I love you. Happy Birthday Zane.

For Zane in October.

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

"Music is the sound of emotions" ~ Victor Hugo 

That must be true because no other medium can evoke so many similar emotions with so many different compositions and instrumentation. 

What I am referring to is the ability of music & musicians to evoke the feeling of love in so many different & endless ways. 

When we pay attention & listen to them we are transformed into the ether in tune with the cosmos. 

Yet we don’t listen to music near enough. 

Like we don’t spend time with nature near enough. 

 Zane seems to have a set of earphones permanently plugged into his ears. 

 He has arguably the best music sense in the family. 

He has diverted my love for commercial jazz deep into mainstream jazz. 

I am thankful our music filled family home was instilled early in his childhood. 

He taught me how to listen to the emotions in music. It started with Mulgrew Miller’s classic; 

“it never entered my mind”  I will never forget it; he told me to listen to the emotions Miller was trying to make us feel. I did. And ever since I was hooked. Who could imagine? It never entered my mind...!

I now have the ability to appreciate true Jazz music & history through Zane. 

As a result I am in bliss every night. 

Thank you son. Happy Birthday. 

I am so proud of how you’ve turned out and who you have become. 

Courtesy of www.PaulCezanne.org

You are a true artist. A person who wants to excel in the arts. 

I named you after Paul Cezanne, whose father was against him being an artist. I love his art and I wanted you to be an artist.  His artistic style has been described to as having "spectacular depth of feelings." 

Picasso said this of him; "Paul Cezanne was my one and only master." To other artists, "his compositions were akin to god's."

You are living testimony. You appreciate art to the depths and you are also an artist to the depths. 

You have and will continue to live the promise you made to the family- That if you want to be a cobbler then be the best dang cobbler there is! 

Thank you. 

I love you. Son. 

Be well. Be conscious just the way you are.

P/S. You look really good. Sharp.

I Love You. July.

For you Jon. It's your Month.

The month when god gifted us the first of many precious gifts.

And to think I wasn't going to be present for your birthing. How Preposterous!

I remember when Mum was close to labour and I was, as usual impatient, wanting to know when? Exactly! Because I had a very important meeting to attend. The Agency's most important Client.

Yes. I was that committed to work. Or totally unconscious to life! 

Thank heavens I didn't go for any meeting.

I was there at your emergence into this world. Scared shitless!

Cos I did not dare to stand at your emerging end. I merely stood by mum and held her hands. 

My hands were twisted and pulverised as she held onto me for dear life and pushed and pushed. 

She refused any form of assisted birth. 

She wanted a purely natural birth for her first child, she later tells me. 

After a long while, you emerged. It's a boy! Exclaimed Dr. McCoy very relieved I might add.

I managed to take a glance at you before the nurse took you away to be cleaned and weighed. 

You were a mess!

I stayed by mum's side while she released the afterbirth with a lot of fart noises. After that, the good Doctor proceeded to stitch her up. I remember asking him to stitch back a virgin. He said no problem.

Later in the recovery suite, I got to hold you with mum resting in her bed and then I carried you, lost in ecstasy admiring every part of you. What a miracle I felt. What a beautiful baby. My baby. My son.

You were and still are all that god intended.

Happy 30th Jon. I love you.

Zane is 17

If he was in Govt. School he would be sitting for his SPM exams right now, this moment. But he's not as he's in home schooling at a centre in Kelana Jaya. And because of that, he's enjoying his holidays lounging at home, chillin at the malls with friends or simply laughing his head off watching Russel Peters on Youtube.

Zane turned 17 last month, with little fanfare.
His life this year has been lived to so much purpose and activities that it (his birthday) came and went without a whimper.
I guess it is a good thing as I always say; "Everyday is your birthday if you know how to live your life".

Zane is consumed by sports right now.
His obsession for fitness and badminton has taken him to new levels of fitness and exposure and some success. Photography aside, his interest in playing the saxaphone is still very much alive as his instructor sings praises of him. I'm not yet convinced as I'm still waiting for an audition.

Extra-curricular activities aside, this young man has improved his academic performance at school as well. For the first time, he has achieved his declared number of life packs this year.
Well, all is well and all goes well, we'll be having our beers together same time next year.
For now enjoy your seventeen son. I'm proud of you.

Summer is 14

Summer is probably the person I need to worry least about. She's responsible, diligent, caring, emphatetic, compassionate, driven and extremely intelligent. But yet I do.
I watch her grow up at such phenomenal speed that I wonder if she truly enjoyed her childhood before she even enters womanhood. She looks so grown up and she speaks with such maturity that one often wonders...
I've posted some photos of her birthday dinner last Monday at the eatery of her choice-Yuzu at The Gardens as well as some of my favourites shot by Zane and posed very unabashedly at The Tasting Room in Bangsar earlier this year. Happy Birthday darling. I love you.