Category: Micro Stories

My last good bye

When I go,

I wish my friends and love ones sit in a circle by the ocean.

I want you all to share your fondest memory of me.

You must share good food and celery sticks. I know this will be a hard ask.

You will listen to this playlist and let ‘We Are Loved’ sink into your hearts.

Que Sera Sera – Doris Day
Beautiful Ones – Suede
This Used to be My Playground – Madonna
China Blue – Julia Fordham
Sugar Hiccup – Cocteau Twins
What a Wonderful World – Louise Armstrong
Blessed be Your Name – Matt Redman
Mermaid – Sade

#believe4Sally

Its ‘believe for Sally’ Day! Sally is a local hero and a young mother who is fighting late stage of cancer.

I didn’t have tattoos nor piercings. I didn’t believe punching holes in my body, period.

Many years ago, Sally’s sister Rachel and I went to the same church and we love Jesus.

A month ago, an Instagram post struck my eye. It’s an invitation to the Inked Fish Salon to have ‘believe’ tattooed to support Sally.

I am not a person who makes hasty decisions for things with permanency. After a week’s contemplation, I decided to participate ‘believe for Sally’.

I lost people whom I love to cancer is not a piece of news. It happened, happening and will continue to happen. The word ‘believe’ for me, it is beyond believing for miracle healing of cancer, it is believing that we are not allowing cancer to rob us of joy in this life.

When I was 18, my cousin 思丹 was 13. She was a happy, simple and beautiful village girl. We lost her to leukemia shortly after she turned 14.

I clearly remembered that last time I visited her in the hospital. 思丹 loved mangos. I took her a juicy and meaty mango when I visited her. She was as pale as a porcelain doll. They stopped all treatment already. We took turns to brush her forearms, the only thing she found pleasurable in her last days.

I offered her the mango. I saw her eyelashes fluttering like the butterfly emerging from the cocoon. Then she curved her fingers signalling welcome to my offer. I was about to stand up to cut up the mango for 思丹. My uncle rushed off his seat and stopped me doing that. He told me mango is not good for her daughter’s diet. I was a compliant person. I honoured my uncle’s request. So 思丹 died 2 days after deprived from her favourite fruit.

By the village’s tradition, it is a taboo to bury a young person along the ancestors in the family graveyard. So 思丹 was buried somewhere in the forest. To me, that somewhere is a wasteland of nowhere.

I had been angry at myself for a long time, for not fighting for 思丹’s last pleasure of tasting a mango, for not being able to stand up to my uncle’s authority. More over, I hated the fear cancer instilled in my love ones’ hearts. It robbed them blind of simple pleasure and joy in life.

#believe4Sally and beyond, it is my pledge to believe miracle healing and be joyful in tribulations.

“Rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfast in prayer.” (Romans 12:12)

Writing

I always wanted to write, always wanted to be a writer, not a published writer, but a writer who just writes.

My life so far splits between China and Australia.

I had written madly for 5 years in Chinese since I was sixteen, then wrote nothing for 15 years. I started to write English poetry in late 2018 and I have been writing since…something.

Someone asked me yesterday is writing like therapy for me. I wasn’t prepared for the question really, but I answered ‘ when I write, I am me.’ .

Only when I heard myself saying that, I realised writing is part of me. When I write, I am at ease, I feel at home. I make sense of this world and the people in it through writing.

I wrote and posted different flavoured pieces on this blog to explore my personal writing style. I continue to try writing different topics to navigate. When the direction is unclear, I let my muses and keyboard guide me.

I write when curling up in my comfortable bed, sitting in a noisy cafe, on a quiet park bench, in a squashed train carriage, on the picnic rug by the beach…and right at this moment, I am writing as I am walking in a crowded station at peak hour.

Writing is my everyday life, everything is in it and surrounding it…in this period of my life and perhaps beyond.

‘Home is where the heart is.’

Shower in the dark

Dedicated to Misha

There is something therapeutic about showers.

For years I had fostered a habit of taking a shower once I walked through my front door coming home from a day’s work.

The shower took my day off and it was like walking out from a hussle bussle world into my sanctuary. It was almost like a sanctifying ceremony.

The shower centred me and set the calm tone of the evening. I often felt afresh and renewed.

When I met you, the first thing I did was adapting your “shower in the dark” daily routine.

There is something else all together when showering in the dark.

When your surrounding is dim. You would have to rely a lot more on your sense of touch. When showering in the dark, it intensifies the transition from day to night, chaos to calm, cluttered to clear mind, exhaustion to rejuvenation. It restores me and makes me whole again.

I put music on sometimes if the sound of the running water is mono. Music is also more impactful when listening to in the dark.

Showering in the dark sparks all my senses with pleasure stimulation. Spurge of energy flew out to carry me into the mysterious night dancing with the stars. I become alive!

God comes through

I know God is faithful and yet I still doubt.

Jacaranda blooms in spring gloriously on this patch of the earth.

In late Springs, I enjoy strolling down the street where they are all lining up and yearning each other. Romantic poems written about the magnificent jacaranda.

Yet, my inclination to jacaranda is God comes through by illustration of its splendour Spring after Spring overcame the nakedness in Winters.

“Consider the lilies, how they grow: they toil not, neither do they spin.”

God IS Faithful!

The song took me back…

 

 

When I was listening to Kazu singing ‘Miss you so much’, tears trickling down my cheeks. It reminded me of the heartache of young love.

 

 

Kazu reminds me of the sweet love I could have had in my youth. The raw wanting of each other and smitten with one another.

 

 

When I was in my early twenties I was so confused and suffered from such low self esteem regardless how attractive I was (according to friends). I was awkward and shy with a tendency to run from love. Although I had a group of friends (mostly boys) to hang out with, I was lonely and so alone inside in particular when surrounded by friends.

 

 

I was looking at me, the early twenties self, when I was listening to the song. I walked through the memory lane, wrapped my arms around Kazu’s neck, tippy toes to reach for a kiss…

 

 

當我在聽俊輝唱《我好想你》的時候，眼淚漸漸地滾落到臉頰。

 

俊輝讓我想到青蔥歲月中錯過的戀愛，那种純真本性的渴望和如膠似漆的卿卿我我。

 

 

在我二十來歲時，盡管朋友認為我有吸引力，由於自身的自卑感和內心的迷惘，我總對愛情有著逃亡的趨向。由此行為上總是羞澀和囧。雖然我總和一群人(大多是男生)一起戲耍，但我的內心總是那麼的孤獨寂寞。人越多，越寂寞。

 

 

聽著俊輝唱著的歌，我穿過時光隧道，仰著頭，踮起腳尖，雙手環繞著俊輝的頸脖，迎接他正落下的吻。。。

Labyrinth Walk

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I brought a branch of rosemary in my pocket at the entrance of the walk.
“God, I come bare, and ask you to show me what you have for me. I am not clear of my agenda, let it be your agenda today when I take this walk. Amen”
As I started walking the labyrinth, the truck started driving away, the noise subsided and I could hear the birds chirping, a few species. I thought of Tim as he loved birds.
There is an insect landed on my notebook, sitting there quietly will not move. It seemed to be at peace.
I then heard a dog barking, tree leaves caressing in the wind.
I occasionally fixed the rocks on the path, not obsessively, but did as I please.
Another dog started to bark, not as loud. There was a chainsaw in action in remote distance.
Birds were flapping their wings.
I could see the sun light created shades on the trees. There were yellow leaves bursting with autumn red.
The sound and the look of the trees seemed to always draw my attention.
“Father, I’m writing this journey. Is it that you would like me to write my life journey?”
The insect flew away at that point.
“Where do I start?”
Start from the trees. At that point the sound of the trees stopped as the wind quieted down.
I really was meant to be writing. In English? The trees started to sound again dancing in the wind.
There are moss around some part of the rocks. Mossy green, ha, that’s the colour of course.
The tightness of my chest started to loosen up. I could take deeper breaths. I didn’t realise my breath was shallow before.
I bumped into half of a cobweb. I turned around did not ‘destroy’ it.
I stopped to sniff the rosemary branch. I heard people cheering on the sports ground nearby (I saw it before I arrived here).
The birds stopped, only 1 or 2 still singing, oh more actually joined in, just in the distance perhaps I could not hear before. I could also hear traffic now.
“God, your will be done.”
I arrived at the centre of the Labyrinth.
“God, what do you want me to learn here?”
“Your broken heart.”
My understanding is the broken heart of young love.
I put the rosemary branch down. I had a deep sniff before I put it down.
“God, what do I take when I walk out the labyrinth?”
I felt sad. So I stayed in the centre didn’t feel it’s time to go.
“Can I leave my sadness behind, leave it with you?”
“Yes, you can my child.”
I was feeling life long unfulfilled dreams – love and writing.
“God, I leave these dreams in your altar, in your hands.”
My stomach was feeling blocked.
“Father, help me.”
“My child, all your worries, all your anxiety, all your unfulfilled dreams I know. I created you, every bit of you.”
“Thank you Father that you know me.”
“That’s alright my dear child. Everything will be okay. Go on your way child, everything will be okay.”
“Really?”
“Start walking, trust Me.”
I still was sitting not wanting to go. Then He reminded me of how my back was healed but I dared not believe as I was fear of disappointment.
“I will not disappoint you my child. Have faith in Me.”
I got up and walked out of the labyrinth. I was determined to walk out in one stretch without stopping. I breathed out stress, anxiety, sadness. I walked out without fixing any rocks. I just wanted to get out and enjoy what You have promised.
“Everything will be alright.”
The stuff moved from my stomach to my chest, to my throat, then I felt light headache. I just wanted to get rid of it before I finish the walk. I started to pray for the remaining of the journey.
I burbed and the stuff came out. At the exit of the labyrinth, I faced the centre and gave thanks to Him.
I stood there, closed my eyes, being with the sound – birds and trees.

The beginning of the writing journey

    “Hope never fails”

Giving is a blessing. Receiving is also a blessing.

In my line of work, I walk alongside people to support them achieve their career goals. It is a satisfying thing to do because I get the opportunity to use my knowledge, skills and natural strengths to bless people come to my path.

In a workshop I deliver regularly, I ask the participants ‘What is your dream job?’.  I share with them my dream job is being a writer and living on a farm growing my own vegetables. I shared that in each of the workshop I have delivered.

The moment of inspiration came from a recent workshop I delivered. One of the participants is also one of those special people God put on my path. She is like a blooming rose from day one I met her. Her passion, her cheerful nature, her insight and her determination inspired me. Walking alongside her to see this rose from a rose bud to her glory is something rewarding and appreciated with amazement.

After the workshop. She sent me a lovely email which brought me to tears. She researched a college course that will help me kick off my writing so I will be on my way to achieve my dream as a writer. Her encouraging words moved me to write. I started to write, just putting words on paper. It’s about me go on a journey to fulfill my dream. It is not about others’ approval. I write is because all these emotions, feelings, encounters, moments oozing out of my mind to make sense of the world around me.

That’s how this blog came to existence. It is that simple. I received a blessing from a blooming rose. ” Hope never fails.”

 

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