Memento Mori

Tuesday, Nov. 28, 2017 @ 11:58 p.m.

On a random night, I stared into my love's eyes as I tried to gauge his fears.

Death.

The absolute silence of nothing.

In Abrahamic religions, the concept of heaven and earth are always reiterated. Perhaps, the collapse of these beliefs challenges his core.

Perhaps, this fall meant all is wasted.

But lately, I have retreated to focus on my goal to be a sage (Somehow, I thought being a wise literati of some sort would be an awesome idea) and explore the many facets of death.

I reminiscence the times I had with my late grandmother. The repetitious tales she would say of her experience with Sino-Japanese war. The Chinese opera blasting on her TV that spell vintage. The ferrero rochers she would graciously give me when we meet.

The hardships she must have had raising me.

I still tear when I thought about the mumbling sounds she babbled in her last breaths to me.

But time itself is a dimension and overtime, pieces of her still exist in me.

My father and I grow to appreciate history and arts because of her stories and to have her kindness and patience is something I continue to aspire to.

With my intersection towards Abrahamic worlds, perhaps, to quote the Met's exhibition, my hope is to bring "heaven to earth" to bridge all that bloodshed and misunderstanding among us.

 

 

Surrender

Friday, Oct. 13, 2017 @ 9:07 p.m.

I am no stranger to mental illnesses. There were enough people that I saw, and after years of endurance and ambitions, anxiety engulfs me with its bubbles of fear.

I am still oh so fearful of relapses.

It is as if this quest to recovery endless and I can second guess the responses - my doctor would tell me to increase my dosage of medicine, my mother would pray fervently and my friends would lend an ear.

But ripples of fear and depression puncture my immune system I its daily invasions.

This time, there was no root.

Armed with only my intuitive ability to be self aware, this week long battle turn into hours of reading Psychology Today, tuning into mindfulness meditations, tearing out a helpful listener after another, but no avail.

Nightmares explode as my mind tests my worthiness in the cubicle, issues of worthlessness surface and throw words into everyone's imaginary script - your gaze is rejection, your stare is investigation and your email must be rejection.

Only to be home and burden with bubbles of exhaustion that I cannot shake off in my poisoned showers.

Oh, how I wish I knew this answer.

Or how I pray God would tap this suffering sojourn away.

Perhaps, I am so drained of love and sleep that reason and emotions cannot heal anymore but continue its ritual of reflux.

Forcefully, like a masterful dragon, I sucuumb to this slumber of unknowns and surrender.

And then the light shine after a forgetful sleep.

Perhaps, there are times to let go and not question , but to bask in this mystical serenity.

 

 

-

Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017 @ 12:27 a.m.

Power is always interesting, for we have different reactions and concepts to it.

In my younger days, I do not power, for I fear it will corrode and corrupt me.

As I age, I realize I do need a little of this substance called power to make changes. But it is always to be used with caution, for temptations are everywhere to misuse it or to think I am top of the world for it.

Perhaps the love in me is greater than power.

Or as Rumi said, we are born of love, it is our mother.

I hope what I leave one day will be love and knowledge. 

 

Thalassophile

Wednesday, Apr. 26, 2017 @ 10:07 p.m.

Countless emails have calloused me into losing my authenticity, but when my self appears, I wasn't prepare for the incredible vulnerability and emotions it have.

Maybe it is a panic attack recovery.

Or maybe it needs to be shocked into getting out of the twisted bunions and thickened callouses.

Whichever it is, let me bask in this tale of waters.

I grew up with grandparents fearful of waters. It reminded them too much for their struggles for life when they smuggled into the boats to escape Communist China and the Sino-Japanese war.

But I was never a bounded soul. The bold and adventurous strokes of Hokusai took me to the museum and I stare at a Caravaggio piece as if it is a treasure of the sea - meaningful, beautiful, addictive.

Hokusai's wave birthed many stories and like an enchanted visitor - I sniffed from Hokusai's waves to Da Vinci's sketches, dragged la familia to Michalengelo and Titan and then moaned at the boredom of Chinese calligraphy.

But water itself its another art. Drugged under waters were rituals of swimming classes. Or maybe as my mother said, I just provide challenges to any instructors with my stubborness.

But once I found the teacher who could see the free spirit - the pool is a haven. The mirage of fantasies and charmed lands. The sanctuary that grounds and frees this soul. The only place that my knee would let me. (DD here would tell you my happiness when patellafemoral syndrome meant no more runs ever again).

A long time ago, I find it difficult to describe myself. Art? Perhaps, for its infinite evolution? But I wrestle with Warhol and the oversold Asian contemporaries.

Overtime, they call me a conjurer of words, or an artist that s all about essence. Overtime, I get drained and drained as this essence soaks into others emotions and my tendrils exhausted. But water grounds me and frees me.

I am..a thalassophile - traveling across worlds, so grounded and so free.  

 

Grieving

Saturday, Mar. 04, 2017 @ 12:29 a.m.

This week was a week of losses and relapses, and it is no better than to run back to diaryland and grieve properly, when this site has chronicled the discovery of my patellafemoral problem, dipped into some dysfunctional dynamics and now...grieve.

A few years back I joked how I experienced life early when a slew of my older friends married when I was in my early 20s. Then came the divorce and remarry phase. What I did not saw coming was that 8 years later, I would be grieving over death and losses.

Perhaps it was because my grandmother's death was so expected - in her last years, she had dementia and a stroke that left us no choice but to send her into specialized care home since she could no longer eat. Then we were given a "prepare for yourselves this may happen any time" signal.

It wasn't unemotional. My grandmother has graciously raised me for 3 years and would always greet me in her serene smile as she calmed me with a toy mouse that moves. She would try to learn the alphabet as I did from kindergarten and went onto telling me heartwarming-graphic stories of her escape in the Japanese war that influenced my love of history and art profoundly.

It was difficult when we were in a long distance call, with relatives knowing that she would be gone anytime one day and she made a last gurgle before her death. The college me was in tears, for even though I had to play identities when grandmother had dementia in my teens, her gentleness and loving-kindness live on just as the toy mouse still laid somewhere.

But after a ritual of tears, I believe a part of grandmother lives in me, especially when I write another tale exploring the dilemma of race, or Asian art, for I knew who pass this love to me.

A few days ago, my counselor died. Granted, it was more a client-counselor relationship and I only saw her a few times, but she was that very mirror who confirmed my thoughts of dysfunctional families, and guided me into the art of self-care. So let me spill my narrative.

My family and students have been the inspiration and exploration of my wordpress blog for dysfunctional For beneath school uniforms and dinners, there are skeletons within, be it imagining dinosaurs in room or repressing anger.

I remembered how my counselor would assure me that despite the dysfunctions, we are inter-dependent and can thrive on our individuality.

How I saw through the dysfunction and miraculously escaped, so it is ok to see others at a different pace as it is their own lessons

How I always have a choice - and I can always make a conscious choice

How my preserved and raw emotions are gifts of dysfunction - the hurt that led me to write shows that hurt that I endure, and in that, I am made real and not emneshed

How religion can be healthy or codependent - this is much needed when I first saw others plug into church activities and become Petunias of the church. It led me to my escape from Evangelicism (we didn't work out) to Episopalian churches (bc I still believe in God)

While my parents' personalities are very different from mine, I am grateful my counselor help me dip and explore the situations I tackle through acceptance and conscious choices, and confirm me to value the oh-so-sensitive writers I met who make me one.

I know I have lost that mirror - and it breaks my heart that cancer is a killer - but I know, like my grandmother, some part of that wisdom will live in me.  

 

Drug Nation

Friday, Feb. 24, 2017 @ 9:18 p.m.

Plagued with physical injuries, a bad digestive system and now - anxiety disorder since I was a child, I once joked that I can run a fake clinic based on sheer patient experience.

What I do not understand was how addictive we have become to painkillers with physical injuries.

Every time I twist my ankle or dislocate my knee bone with patellofemoral syndrome, doctors would hand me pockets of painkillers along with my bandage or brace. It was so commonplace but I resist - convinced that if I have the potential to indulge in more than 4 painkillers easily.

The school nurse had told me to use painkillers in moderation, but I was astounded to see the coworker with Tynenol having her cubicle as a hotspot as others lined up for painkillers in headaches.

While I do not want to discredit or invalidate medicine in the west - I believe the perceptions of healing are different across cultures. The advent of science and our 9-5 lives push for medicine to cure or kill harmful cells. It definitely works, but it ignores that injecting new chemicals or agents to kill harmful cells, it leaves the body imbalanced.

The body is a powerful and delicate work that restores and heals after all. Time and time I have been told by my doctor, after a comprehensive questionnaire and diagnosis, that I may as well prepare to take that reflux medicine everyday. But I found my root cause in stress and with Chinese medicinal herbs, defy the formula.

This lifetime monitoring is no less different with mental illnesses. I was told statistics show that depression sufferers are to take their medication for life if it is a relapse, and this may well apply to me who uses anti-depressants for anxiety.

But to fill myself with chemicals and let them take over my body and mind for my life?

Or to risk bouts of emotions to be real? 

 

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