feel free to leave me a message anywhere.

Sincerely with Love,

Don Lam