Dear Mili (3) September 30, 2006

 

Continue on with Dear Mili…And the Parade outside on 2nd Avenue continues…

 

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You can imagine how the child felt at being left all alone.

 

She went deeper and deeper into the forest, the wind blew wildly in the tops of the fir trees, and when thorns took hold of her dress, she was terrified, for she thought that wild beasts had seized her in their jaws and would tear her to pieces. 

 

The woodpeckers, crows, and hawks screamed furiously, and at every step sharp stones cut her feet.  She trembled with fear, and the farther she went, the heavier grew her heart.  The sky clouded over, every trace of blue disappeared, and the storm wind buffeted the branches so hard that they cracked. 

 

In the end the dread in her heart grew so great that she could go no further, and she had to sit down.  She said to herself: "Oh, dear God, help your child to go on."

 

(later, have to run now…)

Friday / month-end blues September 29, 2006

 

I wish, just wish, sometimes the white towel can be thrown in.

Why do we need so much.

Why do we have so much pride.

Life would have been simple but we accept less.

And we gain less.

Where did it all go wrong.

Dear Mili (2) September 23, 2006

So I survived the week. And I managed to catch 99% of my deadlines. I’m proud of myself 😉

 

So here is the first 3 pages of Dear Mili after the letter prelude.

 

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There was once a widow who lived at the end of a village; all she had in the world was a little house and the garden that went with it.  Her children had died, all but one daughter, whom she loved dearly.  She was a dear, good little girl, who was always obedient and said her prayers before going to bed and in the morning when she got up.  Everything she did went well.  When she planted something in her little garden patch, a clump of violets or a sprig of rosemary, it took root so well that you could see it growing.  When danger threatened the little girl, she was always saved and the mother often thought it in her heart: My child must have a guardian angel, who goes everywhere with her, even if the angel cannot be seen.

 

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But it was not God’s will that the happy life they led together should continue, for a terrible war overran the whole country. 

 

One fine, clear day when mother and child were sitting together outside the house, a great cloud of smoke rose up in the distance and a little while later the heavens resounded with cannon fire. Shouts and tumult rent the air on all sides.

 

"Great God!" cried the mother. "What a fearful storm is coming! Dear child, how shall I save you from the wicked men!"

 

And in her great fear, she decided to send the child into the forest, where no enemy could follow. 

 

"Come," she said, putting a piece of cake left over from Sunday in the child’s pocket. "Come, child.  I will take you to the forest.  Then go straight ahead until you are quite safe; wait three days and come home; God in His mercy will show you the way."

 

She took the child to the edge of the forest, kissed her, and let her go.

 

 

(More to come, stay tuned)

Dear Mili, by Maurice Sendak (1) September 22, 2006

 

A life of endured pain and loneliness, experiences of all tastes and being a vitness to changes around you.

A brief life of sole peacefulness, satisfaction and modesty, in a perfect world without sadness. 

 

Which has a better worth?

What would you have chosen if you had been given a choice?

 

OR should we look at it this way –

How does 50 years of a full life compare to 3-day sampler of it all? 

 

Dear Mili makes you wonder what is the worth of life.

 

Like a lot of Maurice Sendak’s books – you love it as a kid, and you love it as an adult for very different reasons.

 

Dear Mili, originally a Wilhelm Grimm’s story, is like a cough drop to me.  

 

I love it for the bright cosmetic sugar coat of Sendak’s drawing it comes in.

I taste the sweetness and the bitterness.

And though it becomes hard to keep in my mouth later, it heals me somehow without me knowing it.

 

The week has been difficult for me. I have only myself to run the 5 accounts that are all active with deadlines due tomorrow.  I think I’m more nervous about the fact that I’m doing this all by myself without a backup, than the physical fatique of it all. Though both are equally wearing me down on the inside and outside.

 

I guess I need Dear Mili afterall to remind me other things in life. And see my messy and miserable work week in a different light. 

 

So I’ll share the story with you here.  This is the prelude to the story.  I’ll post bit by bit later this week.  Enjoy.

 

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Dear Mili,

 

I’m sure you have gone walking in the woods or in green meadows, and passed a clear, flowing brook.  And you’ve tossed a flower into the brook, a red one, a blue one, or a snow-white one.  It drifted away, and you followed it with your eyes as far as you could.  And it went quietly away with the little waves, farther and farther, all day long and all night too, by the light of the moon or the stars.  It didn’t need much light, for it knew the way and it didn’t get lost. 

 

When it had traveled for three days without stopping to rest, another flower came along on another brook.

 

A child like you, but far far away from here, had tossed it into a brook at the same time.  The two flowers kissed, and went their way together and stayed together until they both sank to the bottom. 

 

You have also seen a little bird flying away over the mountain in the evening.  Perhaps you thought it was going to bed; not at all, another little bird was flying over other mountains, and when all was dark on the earth, the two of them met in the last ray of sunshine. 

 

The sun shone brightly on their feathers, and as they flew back and forth in the light they told each other many things that we on the earth below could not hear. 

 

You see, the brooks and the flowers and the birds come together, but people do not; great mountains and rivers, forests and meadows, cities and villages lie in between, they have their set places and cannot be moved, and humans cannot fly. 

 

But one human heart goes out to another, undeterred by what lies between.  Thus does my heart go out to you, and though my eyes have not seen you yet, it loves you and thinks it is sitting beside you. 

 

And you say: "Tell me a story."  And it replies: "Yes, dear Mili, just listen."

 

(more to come stay tuned)

 

Black Metal – Celtic Frost September 19, 2006

I have just been to my first black metal concert last Friday and I have to say it shook me in a way I have never thought of before. The band I went to was Celtic Frost – a pioneer in many ways influencing how the Metal music scene is today. And risk-taker in nature. After 15 years they have reformed and launched a new album which I believed I’m officially fallen in love with.   The lead singer – Tom Warrior’s vocal is so majestic you just have to forget that he’s a middle aged man who doesn’t really look like he could have carried such a powerful voice. It’s just amazing. Unbelievable experience.   How many times can a person feel like a kid on a Xmas morning seeing snow and a stocking full of presents way past their 5th bday?  That’s practically how I felt when I saw them walking onto the stage in the smoke and the mysterious intro. And it was immediately replaced by raw evilness I felt like I was intrigued by curiosity, and conquered by the taste of malice.   I can only say, I have fallen.

Inertia vs Addiction September 12, 2006

 

I have never been addicted to any bad habits. But I have a serious case of self-control-deficiency (yep, stay with me, it’s not addiction.) Specifically, I have problem quitting what I am doing during a specific period of time.

 

E.g, I stayed up till late but when I sleep, I stayed sleeping for too long.

I stayed home and couldn’t pull my lazy ass out, but when I’m out, I couldn’t pick my crazy ass home. 

I can never pick up work when I am not working (even if I need to), and when I work I couldn’t stop working until insane hours.

 

All these years this problem has created much inconvenience for me as you can imagine…If it’s not addiction, what and why?

 

Addiction is an unfortunate turn of events from having a choice to a lack of choice. 

Inertia, however, really doesn’t leave a person any choice. 

 

It’s part of a natural phenomenon which in my case, exists as a defect of human nature.

And because there isn’t any decision making process in the person being caught in inertia, the person is really very much subjected to the scenarios he/she is in. 

 

The thought of it scared me when I was younger – when inertia was a major issue in my life at which my friends and family pointed to my face – "What if my obsession of being with someone was in fact a result of my inertia to make a choice, or to make a decision?"

 

Sometimes I still wonder after all these years, how many of my decisions in life are really decisions I make?

Especially when a lot of what I possess right now is strung together by what we call "Fate". 

 

Is it really fate, or is it actually me floating around, dragged by situations and stubbornly stayed on the same path becaue of inertia?

 

After all the BS, I am still taking responsibility of my action and my life. 

I may be just chickening out of my life because I don’t know if all these are actually what I really wanted to have, despite all the effort I have put in so far. 

Or maybe I am just stuck in the moment of staying up in the middle of night again, reflecting on my life again and again.

Why can’t we feel compassionate sometimes September 6, 2006

 

More precisely, why can’t we feel compassionate when we see our husband or boyfriends cry? Why can’t we feel compassionate when we see our parents cry?

 

When we should have felt all other emotions like shocked, worried, sorry, sympathetic, sad even, we have goose bumps.  And afterwards, guilt and shame.  Sometimes the shame is not  even for ourselves! Which makes it even harder to accept. 

 

Are we incapable of sharing pain and sadness for the ones that should be close to our hearts?  Is it because they represent the strength in our lives that we just simply cannot accept that they would also crumble in the face of reality?

 

I can’t even start thinking about it. There is an automatic shut down button and it’s activated by the thought of these strong people shedding tears. 

 

It horrifies me to think that there will be moments when we cry as a supervisor to someone, a mother to a child, a teacher to a student, we will never receive sympathy as well.  If we are in the same position as these people who represent strength in our lives, we are deprived of the right to be human, to be soft and weak, to be flesh and blood.

 

What does a superhero’s story mean to us all – imagine if Superman does not have a sore spot for Lois, if Spiderman is not a nobody behind his mask, if Batman does not have a tragic past – would we be able to appreciate them as much? Wouldn’t they be a 2D cardboard figure cut from the comic books? 

 

Our superheroes in life may fall behind from time to time. We have to learn to accept it and not to fear it. 

 

Oh well, easy to say.