Another year older…not any wiser...

Birthday with the family and our new baby boy: Kobe Brydog

Birthdays are a time for us to reflect on the year that’s passed. I know there are some people who dismiss birthdays as just another day in the year of the life of…. But my family always goes all out for anyone’s birthday and this year they did so again for mine and 
I’m very grateful.

But birthdays also make me a little sad because though I am thankful for what I have, it makes me reflect on the previous year of my life…or previous years. It also makes me wonder whether I’ve spent so much of my life writing children’s books for nothing and sadly each year seems to confirm that fact, but I keep plugging on.  With writing kids books, especially here in Singapore, you put in so much effort for so little pay off that it really does not seem worth it at all.

So has another year made me any wiser, I don’t think so. I’m still writing and venturing into middle grade and YA territory. I have a few more projects I have to finish up and then we’ll see what I do next.

It also makes me sad because I’ve been told time and time again  that when people first meet me they think that I’m nuts. I’m off beat and it takes time for them to realize that I’m not so different from them. Just goes to show, you should never judge a book by its cover, pardon the pun.

Hopefully the year ahead will be better than the last for me. I don’t think I’d be able to survive another year like the last.  Thank you to everyone who sent birthday wishes.

Dx

International Tolerance Day: A Rip in our Quilt

“Human diversity makes tolerance more than a virtue; it makes it a requirement for survival.”

― René Dubos


Have you watched the movie How to Make an American Quilt? It’s a fairly old film that most might dismiss as a chick flick, but if you look beyond that stereotype and get past your prejudices, you’ll find it an extremely engaging film about a young woman, Finn, who is writing a thesis on her grandmother, grand aunt and the cross-generational relationships with their friends while they work together to make  a wedding quilt for Finn. Each works on a patch representing her life experience that they will sew together to create a collective timeline of their respective pasts, fraught with the frayed edges of regrets and mistakes, to their present lives and ultimately onto Finn’s future.

Today is International Tolerance Day and as another year draws to a close, it’s given me pause to look at life. Mine’s been fraught with snagged ends and frayed edges. Mostly due to my many mistakes, my impatience, intolerance and without doubt occasional selfishness.  

The more I think about it, the more I realize the world it really is like one big  quilt, each of us a single patch,  different, yet each equally valuable, each astoundingly beautiful in spite of the imperfections; through time, the seams have loosened and the patches have become worn and frayed. 

Instead of a collective desire to be repaired, the patches strain against the quilt’s fabric of the quilt, Each patch believing their own image, picture, or story is right. With such disregard for the diversity, the overall whole, the once beautiful quilt begins to fall apart. Each believes their preferred stitch is the only method to put things right. There is no compromise, only discord. And ultimately the patches  not only successfully manage to ruin the once beautiful quilt and but in the process, they destroy themselves.

It sad that we can’t see and appreciate what each of us has to offer, how much good everyone is capable of. Instead we bicker and argue, we value degrading others above uplifting them, we look more at we can take rather than what we can give. We rattle our sabers, we make threats. If we think someone is not like us they’re wrong, we find it so much easier to hurt without remorse, to disparage rather than encourage, to gloat rather than to provide hope. And to discard rather than to hold on fast and hard. 

This election season has been particularly nasty and vindictive with supporters of the opposing sides gnashing their teeth and tearing into each other, some more viciously than others.

In the news today I saw two ladies in public office making derogatory and racist remarks about the ever elegant and graceful FLOTUS. Those who hold public office should set a good example and lead the way forward positively, with dignity and decorum. 

The same could be said of the manager at Chilis in Texas who refused a veteran of a free meal on Veterans Day because he believed another patron who said the veteran was not a real serviceman and then to add insult to injury, the manager snatched back the free meal and asked the veteran to leave. Rip….Rip…Rip.  It’s unravelling threads in the fabric of the quilt that makes bigger tears, irreparable tears.

When will we all sit up and take notice of how ridiculously so many people are behaving? The thing is people only seem to realize it is wrong when they are caught out. And then they delete their posts from facebook or make half-hearted sorry attempts at apologizing. Wake up, people! 

Years ago I interviewed Yossi Ghinsberg, a man who was lost in the Amazon and what he said was quite telling. He said that man was less civilized that the wild animals he encountered because at least they obeyed the law of nature; man does not.

So the year is drawing to a close on a negative note; it’s my wish that we all take stock and realize that we’re not perfect and but we are more alike than we think and that if we accept ourselves, in the little things  perhaps we can slowly then perhaps begin to mend the tears in the quilt we call our world.  We might like to start by reading this book. All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.

We’re all human. We’re not perfect. We have to put our egos aside and accept that about one another.

“Somewhere beyond wrong and right, there is a garden. I will meet you there” -Rumi

S

Friends

Last week, Pastor Joel spoke of moving on from pain in his sermon and it resonated with me. Mainly because we've talked about it a lot and also because I know many people  have been through indescribable pain as have I. 

Four years ago I wrote my book If I were a Blue Kangaroo…. It’s about how one could have the most fantastic experiences that life has to offer but they would mean nothing if one didn’t have a good friend to share them with. But you don’t just share good times with your friends, you share all times with them, good, bad and the in-between times.

Now, I’m not one to make friends easily but when I do make a friend, I value them and treasure them and I intend to keep them for life. I will do anything to help, support and encourage them in any way that I can and likewise I hope they will do the same for me. We may not always agree on things and we may occasionally have squabbles and spats, but that is part and parcel of life. But I always appreciate their honesty and their opinions. I try never to take advantage of them or take them for granted because friends never do that to one another. And most of all, I never intend to hurt them or cause them pain of any kind.

From the end of last year and through a great deal of this year,  I have been in a period of unspeakable pain. It was so unbearable that it began to manifest in physical symptoms, so much so that I had to be rushed to the hospital for a cardiac check up.

My family suffered and stood alongside me as they always have  and always will  and I love them so much, though my grumpy exterior may not show it. 

My few close friends were there for me to provide warm words of comfort, to listen when I needed to talk and to give much needed hugs whenever necessary. They allowed me time and space; they let me cry freely and picked up the shards of my shattered self from the ravine of complete utter devastation;  then gently pieced back parts of my soul that I thought irretrievably lost. They made me feel valued and worthwhile again.

I would like to thank them for being there for me. They don’t know what a blessing they have been to me throughout this insufferable time and they can count on me to always be there for them whether they want me to or not. Thank you to my family, Pastor Joel and the rest of my friends both far and near who have always helped me through so many things. I’m still not 100%  but I am getting there slowly. I’m getting there and I’m moving on and not looking back. 

Now if you’re down and suffering with no one to talk to you can always contact #SOS or me if you need a confidential listening ear. If you’re in pain know you’re not alone.  Sending lots of love your way to you all.

Welcome Back Ian and Jacquie.

It’s that time for the Singapore Writers Festival again and my good friends Jacquie and Ian Harvey are back in town. Jacquie, the phenomenal best selling author of the Alice Miranda and Clementine Rose series of books will be conducting readings and workshops during the first weekend of the festival.

I caught up with both of them at Jacquie’s packed in store appearance at Kinokuniya and then we headed to my favorite cafe Gastronomia Da Paolo for a quick drink and then home so they could meet Kobe before going to dinner with Mum at Din Dai Fung.

It’s always great catching up with both of them. Thanks for a fun day, Jacquie and Ian.