taking bread and toothpaste for granted
It’s an ugly world when the people who couldn’t afford prevention have to pay for cure…
When a mother reveals she didn’t send her child to school because she had no bread to make a sandwich and couldn’t bare dropping them at school without lunch, or when a 5 year old tells you she stopped brushing her teeth a long time ago because they ran out of toothpaste… doesn’t that just snatch your complaints from under you along with stealing the little heat left in your hearts?
There is so much more need surrounding me than I can comprehend – and it’s all very preventable. If only the world was less profit-orientated and less anxiously selfish. Ahh, if only.
logged out
I have relinquished a large portion and potential for distraction to a trusted friend, having willingly permitted him change my password. I’ve been locked out of my own virtual identity… and I couldn’t be more relieved! Now I have these next two to three weeks to unlearn horrible habits and be very, very, very hardworking and very responsible. Three weeks: 5 assessments and term 1 and 2 of 50 kids’ observations and goals to sort out and tidy… before failing or getting audited, respectfully.
It was nice having at least one person really, really hope in my ability to do so. A relief from the orchestra of disbelieving smirks and unimpressed rolled eyes. I know I haven’t helped my case, but I need people to believe in me!
Bite me, facebook! I’m taking proactive steps to reclaim purposeful life! (Like)
how wide, how deep, how fierce, how strong, how furious, how sweet, how wild. Love.
Sometimes it’s the words from the short old man in his early seventies that make more sense than all of the sympathetic words of your peers, combined. I took his hand and asked him quietly to pray for me after church this morning. He’s one of the most wonderful men in my life because he hugs me more than anybody else in my life ever does – weekly, without fail. I’ll see him every Sunday and that’s when I get my guaranteed hug or squeeze of hand (except when He’s in China on a mission trip – and when he is, I notice). He’s got a really soft hand and a reasonably firm touch, and he squeezes my shoulder or hand pretty tight; and whoever is within conversational vicinity of us, he will introduce me to as his youngest daughter, or today, for the first time, he called me his grand-daughter.
So, he held my hand and squeezed it for emphasis during the ten or fifteen minutes he spoke to me for. I could hardly get a word in. He was making me cry. I don’t know why I was shocked that he seemed to know exactly where I was in life because he’s always seemed to say the right things at the right time. Sure, I see him every Sunday at church and I love standing next to him during worship time, but I don’t usually converse for long with him. I always just look forward to my dose of human touch, because in an age where communication is internet, calls and text messages, I miss being touched – even she who I call my best friend doesn’t hug me as much as she used to, and I miss that. Haha, there’s not a lot of touch at home either, though I’ve made habit of giving Daddio and/or Ma a peck on the cheek every time I leave the house – as a just incase it’s the last. So I love this old man because he is of such strong faith, is so close to God and because he loves me, he holds my hand and hugs me weekly.
He lovingly repremanded me and asked why I was still in such an insecure place after so long. It was frightening and relieving that he seemed to see straight through my plastic progress and see straight into the problem, the root of it; acknowledging but not focusing on the shrouded clouds of insecurity. Haha, I often compare myself to those apparently more troubled than myself and tell myself I only need a little improving. But this little man, shorter than me in stature but so much taller than me in measures of heart and identity actually revealed how shrunken I was… but also how little my understanding of love be. This amazing man was our former senior pastor and also my orthodondist. He has a very contagious smile. And I want everyone to know him because it’d probably increase my street credibility(!!) he is so old school and so very loving, I think everyone needs one like him!
The journey of late:
Over the last couple of years I learnt how romantic my Creator is. And of course, He, being immeasurably creative, was always giving me wonderful gifts, unequaled by my friends, though sometimes given through them. These I loved and treasured. But I thought that to keep Him from somehow realising how unworthy I really was of His love for me, that I needed to maintain a particular image, (as if I could fool God). “I need to do devotions for an hour every morning, I need to be very presentable in public, I need to sound as righteous as can be, I need to be so satisfied with His love that I shan’t need anyone apart from Him”! Not to say that these are evil practices, but when done out of fear of losing love does not exactly resemble a heart of worship.
It’s funny, the little quirky things that Love has done for me. I had a thought yesterday whilst absorbing the poison of my exterior insecurity, letting facebook throw pictures of beautiful people at me and laugh at me, telling me that nobody would tell me I was pretty because there were little pictures to prove it – again, some smokey nerve of a mocker, and I wondered, I wonder if anyone would just want to take photos of me because that would mean I were worthy of the camera. So a little later in the day I ended up going to a friend’s house to drop off a couple of things and they ask me then and there if I’d be happy to let them take photos of me because the light outside was nice. Ah, they didn’t think anything of it, they are photographers, but a whisper of a smile countering the snide remarks of before with a nudged “You were saying?…”
Haha, lucky me blessed I, I am adored by the greatest lover of the universe who continues to say in daily ‘coincidental’ incidents “I actually love you just because, and you’re insecurities are really invalid yet I will keep proving them wrong as long as they exist.”
I don’t know what I’m trying to say. I don’t have a punch line (as usual). Only that I’ve been instructed to be more vulnerable with everyone and stop trying to be so tough. Haha, my favourite 73 year old kept saying “love is risky business”! And I know it is, but I only know this in theory, not exactly in practice. In short, my loves, be loved. And if you feel insufficiently so, then put yourself out there and try being vulnerable. I’ll be trying it. Or as the brilliant lyrics to some song that I heard and always remembered went, “If you need love, take the time to be love, breath it out, create love, see how things will turnnn”.
Don’t go thinking you have to work for it either, apparent love gets a little frustrated when we create a sort of understanding that it may be deserved or that it is a generous bribe for being good.
Love is never short and cannot be earned. “And if that had been too little, I also would have given you much more!” (2 Samuel 12:8b)
doo wop, rock my world
Charmed by a cappella! Always charmed by a cappella. I adore this creativity and playfulness and childish glee. This sort of charm makes Bond (…James Bond) look amateur. I will not accept a wedding proposal that has not incorperated some element of dramatic a cappella (hahahaha, I kid…I think). Like this particular take, it doesn’t have to be in key every waking moment, only imbued with much love and passion. Ahhhhhh cappella is one of the many ways to my heart – I nearly died at Gaston’s part – What. A. Voice. – hahaha, I love a deep voice!
the prayer of the weak
Dear God,
I need help.
Please give me the strength to abstain and/or moderate whatever it is and wherever necessary. I am overwhelmed by cravings, running low on self-control and my endurance hasn’t had the best track record. I really hate slaving to the useless ideals of paper-mache, museums and mirrors. You said your power is made perfect in weakness, and there’s plenty of that here. My short-term memory is also a little worrying; I don’t think it helps that I forget the wonderful things you’ve done for me and the almost excessive promises you’ve promised. I’m here a lot, I know, at this place of weakness. But you always make me smile, however deep I get stuck – you’ve got a pretty blessed sense of humour and I love that you’ll never leave nor forsake me. So thank you for being bigger than this. Thank you that you need only touch my tangles to loosen them, even if you make me untangle them myself. Thanks for your patience – I would’ve made myself so mad if I had to deal with me… wait – I do (heh). But thanks most of all for love, and that I never need to look very far for it, because most times I wander from it, it you find me.
Love, a very indebted daughter.
childish dreams
To add to my hoarding of ambitious dreams, life ‘must-do’s and my embarassing train of Haven’t-Started-Haven’t-Finished ideas, is one for a children’s book. It’s very exciting, but I can’t afford to indulge too much in the idea now, because I’m already almost overwhelmed by my current workload. Though it’s a Saturday morning and sunshine begs me enjoy it! I want to read, I want to write fiction. But I will write kinder observations and college assignments. It won’t be so bad. Hopefully I’ll get to start this dream sometime towards the end of the year. Perhaps, perhaps.
digging up old rhymes
There was a notebook that I found amidst the many notebooks in my room, excavated from piles of folders of university notes and ramblings. The bulk of its pages were blank and looked at me longingly to be remembered and made useful. So I decided to rip out the few pages that had been used (no more than 10 pages), they were mostly separate trains of thought and random writings. But lo, in one of the back pages I found a poem that I must’ve written years and years ago. Suffice to say, I was amused and I hope you are too!
My fingers smell of Vegemite
It strikes me much as odd
That dark and salty spread that wafts of childhood times and times forgot
There’s chance that this odd incident
Was effect from this arvo’s cause
For indulge I did in this salty spread with ease and without pause
reassurance reacquainted
So finally these many waves
Crashed upon my plastic caves
Tell me why they wouldn’t hold
These pressures are a little old
These broken shards of plastic shields
These obsolete and aging fears
These mechanisms of defense
Impersonal, fearful immense.
But wash me over salty waves
With songs and Psalms to make me brave
You whispered love, swiftly disarmed
Validating me without need of charm
Your concrete truth, I hold to tightly
Shared passions urge me, keep on fighting
I find in you my greatest peace
You bought my life for yours released.
Tell me what I would ever gain If all I did was run from pain.
right versus left
The last few months has been a hurricane of confused priorities. This has been turmoil for me, as I have ideals and theories, no correct answers but an abundance of incorrect answers. Give me a map to a single destination with clear instructions and a hundred to-do’s and I’d smile and go my merry way. Believe it or not, I love being told what to do when I know it’s right. Haha, yes, the clause is when I know it’s right. Which is exactly my problem – I don’t really know what is right all the time. Because life isn’t beautifully black and white like math, where the right answers are somewhere towards the end of the book and algorithms can be learnt, memorised and applied in every relevant situations. But you know all of this.
The progress of 2011 has been a tug-o-war between progress and disappointment. The last month has amplified this to a battle between my own emotions and characteristics, which is as unpleasant and nonsensical as if my right and left sides hated each other. My right side prides itself on independence, credibility, example, honesty and everything ten commandment-esque; my left side is much more liberal, loves all, accepts all and believes in a better humanity and that it every sort of unity begins with (fun) fellowship. Both I love and both I hate, for the moment I lean too much to one side, my arms flail about and all of me falls – both right and left.
My right side has regularly shined my “goody-two-shoes” from childhood, keeping me well presented and from all sorts of heartache and trauma, due to my fear of stepping over the line and making a mistake. This said, it has also turned me into a self-ordained pharisee from midday to midnight (during high tide and new moon). My left side has been the liberal and all-encompassing love for all people, be they opposite to me on every level – chosing for me, people over responsibility, and rebelling against the invisible systems of media and convention. My left side neglected all the ‘properness’ of life: homework, respect for inconvenient rules, paperwork, academics, cleanliness, serious organisation, health/fitness and finances. In essence, unbalanced I ruled my mannerisms into margins of disproportion.
The inconsistent and violent sways from right to left was exactly the motion to keep some part of me constantly in guilt and disappointment. It seemed that when I had satisfied one side, I had disappointed the other. Which, to somebody of many desires and many dreams, can be debilitating and heartwrenching. Which is why I cannot rely on myself, I fail too much. Thank God, God doesn’t!
I was told last night that I was my own worst enemy – and as I were, that struck the bell home, hard. It seemed the overbearing insistence that one side impossibly prevail over the other was governed by my insecurity. Hahaha, back to insecurity… always back to insecurity. And from insecurity back to love… always back to love.
What if there was never a reason to feel guilty? What if love wasn’t performance based? What if it were unconditional? What if the moment I stuffed up, Love presented Himself available, because I needed love more in my failings than my successes (and appreciated much more too). Ah dear, the last couple weeks I’ve been met with a few of my least favourite questions, they are “how are you?” and “what’s been happening?”. I only like it if you’re asking sincerely and have the time for me to honestly reply; alas these two questions perpetuate a horrible default reply “good, thanks”, “nothing much”, respectively. And each time I pause, think about it and want to reply about a paragraph, I am only afforded the time to fit in a very disjointed sentence, because the asker has already begun to move away or look restless. I hate it when words lose their meaning – it all becomes very tragic. I like words a lot, and I think that life and death are in the power of the tongue, so when people say things they don’t mean or think about, it never fails to vex me. Hearing “I know that’s what I said, but I didn’t mean it!” Then WHY did you say it? “Oh, I’m really sorry but I’ve got a few errand to run, talk to you later?” WHY did you begin asking about me if you didn’t have the time to hear me out? And let’s be honest, you have no intention of talking to me later. On a totally distracted note, talking to Wes after church was really nice, because he gave me his undivided attention and ignored or reluctantly turned to others who interrupted the conversation. It was really nice just to be treated like that, respectfully. I’m going to try to do that now.
I DIGRESS. I was meant to say that being asked “how are you?”, I’ve not known whether to be honest about slight struggles and confusions or reply of resilient and joyful response. Thing is, I appreciate both and I don’t like either the, ‘always happy, never sad’ image, nor the ‘constantly on an emotional rollercoaster’ image. I find it refreshing hearing very heartening, positive and optimistic outlooks and approaches, because the glass is hopefully half full. However, I also love hearing from happy, joyful, funny people, that they’re not doing so great, not because I take pleasure from their hardship, but because I find honestly and snippets of vulnerability, irresistible.
My point? I don’t know if I have one. All I know that balance is required in everything and moderation does not dilute passion…inconsistency does. Haha, back from a blog-free week and I write again with little conclusion.
backlog disappointments
I still can’t seem to remove myself from the occupation of letting people down. It’s actually quite gross. I’ve decided to disappoint myself before disappointing others, it’s the lesser of two evils (I know that disappointing myself will also disappoint others, but the humiliation is on me alone and has no flow on effect to others, bar my reputation). So this weekend, I’ve cleaned my room, fixed the dress for Mish to wear to ball, gotten through Mother’s day and have guarded the merchandice stall for a friend’s gig, posted a couple of overdue letters and still haven’t started Wednesday’s assignment. I feel horrible to fly the flag of surrender so soon, but I can’t finish it on time. Which means a backlog of two overdue assignments and generous servings of humble pie.
I want it to be next semester already, where I only have one college unit and a little more experience with this teaching thing. Having said that, I want it to be next year so that I could be a better teacher, I feel like I need to apologise to my kids and their parents – their graduate teacher is full of ambition and expectation, yet delivers little of it. Ugh. My reflection is not a pretty one.
I can’t wait til the things I do actually impress people.
cleanliness is goodness
Relieved am I that cleanliness is not next to Godliness, lest my entire life scream “HEATHEN”. I cleaned my room, and it’s just past midnight into Mother’s day – Mission Accompished!
It took me the better part of three days and their nights to completely clear my table. I threw away a fair amount of previously hoarded treasures and have accumulated a small To Sell At Camberwell Market mound outside my room door. I archived about 4 years worth of university papers and teaching resources and have now freed reasonable paper space.
It took another distracted half a day to finally “essentially finish” cleaning the bulk of my room. I haven’t yet vacuumed, changed my sheets, or cleaned up my wardrobe – these I will save for following Sundays.
wonderful panic
I have had this wonderful jolt to my system. Let’s just call it ‘growing up’, for the sake of my lacking originality. Heck, what does ‘growing up’ actually mean? Yes, yes, it has a stigma of ‘mature’, ‘realistic’ and ‘mundane’… no, no, it’s not at all horrible.
This week in particular I’ve had a wonderful sort of panic. I’ve been washed in notable levels of disappointment and lip-bitten hindsight. I’ve been silenced mid-flight complaint and humiliated by both the lack of words and overabundance of it. I’ve had my breath robbed by the wonderful (and I use this adjective sincerely), wonderful challenge of improving. My current ability and motion has been illuminated as really quite poor, and I am trying (with the little ability I have) to remove myself from this rut of “I am enough”.
Today I entertained myself with the fact that I was probably a horrible kindergarten teacher and had a mental giggle or two to myself about how many years it might take me to begin resembling the positive light of teacherdom. Don’t misinterpret this as a self-despising pessimism, I held so much hope against this statement and washed myself with a little cold reality… I’m not where I could be. Put aside such aspiration to be a good teacher, and I sheepishly cower at the expectation that I might be a good student. My student life, for as long as I can remember has been riddled with complacency and the arrogance of never failing, taking for granted opportunity and resource, and shaming punctuality with the convenience of sleep. Although I may ‘enjoy’ studying for a moment or a time, I regale the remorse that is my disorganisation and almost insufficient motivation. I blame my social life, but take a closer look at that and consistency is non-existent. My poor friends! How I have defined ‘friendship’ with sparsity. Ah, but socialisation comes secondary to availing myself to church, correct? Alas, my spiritual strength is a splinter of the toothpick that I wish it were.
See, if there’s one to scoff at, it’s me. Behold, this wonderful panic has befallen me.
I need to get out of this. I need to change. Ugh, the length of my pathetic shadow is an eye-sore and contradiction to my words, they render them invalid and of little credibility.
So this week I’ve been in the panic that is: realising how much more documentation and parent communication I need to establish for a successful kindergarten year, cleaning my abominable room, starting and finishing next Wednesday’s assignment, meeting/calling/messaging/postcarding my friends, catching up on backlogged devotions, trying to remember to say Hello to the Holy Spirit, recognising the urgency to stop abusing my body via neglect of exercise and consumption of useless food addictions, and realising I really don’t love that many people – and the few I do, I don’t do often enough…
Essentially, wait for it, I want to be a better person. Hahaha, I love how the revelation of truth laughs at my imagined airbrushed reflection. I’m actually a pretty horrible person – inside my mess of hoarded emotions and unrelenting selfishness (but you don’t really know me so you wouldn’t know – I keep passwords on my dark vaults).
That is all. I love that I cannot stand being ‘here’, though I love it at the same time. If this is growing up, I agree.
Altogether separate: music therapy: Charlie Lim EP launch, Sunday @ The Toff – I’ll be perched on the merch, so pop over for a fiddle, a diddle and a dance with the spoon!
one bad man down, an entire cult to go
I sure do liken terrorism to a cult, and not just Osama’s side, their opposition can be likewise irrationally possessed and power hungry. The whole ‘terrorism’ situation is so ridiculously dosed in oxymorons that all those who engage with it on whatever levels might actually be surprised when the fact that you can’t kill terrorism finally drops – but we’ll never know, hey? Until we kill them all.
I know there will be mammoth celebrations tonight – and I also think it is a very premature and immature thing to do. I wonder how much more violence is going to be caused by the quadrupled population of drunk people thinking that the devil’s just been snipered? This whole conundrum makes me feel giddy. It’s all gross and skewed.
One more obsolete terrorist, hooray, Terrorism gets to repackage itself now and schedule it’s long-overdue facelift.
I've never been so morbid about worldnews before. But it's far from 'light' or 'happy' news.
the dance of the ink riddled fingers 
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