Dear fellow A-Z participants and random readers,

As you can see, this blog is pretty sparse and the last entry dates back to almost two years ago.

For now, I’m using this blog purely for the annual Blogging A-Z Challenge. I do blog (also somewhat sporadically) at other places – namely my work website and my tea website.

My entries for last year’s A-Z challenge have been taken down as I decided to compile them into an e-book.

This year, my theme will be “Imaginary Friends”. I think it’ll be pretty fun.

I look forward to reading and writing lots  this April!

Cheers,
Mel

I used to come back home from school with holey shorts. My mother said it was “shame, shame” I had to go through at least 15 shorts per semester and that I perpetually seemed to be showing off bits of panties. The reason for tattered PE shorts: everyday, while waiting for assigned carpool parent to pick us up, my friends and I would take great delight in sliding down this seemingly adventurous cement slope (see above) over and over and over again. It’s funny how the slope seems so tiny now. I’m amazed at how something so insipid as slanted cement to improve drainage could provide endless hours of fun and fond childhood memories. I long for that child-like resourcefulness to experience wonder in any kind of surroundings.

Whether I’m right or whether I’m wrong
Whether I find a place in this world or never belong
I gotta be me, I’ve gotta be me
What else can I be but what I am

I want to live, not merely survive
And I won’t give up this dream
Of life that keeps me alive
I gotta be me, I gotta be me
The dream that I see makes me what I am

That far-away prize, a world of success
Is waiting for me if I heed the call
I won’t settle down, won’t settle for less
As long as there’s a chance that I can have it all

I’ll go it alone, that’s how it must be
I can’t be right for somebody else
If I’m not right for me
I gotta be free, I’ve gotta be free
Daring to try, to do it or die
I’ve gotta be me

I’ll go it alone, that’s how it must be
I can’t be right for somebody else
If I’m not right for me
I gotta be free, I just gotta be free
Daring to try, to do it or die
I gotta be me

I woke up early one morning and sat outside the balcony, curled up in a blanket. All of nature’s elements were in place – the waves were crashing, the wind was blowing, the leaves were rustling and the sun was slowly making its way up in the sky. Everything behaving the way as they ought to; the natural order of things.

Shivering, I asked God in my noisy head, so what is this “natural me” I see so little of? There are so many distractions and choices and expectations and conventions and benchmarks and hurts and superficialities and regrets in my life that I no longer know who I am anymore. I began resenting all the times I’ve been told to hold back, behave differently, “give face”, “let things be” in the name of “maintaining the status quo” (the stupidest term ever invented – life never, ever stays the same).

“Why is the human race so full of bullshit? Why can’t people just be?” I ranted internally to Him.

“Why can’t you just be?” came the wise reply.

And then, I fell asleep.

Still, as long as you keep pointing to the specifics, you will miss the full meaning of your pain. You will deceive yourself into believing that if the people, circumstances, and events had been different, your pain would not exist. This might be partly true, but the deeper truth is that the situation which brought about your pain was simply the form in which you came in touch with the human condition of suffering. Your pain is the concrete way in which you participate in the pain of humanity.

Paradoxically, therefore, healing means moving from your pain to the pain. When you keep focusing on the specific circumstances of your pain, you easily become angry, resentful, and even vindictive. You are inclined to do something about the externals of your pain in order to relieve it; this explains why you often seek revenge. But real healing comes from realizing that your own particular pain is a share in humanity’s pain. That realization allows you to forgive your enemies and enter into a truly compassionate life. That is the way of Jesus, who prayed on the cross: “Father forgive them; they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23: 34). Jesus’ suffering, concrete as it was, was the suffering of all humanity. His pain was the pain.

Every time you can shift your attention away from the external situation that caused your pain and focus on the pain of humanity in which you participate, your suffering becomes easier to bear. It becomes a “light burden” and an “easy yoke” (Matthew 11:30). Once you discover that you are called to live in solidarity with the hungry, the homeless, the prisoners, the refugees, the sick, and the dying, your very personal pain begins to be converted into the pain and you find new strength to live it. Herein lies the hope of all Christians.

- Henri Nouwen

I can understand why Stevie Nicks was so inspired to write this song while at a ski lodge in Aspen. I love snow.

“I took my love and I took it down, which really meant I took my ego and I took it off the mantle. That trophy ego that we all have, you know, and I took that ego down and decided was it selfish to walk away?  And I think that I understood that somewhere I felt something big coming…in other words, I stood back and I saw the future.”  

LANDSLIDE

I took my love, I took it down
Climbed a mountain and I turned around
And I saw my reflection in the snow covered hills
Till the landslide brought me down

Oh, mirror in the sky, what is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?
Mmm, mmm, mmm

Well, I’ve been afraid of changing
‘Cause I’ve built my life around you
But time makes you bolder
Even children get older and I’m getting older too

Well, I’ve been afraid of changing
‘Cause I’ve built my life around you
But time makes you bolder
Even children get older and I’m getting older too
Oh, I’m getting older too

Awh, take my love, take it down
Awh, climb a mountain and turn around
And if you see my reflection in the snow covered hills
Well, the landslide bring it down

And if you see my reflection in the snow covered hills
Well, the landslide bring it down
Oh, the landslide bring it down

I used to run out in the rain barefoot as a little girl and I loved the feel of the rain dribbling down my fingers, as if the water came from me. I would pretend I was the rain princess, bringing life to the parched lands and making flowers and trees grow again. I would spin around and around, imagining that the faster I spun, the more rain there would be, though of course, I later found out people have little control over what happens in the sky, or even on the ground for that matter.

I believe the rain are like the earth’s tears washing away the tears that humans have inflicted upon each other. I believe the rivers collect rainy tears and human tears together and the sea spins them into dancing waves that weave in and out on the land. Crying and raining happen in cycles, like with everything else in life.

A Memory I Totally Cannot Recall

A friend scans some really old photos and asks me: “So who was that guy next to you?”

And for the first time in my life, I have absolutely no recollection.

Even more perplexing:

- Why were there two birthday cakes?
- There’s a Takashimaya bag on the right so it can’t be THAT long ago.

I’ve always thought that I’ve had an impeccable memory of my youth. But it seems that some things are slipping away now….gah!

It saddens me greatly that my one and only spiritual refuge in Singapore will be gone soon.(Gahmen pulling it down to build North South Expressway – an “act of terrorism” according to Sister Elizabeth.)

Capturing the memories – plan to go at least one more time before it’s pulled down next year.