People go through midlife crisis differently, regardless what’s their choice of vice or destruction, they are just fearful and dissatisfied people.
Hers were breast lift, weight loss and sexting, while his were asset acquisition, sports cars and white powder.
She had been chatting to her few regular flirts who were her son’s age on Snapchat while getting her pedicure done in the overpriced salon, of course she missed a few incoming calls, until a text message notification came through, “Mrs Jenkins, this is Doreen, I am one of the social workers from the Emergency Department, Royal Northshore Hospital. Would you kindly return my call regarding your husband Marvin on 88786719? Thank you.”
Her heart sank at the thought that he’s dead. Then a thought came into her mind that lifted her spirit up. If he is wheelchair bound, he’s gonna be mine again.
Sharing my publisher Lisa Tomey-Zonneveld’s words on the launch of “Dear Heart” anthology. I used my real name “Jia-Li YANG” in this anthology because it means so much to me that every word came from the deepest part of my heart.
I still can’t get a copy yet because it’s out of stock (purchase in Australia from the American Amazon website). If you manage to get one please read it for me and leave an honest review. This will mean the world to me and my fellow writers. Thank you!
“Before computers, we wrote letters. My motherâs letters were like little novellas, several pages long. Her family members and friends loved to get her âbooks.â Letters from mom were heartfelt and brought tears of love. As her pen moved passionately across the pages, sometimes her clear, blue eyes would well up. Letters were her release. They were her way of expressing herself in ways she could not voice. Occasionally, she would write letters to people out of anger and then tear them up. These could have been to politicians, relatives, and those are the ones I knew about. She would express her heartâs desire, open up her soul, and pour out her thoughts.
While I did not have the beautiful penmanship of my mother, I learned that the pen was my power. Some of my letters were releases which I destroyed. At age 15, I even wrote one about the need for a doctor in our little town. The letter and story was published in the newspaper.
As a writer and a poet, I write as if my words are letters to the world, perhaps to express the desires of my heart. Other times I write to simply write.
When we do express our desires within our heart this has a way of stirring up thoughts and even action plans to make things happen. They could be acceptances of things that canât be changed, but often are steps toward courage to make something happen.
I posed this question and requested to others:Â What is the desire in your heart? This is my challenge to you. I would like to read about the desires in your heart in the âDear Heartâ anthology of letters, poetry, art, photography, and whatever ways helps you express your passion.
There was a caveat to this. In honor of my mother, the expressions were to be sent to me via good old fashioned snail mail.
Now, it is my pleasure to bring to you these beautiful heartfelt responses via Dear Heart.
Lisa Tomey-Zonneveld
Contributirs: Alice Taylor, Chyrel J. Jackson, Danielle Martin, Jia-Li Yang, Jill Sharon Kimmelman, Jodi Lynn Nehring, Karen Monteith, Max H. Tomey, Nanci Arvizu, Pratibha Savani, Rebecca Herz, Richa Dinesh Sharma, Robin Klammer, Sarah Ryan, Shiela Denise Scott, Steve Anc, Terri Michels, and Zaneta Varnado Johns.
Special Shout out to Kay Doiron for the cover art and to Zan Johns for her wonderful editing skills.”
I don’t know my sister much except that she is a ball of energy.
Growing up together till she went to borading school in high school, I remember she was always active. If she wasn’t at gymnastics training, she would have been ice-skating; if she wasn’t out, she would have been home practising her scales on the piano.
It seems that she has been living a full life both in her career and her extensive travelling, she never stops.
We have never seen her since she turned eighteen, not even at Mum’s funeral when she was stuck on mount Everest.
It’s peculiar to me that I have a sister but I don’t have one at the same time
She always says, “The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.â, I guess she didn’t choose me or our family.
"Good morning passengers, we are waiting for the signal to clear before we can depart again. We thank you for your understanding and patience." The speaker in the train carriage came the announcement.
The passengers were stirred by the inconvenient announcement on a major line during peak hour. Some stretched themselves, some yawned, some looked up from their phones then returned to the screen again. I kept watching people while Ludovico's Nightbook piano album playing through my Airpods.
"Passengers, we have an update on the signal. Due to an incident we were unable to continue on our trip until further notice. Sydney Rail is committed to have affected routes return to normal schedule as soon as possible. At this stage, there is no estimated timeline. We will continue to update as we receive further instruction." Passengers started to chat to each other. The carriage became alive like a Sunday market. I went on to google news and video to see is there any media cover on what the incident was about. I found nothing. I emailed work to let them know I was stuck and not sure how late I would be.
"Passengers, we apologise for the delay. This is caused by a major medical accident. We will be approaching the next stop at Artarmon. Bus service will be replacing trains all stops from Artarmon to city Central on the Northshore line. We appreciate your understanding and cooperation. We should be leaving in two minutes."
I was over an hour late for work that day. Almost a week later, I heard a local teenage boy jumped off the platform to the train track. He was killed instantly by the coming train. The rail was shut down after the incident. I donât know the boy except we live in the same community. He is from the same boyâs high school Ed went to. They were the similar age when they took their lives. I wonder about what happened before leading to the day of the event. I remember clearly, or the version I have believed I remember clearly, on the date before Ed drank that rat poison and walked himself to the woods and died there in the luscious ferns.
Ed is my younger brother, also the middle child. We lived with Mum since Dad had walked out on her when I was eleven, Ed was eight and Lucy was six. I was the quiet and pedantic eldest child. Ed was funny, sensitive and sensible. Being the only boy in the household, he was the constant target of our female catty fights, manipulation and everybodyâs ally. Lucy was wild, demanding and had Mum and Ed wrapped around her little finger. And Mum, she over worked, an emotional wreck and an unforgiving character. We love Mum and feel sorry for her disregarding her frequent cruel comments and consistently being unreachable emotionally.
I left home after turning eighteen to move in with my then boyfriend. Ed was in Year nine high school. Lucy went to a girlâs boarding school far away from home. We donât know what drove Ed to take his own life. His death drove our broken family further apart to irreversible ruin.
The day before Ed took his own life, it was a weekend, we celebrated Mumâs 44th Birthday at home with a roast lamb shoulder dinner and a New York cheesecake, Mumâs favourite. I stayed overnight to wear off the alcohol. That Sunday morning was so peaceful, I woke early and laid in bed enjoyed listening to the birds outside. A light knock on the door, then Ed peeped his head in my room and asked, "Fran, come for a ride with me on old Terry, will you?" When he saw the hesitation on my face, he came in and threw my sweater and jeans on my bed. "Old Terry may go anytime now. He is so old. Come on, letâs give his old soul a boost."
Terry was our family horse. We were his second owners. He was oldish when we âinheritedâ him from one of Mumâs old friends. We grew up with Terry really. Mum loved horse riding and she taught us all to ride adequately. Ed seemed to be in such a bright mood to go horse riding. I didnât have the heart to refuse. We rode along Pittwater Road and around Narrabeen lake, where we played to way after sunset in summers when we were kids. We hated all other seasons because we had to go inside after five oâclock and copped Mumâs scorn for no reason. We all knew she took her hatred towards Dad out of us. She cried in her bedroom when she thought we were asleep. Ed was the kindest one, perhaps he was the only man in our family, so he felt extra responsible, in particular for Mum. Mum was spiteful to me. I tolerated her beatings and cussing. Lucy was rebellious and she used to fight back when Mum tried to beat her with wooden spactualor or hairbrush. Mum learned to leave her alone. It seemed that I was the compliant and stupid one.
I had always got on well with Ed. His quiet demeanour gave me a sense of peace when I was around him. He also had a great sense of humour, the type that he told a joke cracked everybody up and he managed to keep a straight face. We rode in silence on good old Terry, I was holding him tightly from behind. He smelled smoky from the fire. He must have had stacked the firewood for Mum before he came to my room.
Terry needed a drink, so we took a rest and sat by Narrabeen lake at the spot we used to fish. I asked Ed how he was since I moved out. He told me everything was fine. He asked me did I remember some of the fun things we did when we were little. We talked about funny old stories and laughed so hard. The sun was heating up so we decided to leave before Terry got too dehydrated...
They sat in the dark of the farm house they purchased, perhaps on impulse, in the middle of winter.
He was no cave man and could not make fire with sticks and stones. She wasn’t much of a homemaker and forgot to shop for a lighter or a box of matches.
When they both worked as executives, they had personal assistants to run errands and organise things for them. The idea of organising the connection of electricity and internet service had never crossed their mind.
Their dream of living off the grid farm life died on that freezing cold night, with snowflakes falling like soil the mourners threw on top of a coffin.
I was once in the school choir, then the district choir, and I sang the leading part. There were performances, and they were a blur.
What I remember though, clearly, the eccentric conductor with wiry hair threw the baton on me, it hit the corner of my head. It didn’t hurt but I was shocked, so as the rest of the choir. We stopped in the middle of the rehearsal. He literally drove the kids out the door and commanded me to stay.
He signalled a spot next to the piano for me to stand. He started to play the piano and I sang again and again where I was out of tune. I could read the frustration on his face, his eyebrows particularly.
I knew what frustrated him, me singing out of tune. I wished I knew how to fix it. I couldn’t tell I was in tune or not. I only knew when the whole choir was doing listening exercise, I was the only one lagged behind. Everybody else seemed to be able to tell what three piano keys he played at the same time. But me, nada, I couldn’t grasp it.
I had no idea why I was singing the lead part. I did what I was told for being a very compliant child. I was demanded to practice and practice until his eyebrows relaxed and his face softened. Then he called the rest of the choir back in and carried on with the rehearsal.
I did it for three years until my father told me there was no future for me to continue in the choir because we had no family connections in the entertainment industry, and I had no real talent in singing. I didn’t disagree and I was glad that the baton was no longer a threat.
In my last choir practice, the eccentric conductor said to me in a grumbling voice, “You are wasting your talent by quitting. Do you want me to have a word with your father?” I replied in a very quiet voice, “My father said I have no real talent in singing and we have no family connections. I think my father is right.”
He started to play the piano and signalled me to sing. I did so compliantly till the practice session finished. That was the end of my singing.
Petrichor, fresh cut grass, lavenders in summer evenings, are fond memories of her childhood.
The wooden spoon landing on her shins, her mother’s sobbing, bottles being emptied into the trash bin, is the history she is determined not to repeat.
She sits in the garden with her children to feel the winter sun and smell the crisp air, plays silly little games with them, teaches them about plants and the earth, sharing precious moments with them, before they grow up too soon.
She is content with having very little, scraping by each week, because she knows spending time with her children is more valuable than more wealth but poorer with time.
She never looks back at the house she once lived in, filled with expensive art works and furniture, and malnutrition of love.
When she heard her neighbours gossiping about her living on welfare, or her children turning up at school with summer uniforms in the middle of the winter, she smiles and reminds herself that she has given all she has to her children, including time and love which she has never received.
My 4 year old son is running towards me with his arms throwing in the air. I quickly grab a box of tissues and wedge it between he and I, ‘Sweetheart, don’t come near me, I got a cold.”
He squashes the tissue box, wraps his arms around my neck and kisses my nose, “Mummy, you’re worth catching a cold for.”
My heart melts into a goo. My eyes are red and moist with a mix of a cold and an overwhelming feeling of love.
Memory of you running in full force all the way to the end of the jetty, leaped in the air holding your knees, gravity sank you in the reflection of the cloudless sky, stayed with me.
You packed up and left for the concrete jungle city life. Many nights, I listened to your voicemail messages, with deafening clubbing music, slurry speech, and lots ‘I love you, Silly’.
You missed my wedding, my 30th birthday party, my brother’s funeral and my divorce party. I didn’t know how to stay friends with you. You’d never there for me like you used to when you were here.
Every time I sat here, I looked at the jetty, remembering all the laughter,all the time we spent together, wondering what had gone wrong.
Now I am sitting here, with you by my side. I still haven’t had an answer. In my frail voice, I ask, “Why did you leave me and never came back all these years till now?” You wrap me tighter in the shaw and hold me closer, “Because I love you, Silly.” I still don’t quite understand, but I am glad you are back here with me in my last days. My heart is full again.
He was adopted into this town of ringers to work hard in the cattle trade.
Either died in the heat with thirst, or sold himself to the tavern as a slave and prostitute, the choice was obvious.
The Darwin scorching sun fried him into a freckle mess; callouses and blisters kept him in agony; the worse of all, he was belittled by the macho men who called him a Yellowbelly.
He didn’t want to fight back because he was a lot weaker than them, and his God condoned violence.
He prayed to his God like Daniel, three times a day, “Lord, when I am weak, your strength is magnified. Keep me from the temptation to murder them in their sleep, and deliver me from their evil acts. Amen.”
Surely, his God answered his earnest prayer, when the town election came, he was elected to be the local member because he was the only man could read and write.
Flicker of Thoughts 