Almost a New Year

It's 8:20pm of the 31st of Dec 2010 and the home rotisseried chicken chicken has been polished off, all the dishes cleaned up and the parents and relatives settled on the mahjong table.

I'm holed up in my room not too concerned about the parties that will be in full swing shortly,

quite a change for someone who had a hard time staying still in an MRI machine.

My mind travels to snippets of the journey that preceded this moment.

Forays through the scenes of a life lived before this year: entire mountains made of coloured pebbles, endless salt plains and the flamingoes that lived there, piranha-infested Amazonian tributaries, rainforests brimming with strange and wonderful creatures, and the edge of a continent where the desert plummeted into the ocean.

"Did you find what you were looking for?" Mom asked when I got home from that trip.

I must have made up an answer to cover the effort such a trip entailed, because I knew I hadn't.

A year ago this day I was on Cockatoo island watching fireworks shoot off the Harbour Bridge in Sydney, trying to placate a tinge of emptiness that insisted on prevailing despite of all the beauty I had experienced and people I'd met.

This year's activities for NYE are slightly less glamourous, blogging in front of my computer, yet enjoyed with infinitely more peace,

for somehow along the way, my journey led me to the turbulent sands of Australia, where while freezing in a brick and zinc shed at the back of someone's garden, I lay sprawled out on a pink yoga mat snuggled as close to a heating lamp as was safe, and in a lingering depression read the words of an ancient book that I didn't always understand but was convince held the keys to what I needed.

Not that I'd never read that book before, but that night while feeding on printed words, I felt a peaceful presence settle over the shed, listening to every word and cry over matters that probably weren't even true, yet comforting and loving me all the same.

Whatever happened that night, I can't put into words, all I know is that where there used to be incessant clamour in my mind, there is now peace and silence.

The clique I kept hearing and had been most cynical about must have been true -

Peace and love are a person, and His name is Yahweh.

And after you've met Him, you're never quite the same again.

Here's to the best year ever.

Naughty or Nice?

Kamut flour pineapple tarts

Sprouted millet & chia bread

Sprouted bread + homemade cashew
butter & raspberry jam

This holiday mom and I got an electric oven, which brought on a rampage of treats long over due for lack of a functioning baking appliance.

A little piece of heaven

Today we had fusion food, yt, mr c and I.

3 lonely meatballs and a pizza at Da paolo pizza bar

followed by.. my favourite food moment of my trip so far,

one kosong and one egg prata at the holland village corner kopi tiam.

It felt just like our Fong Seng days

"Remember the time when we only had pagers?"

yes, and then there was a time when we didn't even have pagers.

Had it really been 10 years of autocad, crazy schedules, ice milos and roti prata?

It's good to know that nothing had really changed, even if a lot had.

SGD$5.50 can buy quite a lot of bliss, when you are rich enough to have friends to share a decade of food and memories with.

On the last day of my 20s

I won't be ashamed to admit I spent most of this afternoon crying
Blame it on clearing my sms inbox and chancing upon an old text message from the heart of a former relationship
in addition to a series of careless messages the night before from a friend who was too sleepy to pay any attention to what he was saying.

I don't usually cry these days, except when I'm overwhelmed by the love of God
but today a deep pain stabbed a carefully lived out life.

I never really expect to be crossing into my 30s without anyone significant by my side.
I'm deeply grateful for my friends and my parents for standing next to me,
but with an evil comparing glance around me revealing friends in various stages of attending pre marriage classes or buying HDB flats or comparing strollers,
I vaguely felt what I'm sure everyone has felt at one point of time or another...
that I missed the boat somewhere along the line.

As much as I'd never thought I'd live this long without meeting a suitable candidate
I'd also never thought I'd have gone quite so far away from home,
lived in as many different cities as I have or seen the things I've seen or experienced what the last 6 years has rolled along.
I guess you have one or the other... and I doubt I would have given up my lot of life for a fleeting chance of HDB flat right this year.

A quick glance at my new ID photo pacifies my panic slightly, at least I don't really look 30 yet, sometimes...
and a quick look at 1 Corinthians 2:9 puts the finishing touches to quelling the storm
No eye has seen,
no ear has heard,
no mind has conceived
what God has prepared for those who love him

I'm going to be believing for good things this year.
come on 30, bring it on.

acclimatization

There are 4 climates that one tends to encounter in Singapore
1. Hot and humid
2. Hot and rainy
3. Airconditioned + wet from being sweaty
4. Airconditioned + wet from being drenched from rain
The former 2 being predominantly macro climates while the second 2, micro ones depending on an individual's lifestyle.

Today it was a cross between 1. and 3. as I trudged to the train station in jeans, well aware that the air conditioning in my destination would get to me otherwise.
Fortunately, I've since learned that emitting sweat up to a certain level does not lead to a stink, after it dries, as I restrained my pace to maintain a low sweat emission. One does not want to be too offensive in a train packed with passengers even at 8:35am on a Sunday.

Simply the luckiest girl on Earth...

Not to brag, but in absolute gratitude
For all that's happened, and what's in store.
9 days closer to a new decade and I mused... at how full life had been to date. You mean there's more in store? SICK! God is just too good, and I see it displayed everytime a friend pulls me out of a hapless coding mess... or some other stomach unsettling situation is somehow redeemed. Or in the moments of absolute acceptance, as His precious beloved.

I used to feel sad that I didn't know where to call home. Singapore certainly didn't feel like it. Now I realize what a blessing it is to be able to call so many places in the world home.

The other night, i literally felt 2 prods in my heart. I don't know exactly what I was thinking or praying at the time, but I figured that those must have been the seeds of love which I'd read about in Hinds Feet on High Places. Where this life goes I don't know, but I know it's going to be good, because surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, if those prods were anything to be believed. Grow little seeds.. grow.

Sitting by the window of a flight bound for Singapore from Hong Kong there are a million things on my mind. Maybe just a hundred, but a hundred have the ability to expand to a million relatively quickly.

How things ended up this way. One one way air ticket to Pittsburgh, one from Pittsburgh to San Francisco, one from San Francisco to Nassau and then a whole host of others eventually making there way back to Singapore.

The journey back was bumpy, with the landing in Singapore being the bumpiest of all. There was the heat, and the curious comments at the market, the painful feeling that home did not feel like home at all and the desperation to find a place to belong.

Have you found that yet? I don’t know, but jumping around Asia has been an eye opener of sorts, one that makes you appreciate home for what it is. The truth is that we could be absolutely anywhere on this Earth and God has numbered our days here and our locations. From whom much is given much is expected and I do not intend to let you down.

For the future, a way to travel the world without worrying. Why travel? Because few things bring the same amount of liberation. A sense of freedom, as seen from the ground up. Bumping around on a tuk tuk, or on a 24 hour bus ride from Salta back to Bueanos Aires. Feeling free. Arms spread wide open, heart ready to sing.

In the past, a journal set to print of the places I have been to, and the people I’ve met.

Adventures on the road from

Maui

Bolivia

Chile

Argentina,

Brazil

Bahamas

Cuba

Peru

Australia

Panama

Costa Rica

For the mishaps, I am sure glad I did it. Because though my bank account is smaller, my experiences are a tad richer.

The worst hostel this trip… maybe the one in Costa Rica where the whole room started smelling like bathroom

The worst blooper… A tie between a $2300 one way air ticket or the kid who tagged along the trip lying all the way.

And as I make my way back from Hong Kong over the pacific and watch little cotton candy puffs of cloud over a baby blue sea, I am starting to understand that luxury can be overwhelming especially when enjoyed alone and that it really is not important where you eat at, but who you are eating with.