searching… what gives to the giving

We live in a world no short of crisis, tragedy, misfortune, and mishap. I have never doubted that. Then again, I have no key to its comprehensive entirety. Like anyone else riding with me in this public bus today, I have some observable morsel of clue to their lives, as they probably would mine, but beyond that, I have no reasonable idea.

I’ve met people. These are stories I have never imagined before stepping foot into the Action for AIDS office- the stories of the affected and the infected, of those who live with three letters that have no known cure. HIV. AIDs. I have overheard, met, listened, peeped- the last time I heard, it was a boy no more than 17. It’s more complex than losing a limb, much darker than living through a stroke. The irretrievable lots they have been assigned to, for life. Chained, to themselves, to the growing demands of their bodies, burdened on a secondly basis to the material costs of keeping themselves alive. This is a disease that strikes hard- it captures a vulnerable human, it proceeds to not only disarm a body’s natural immunity, it mutates proteins, it mutates the images of which the human has worked to acquire. It causes you to question your social support system; it tests your ability to tolerate living in a community. This is a condition that eats away at a person’s sense of self-worth. We will be hard-pressed to find another medical condition that will necessitate such an alarming level of blame, shame and hate in this century.

What does it mean to work for a cause? Does it blind rationality? Does it make me champion the minority- a view of the hackneyed – compelling but ultimately one that runs separate and parallel to the mainstream consciousness? Do I lose when I seek to find, accumulate and catalogue, live with –all probable reasons to give- and then can islanded in my grand canyon of purpose, with a bunch who declare no beneficial similarities to me?

I cannot afford to grow insular in growing my own passions for the cause. Just as there are typhoons and floods, wars and broken families, this cause exists as a particular unit of plight amidst the others. There must be a way to make one’s help to all these, non-exclusive. If everyone gave to the world’s problems, surely the problems would not only be solved at its best efforts, but diluted? Sure, granted this is impossible because we all live in individual realities as opposed to collective communal consensus- than surely the next best step is to find a way for people to quantify the efforts they contribute to live in this world?

We live in a world no short of crisis, tragedy, misfortune, and mishap. This is un-true unless you inhabit all whose lives you deem needy, unfortunate – ‘charity cases’. Until you become one. But such foresight is impossible. So it’s my job to make you try.

Filed under: working world

wednesday identity issues

1. how its already wednesday

2. how its only wednesday

thought 1 wrestles with thought 2. it’s a mid-week crisis.

Filed under: daily grind, working world

the yellow foolscap letter

Today I find a bumpy envelope addressed to me.

“Birthday Girl!”

No name. Belated from the UK. My sister’s earnest handwriting.

Dear girl always makes me smile with her scrapbooking genius. Its a letter for me, written one part essay, one part instruction manual. “Super (wo) Man!!!”, it salutes, like a generous birthday greet. a superman cardboard cut-out falls out from the letter, except the cut-out is adorned with my face instead of o’ Kent (she even chose a picture she knows I favor).

And so I am greeted by a grinning ‘Super-Myself’ accompanied by four other strange looking parts of cardboard puzzle. What are those? The curiosity of a child approaching new toys fills me. What a treat. They are oddly shaped. They don’t look like they can fit together. For a moment, the fact that it could be a puzzle I was unable to piece mocked my recent musings for some jigsaw love. ( I am tired of coming home and being unconstructive in my free time, and decided jigsaws could be the missing cherry). I finally gave up her odd little cardboard bits, and read her manual on the flip side of the yellow foolscap letter.

“1 piece original cloak,” Ah. The red piece fitted neatly beneath ‘Super-Me’. Of course. Its Superman’s red cloak. “The original, the full-flavor, your cape is constantly introspective and self-improving, which can be a little tiring at times.” True.

“3 pieces special cloaks”. Genius. Interchangeable capes. For days when being red and shiny just isn’t enough. They’re exactly the same shape and size as Superman’s red cape, but these other ones are patterned, instead of plain graphic red. One of them- a street map. Another one, a mosiac of my scribbled name. The last one, she sketched Martin Luther King, Mahatma Ghandi, and Harvey Milk. The little buffet of male role models should be further analysed later. Meanwhile, the powers of these capes are named: Direction. Yourself. People. How well-thought out. Whenever I need divine intervention. What else can a person want?

The idea is winsome. She’s outdone herself again.

One thing that strikes me hard, how vulnerable i feel at the moment, and how my sister understands that I need strength and support. Thank you. Life doesn’t deal us with special capes. We have only bare flesh. Can people really own capes? perhaps. Capes sewn from experiences of hardship, capes borne out of love, capes modelled after iconic role models. We need capes. Because this journey called Life, I’m afraid sometimes we require superpowers.

Super-Me. She even included blue-tack so that I could attach the cape right away. But she stuck it right across my smiling mug. In my haste to remove the bluetack (for what? to confirm that the face was indeed mine?), the print from my mouth tears off slightly as well. So now Super-me is partially disfigured. I am missing some teeth and gum.

Even better, I hadn’t realize the significance of the blue-tack and tossed it aside for the colourful cardboard bits. Now I don’t have anything to fasten the cape onto Super-Me. And I have a disfigured grin. That is Everyday me. Flawed, and cape-less. Which isn’t so bad. What do you do if at age 24 you’re perfect and with perfect super-powers? What else would life have in store right?

No really, I’m not trying to put a nice spin to things. Naked and flawed Super-Me resonates with me. I am tired, tired, tired everyday from work. I wake up and I groan, I go to bed, and I wish i don’t wake up from my dreams. Optimism weaves in and out my consciousness, leaving me with yo-yo-ing spirits on a daily basis. I had thought this job was the best I could’ve scored after the months of searching. I don’t disagree yet. But yet the stress is getting the better of me. Sandwiched in this reality, I’m frantic and fidgety- am I stuck? Am I going to fail? Am I not going to be able to run away?

I’ll locate the blue tack.

P.s. how come the cardboard cut-outs smell like Play-doh?

Filed under: quirks, smilies, working world

Saturday Ingredients

The luxury of an early Saturday, with nothing laid out ahead of it. The trick, to start early- as early as you would a work day, and then coax yourself in believing its your secret Monday.

After my early morning driving lesson and a quick work appointment, I was free in town at 10.40am. It might still be morning, but Orchard was already packing up the weekend crowds. I was beside myself. What to do? What to throw into a Saturday to make it worth its while? What can I eat or taste on a Saturday in Orchard that will make my weekend sweeter? What can I occupy my time with downtown- a movie, a magazine browse and brunch, a quick coffee with a spontaneous friend? I was getting desperate. Nothing came to mind. Nothing sufficiently satisfying came to mind. I had the luxury of time ahead of me, and the only thing I could think of- was how I wouldn’t do the time justice.

The desperation broke finally, when I resigned myself to the weekend work I had planned for myself, and that no time is better than leisurely time spent at home. On the way home, I stopped at a bakery and bought an apple pie. Apple pies are a new favourite of mine, especially with those golden brown criss-crosses. On the train home, I nodded off- and reached my stop, with the happiness of knowing that my naptime, unlike on a work day, will be possible today. The last stop before home, a trip to the second hand book shop. Get a really really cheap weekend novel. Something trashy. I’ve been reading too much literature. In the end I chose Mark Haddon. Not really trashy. But will be entertaining.

Now I’m home. On my back against the arm of the sofa, the laptop on my tummy. A book, lunch waiting, a movie. And of course the weekend work. Here’s to a good one.

Filed under: smilies, working world

they were getting married. he died, he cried.

If meaningfulness counts in gold, then I am having daily windfalls these days. All the stories I have been seeking in my previously moody adult life- are swiftly arriving, slotting themselves through the letter hole of my previously closed-door life.  The dramas of my un-dramatic life are surfacing, still not my drama sure, borrowed stories yes–but still morphine for the hungryand unsharpened lens of the mind.

These bits and pieces are from the daily dosage of people I am meeting – stories sometimes told first-hand, otherwise relayed by a third party, or at times just plainly hypothesized. Sometimes the stories are painful (I crave), unexpected ( changes my tune), beautiful (when I get the big picture).

I haven’t realized how much I liked stories, until I hear a good one. That is when emotions need no summoning, it is the one narrative that grips your entire day- orchestrates your entire being- dictates your sighs and clogs up your heart- those are the stories. I am privy to them now.

All of which I am reading as a sign from our maker. “Here are your stories. This is life. It’s not monotonous. It’s sheer hard luck. Make yours happen.” Stories are my morphine- they make me tingle in my toes, and bring chills to my back. Pure drama rejects method of description. It doesn’t discriminate against the unstylish, everyone has at least one good one.  I am now the festival –goer with an all-shows pass. Full access, to this balcony of life.

Filed under: conversations, daily grind, heartaches, working world