Starting as you mean to go on

-
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 is a form of meditation. My mother had a very large rosary collection too. In fact i bought her rosaries from Vatican City. Maybe I'll get myself a rosary, for the same reason. So I don't say the rosary to ask God for something to to ask for forgiveness of sins, but to fill in the space... for the meditation.

My mom used to say the rosary lots. She would go to church everyday. She doesn't do this anymore. God is everywhere she declares now, You don't have to go to church to be close to God. And whenever I get upset about something, say your prayers, she'd tell me. She'd be very happy to know I'm sure that I'm saying the Hail Maries loads.

I tidied up the house yesterday and continued to rearrange things last night when I could sleep. I looked at my list and I will give them time slots today before I head home. After I hear from them and before I head home. I was thinking of all the stupid things I did this year spending too much time in cyberspace (do people call it that anymore?) has to top the charts. I did put a few will stop doing these things in the list I copied down, but I think expressing things in a negative like - I won't do this - is stupid. If time is adequately and profitably filled you will have no time to do things which you should not be doing.

I think while I wait for them to call I will do some drawing. Of a bird, of course.

Life is so amazing, why waste it on cyberspace?

So this is probably my last entry... I don't know why I didn't blog as much this year. This is the least I have blogged apart from 2008. I think it is because I spent too much time watching TV, Netflix and on Facebook. Well, no more. That is one of the stop doing this I asked myself to do.

I love these days after Christmas and before school starts again. They are like a newly washed beach after high tide, or newly fallen snow. There is just so much, the discoveries and possibilities are endless. Everything is so quiet. It would be nice if there WAS snow. It is almost certainly the mildest and driest Christmas in my memory. I was telling Ma about the St Stephen's Day storm and how on some years when I went running there would be snow on the ground and i'd be worried about slipping and falling and breaking my leg. It is literally like mid spring now. Even the wasps are confused.

So today is like this:-

After this...
Draw, wait for call from Singapore
Do list
Do half and hour of some kind of tidying up
Head home
Go for run
Sort out lunch
Clean the house
Sort out tonight

Life, eh?

At 5 am - again my dad - getting ready to head to the airport after breakfast

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Geylang sepaku Geylang

-
Image
Geylang Serai is the place i feel most at home in Singapore. Possibly because a vast majority of the population are still Singaporean and i speak the language they speak there - Malay. Also, it hasn't changed that much. OK, it has, but i'd like to think it hasn't. We ate at the new market there which used to be a little better than an open sewer. But it was our open sewer and we loved it. Geylang was heaving with people getting ready for Ramadan. On the table we have sup kambing, otak-otak, nasi padang and rojak. Drinkswise we have lime juice, Kickapoo and teh. It is hot - really hot. We are all pespiring and we can feel our clothes stick to our skin and bellies and thighs. Our hair is continuously in our faces, dripping and sticking too. The only thing that brings relief is a soak in the pool or a shower and an airconditioned room. No wonder when the boys came back, the first thing they said was, ah, it's great to be back in th cool weather again!. Singaporeans love th...
Read more

The Central Business District

-
Image
The Thinker in the OUE building Yesterday i attended a talk which was organised by some environmentalists here. It was held in the NTUC building which was in the middle of the business district. It has been years since i have been here, so i set out early to walk about the place. Everything is very very large  I arrived during rush hour and people were simply pouring out of the MRT. The crowds were swarming down escalators and out of offices - but they were not overground. No, they were underground, at the MRT. In fact thee was no one above ground. For the business district at rush hour, above ground was eerily quiet! There must be dozen of buildings which look like these To think that hundreds of thousands of people work in places like this. I used to work in a place like this. Admittedly these buildings are far more swishy and very sleek. It was like being in some espionage film set in the future. There were rehearsals for the National Day Parade and Sarah...
Read more

19.3.26 - 74 - Eulogy: What will survive of us is love

-
Image
I wrote and read this for Pa at the service. It was in long hand, but I have it here typed out now. It is peppered with verses from the New Testament, because I was asked by the priest to refer to Jesus occasionally, so I made that concession. Big shout out to Ben and the Christian Community whom I spent many a delighted evening reading and discussing the Bible during Bible study class. =========================== Thank you everybody for coming here to honour the life of husband, father and legend which is Eric Sim Chin Seng. Pa crossed over on the 16th of March at 7.30 am. He went peacefully and gently. He breathed his way slowly past this life and on to the new one, leaving his bark, his body, which carried him and his indomitable spirit and endless capacity to love, for 81 years, to say farewell to one last time. This tribute is to you, for you, Pa, who always walked in the sacred steps of Jesus Christ and lived the best life which could be lived. Part I: John 1:14 "The word be...
Read more