One Lazy Sunday Afternoon.

Lazy Sunday Afternoons.

*Batik Painting by Chuah Thean Teng

 

Not to be mistaken for lazy Saturday afternoons or any lazy afternoon, the lazy Sunday afternoon is special if not spiritual in very many little ways. 

 

Apart from having to be on Sunday, the lazy part is largely accessed via feelings, emotions and experience. Lazy is in the sense of being aware but disenchanted. It is a moment where time stands still or at least drags on with a long languid languor of purposelessness. Usually imbued with heat and humidity - hence afternoon, one is caught in a situation one is inextricably part of, even though there’s really nothing happening. The situation as it happens, happens by unfolding unplanned.  A situation within a situation, if you get my drift. 

 

Visualise a situation in real life, in a café by the street, at the seaside, poolside, or simply gazing at nature, where you get to be the observer observing yourself in it. 

It is a scene where everything happens as it should, nothing is amiss. Like a scene in a movie setting waiting for something to happen except nothing happens… not a word is said.

Here is where Sunday makes its distinction, being the sabbath, a holiday largely observed, most people are not bustling about at work or in traffic. Some are cooling off in an after-lunch siesta. Few if none are required in the scene as stillness directs.

This little window of inactivity on a lazy Sunday afternoon is a sweet spot for observers of nothing, at the same time it is ‘full of life’ for the observant. 

 

A childhood memory of such an instance brings me back many years to when I was 7 or 8. It is our family homestead where just three of us were cast in an idyllic scene that framed the perfect lazy Sunday afternoon for me. 

A large luscious lawn spreading out under several coconut palms, under the shade of a short one, sat my mother slicing coconut fronds with a small sharp knife stripping them to their thin stems. The dogs are taking refuge from the heat under the house, my older sister then only a teenager, cradled my head on her knee, using a tiny wooden ear digger exploring my inner ears for wax. My mother while slicing deftly, was surveying the surroundings looking for stray chickens, goats or cows that may wander into our compound. My sister deeply engrossed with the insides of my ear, forced me to keep completely still, only allowing me to take in the entire scene lying on my side as if it was my job to capture, frame and archive this subliminally. While variations of this scene happened several times before at our home, it was this particular situation that stayed with me all these years. Perhaps I was fully engaged with all my senses in that moment feeling a deep sense of connection to the ladies of the house who took care of me. But it wasn’t just about the ladies in the scene as I recall the entire vignette comprising even the smells and texture of the grass, trees, plants, shrubs, background fence, including the large Chiku tree at the end of the fence gently stirring in the afternoon breeze. It was a periphery vision that I had tuned into. A sort of floodlight vision that augmented my spotlight vision that afforded me an expansive even oceanic feel to experiencing the life I was living. 

On that lazy Sunday afternoon, I felt I had a place in this big, complicated, and mysterious world I was thrust into. I felt safe coupled with deep physical and emotional comfort not fully comprehending then, that what I felt was love. 

*Batik painting featured - Chuah Thean Teng, Malaysian artist born 1914 in Fujian, China is widely regarded as the "father of batik art" who developed batik as a means of painting;^[1] "his adaptation of the traditional batik medium into an accepted form of painting ... elevated the status of batik as a craft to an art medium."^[5]

I love you. Pool Garden

Photo: PineForest

 The Trees

They breathe oxygen into my lungs.
They shelter me from the sun and storms.
Parading all the hues of blue and green

for my eyes to rest upon as I gaze out at the ether.


The Water

She snuggles me in the bosom of her depths.

She makes me gurgle and gasp.

She takes my breath away, each time I suck in

the life surrounding me atop the water.

The Japanese Black Pines

They surround all four corners of the pool garden.

Each standing vigilant like samurai warriors standing guard,

strong and dignified in the sun and wind, day and night.

I love you. Cooped Up & Comfortable.

Of Lush Rut and Rainbows

Photo by Sophie Louisnard on Unsplash

"Lush Rut", a good friend introduced this term to me. He used it to describe a situation whereby a person is so comfortable staying home that she refuses to step out of their abode during the MCO. 

Reflecting on this, perhaps the term to describe my own self incarceration, which actually comes pretty close to lush rut is 'cooped up and comfortable'. Too comfortable at times.

I figure it's time to venture beyond the market places and eating places to get back to nature.

So at the end of the last day of the week, after the thunderstorm has receded, I don my walkies and take big strides up and down the tree-lined avenues of the premises. 

I taste the raindrops as I saunter westward admiring the red prawn sky, coloured by the setting sun. I notice the lilac coloured blooms of the Jacarandas are starting to litter the road.

Round the corner, up the slope heading east, I leave the sun-crumpled sky behind me.

As I ascend the gentle slope, I hear a child's incessant cry, like a town crier in the days of old; "Everybody look, there's a rainbow here" " Everybody look, there's a rainbow here" pointing eastwards. 

I look up and there it was, a majestic rainbow that has formed almost completely arching the eastern high-rise dotted skyline of the suburb. Then I look in the direction of the 'town crier' and I see a little boy's head just barely clearing the balcony sill. His brown face and mop of hair revealed an innocent lad of no more than 4 or 5 years young, smiling back at me.

I cried back; "Thank you for showing me such a beautiful sight. If not for you I would have missed this wonderful rainbow" He smile and turned to look at his mother who was sitting next to him. The equally brown skinned, young mother amplified my gratitude to her son. We all smiled, I waved them a fond goodbye and continued up the slope admiring the clarity of the huge multi-coloured arch that was especially large that other residents stopped to pose for selfies down on the main road.

The rays of the setting sun had brilliantly captured the last sprays of rainfall at the end of the thunderstorm, to form a picture perfect rainbow even a child can appreciate and shout about. 

I proceeded with my saunter as the evening turns to twilight like a thick carpet of indigo descending upon the tree-lined landscape. The warm lighting in the windows and doorways frame golden patches against the bluish darkness. Hence the golden hour, the time that home and family beckon at day's end, the return to loved ones after work. 

I walk another lap round the U-shaped circuit to wander in the twilight settings, watching the remaining patch of light in the far horizon fade to blue as the lone magpie sings her final song before flying home to her nest. And I see the usual runners and walkers still rounding the circuit in their individual quest for health or space. Then I wonder what happened to the others? Do they not yearn for space or freedom from their cramped spaces especially if family is abound? Do they suffer in silence or are they in constant conflict in cramped spaces? I certainly hope not, judging from only the handful who roam our spacious grounds, the rest are perhaps happy in a 'lush rut'.

 I think to myself, as I head home to my coop to roost on a single ticket. How different would it be, if during the MCO I had family to share a home with not only at day's end but all day and night?

Good night. 

I love you. The "Final" Invitation.

 Finding Our Way Home

I want to know if you can be alone

 

with yourself

 

and if you truly like the company you keep

 

in the empty moments.

 

~~

         

"TELL ME ABOUT A MOMENT of real solitude, a moment when you were with yourself and felt yourself at the center, a moment when you could feel the world, the stars, the galaxies spinning around you."

 

"Tell me have you met yourself? Have you been able to step outside the business of life for just one moment and look in from the outside, feeling yourself whole and separate and yet with the world."

 

"There is a tension in living fully, what often feels like an opposition between our longing for the solitude where we can find our own company and the desire to be fully and intimately with the world. When we learn to live with both the desire for separation and the longing for union, we find that they are simply two ways of knowing the same ache: we all just want to go home."

 

"I have come to accept that no matter how much I am able to be with myself, no matter how much I like my own company, I still long to sit close to and at times to merge completely with another in deep intimacy. This too is coming home. The completeness of self is found when we can be alone and when we can bring all of who we are to another, receiving and being received fully."

 

"This is the sacred marriage: the coming together of two who have each met themselves on the road. When two who have this intimacy with themselves are fully with each other- whether for a lifetime or for a moment- the world is held tenderly and fed by the image they create simply by being together. They can be friends or family, lovers or life partners, or simply two strangers whose lives intersect for a moment.

 

They may be telling each other stories, or making love, or sharing a task, or sitting in silence together. It doesn't matter. If having met myself in the empty moments, I am willing and able to bring all of who I am to another, receiving all of who they are, then we are truly together. In that moment in the image our being together creates, we are the manifestation of life holding, creating and feeding life. This is the fullness of the homecoming for which we all long.

 

~ Oriah Mountain Dreamer.

* Do I feel like crying? Yes. 

Do I want to cry? No. 

I feel the full 'gentle' force of this book like a visit from a stranger who has seen and understood the deepest, darkest recesses of my heart. 

 

The End.

I love you. Wherever I live.

 Where I live now at the farm. Our ancestral home.

I have the pleasure of spending my resting days and nights in a pair of a 100-year old concrete shophouses with wooden floorboards, staircases, partitions and ceilings. This is our ancestral home, built by grandfather Mr. Gan Swee in 1919 by Chettiar craftsmen from India. 

The two adjoining shophouses have broad concrete five-foot ways supported by large pillars that are as old as the building.

We walk into the main one through the wooden door frame holding the tall heavy wooden doors at the main entrance , one of which is about to come apart, to the main reception hall. This space houses the antique mother of pearl furniture that line the walls of the main hall fronted by the family altar of solid dark rosewood carvings sitting high on the front wall separating the inner living ground floor quarters from the immediate courtyard. The wall is dominated by a large scrolled paper painting of Guan Kong, the god of war. At the far end of the wall, there's even a small window that opens out to the inner courtyard which has been neglected. Apart from this and the leaks everything else in the house stands solid. 

The unusually high ceiling, mosaic tiled flooring, wooden door frames, inner courtyard and outer kitchen fresh water well accentuates this century old building. 

Upstairs is reached by very steep stairs situated in the middle of the house just after the courtyard. The upstairs landing area is the living area which is a vast hall as broad and wide as the width of the shop lot. The dining/work table occupies a quarter of the room at the far end from the staircase, lined by a 3-step-case of glass fronted shelves housing the alcohol, books, tobacco and work paraphernalia. The back extension of the living area leads to an ample kitchen that looks out through a window to the farm at the back of the house. It's a good vantage point for viewing people coming and going to/from the farm.

Back at the living area, a large window opens out to the inner courtyard below revealing a patch of sky that floods our living room with light- sunlight by day and moonlight at night. Here is where I spend most of my time working on my mac or resting & reflecting staring out the window at night. 

We now cross-over to the lot next door which we also own, through an arched doorway purpose built to connect the two lots upstairs and downstairs. Both doorways are identical. This brings us to the inner living quarters, the TV area, the cupboards space, the ante-bedroom for  the bedroom of the lady of the house- my step mother. She's the undisputed queen of the roost. She keeps house to very high standards. A seasoned veteran of 80 years she has told me stories of her life to make mine pale in comparison. The inner living quarters lead via a walkway over the open courtyard to the main sleeping area at the front of the shop house. There are three partitioned rooms on this upstairs on the front of the shop house next door. 

I occupy the right partitioned room with two french windows fronting the main road of the small town of Johol. Which means I get to hear the goings-on the main thoroughfare below. The modified motorcycles are most incessant, occasionally overwhelmed by huge tanker trucks that grind by like a storm.

A large queen sized wooden bed greets you at the entrance from the flimsy wooden door that cuts short the wooden walkway to the front window. Apart from the largish bed there's a low side table for my smokes & crystal glass, another low table front adjacent to the foot of the bed sits the table fan that works hard all night to air my testicles under my sarong. A white plastic permanent recliner is parked close to my bed. I lounge in it smoking and drinking while listening to music from my beautiful bluetooth speakers made in China, positioned at the foot of my bed. At the corner near the right french window, the ceiling had somewhat partly collapsed revealing a damp and dark attic that drips water from leaking tiles at the century old roof, down to a large basin laid on the floor near the front right corner of the shop lot. 

With the frequent rains this time of year, my room will receive drips and drops of raindrops to the basin and the floor boards. Drip, drop, drib, drab....! All day and all night. And I love it. Sometimes.

This is where I live. For now. 

Come sit with me or roll around the bed with me. I'm here most of the time if not, I'm probably with you. Giving you pleasures you never thought possible. 

Not necessary physically but emotionally and spiritually for sure. 

See you soon? Meanwhile...

Be happy wherever you are.

Stay tuned. Literally.