Shiva's and Metta's Mother's Sutra

All the grandchildren The three youngest Well, I'm still waiting for them to get off the plane and let me know they're ok. It will be 6 pm by now in Singapore and they should have touched down. I have planned my year, well the things I'm going to try and do and it does look daunting, but at least I have set the points on the compass and I'm good to go. I had eggs and bread for breakfast. I made coffee. I have drunk at least four glasses of water. And after this I'm going to organise one cupboard in the kitchen, probably the tea and jam cupboard above the stove. There is actually a whole cupboard full of tupperware. I think maybe I'll do that first. My new year's resolution re plastic is to use one single use plastic daily - as opposed to x amount of single use plastic. I'll let you know how I get on then. I have literally put every single thing in the list into my daily schedule and into my six month journal. Things are good, really good...

My dad took so many photos of the cars leaving the house... We have not figured out why yet, but I thought that I'd post them Here is the last photo he had taken - this was of my sister and her family heading for the airport I fell asleep at 3 am last night. Instead of just feeling empty and missing everyone I decided I was going to say the Hail Mary instead... oh and the Our Father. I said many many of these I can tell you. There was something comforting in saying them and I did the Catholic thing - which was ten Hail Marys to one Our Father. I can tell you it was sods better than feeling the emptiness that had been left by everyone having gone. I fell asleep and it felt comforting to have something to say. Something to fill in the blanks. Of course I never did this because... I was an aethist, but I remember, weirdly my dad telling me when we were very small, when I asked why people said the rosary, he said, it is like a form of meditation. And he is absolutely right - it...

That is the number of posts I hope to see next year... at the end of the year. Nothing says the end of the year like a list of things to promise to do next year. When I look at the list it is more or less the same things I promised myself this year, but it appears that maybe I imagine that I will be able to do them better next year.... why is that? Some of these things I already do. I am now sitting alone, after six weeks of having family here. I think the most important thing that took place during this visit, took place right at the end of it. I have accepted many things, and also realised many things. And that's ok. I'm gonna journal now...and write down my list in my diary and plan my year...

Cos everyday's a good day. Sure it is. So here are my New Year's Resolutions. Yes, go on. Lol. Everyday 1. Blog and journal 2. Run / swim  3. Do housework for half an hour  4. Play the piano  5. Draw  6. Drink lots of water  7. Read a piece of fiction  8. Facetime Ma 9. Write 10. Use only ONE piece of single use plastic 11. Feed birds 12. Spend only one hour in cybespace Every week 1. Go walking somewhere 2. Learn a new woodland craft 3. Knit / do soft craft 4. Make bread 5. Do one piece of DIY 6. Garden 7. Clean out a drawer/ cupboard Month 1. Send a parcel to a friend 2. See a good film 3. Dance 4. Discover a new piece of music 5. Write a REAL letter and post it 6. Bake or make a new dish I have never made before Every quarter 1. Host a dinner party 2. Go to a place I have never been before hAPPY nEW yEAR Y'ALL

Jac and me It has been a thoroughly emotional time for me. With my family over. Here is a picture of myself and Jac when she was probably six months old. She looks so happy and I am the proud, protective sister. Except I don't think I ever fulfilled that promise. Of protecting her. I look at her happy little, open face and regret that I wasn't able to properly do my duty as an older sister to look after her enough. And yet, as I flip the other pictures, it would appear that we were very close.

It is the end of the year and the end of the holidays. Many milestones were reached. Many realisations encountered. Many obstacles surmounted. Many lessons learnt. I have had to take a hard look at myself and think about my own behaviour. My reactions to things. I am still trying to understand what it means to be the best person I can be. I began to write in my own journal, the paper one. And this is always a good idea. Stupid things which run through my head are put down on paper and I get them out of the way. I process ideas which maybe weren't such a good idea but seemed like a good idea, I just throw things about. And then when it is done, it is done. But what I understood was, who can tell the future, that is what I came to at the end. Who can tell the future? No one, and therefore we can only live in the present and try our very best. I think my big take away from this visit has been to not be upset when people upset you. Even if it means having to take a hit. Because...

Taken on the 21st There is nothing more I could ever want Many, many years ago, I began this blog. I was 36 when I began this. So much has taken place since. I spent the evening with really good friends. I never thought that such a connection could exist, but somehow, without me noticing it was built, it was created. Threads which have found their way to weave.

We were at the Dark Hedges today. It is a fifth of a mile of beeches which were planted about two hundred years ago. That would be my family - my Singaporean family. My sister and her family, my parents and Ghin. And myself. Oisin was in school. We had just finished school. The title for this blog came from me thinking back on things and realising that I never had the need ever to complain about my life. In fact, I am one of the lucky ones and I am grateful for that. I know I say it over and over again in this blog, but it is because I can forget it from time to time. I honestly don't know what is wrong with me. Everything is so complete - when I am happy I am completely happy and when I am miserable I am completely miserable. Take for instance looking at the moon tonight - I remember how miserable I was when it was last full - and now nothing has changed really and I'm fine with it now. I don't know why I can't ask for things nicely. Why do I have to always feel mi...

I am the ghost who stands at the top of the stairs. Being a ghost I see everyone and no one sees me. What are ghosts, really? What are we? Echoes, imprints, parts of selves which have gone out of time. Parts of ourselves which need to be forgiven. And so we still linger. And wait. For that benediction which will never come because those who would have forgiven us have forgotten us. They have gone on, their pieces united, as a whole, have disappeared into the cosmos. We have been left here, to eavesdrop on the mistakes, the same mistakes, made by the living. Unable to warn them, only able to silently witness. From my vantage point here, I watch the people who live here come and go. I catch fragments of things. It is like being on an old wireless whose signal goes in and out, like the tide, I hear little bits of conversation and then, it goes. I see things, in the tight frame of the stairwell. Usually it is people walking past, going from one room to the next. No one really stays in a ...

Here is Ghin reading the poem by Steiner about the second light of Advent Our simple Advent table I am writing cos I just want an entry in the blog. It has been a good couple of days and I'll take that after the last three weeks being pretty shite. I have learned a lot about myself over the last three weeks. Firstly, that not everyone likes me. That's ok cos not everyone has never liked me. Secondly, I am not always right. But also at the same time, I am mostly right. Thirdly, I have all the time I will ever need in the world. Yesterday I did some serious adulting. I got oil ordered, finally got my MOT booked and did financy type things. Well i am now headed to home to clean up my own house. It has been so strange these past few weeks. It has been like being in a limbo. I actually think that there is so much going on right now that I have nowhere to put all of it. Tomorrow is Friday and all I can think about is getting through the next week. This time next week.....

As far as I'm concerned, after the school Advent festival is over, that's me done for Christmas. Come on, step right up and own a snowman The fever dream that is the Advent Festival and all the attendant activity that surrounds it leading both up to it and watching it depart. For instance, now that Christmas is earlier it is endless the run up to the entire thing. Thankfully though we seem to reach blow out point early - i.e. by the second week of December and everything after that is small beans. A friend recently shared this photo... Winter solstice And followed it by this write up... The winter solstice time is no longer celebrated as it once was, with the understanding that this is a period of descent and rest, of going within our homes, within ourselves and taking in all that we have been through, all that has passed in this full year which is coming to a close... like nature and the animal kingdom around us, this time of hibernation is so necessa...

The thing about growing older is that you are pretty, well I feel like I am, much in uncharted territory. I am gonna try and make sense of this now. This is complicated by many, many things. But it all has to do with narrative. First, I have never understood what it means to 'act my age'. Never. This is mostly because I have never played by any rules - whatever they may be. I never learnt them because whenever I saw any evidence of them, it was mostly awful. So I never bothered finding out how a woman, of a certain age, with certain roles should behave. This was also of course because I discovered feminism when I was young, and also having outsider status, even in Singapore, as a Chinese person who spoke no Chinese, certainly makes you question everything that is thrown at you. I suppose being a post feminist, post colonial subject, born in the richest time of Earth's history means that this was inevitable. Not acting your age though is ok when you are before 50 - you...

Love this quote Well... I was looking at the number of entries in my blog this year and it is the second lowest entry I have done since I began 11 years ago. - 12 if you include 2007. It is probably no coincidence that it was a tough year for me because of the Class being in Class Six - a tough year for anyone really. Both the students and the teacher and parent. It was hard going, but we are now over it. And also... this year has been a weird year. It was probably the year when I realised I was proper old - as in proper exhausted and a bit fed up and wondering why everything was so hard. Also not unrelated, was not writing enough - it is a vicious circle. Don't write enough, feel low, feel low, don't write enough. For instance, today, I caught myself feeling the end of the year's melancholia, and I have to do this to myself now, REMIND myself of how lucky I am to have friends I love and family who love me around me. It is sometimes like trying to steer a boat and fi...

Phew! That moon passed. What the fuck was that? Today we drove to Island Magee, my mom, dad and Aurelia. It was December weather, wet and cold and moody. The skies filled with a sulphuric tint, which made it feel very wintery. It is hard not to think about the lives which we might have led in weather like this, but also walking along the short but perfectly formed strand in Port Muck with my niece, it was also hard not to think about how perfect life is. We then went shopping in Sainsbury's where we, once again, bought too much... I've suddenly remembered what I wanted to write. About four days ago, I wrote something which was about refinding my direction. Sometimes when life gets too too much, I begin to feel like I am drowning, which I what it totally felt like... and so I decided to take time off to rethink life. I have done this before, just clearing all decks even though I have had too much to do. This window of opportunity arrived when I was in the Volvo car showroo...

Some days it is just about putting one foot in front of the other. I am now wondering, if, as you go older, the wonder starts to wear off. I think I am slowly becoming an old cranky person. For a start, I think that maybe I don't know if I really like meeting new people. I wonder if at some point in your life, in my life, it gets to be, actually, I don't need to know any more new people. Which makes me think, why do we want to meet new people...? I don't know, I think I'm just being temporarily cranky. My feet are killing me. We walked 10 miles today. It was a really beautiful day. It didn't feel like end November at all. So many many thoughts. First thoughts are, all the ink and education and the noise and the interconnectivity and the result is a more fractured and damaged world. I have never been so depressed about the state of the world. The self importance as well. The self importance of the people who have more or less created the mess who then say to ...

Today I don't know what to blog about. Ghin was very tired yesterday so I sent him to bed early. So he was in bed tossing and turning and I decided to read him The Odyssey. Having read the TE Lawrence translation I thought that the Ithaca one which I had been reading to him, meant for younger children, was rubbish. Why do they have to modernise it? It is clear that the woman in the story are the inspiration and the make characters are the action. It is OK. You don't have to create a made up female character for Telemachus to fall in love with. Also, the PCness was annoying. Look, The Odyssey takes place in Ancient Greece. They weren't white, nor were they black - they were Greek which means that they were very much darker European and probably quite mixed given all that toing and froing on the Med. Anyway, I decided to read that to him. All was going well, except for the fact that I can't see anything cos I didn't have my reading glasses on, when I stumble upon t...

At Hugh's in Newcastle On going for a trip with my family now is not unlike sitting down to watch your favourit comedy, although now you are part of that comedy. We headed to Newcastle yesterday which entailed doing lots of things outside our usual routine - cue comedy. It is all the unplanned things, isn't it? And I think that being a teacher has equipped me with a massive sense of humour. If something is going not the way you planned, you have gotta laugh. The best part though is now having my niece here with us. Ghin was away and Oisin was working all day so, with the semi good weather I thought, a drive. My dad loves a drive. Eating out It is winter, fire place I have come to really like Newcastle. When I first encountered it I thought it was much like a different kind of Bundoran. I dunno maybe Bundoran is changed now? Anyhow, it was mostly amusements and what appeared to be a very VERY cold Warm Bathing Pools. However, it seems to have really come into ...

Yer body Recently I was speaking to a thrice more experienced Steiner teacher. I can only imagine what her eyes have seen. It is like speaking to a Grand Master, and a real one, not some made up shite. I said to her, Steiner was a genius. I know, she said, I know. And why did I say this? Because Steiner had insight into a human being which seems to have gone beyond human comprehension. The way Einstein said he saw the formula for energy in a shower, on a beam of light, Steiner too had these multiple insights into the human condition. The thing which really got me was how much the children of my class had transformed from last year. The curriculum is supposed to address the child's development phase. Each year they learn about a mythic system, a natural science, music, later on science, history, etc which speaks to them. It is never too intellectual nor abstract - so it lives in them, it warms their soul. Take our physiognomy lesson for instance. Why do we not do it earlie...

Really, the UK government, almost certainly a country in decline. If it was a person, it would be signing its suicide note and placing the gun in its mouth. Why oh why have they decided to do this to themselves? Are they so stuck on some bizarre vainglorious past that they are willing to overlook reality and just reverse off the face of a cliff. Honestly, they are. I can understand you being critical of the EU, but it is the best chance we have right now. I also agree that the EU is the architect of its own fate, but seriously, it is the fate of the neoliberals and how they decided to ignore the obvious - that people are not machines and the economy shouldn't be about money. It is a common mistake made all across the world, sometime in the 80s. I think that when we look back, especially to the 80s, we will realise the spectacular mistake which we made vis a vis two things - the economy and education. Two things took place at the same time. Which has one thing at its base - the me...

It was very weird yesterday. I met a friend whom I hadn't met for a very very long time and I managed to antagonise him. How did I do that? By QUESTIONING whether what he said, about not abandoning anyone was true. It began with Bhudda. I said, I have never been able to get past how Bhudda abandoned his family and newly born son. Never. We were talking about trauma. Then he said, well, I have never abandoned anyone. I said, really, have you never? Who have I abandoned, he asked. Not wanting to be confrontational, I smiled sweetly and said, well, no one that I know of. Whew! He replied, I have never made a commitment, so I have never abandoned anyone.  I managed to not say 'exactly'. It is a great trick isn't it? Not abandoning anyone since you never made a commitment.  I wonder what it is about people who never make commitments. What is that? Are they afraid of failure? Are they afraid of how much they may be made to compromise? Are they afraid of what exactly? O...