fire and rain.

june has been a really emotionally volatile month. to think that a year ago i thought life had hit rockbottom and my birthday was by far the most depressing affair. i never felt more alone and had very much told myself that by this time next year i was prepared to chuck it all and leave. i even had a time-line all planned out and had told someone to just inform all and sundry that i had gone to a better place.

ironically my mom had beat me to it, well not by choice but to be honest i am really relieved for her end to years of suffering. but yesterday at the cremation i didn't know why i started to sob so uncontrollably. she looked rested and free as we placed white roses in her casket. was it the infectious grief all around? then i realised how much i related to the loss my dad felt, when i had chanced upon an old photo with his handwritten caption, 'the girl of my dreams' and especially when he muttered almost undetectedly as they moved the casket into the crematorium, 'goodbye sweetheart'. it was heart-wrenching to see a man in deep but quiet pain, he looked so alone, that even in a room full of sympathetic loved ones, no one could begin to fathom how much he was breaking down inside. we held him close, but after the whole ceremony i saw him looking somewhat dazed, like he wanted to run away, very much the way i thought same last year at this time.

i just returned from an awesome holiday with her and the kids. it was by far the highest point of the year. i look at her with the kids and my heart skips a beat and utters a prayer of thanks. it's close to a miracle how she inevitably brought me a renewed sense of hope, that life had so much more to offer. i want to shout it from the highest mountain and share that gratitude and joy. my birthday in a couple of days will be the direct opposite of the one last year. it will signify joy and promise, it will bring me to a new understanding of how life is sanctified by the one above and he will bring you relief when he sees you at your lowest. i wish i could share this with my dad but i think a part of him has died. his eyes were hollow and when he said, kids, make your mother proud and live life to the fullest, i felt like it was his own parting statement.

this entry is all over the place, as my thoughts are. i can't even describe the confusion which swings from sorrow to joy. i guess life never gets dull when you think it can slide into a state of ennui, but i don't complain. i just seek a harmonious calm where i can make right what feels wrong, starting with how i want to hold my loved ones close, tell them when we're all alive how much they mean to me, how much i mean to them. it starts now, at the brink of 43 years. i want to mark this as me reborn, to be a better person, a better mom, and a better partner.

grace.

march 9th 1937 -- june 23rd 2012
it never escapes me how miraculously his timing works. we landed on friday night and she passed the next morning.it would've have been hard if she had left us while we were still in taiwan. always considerate mummy was. and always amazing how everything falls into place.

and this is the little eulogy to mummy i spoke this evening:
mummy had always taught me three important things in life: to treat people right, to keep it real, and to always pay it forward. i was always a rebellious kid, maybe i still am in many ways. but she never once tried to break my spirit, instead she embraced it as the sum of my parts and taught me to channel it into a fighting spirit,the same one which took her through her last years. that strength alone will live through me for the rest of my life. likewise, looking at all her loved ones today, i see her spirit continue to live in all of you -- i see her kindness in daddy's eyes, i see her goodness in my siblings, i see her loving heart in my own children, i see her faith and love of God in all her friends. and one thing she celebrated in every one of her four children was our individuality. a friend once observed how my siblings, to use her words, were very eclectic. that isn't always a bad thing when mummy raised us to love who we are and to share our gifts with the world. angie was always the leader, mal the bright one, von the all-rounder and me, haha the 'artistic one'. so here i am living proof that if your mum gives you the freedom to be who you are, you can live a happy existence, and you can raise your own kids to live that premise as well.

so i'd just like to end here with a tribute to mummy and her legacy from ecclesiates 3: To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted... a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; (because) He has made every thing beautiful in its time: also he has put eternity in men's hearts, so that no man can find out the work that God does from the beginning to the end.

a taipei summer '12

creating lovely memories for our lovelies

my rock

just back from an awesome family vacation to taiwan with so many lovely memories to recount. most significant is the closer ties forged with the kids, and us. it's when you step out of your comfortable routines that you see your partner for who she is. what she is. and how much you want to hold this precious soul for an eternity

an apt shot juxtaposed against a background depicting what she is. simple and strong


and did i also mention beautiful?


and the sincere and loving way she takes care of all of us, like a dad, a partner, a mom, a wonderful and generous creature. it moves me. makes me want to hold her forever.

爱屋及乌.

quite literally haha

just watching them goof around is heartwarming on so many levels.
you can see how comfy my family has become with her, and her with them.
she embraces everything about my life and sees nothing more than her love and protection. it's something which moves and awes me in a single breath.

and if anyone still wonders if there is such a thing as 'the one', i believe this is a forgone conclusion.

'her loss is my gain'

i guess that's something which really moved me the other day, not so much my ego but my faith. it's really a part of his gameplan for me in 2012, especially when i'd spent a year trying to heal. all of last year i questioned the loss of a r/s which i was certain i had done my best to maintain. i was left high and dry, feeling so unlovable and self-loathing. and my trust was shattered beyond repair.

but here she is, in her sincere and assuring way, holding me and telling me how much she wants to take care of me and my heart, helping me pick up the pieces, showing me how easy it is with a grounded faith. i'm inspired by her simplicity and the simple way she loves. it is child (dog)-like and earnest.

i'm looking forward to building that again with her, letting her in, trusting everything that she is. starting with our first family vacation together in a couple of days. i want us to build lovely memories with her, with our loved ones, each step of the way.

coming home to us.

it's been an emotionally-challenging week, well i think i created the challenge and she had to try and accomodate it. i'm really internally damaged by trust issues. something i've consciously tried to fix the past year but time and again i get arrested by irrational episodes.

i just know i will heal and hopefully build on a stronghold of her loyalty and assurance. i know i have channeled to many unrelated demons of my past and this has done nothing but baffle and worry her. for that i will have to remind myself that she is my present. my here and now. then only can i work to a future us.
===
what she's about. <333

我就会充满难以解释的爱怜，想紧紧的把你拥在怀里，就这样的保护你，爱着你。不需言语，不需解释。
就这样，静静的，我的心交给你。

说不出的话.

看到你流泪的眼 我觉得好遺憾
我知道我很嚴重傷害了你
有時候，我只是想重新開始
把所有錯过你的事 全部遗忘过去

你是我一生唯一的愛
我保證不會離開你
只是永遠擁抱和親吻你
你是我一生唯一的愛
我終於找到的心靈
我願意和你永遠在一起.

you redeem me

by your patience, your god-given light, your love, your forgiving heart

i know it'll take time to get myself right.i don't know when or how.but i'll get there.
perhaps i need to just step outside myself and let you in more.

in time i will learn to trust.wholly and instinctively.

and with you i will be whole again.

what you feed on consumes you.

 i once discussed the ouroboros symbol in class and how that often  applied to the volatility and chaos of relationships. the one you love can both fill and consume you in such confusing intensity to the point that you want to just throw yourself off a building.

exhibit A:
my dying fridge and its beer going flat and warm as we speak. it's just beer to some but its liquid gold to me.i'm not an alcoholic. it's just that these were hard-earned rare commodities i managed to find online and had to get them specially ordered and delivered. it cost me a good 120bucks for 24 bottles and i planned to savour it over the rest of the year. i open these on certain occasions -- in celebration or escape. either way they provide ineffable comfort and warms the mind and belly. but they languish and die with their vapours seeping into the caps and causing them to smell rusty. i should just drink the remaining 12 in one go, have a nasty hangover or tetanus.whichever comes first.i don't give a fuck. all because she was careless and left the fridge door ajar until i awoke 3 hrs later.the damage is done. i ponder on how someone who loves you can really do things which make you want to kill her.but i internalise and ask why am i still here?

exhibit B:
自作自受 this roughly translates to how humanity causes his own problems. it works both ways in this case. i have caused my own heartaches by taking that leap of faith, or should i say folly. i told myself last year to keep clear of emotional entanglements because they will destroy your harmony.but did i listen?
and how she has the knack of walking into a pothole when she's been forewarned. despite my better advise to rest, go home n get a good night's slumber, she insists on staying over and here a events which spiral into another destructive cycle.i can't even begin to elaborate because it doesn't warrant more thought.


exhibit C:
my love language is purely about giving and doing things. this i have maintained since we committed this into a marriage. now i am starting to have doubts, not about the love but about taking this to a possible future of misery and anger. i have to qualms about spending my hard-earned money to make my loved ones happy. it makes sense because it isn't just need but love which drives a person to wake everyday and complete tasks of sometimes mindless extents, only so you can translate that into gifts and dinner treats. yes it's great to shop only for staples and that occasional luxury, but more so if it puts a smile on another's heart. so it pains me to think that all these though trying on limited resources amount to calculative rows and petty fault-finding. it makes you question the volition of being in a relationship. if it consumes you with such deep hurt and cyclical exhaustion.why do we do it?


and then i look at the melting pools of my pooch and the answer comes clear and fast. animals don't expect nor hold you to anything, they do not begrudge nor fault. they truly live the vows of to have and to hold, for better for worse, till death. i think i might be a misanthrope, more than i care to admit. the rest of what i can give of myself anymore remains to be seen.

the more things change, the more they stay the same

so the other night driving to a grrl party i realised it's been more than 10 years since i attended my first one. let's just say then it was a thrill of new beginnings, looking forward to meeting 'like-minded' folks. but somehow the decade has changed so much about how i feel going to these things. it's like a sense of jadedness about what the community is really about, trolls,cliches, wannabes,damaged,overcompensating characters who must feel some need to stare and judge or worse, privately resent.

this seems a lot different at gay clubs where everyone just drops their guard and party like there's no tomorrow, the music always fabulous and the peeps groomed and smelling good. you wonder why their sisters have yet to take a page from their books.i hardly see any drama or crying or drunken displays at their clubs because everyone is just unabashed about looking glam and having sex after haha

anyway, it was our first clubbing experience together and i like how comfortable we were. she was looking fine in a dropdead backless top and much in her social element. i went there solely to hang with her, and a curiosity to see if the crowd had improved 6mths ago. it didn't. the only difference is i was amused by how much more forward they are now, with smiling butches opening doors and lighting fags for you unsolicited and slightly disarmed by a little femme who was too drunk and forward with her advances, needing rescue from her at some point, well more because i didn't want to offend the kid nor create undue misunderstandings should the mrs walk over haha i know she trusts me but who needs the drama, you know.

anyway, i'm done with the scene, really. least of all when it provides such banal entertainment and i can almost memorise the dj's set it's not even funny. but more so when the crowd is getting younger as i get older and well,i'd rue the day when i bump into ex-students and have to make awkward convo. i mean much as i'm out to most of them i don't think i need to display my sexuality in such a context. i am not a party-going dyke, if you need to confirm it well, just look at how much i love my dog and when i attend little causes rallying for gender and sexual equality!

pinkdot 2012, 30th june, hong lim

live and let live

cliches are comforting, esp when there are moments or days everything else makes little sense.
the best way out of a funk is to ride it and let it slide.

i dreamt last night i was at my parents home and for some reason they invited all my form class students to throw me a party.no apparent occasion but i think it was a surprise because when i got there i was like, why are you people here? i can't make what that could mean other than a) i need to visit my parents soon b) my work and family life has always been separate, as in i hardly discuss it with my folks c) some form of intervention about something both my folks and students know about.

haha anyway let's just leave it as i need to make some plans next week to meet my sis and her kids coz it's been a long time coming. my nieces seem to get on with the shrubs like a house on fire. i guess it's good to forge closer ties with them. god knows cousins are always the best buds through thick and thin.

i've also decided to get out of my head as far as possible for the rest of my term break. i'm just going to do the mindless, catch some rays, long walks with the pooch, read inane articles, be entertained by cartoons. and with the shrubs we shall go visit far flung places for meals, and just embrace what's left of their hiatus.

inertia

there's an ineffable numbness about me.
the only relaxing thing about a drive-through holiday is for the passenger.
i just want to curl up in a fetal position and languish the day without a care.
my back is aching like a mofo.
everything tastes bland and nauseating.
wake me when the greyness is over.