Where It All Started

I am sitting here typing and my windows are wide open. There is a steady breeze coming through, the sun is beating down cheerily on the green tops of the trees outside my windows and I am listening to the low rumble of an approaching plane turn into a sharp shriek as it cuts across the skies.

Well, I should be sitting where I can feel the salt air and listen to rolling waves while writing this, but the past week was spent nursing the ever-potent seasonal virus. Of course, and the usual fending off medicine-induced grogginess with (lots of) Hemingway and exploration of watercolour painting. One other consolation would definitely be that mes parents had hooked up the monitor to my laptop, so I don't have to squint at them tiny letters anymore. Hurray, I even have a proper workstation!!

The previous two Saturdays went beautifully; both filled with happy memories of school.

On the Saturday before the last, I remember the stars coming out early in the balmy evening. Going back for PL Musical 2012 feels like a homecoming of sorts, retracing the route I took to school every morning, oxfords scraping the uneven tarmac now, instead of those starched white shoes we obsessed over maintaining pristine white. How moving, to be back to my alma mater with my cherished friends, watching the girls sing and act their souls out. The musical was absolutely wonderful, not only because of the superb script that was so cleverly crafted, and the touching songs and awesome performance put up by the girls (and the best cameo by our ever-sporting current Principal as Little Butterfly of the East, providing much comic relief) , but rather, it was the raw intensity of the effort each and every one involved in the musical had poured into making it happen, coming full circle. That energy, creativity and dedication of students and teachers which reverberated throughout the concert hall that night had pulled me back to a time I remembered sharing the same hopes and aspirations as others standing on the same stage. There was so much to give thanks for, in that instant I realised - we are so, so blessed.

An old friend is soon to be wedded. A couple of us spent last Saturday at her place, pasting invites for 500. After an amazing lunch she cooked up for us, we'd gotten down to "work" almost immediately, all the while exclaiming how surreal it felt to be sticking paper to cardboard - not for Art & Craft lessons so many years ago, but for someone's wedding. When we were done, we'd all gathered around the piano in the hall while our default pianist played the hymns and songs we sung so many years ago, so many times. Their lyrics etched into our hearts, once again revisited that afternoon, had brought about a new form of revelation. While we all loved to reminisce the times we spent together in the past and feel the familiar warm, fuzzy memories rock us steadily in its embrace, whispering "all is safe, my child", I can't help but wonder - were we much happier in the past? Why does it seem that we are all so ready to let our souls jump out of our skins and go back to the times that become clearer with each and every hymn and song we sing?

Maybe, it was because we were all together - then and now. I was 15; carefree and daring again.

We are all but connected by a delicate thread of the past that held us together until today. The hymns and songs of thanksgiving went on and on that day, while I silently sent everyone some love and gave thanks to God who placed us where it all started - our beautiful alma mater.

Summer; Reinvigorated

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We are part-way through summer right now, and again, in this part of the world where I am - the seasons transit unnoticed, the only giveaway would be temperatures turning into popsicle-melting monsters threatening to turn those popsicles you just pulled out of the ice box into a watery mess.

I wish I could say the only giveaway for the season's transit would be seeing happy, laughing families cooling down by the beach, but sadly, I had not the time to be by the saltwaters myself. The previous months had seen me having only enough words to fill up CVs and answer the obligatory interview questions, and not much left in my creative brewery to thread up beautiful sentences.

With mon frère away in Yale, having the time of his life and the best summer adventures, the mornings here in Hot and Sunny island had never been quieter. Lately, I've been thinking about the adventures we had as young children. We'd race each other to the book store to be first to open those heavy glass doors to feel the cold air wash over us like a wave (think about how it feels when you open your ice box on a humid afternoon); chasing the tides in our bathing suits trying not to get them wet; cycling down the corridor at gram's with the neighbours' kids - all the while yelling and pedalling backwards like circus clowns.

We all need adventures in our lives, and this is the time I'm realising that I'm missing some; needing some new ones in my life. Along with a pretty new bathing suit to chase the tides in.

Do you have anything planned for summer? Visiting long lost friends? Vacation to a new place? Trying out something new? Cooking lessons, watercolour painting, electric guitar, kite-flying? Whatever it is, I hope you're rejuvenated; reinvigorated through the adventures you're having.

P.S. For this afternoon, part of my summer adventures include keeping away medicine-induced grogginess by downing a half-pack of cheezels, then collapsing flat on the recliner couch, hearing the workmen outside felling trees, and keeping my eyes in the skies, waiting for the eagles to come home.

Auld Lang Syne

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At the altar, last communion for the year passed, hope for the year apporaching hung like a veil in the air. We lift the cup and the bread to our lips, prayed in silence; every single one of us knelt by the altar connected by a delicate silver thread of faith. For 2012, for those we loved and who loved us, for parents, siblings, friends and lovers - we reflect; we keep watch; we start right.

Bless you and your loved ones, and as the Scots poem goes, for Auld Lang Syne.