Me: What would you like to have? There are so many places we can eat!

E: I want to eat food, not places.

Me: !!

Being bald was liberating

Last year, we actually shaved off all my hair in late July/August. I did it in memory of my mentor who passed away from cancer. A year after her death and I was still feeling bereft and lost, and shaving my head in conjunction with the cancer awareness drive was something I’d always wanted to do for her but had been prevented because she was concerned about me suffering repercussions in the work place. It was actually fun being mostly bald, and it helped me to find a very creative part of me that was just bursting to be out and about. I got to learn interesting things about myself, about how much of my idea of myself was tied to the way I look — as well as how much hair fall contributes to the pace of things getting dirty and dusty around the house. It was enjoyable, getting to watch my hair grow back and to marvel at the pace, the thickness, everything. It wasn’t, however much I hoped, a solution for the white hairs that have started to show. In fact, it seemed as though the whites were growing faster than the blacks and would stand out, loud, proud and shining silver on my head, almost daring me to try and pluck them out.

Shaggy at CNY

I also had the chance to talk to many people who were curious about my reasons, even if I disagreed with their assessment that shaving off my locks constituted an act of bravery. It was an event of great hilarity for both E and me. He was concerned that I might regret the big change and was shaving my hair off from the bottom up so that the top layers would still be available to provide some cover if I chickened out halfway. Up to the point when all that was left was one tiny clump at the top of my head that made me looked like some kind of mad samurai, he was still asking me Are you sure? We can stop now if you like… That had me falling about laughing and telling him to just shave it all off already! In the last six or seven months, my hair was growing out pretty evenly. I had first made lots of hats to keep my head warm and to simply enjoy being able to wear hats in Singapore without feeling like I was baking my brain to a turn. By Chinese New Year two weeks ago, it was actually quite evenly grown and, while a bit shaggy, reasonably decent.

Tamm-Bobbed

But the truth was, the time has come for a change. Or at the very least, a trim. I asked E to snip off the back to make it level, and requested a kind of concave shaped bob style. He did his best. I also asked that he snip under the top layer to thin down my hair a little because it’s very thick and gets very warm. I think I still look a little shaggy. The concave didn’t quite work out and looks a bit more like a triangular gap in the back of my head, but it’s something I can live with. E thinks it’s cute, and so long as small animals don’t start using it as a place to hide from the rain, that’s good enough for me.

The 'concave' LOL

I can’t wait till my hair grows out proper and I have something to take to the hair dresser. I can’t decide if I want to go all the way back to having long hair or to just maintain a proper concave bob style (like I had at my wedding) when my hair gets to the right length. After the trim today, I have at least a couple of months to mull it over a bit more.

Since I’ve changed jobs and and now full-time doing tuition and enrichment classes, it meant that my Valentine’s evening was going to be spent with students and not my husband. E’s not the kind to mind, and we agreed that we would have our own special celebration the whole day on Wednesday when it’s my day off. I prefer that anyway, because I think that Valentine’s has become too commercialized. It’s too good an opportunity for retailers to pass up, because everyone wants to make it ‘special’ for someone, and not everyone has the time to make something. In the last few years, I think I became a little bit jaded and cynical about it because of all the lead-up you get in commercials, and shop assistants hawking the occasion as part of a sales tactic. And even now, with someone really special to be grateful for and to share the occasion with, there is a part of me that wants to eschew the entire thing because it shouldn’t be just about the one day in the year — if love and appreciation, affirmation and giving are not already part of the every day experience of the relationship, that one day isn’t going to make up for it.

When I got home from work, I found out that E had decided to get me a little something to commemorate the day anyway, and I felt terrible because I hadn’t had the time to put together what I had in mind.

Fortunately, I’m a quick worker. Having an idea in mind of what I wanted to do only helped make things go more quickly. I did manage to make E a Valentine in the end, and I finished the other half of it just this morning.

Carry me in your heart, knowing that I carry you too in mine.

What was the most precious to me about our night (what we had left of it) was what we talked about. That we took time to affirm our amazement and gratitude at having been given this chance to experience life together. That things happened so quickly and took us by surprise in 2009 hasn’t been at all a cause for any kind of hesitancy or regret now. More than anything, for us both this relationship has been truly a journey of learning about what love, communication, trust, givingness, connection, unity, support and awe really are, and that all these things and more are possible to have right here and now.  That we do this regularly only made it all the more meaningful because it really feels like what we have is Valentine’s every day.

If I thought last year had passed in a jiffy, it seems that this year it’s even more the case. In fact, it’s gone by and keeps going by so fast that Eric and I even missed lighting our Advent candle this year. Ironically, we’d been talking about doing it and setting up for it and all that only to miss it.

Thank goodness that in some parts of the world it’s still yesterday. It’s cheating, but we agree that it’s the thought that counts and so here we are, all pretty and bright and ready. According to Hawaiian time, we’re punctual. lol.

So, what are our big plans for this Christmas?

As usual, we have lots of ideas of what we would like to do, but time, money, etc. will be a factor. Right about now, I don’t really feel in the mood to mobilize my lazy butt yet. Eric did dig out our box labelled ‘Christmas Tree and Decorations’, but that’s sitting with an air of pregnant anticipation in the corner that we’ve cleared for the tree.

And given that that‘s all that’s sitting pregnantly around the house at the moment, I guess our plans to have a great-grandchild all gift-wrapped and excited for my grandma are going to have to be shelved this year. We’ve not even started on the Christmas Stollen yet, much less put any other bread in the oven. Eric did say that we should prepare a loaf in the breadmaker today if we intend to have bread for breakfast tomorrow.

SO much to do, so little time…

brand; one to feed our sourdough pet

– two weeks old and counting birthdays

by the hour — the other and both

to feed us, when we feel we need to

knead ourselves another loaf,

another life), chocolate chips only semi-sweet

and not costing more than three dollars and cents

forty-five, and — since, in an illusion of life,

we just had our Sunday-roast dinner on Monday –

milk (there is only one brand), because already

(from feeding no babies) we are

running out.

If I could do it all, with a rooftop candlelit dinner, discrete violinist included, and fireworks. In some suitably romantic and exotic and meaningful location. Like Bali.

But even though this is a little out of my league at the moment — when you’re working flexi-adjunct, you have to adjust to the fact that there are things which are a bit beyond you. Or you can choose to live in Lala-land. Which would eventually lose you the flexi-adjunct position because no one really wants to hire someone who isn’t all there. Reality it is then. — the occasion is no less special and meaningful, and the most important thing at the end of it all is to spend it together.

What am I talking about? A year ago tomorrow was the day that changed our lives as we knew it.

Actually, that’s wrong. The day that changed our lives as we knew it was the 17th of December when we met for the first time, quite by chance, at Changi Airport Terminal 3. There are things about that day that I will never forget.

Like bouncing up and down in the passageways as we were walking because I was so nervous that the energy had to come out somewhere, all the while thinking: Oh my god, he’s going to think I’m such a rinky-dink character — how do I stop bloody bouncing about in this undignified way??

A year ago today marks the second time we met, not by chance (but it was in the end almost a last-minute sort of thing) this time, the day that we both decided to do something, that something needed to be done about what we had found in each other.

Obviously, at the first meeting, we had already made some preliminary decisions about approaching each other, and having conversation with each other, how much to share with each other as new acquaintances and so forth. And we had also both made the decision to have some kind of follow-up to that because we made the effort to stay in touch and chat online when the opportunity presented itself and to find out more about each other. But the thing is, right then, we both felt and thought as adults: it’s too crazy to run away with this right now. It’s only been two hours that we have spent getting to know each other. No matter how hard the parting was — we stood there a long time at the terminal with our hands clasped in a handshake, trying to say goodbye, and E told me later that he was literally the last person to board the plane, that they were waiting just for him to board before taking off — it wasn’t reasonable. Or so we thought. Today we wonder if perhaps we had already fallen in love with each other but were unable to call it that because ‘reason’ said that it couldn’t be possible.

Whatever it may have been, whether we loved each other from that first meeting of our eyes as I walked past where he sat on a bench in front of Cheers or whether it was later that the chemistry sealed itself with love, without the second physical meet-up, after we’d both had some time to get to know each other away from the buzz of the physical chemistry of the actual presence of the person, it was important to get that sense of each other again in a more direct way.

As I was just saying to E this morning as we lay in bed reminiscing: A year ago today, at this time in the morning, my life was completely different.

Up till a year ago today, everything in my life has been different because right up till then we were still living our lives entirely separate from each other. And it is still amazing how much has changed and how easy it has been to change because, simply, it was the right and, in some ways, the only thing that we could do. There was no way that after a year ago today that we would have turned our backs on what we had found and said that something else was more crucial. The miracle is that we both felt and thought exactly the same thing at that same time, that this — what we had found with each other — was something we could not walk away from, not a second time.

Loving E and being loved by him has been such a different experience for me. I felt that from that night on year ago today, through when E moved to Singapore to be with me, through till when we decided that we wanted to get married and nothing was going to change that, through our wedding day on the 9th of September last year, through our first Christmas, our first New Year’s, our first Chinese New Year’s, and right up to today — one year from when it kicked off. I feel so fortunate and blessed to have the chance to experience the beauty of the human connection in such a way with another individual. It’s breath-taking, beyond words (which is why the blog post keeps growing — none of these words are enough to describe the width and depth of what I feel).

I wrote a song for our wedding but never sang it because I chickened out of performing it in public. I wanted to attach the recording of it to my blog but it’s not working, somehow. So, I thought I’d add the lyrics first and then see if there is another way for the audio to be added.

Here it is:

Cos It’s Love (Cos It’s You)

Sometimes, there is no need

To know each other forever

Sometimes, there is no need

For words or songs or whatever

When I look into your eyes I know

I’d say the love is real

When I look into my heart, it glows

I know that’s what I feel

Cos it’s love, just for you

Really love, pure and true

And there is no more need to hide

The real you safe on the inside

Cos it’s love, Cos it’s you.

Sometimes when I would dream

What I dreamed I dared not believe

Before when I would dream

Tried to keep my heart on my sleeve

What’s between us makes my heart stop

What’s right before my eyes

Suddenly your love like a shock

Not just a dream or a lie.

Cos it’s love, just for you

Really love, shared with you

And there is no more need to hide

The real you safe on the inside

Cos it’s love, Cos it’s you.

Before sometimes I’d pray

Wishing my heart would find its way

Before oh how hard i’d pray

For my heart to stay unafraid

For my heart to stay patient and strong

To weather all pain and storms

To my heart it feels oh so long

That it’s felt lost and alone

Now it’s love just for you

Now there’s love shared with you

Now there is no need to hide

The real me safe on the inside

Cos it’s love

Cos it’s you

Cos it’s love

Just for you.

I think I’m still not used to the idea of living with someone who is affected by the course of the rhythms of my day.

I know, it’s a pretty obvious thing: You’re living together, woman! What do you expect?

And it’s not like I’m a stranger to how vibes in the house can have pretty high impacts on the collective subconsciousness of the denizens in the dwelling. But I guess for a while I numbed myself out to them because my focus was outwards, to my life away from home, as a kind of survival of my sanity technique.

Now, it’s different. Now I have someone who, in part, measures the success of his day by the levels of my obvious joy.

Wow.

What is doubly amazing is that E, being the man that he is, didn’t say so because he places any kind of expectation or responsibility on me whatsoever for the quality of his day. In needy / co-dependent relationships, there is some attachment to the other person in terms of the degree to which they are made accountable for our states and our experiences. With E, I know I am safe from anything like this. It is something he does very well — to know what is part of him and what is not, and making a conscious choice about what affects him.

That’s a lesson I have yet to learn well. But I believe that he’s the right one to teach me.

It was very satisfying. Then again, I think that having breakfast together, no matter what comprises the actual food we partake in, is important. It gives us time to enjoy each other’s company, to nourish each other when we feed each other little tidbits off our own plates, and to talk about … well, anything. It could be about how we’re going to spend the day (today’s our off day), or about groceries (we’re running out of milk and all we have in the fridge to cook for dinner now is two types of spinach and some old ginger root), or about what we dreamt (ok, it’s usually me telling E about this because I have crazy dreams, but recently he’s been catching up with his own nocturnal visions), or about anything else that we can think of.

It’s a great way to start the day. Especially when it’s not my turn to make the breakfast. Even if E’s enthusiasm for preparing a good breakfast for us tends to spread around the stove top a little more, it doesn’t matter because I know what he does, he does because he wants the meal to be as perfect as possible for us.

I can have seconds of that, I believe. Thirds, if there’s any available. For the rest of my life.

around civilization. People jostle

for a moment of space, a speck

of breath in this travelling icebox.

My knees are cold and I think

of the yogurt (two tubs) and cheese (three

types) I had you tell me to buy. A man

(very big), sweating

like yesterday in the heat of tomorrow, stands

and stares.

He will make the dinner but

his mouth hurts. He will make the dinner where

the other mouths hurt.

Chewing gum makes it worse. He spits

on me. Deliberately, and

thinking about waking lonely daffodils,

I spit back.

And miss.

but I can sense your luv here,

or is it the cake?

Ur always with me,

Ur in my heart and my soul!

With or without cake!

Now it’s breakfast time!

It’s not so pleasant alone,

But there is some cake! :-p

(These were sent to me on 1 March 2010, at 10:06 am)