An ongoing personal story woven by memories

“Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant. The ordinary instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it changes.”

— Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking

 

And it did… @ Mad Charcoal. And at every new experience we opened our hearts to.  

Someone told Ken that despite the ease of digital era and AI. Nothing can replace real human connection because our memories can only be constructed from real human connections and experiences. This is why we need to be present. We need to be here.

Sketch. Paint

Discovered an urban sketching community in Singapore by chance!!! They posted on social media – meet @XXXlocation@XXtime.  I literally turned up the next day and said hi to a bunch of strangers. Then we just sat together in silence and painted for 2 hours… Perfect heaven for people like me. 

Sketching with a big diverse group, it soon became apparent to me how restrictive my style is. How I am afraid to break out of my shell to try a new technique that may “destroy” my 2 hours of effort. 

My brand new full watercolor piece – “lace curtains at the window” – has been tugging my heartstrings for months. Every week, I added a few brush strokes. Some weeks it looked better, some weeks it looked worse. It is just never how I imagine it to be… Like an illegitimate child, craving but afraid to be made known because he is different and inadequate… 

Carl Jung puts it nicely… An unrealized potential feels psychological safer than a realized one. As long as greatness remains a possibility, it can never be judged. It can never disappoint. It can never reveal its limits. The moment I act, the fantasy dies and reality begins. 

Luckily I don’t care about other things in life much so those items move damn fast. Everything else cannot compare to this one flawed painting which I placed my entire  fragile artistic worth and ego on. The one thing I care about… The one thing I am so afraid of proving to myself that I am limited… 

An excuse to celebrate

Never forgo any opportunity to create memories. Life is filled with many interesting episodes.

National Day

Sonny was so excited about National Day… hence the day must be celebrated. 

Vesek Day

“YY!” I turned round and saw Lily and family at “that white temple I always go”. What a coincidence. She asked me what’s the procedure, what should she do at this temple… Like I knew any better. I was just as clueless as her. I just like coming here because of the banyan tree. (one fine day I am gonna sit here to paint this big tree in peace)

Hong Kong

In hindsight, it is strange that our number-one-must-do in HK is hiking and not shopping. This piece of memory is damn bizarre and hilarious – Eliz and me chasing after “HELP” in the forest early morning. Amazing how fast Eliz can run uphill. At this rate, I might lose my life before we managed to save another’s… wait for me!!!!! Don’t leave me behind!!!! 

ShenZhen

How girls can go from “hello” to sisters in one day. How to eat crazy good pigeons cooked in 10 ways. How to burn cash FAST in a 45mins crazy shopping spree. SZ is on another level. 

I will never forget receiving the WeChat message, “YY,你的菜“… and thinking it meant pictures of some cute guys. Too busy to open the attachments... Until the view of a delivery man carrying a shit load of fresh vegetables walk by my conference room window towards the office receptionist (who immediately looked in my direction). WAH, after one Sunday together, she literally sent me vegetables to bring back to SG because I never had this in Singapore before.  

Fast forward 11.30pm SGT. YY in kitchen plucking goji berry leaves to layer between newspapers (because condensation from flight)… zzz

Just show up

Can’t sing but I was glad I showed up. It was fun. 

Talk about unexpected karaoke. The usual cosy dinner and drinks at the home bistro went totally hyped with all 6 tables singing loudly to Spotify till early morning. Everyone encouraging and giving thunderous applause to one another, like we all share 30 years of friendship. One moment you are sharing a mic with someone who just appeared beside you, doesn’t matter you not knowing the lyrics, another moment your song will be cut off and the whole room roared with “sorry sorry” and “DOWN FIVE DOWN FIVE”… 

People leaving with announcements that they will be back here on a certain date, hoping to see this whole lot again… Chef not cooking. Chef is here enjoying. Wine is self-service from the back cellar… and tonight every single bottle Arnold pulled out is starting with a B… So much fun. 

Did not participate but I dressed up and had a bunch of people put things in my hair. CONCEPT - was curling my hair but too tired/ fell asleep hence my hair looked like this the next morning. Halfway facemask + changing out of my pajamas + inhaling a puff when BOSS video conference called… This is the freeze frame look. Not bad. 

Can’t play GO but I happily agreed to a stranger’s invitation to the Japanese GO Association. Totally enjoyed my time at the club but stranger turned out to be a 怪叔叔… tsk tsk tsk… 

Life changes fast. One day I was healing a disconnected heart and the next I became too busy to think, suddenly involved in many things. All quite interesting. All these memories woven into an ongoing personal story of me and the people around. It will be a lesser life if I did not take it up and ran with it…  

June Holidays - reporting on the family front

Strawberri strawberri manis manis (not so sweet)

Strawberri strawberri sedap sedap (ok only lah)

Strawberri strawberri here we come (Raja)

Picking and makan that’s all we do (big and small 通杀)

Victor, we finally made it to Cameron Highlands!!!! Finally to the strawberries!!! Totally enjoyed the experience. 

Ate a lot a lot of ice-creams in Cameron Highlands. Dotter wanted to bring the strawberries home to make her own gelato… 

Oh yes, her wise Mudder bought an ice-cream maker for them to create their own dessert during the June holidays, so they won’t pester me for snacks all day long. Brilliant move. 

So far, Meggie’s mango passion fruit and black sesame ice-cream were par excellent. 

Other than strawberries, Cameron is also known for its tea – BOH tea. So up the winding road we go… lush hills, my fav green radiating in the warm sunshine, faint smell of tea in the cold breeze…. Nice. 

When we were not out and about, we played pool. Well done, Morgan, up on the table when you couldn’t reach… Aiyah but I forgot to tell him one foot must be on the ground… how come this pool cue so short??

After coming down from the mountains, I thought exploring Perak caves was the most natural thing to do. I liked the idea of caverns, down and further down we descend. My knowledge of caves, hmmm – very wrong… somehow and unexpectedly we ended up climbing upwards to the top of some hill again… … Steps and more steps… 

And a good thing we made it up because we found a lady fainted at the peak with low blood sugar and my pack of Himalaya salt candy bought for MIL’s funeral came in handy. MIL saved someone again! 

Night hot spring and swimming was interesting.

Shopping in Ipoh is more like walking around waiting for restaurants to open… yum yum yum… 

Basked in very cool colonial vibe with delicious food @ the oldest bar in town - Durbar. Featuring fish and chips of a different league and friendly staff who spoke better English than us. 10 mins into the meal, the waitress came up to help rearrange Morgan’s plate and cut his fish n chips into bitesize… “Have your meal, don’t worry about him, I will look after him”… …Talk about impeccable service. 

But nothing beats street food. These old kopitiam with zi char, curry noodles and freshy baked piah, curry buns… wahhhh… 

Ramly burger is the best!

Special mention the 芽菜鸡滑蛋河粉 @ Tuck Kee. This is no bean sprout chicken horfan dish. This is the smoothest horfan I have ever eaten.  鸡 is fried chicken wings!!! And look how ridiculously short and plump Ipoh beansprouts are. Bean sprouts in Ipoh - instead of growing taller, grow sideways instead WOW. Juicy!!!! Just for these bean sprouts, it is worth flying back. 

Durian season. Eat. But not to worry Bernard, no fight compared to yours. Left is what we ordered @ 30 MYR/kg, right is your reputation on the line with seeds so fine, we almost missed them. 

And who is Bernard? Long lost relative Ken picked up at Mad Charcoal… tsk tsk tsk… Found one long lost distant cousin, uncovered an entire clan of relatives and alcohol… YOLO. 

Megan had been crazy busy with studying and studying these past months. Her brother however, had his days full of all kinds of activities (except studying) – fishing, movie under the stars, dancing, play play play play… … 

Today is the last day of the June holidays. Family had fun… time to get back to school and the daily grind…. 

Calligraphy and the Act of Dying

I found a $2 calligraphy brush

The delights of digging into secret stash… So many new things I can do with this brush. What should I write? 

Post drinking session, Bun named himself 目垂西星and posted his “first” poem on the chatgroup. 50 years old already, yes, time to wake up… 

散
椰糖色晚霞，浮云掠过我脸颊，

随豆花滑进我喉咙，自在
憨然半生，染过色的五十岁月，

说好的说坏的，都不许重来了

Hereby started a trend of the group composes, I write… with my “new” brush. To my surprise, my handwriting is pretty pretty nice!!!! Better than my mum’s!

Heart Sutra

It occurs to me that every time I feel unsettled, I trust my hands to keep me occupied… by doing repeated work. During my A levels, Mimi told me I started knitting a scarf so long that she could tie it to the kitchen window and escape 2 floors down in case of a fire. 

DANG! I just solved the mystery of my fingers craving a cigarette in SZ. Ok I digress.. 

Writing long pieces of calligraphy text gave me the same sense of calm and automation. How to write in a straight line. How to write characters of a similar size. To include or remove the commas and full stops? More importantly is the discovery of 繁体… looks so much better than simplified Chinese… A thing of beauty we gave up for convenience…  

I settled on repeatedly copying of the Heart Sutra – 260 words, simple enough for me to understand half of the words and 20% of the meaning. And I included a spin of the only five 繁体 characters I knew.. Sweet…

Of Close Friendship and Support

After 2 weeks, I invested in proper brushes, ink and paper. My Heart Sutra looks so much better on long scrolls of paper… So proud. So neat. Quickly sent the photo of my first completed greatness using proper tools to my friends. 

60 seconds later….

Ouch…

Luckily, I have other group of friends… 

5 mins later….

“… I can C rubber band, top petals shld be more enclosed… outermost layers to be more open-up to create hierarchy…..”

… … ...

Many many books

Ever since jotting wide awake at 3am one Jan morning to goggle “how to die” and received pages of crap “HELP is HERE Hotline”, I gave up looking for a POV and an attitude on death online…  

Library algorithm pushed all kinds of books to me… Philosophy, Medical, Biography, Wisdom of Tea, Bayes’ Theorem on life’s predictability… Except for curve diagrams, I hate curve diagrams, I do not discriminate what I read. Took notes and dumped every change in my thought process to those insufferable friends. 

 

A Calligraphy Scroll - Takachiho

Ichi-go Ichi-e,一期一会, a depiction of a scroll hanging in the Tea room in “The Wisdom of Tea”… A new scroll is hung to match every change of season – seasons of nature, seasons of the heart, seasons of events… 

I never cared or gave notice to calligraphy scrolls in tea rooms before. My eyes only on what is placed on the table. Ah… there was a scroll in the Tatami breakfast room of Takachiho. What was it? Looking through photographs, for the first time, I realized it was 江南春 by 杜牧. Someone hung up a calligraphy text describing the scenery we were about to experience in the next few days. We just did not know it then. Whoever hung it there, your intentions well received, now. 

 

On making sense of Dying 

I followed her gaze and looked out of the window. It was a view of an annex hospital building. It was Sunday and there was no wind. Is there anything worth looking at? 

In life, there are things that we understand immediately and there are things that takes time to comprehend. For thousands of years, human have been dying, but at this point, where is the accumulation of this knowledge when we need it? A clinical statement of “3 weeks” is not enough information for my brain to internalize into a something… 

I cuddled back into books… I don’t like having too many thoughts in my head… I need just enough for me to settle on an action I believe. What is my position and point of view. What will she like or want. What do I need to do to support Ken. How do I prepare M&M. 

Everyone griefs differently. I supposed I started grieving months ago. Hence, the days before the last hour, I was settled and actions came naturally. I can trust my hands to execute my intents without hesitance or awkardness. 

The fresh tangy smell of peeled oranges right under your nose… isn’t this the smell of youth and happiness? Flowers… how to place them for the best view from her angle. Colorful paintings… will the new splashes of color on the wall capture her curiosity during the short time she opened her eyes? Will she go… “that looks somewhat familiar, I have seen it somewhere”….. 起风了, open the windows, is the vitality of the wind against her face another familiar sensation? Showing her some old vacation photos, I thought she gave a chuckle… 

And then I write… with a simple notion that the Heart Sutra will reduce her fear of loss and death. Form is emptiness, there is no real, permanent self to die… See, it is the same, the more I write, the less mistakes I make… accumulatively, the path gets smoother and courage stronger. 

 

The Reception Counter

The CEO’s executive secretary’s table aka the Reception Counter is an oasis of exploration, a happy creative corner… CEO will be happy to see the young ones next to her attempting to write. Yes, I bought rolls of different paper and plenty of brushes for anyone who wants to chit chat over beautiful things they create.  

Despite questioning of purpose and all, the young ones do get it (after a while) that It does not matter that they do not understand what they are writing. The act of writing is a quiet return to inner self, writing for one’s own sake and the enjoyment of slowing down one’s thoughts. “Should we write one more piece?”… sure… “I have finished half, can I burn to show Ah Ma first?”…. sure… 

Even elderly residents passing by stopped to watch the gals write silently and gave a thumbs up before leaving… Now uncle has nice stories to tell other old neighbors “I met a young gal who can write very well…”  Life is made up of many such fleeting encounters that we chose to create for ourselves and others.

They say handwriting is a powerful expression of one’s personality and spirit… same goes for any spontaneous scribbles… It takes courage to pen anything down, esp. with a brush. A person with no anxiety taking the first step that risk ridicule, has no anxiety embracing life. Respect. 

 

Death is about Living 

After months of my intensive research on death… my conclusion is Death is all about Living. We cannot always live up to who we think we are. We learn about shame and how to deal with it. There is an over-production of truths by everyone that we cannot consume so I will only embrace what matters and walk away from others. 

In essence, life is a theatre and 烟火气is important to feeling alive. In school, everyone wants to get into the Drama Club, it is most fun acting out different characters. I very much realized in the past months, my role is creating the ambience.

Will the dancing orchids flutter in the breeze, subtly making the audience realize it is alive and not just a prop? Is this incense’s smell too flowery for the remembrance of the mood?  Is this cup better being Celadon, simply because I searched 20 years to replace my one broken cup? How is the aesthetic of the sound? And yes, I guess I will also hang a new calligraphy scroll in the background every change of season. 

It will be delightful to one day, see M&M look up from the table, at the wall and say “mum’s handwriting has really improved in the last 10 years… did she write about the rain this time? She does love the rain…”