The Travelling Story: I Love My Life

Saturday, April 5, 2008

I Love My Life

Life has unfolded so beautifully for me.

When I left high school, I made the decision not go on to university because times were tough and I knew if someone in my family should be given that opportunity, it should be my brother. My father could only afford to send one of us. Many girls after all, still opted for secretarial school and a job in an office downtown. Girls would get married and be mothers someday, girls might end up being a stay-at-home mum or working part-time to supplement the household income. It was the late 70’s and most women no longer thought that way, but it rang true for me. What work could I possibly do with a degree in the finer arts in Singapore? I would still paint, take photographs and create within the quarters of my personal life, but I wanted more than anything to be an amazing wife and mother - that was my real ambition and the goal I endeavoured to achieve.

And you know what? I have. I love my life and have a truly astonishing relationship with both my husband, Alan and our 22 year old son, Donovan. We moved to Australia in 1987. Alan and I had just turned 25. We had $6,000 in our pockets and young hearts ready for the adventure. The Hungry Years is what we fondly call those early days. It sometimes overwhelms me when I look back at those challenging times. I am grateful at how skilled we became in creating beauty out of very little and how much closer we grew as a couple during those years.

We call ourselves The Travelling Children; Alan and I. We have a gorgeous comfortable home which has been the canvas for my art. We have raised an amazingly unique child into a young man of great integrity who seems incapable of doing anything devoid of dazzling to his peers and his parents. (Check out Donovan's blog, http://www.theminutehands.blogspot.com/)

As far as my work went, that is all it ever was - employment that lasted 9 to 5, with the opportunity to engage in adult conversations, office gossip and 5 weekday lunches with a mixed bag of friends. I wasn’t concerned about advancement and earning more than an average wage, the adrenaline rush of doing little more than just window shopping with those fortnightly pay packets was enough.

Now at 45, I'm thinking I want to retire. I want to venture into something new. It's time to take my art out of these personal quarters.

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My husband Alan

you bring all these magnificent gifts
into our marriage ...
music, laughter, silliness
acute delight
the most fun I have ever experienced
you do everything with me
no matter how testing
or eccentric or misguided it may seem
because your love for me
and your trust in me is so enormous
thank you, jaanu
for the happiest times of my life
for the yesteryears we've made
the stories we've completed
for the ordinary things we will
do around the house today
for the bliss of knowing that
as long as we are in this world
we will greet each future sunrise
each workday, each holiday
together

Friendship

It is often said that it is love that makes the world go round. However, without doubt, it is friendship which keeps our spinning existence on an even keel. True friendship provides so many of the essentials for a happy life - it is the foundation on which to build an enduring relationship, it is the mortar which bonds us together in harmony, and it is the calm, warm protection we sometimes need when the world outside seems cold and chaotic.

True friendship holds a mirror to our idiosyncrasies and failings, without destroying our sense of worthiness. True friendship nurtures our hopes, supports us in our disappointments, and encourages us to grow to our best potential.

My Favourite Song

IMAGINE by John Lennon

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

watch this clip
www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLlwO7178Vs

Lyrics

See the nation through the people's eyes,
See tears that flow like rivers from the skies.
Where it seems there are only borderlines
Where others turn and sigh,
You shall rise x2
There's disaster in your past
Boundaries in your path
What do you desire will lift you higher?
You don't have to be extraordinary, just forgiving.
And those who never heard your cries,
You shall rise x2
And look toward the skies.
Where others fail, you prevail in time.
You shall rise.
(You may never know, If you lay low, lay low) x4
You shall rise x3 S
ooner or later we must try... Living
(You may never know, If you lay low, lay low) x4
See the nation through the people's eyes,
See tears that flow like rivers from the skies.
Where it seems there are only borderlines
Where others turn and sigh, You shall rise x4
(You may never know, If you lay low, lay low) 4x
Sooner or later we must try... Living

Lyrics

Oh, sweet sorrow - let's write the book tomorrow.
For I, caught a glimpse been obsessed with it ever since.
My eyes no longer weak amongst the clarity that you pronounced in me
Won, you have won, my illumination has begun.
I'm happily indifferent to the ones who have consistently been wrong - and all that once confined us like minutiae
at its finest now is gone,

Oh, sweet sorrow - let's write the book tomorrow.
My eyes no longer weak amongst the clarity that you pronounce in me,
I'm happily indifferent to the ones who have consistently been wrong - and all that once confined us like minutiae
at its finest now is gone,
and all that that lies before me like the asphalt lures me forward towards home,
home, coming home.

J. Krishnamurti (1895-1986)

A great religious teacher whose teachings transcend all man-made boundaries of religion, nationality, ideology, and sectarian thinking.

"To understand God, you must first understand your own mind - which is very difficult. The mind is very complex, and to understand it is not easy. But it is easy enough to sit down and go into some kind of dream, have various visions, illusions, and then think that you are very near to God. The mind can deceive itself enormously. So, to really experience that which may be called God, you must be completely quiet; and have you not found out how extremely difficult that is? Have you not noticed how even the older people never sit quietly, how they fidget, how they wiggle their toes and move their hands? It is difficult physically to sit still; and how much more difficult it is for the mind to be still ! You may follow some guru and force your mind to be quiet; but your mind is not really quiet. It is still restless, like a child that is made to stand in the corner. It is a great art for the mind to be completely silent without coercion; and only then is there a possibility of experiencing that which may be called God."

From "The Velveteen Rabbit" by Margery Williams

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room.
"Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"
"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."
"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.
"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful.
"When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."
"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"
"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse.
"You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."