for M

For you, M, I offer my love, my prayers, my hopes, my dreams.  That your love triumphs, that your worries prove unfounded, that you find the happiness you yearn for.  But most importantly, I wish you peace.  The kind of peace that runs deep inside you, that fills you, that gives you true strength to persevere.  The kind of peace that cradles your intuition and brings you rest.

Your forever friend.
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wORds...

Recently I have found myself in too many situations where words fail me.  Instead I feel a rush of too many complex emotions that I have no names for.  And this unsettles me.  For words have been my way of making sense of the world.  Words have helped me come to terms with life.  And recently, I feel as if I have lost my compass.

I have learned that people here use the phrase “I am sorry” or some such variation during difficult situations.  It took me a long time to figure out that that is actually an expression of sorrow, a way of expressing solidarity and compassion.  Strangely, I find it a difficult phrase to use.  It doesn’t come quite naturally and spontaneously to me.

One would think that with time and life, one would have gone through sufficient experiences to be somewhat prepared for all manner of unexpected situations.  Yet perhaps not.  The pain of someone else’s loss is both profound and awkward.  I hear each story, I look at each person, and I am in awe of their strength and resilience.

Looking up at the stars, under the immensity of the universe, words fail me.

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cRosSInG tHE LiNe

“I’m ashamed of my past,” she whispered, “That’s why I keep it secret.”  I tried to keep my breathing even.  I struggled to keep eye contact.  I fought to keep myself from reaching out to hug her.  In my mind I ran through a million things I could say, but I remained mute.  My silence disquieted me.  Suddenly I felt as helpless as she did, maybe more.  For she had found the courage to name her monster.  And I found our mutual friends, Mr. D and Ms. M.

There is that moment in a relationship when an acquaintance crosses the line to become a friend.  There is that moment when you decide the person in front of you is trustworthy enough to reveal your secrets to.  There is that moment when you realize laughter isn’t the only emotion you can share.

She surprised me with the depth of her trust.

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pERsOnaL DiSTanCe

When I was younger, I reacted to hunger and poverty from the safety of distance.  What little I could discern about these concepts came from news snippets over the radio, photographs and videos on the TV, random articles in newspapers or magazines, a book or two, and possibly even classroom lessons.  Yet the emotions I had were as abstract as the concepts themselves.  Sure, I felt outrage.  I felt anger.  I felt sadness.  I felt helpless.  But overwhelmingly, I felt distant.

Today, the hunger and the poverty stared me in my face, and they left me winded.  When a 5-year-old boy comes into class crying out of hunger because his parents have yet again spent all the money on alcohol but not on food for him and his siblings, it messes me up.  When a preschooler hits his classmate because he is so hungry and he wants to get that last spoon of rice on the plate, it messes me up.  When we send a child home for the weekend not knowing if he or she will even have food to eat over the next two days, it messes me up.  But overwhelmingly, it now feels personal.

I work with these little ones.  I see their scrawny bodies and their hollow cheeks.  I see them cry and I wipe their tears.  I see the teachers stuff food into the children’s pockets so their stomachs will not hurt at night from the emptiness.  While my heart aches for them, I also feel like I am finally able to do something for them.  Because the issues are no longer far away.  Because the reality is now mine.

It is no longer about me feeling.  It is about me doing.

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iF... So...

Hers is a tough act to follow.  But I follow anyway.  Because I don't know any better.  Or perhaps, because I know better.  Than to sit down, curl up, give in.  "If she can do it, so can I", I tell myself.  And I often wonder, what drives me, what drives the people around me?  And the necessary corollary, what stops them?  What stops me?


If I can do it, so must I.
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MeLTDowNS

Meltdowns happen to remind us that we are fragile. That our soul needs a moment to heave and sigh and gather herself again. That life and love and laughter are not enough to carry us through. That there are many straws that break the camel's back.

Meltdowns happen to remind us of our humanity.

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dO NoTHinG

Sometimes the best thing we can do, is to not do anything.
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OveRHeArD

"Sometimes, you can talk a man off of a ledge; sometimes, a man's just got to jump."
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sNOwfLaKE

And I slowly discover, grief is like snowflakes, no two are alike.
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sO dEliRiuM

So dEliRiuM mourns
for the passing of friends known and unknown
So dEliRiuM weeps
for the night time terrors that haunt the sleep
So dEliRiuM sighs
for the mask and constant white lies

So dEliRiuM forgets
that she never forgets
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HiAtUS

For some inexplicable reason, the death of Amy Winehouse has unleashed a torrent of emotions in me. Now, I don't know Amy Winehouse personally, don't own any of her music, probably won't even recognise her songs if you played them to me. But to know of yet another young life vanquished by a tormented mind hurts me. It reminds me. It reminds me of people and places and emotions so raw they have no name.

It has been too long. Their stories need to be told too.
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i aCcEPt I fORgEt

Sometimes I think acceptance is just another form of forgetting.
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WeiRD

It is interesting to me, that there is a certain vanity I succumb to, even in death. When I was a teenager enamored with romanticism, I believed that drowning was the most beautiful way to die. I don’t know if I saw it on TV, or a painting, or read about it, but I have this very vivid mental imagery of a lady walking out into the sea, back facing me, dressed in white. And she walks deeper and deeper into the sea, while I look on. I know she is going to die the further she walks, but there is something so heartbreakingly beautiful about the scene that I don’t stop her.

Even before that, at a time when I was devouring all the Chinese classics on screen, it was in fashion to die of TB. It felt dignified, coughing up blood and laying down to rest for the last time. Ladies could cough discreetly, holding exquisitely embroidered handkerchiefs. This coincided with the time I was always coughing as a kid. I remember regular visits to the doctor, and endless bottles of horribly-artificially-flavored medicine. I also remember wondering if I had TB too and could die in this poignant way, in a garden with the cherry blossom petals all around me. Straight out of a scene from "Dream of the Red Chamber".

Yes, I was weird even as a kid.
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