A Cauldron of Deuce

An avid fan of Justine Henin once shared her secret in keeping her heart beat at normal rate during intense tennis match involving Ms Henin (who else?) in which she would brew a cauldron of green tea and gulped it down until the last drop between the terrifying moments of double faults and unforced errors.

But as I made a plan to shop for a cauldron at nearby hypermarket, the queen who possesses the best one-handed backhand in women’s tennis announced her shock retirement and so the cauldron was purchased by an unidentified witch to replace her broken one.

Then, before I knew it, 18 months passed by and the female version of Roger Federer was in the women’s final of 2010 Australian Open against the world number one, Serena Williams. How I wished I’d had bought the cauldron.

By the way, congratulations to Ms Williams. Of course, she’s the best player at the moment and she has proved it in today’s final. Now, off to tomorrow’s men’s final and I think British tennis will have to wait for another 150,000 years with Federer’s victory.

You know, the problem with athletes is that we can never leave them alone. So we burden them with great hopes and missions. We cheer and even cry for them. All for nothing–so one of my baffled friends made her remark.

Well, actually, I do quite agree with her. If money is everything. We all have our reasons and I don’t want to bore you with all the great-things-we-can-learn-from-athletes self-confessions but as I screamed at the top of my lung for the victory of Ms Henin (for seven years already), I realized that it’s all about acceptance. When you declare your undying support for some known strangers, you learn to accept that people can never be the way you want them to be. It’s as simple as that. Of course, I did want Justine to win but then, there was nothing that I could do to change the way she played (or Serena’s for that matter) so basically I just gritted my teeth and applauded both players’ great shot. Hey, that is one coward form of simplifying life, you may think, but it’s actually a very good practice, I tell you.

If only I could walk the talk… *sigh* so I switched the channel and watched the Dubai Masters on Golf Channel and even though I thought I’d rather watched the paint dry, the green scenery was a great change from the depressing blue plexicushion court to uplift my mood for a while. And I thought of Tiger Woods. Contrary to popular female’s belief of faithfulness in marriage, I found myself on his side. If you’ve ever been in any form of addiction, you will definitely understand his situation, I believe. At least he yielded to his addiction by finding other women instead of turning his wife into a sex slave or defaming her in public for her ‘failure’ to satisfy him like some horrendous local sportsmen here.

Where are all the true gentlemen? I wonder.

I guess, the next time I watch Justine Henin plays, I shall just grab the car keys and drive to the nearest teahouse (Penang, anyone?). But maybe not–as Beatrice Hohenegger warned those who love to put milk in tea to leave the green tea alone–lest the wrath of the tea gods should descend upon (me) for disturbing the silent harmony that tea always bring with all my screaming and shouting.

Now where is the witch who bought my cauldron? Nah, just pass me the remote, please.

I hope the teahouse has a TV set. And just to let you know, if you are Sarajo Frieden, that this is not easy for me. But the end work delights me endlessly. Colours are truly amazing as you already believe.

*Song: Siren On – Electric Heart. Original picture by TCS (“Keranamu Teahouse” Going Places/September 2008/Malaysia Airlines)

I’ve Always Wondered What That Would Be Like

Don’t buy magazines my dear. Or newspapers–because they may multiply before you know it and turn your house into a parlor or a room merely “used for the storage of things utterly without value”.

So, a lesson learned from Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping? No. Not really. Perhaps, but not really.

A thin volume that took only three days’ effort for me to savour every word from cover to cover while my whole body shivered out of bitter coldness and sweet longing as I turned the page over. Endless and intense longing. For you.

Do I love it? You may ask.

Perhaps I will give you the same answer as Sylvie Fisher when she is asked about her husband by one of her neighbours–a laugh. How can I not when this book–the whole plot of the story–gives me an impression of one who tells some stories to his/her lover as they lie side by side on the bed? The one closes her eyes; letting the words flow from her lips effortlessly–and thoughtlessly–while the lover strokes her hair and looks lovingly at her face. That’s why.

Anyway, I wonder if Scout Finch would love to have an enigmatic aunt like Sylvie Fisher to replace her Aunt Alexandra. Oh she might have asked her to knock on Boo Radley’s door straight away and invited him to have dinner with them in total darkness. Or if Ruth and Lucille were in the care of Scout’s aunt, perhaps they would never have to part. And Ruth didn’t have to be so sad and lonely. But that thought only makes me belong to the righteous neighbours (who were self-appointed preachers) of Fisherbone, I know.

All this is fact. Fact explains nothing. On the contrary, it is fact that requires explanation.

Marilynne Robinson (Housekeeping)

Indeed, Ms Robinson. Time for explanations now–that will conjure up some reasons for Sylvie’s eccentricities and transience. Where’s her husband? Is she truly married to an unknown (and forgettable Fisher)? Why? There must be a reason for madness.

Really? Is Sylvie a lunatic? An insane? Sure? So, a person who isn’t so good at standard housekeeping is crazy? A person who loves to collect empty cans and old newspapers? Oh then we must build more facilities for these mad people–for sure!

I rest my case. This book is…I don’t know. I read it and that’s it but I know I’ll read it again simply because I need to feel the longing.

But then again, perhaps that’s what we really are. We always want to know why. What if one’s insanity is really one’s sanity? Don’t they say, “One man’s poison is another man’s medicine?” Who cares if one loves to live alone and has no intention to grow gigantic and multiply? Who are we to deem loneliness as destroyer of happiness instead of the key to freedom and hopeful dream?

My student: Teacher, do you have a boyfriend?

Me: No dear, I don’t.

My student: You’re sure? When are you going to get married?

Me: Actually, I plan not to.

My student: (In shocking terror) Why?! Don’t you want children?! Your own children?

Me: (Smile at her as I bit my tongue so as these words will remain inaudible and incomprehensible: No, dear. I’m afraid that I would end up in jail for murdering my own children.)

Ah, children. They are beings of propriety, aren’t they?

Though we dream and hardly know it, longing, like an angel, fosters us, smooths our hair, and brings us wild strawberries.

Marilynne Robinson (Housekeeping)

I long to embark on an endless journey by train with you. I’ve always wondered what that would be like.

Author’s note: My friend, Pat, turns temporarily insane after reading the book. She was too engage in her essence of housekeeping that she urged me to shave first (ha-ha) before reaching the last page. She said, “You know, Sar, this book is so sad not because it makes you feel bad about yourself. No! Instead you feel terrible for other people. You mourn for their cruel fate! Who are fictitious characters some more! Usually, when you feel down due to internal force, basically you just put on new clothes or shave all the unwanted hair and voila! You feel better already! But you know what? When you feel bad for someone, when you pity someone, when you mourn for someone, when you feel sad for someone–you are basically hopeless.” Will you excuse for me a minute? There are some empty cans and bottles that I need to throw away.

Oh one more thing. Really hope Justine Henin will win the Australian Open title. That will be the best gift for her fans who are left in limbo after her retirement for we never intend to cure ourselves from the sore throat and high-blood pressure. My 廖老师 used to remind me a lot of her. I don’t know why. But now, it’s the other way around, I guess.

*Song: All Angels – Come Away With Me

Wild Things Love

I watched “Where The Wild Things Are” when I was hungry. Very, very hungry indeed that I couldn’t hear what the characters were saying (or screaming) as my stomach demanded my attention by growling hysterically so as to be filled with something um… hot.

Nevertheless, I ignored my stomach’s plea to be filled and continued gluing my eyes to the computer screen and during those minutes of dying slowly of hunger (ha-ha) that I craved for some luscious eating scenes from the movie. Max was surrounded by the wild things which made clear of their intention to eat him for destroying their nests. There you go…so long Max! But wait…he survived in the book, right? Or did I read the wrong book? No, I didn’t and as the screen changed to the (painful) dirt-throwing-battle, I started to feel seriously worried over each of the wild thing’s life for if they could survive days without eating, well, that was because they were Max’s imagination and, of course, it was hard to feed imaginary friends with solid food (oh talking from experience here) but Max was a human child and for sure, sooner or later, he must eat something. Finally, to my relief, when KW stoned down the owls, I knew that the director would surely feed Max this time but then, those frightened-looking owls were KW’s friends, Bob and Terry. In the end, no one got eaten in the movie and before the computer could end up tragically inside my stomach, I ran downstairs to the kitchen for some food only to be dismayed at the fact that the food was no longer hot.

My final verdict of the movie? Just another movie that made my lacrimal apparatus to finally do what it does best–shedding tears. But, it was just a basic cry so… Anyway, it seems like I do share the concern of some parents over the movie, though, my concern isn’t the violent, savage, scary or anti-social issues but the cruel fate of some trees in the hands of Max and his wild things. What is this, Max? A potential illegal logging tycoon in the future, perhaps?

But then again, I watched the rest of the movie in equanimity remembering that it was all his imagination. Other than that, no worries whatsoever! Oh wait, a child who throws tantrum and destroys things?

Goodness gracious me, don’t you remember yourself as a child? When you feel the utmost anger at someone–let’s say your sister–but can’t lay a finger on her (the truth is, you don’t even have the heart to hurt her physically or emotionally but you are too young to know that), what do you do? Of course, you have to do something to unleash your anger. Off to her things that you know she loves, of course! Nothing can beat the satisfaction of seeing her upset face in your mind as she mourned the loss of her beloved possession. Or the sadness you feel for doing something so stupid.

That was me–and I’m sure the rest of us–as a child. But sometimes, we forget. That’s why we can’t stop hurting people. I guess…

So parents, just don’t worry too much. This movie will teach your children to accept and understand. And to love. At least they don’t fight over whose God to be worshiped or something.

The characters remind me of people I know.

If only an adult’s imagination can be accepted like that of a child, I would imagine you to be always with me all the time.

*Image source: digitalartsonline.co.uk

Wonderfully Yould (Young + Old)

Once upon a time, there was a family of five who kept a tiger as pet. The love they had for the tiger was so deep and pure like a bottomless well. But the tiger, which had been listening to Feist since the day it was born, silently singing in its heart, “There’s a limit to my love” over and over again. Then, as the day went by, one by one of the family members started to disappear. The eldest boy, on the day his father went missing, started to look at the tiger with eyes full of suspicion and told his mother of his distrust for the animal. But alas! The mother stood up for her beloved tiger and scolded her son for such an asinine accusation. Oh come on my dear, your new father, I mean…your father will be back in a few days. But he didn’t and soon, the boy also disappeared leaving his mother and the tiger. In the end, the tiger ate the mother and all of the family members died happily ever after.

Oh, the tiger joined them too a week after it died all alone and hungry.

Moral of the story is music can be harmful to your life if misinterpreted by a tiger. Ha-ha!

I read the story when I was eleven at school library and I ended up looking at my cats with distrust and suspicion because you never know, right? Nevertheless, the story stays intact in my brain and I’m still trying to decide if the story was something that I would tell small children had I happened to be in their company one day.

Or would Charles Lutwidge Dodgson think as suitable and interesting?

I have no answer to that but as I read Cathy Newman’s “The Wonderland of Lewis Carroll” (National Geographic/June 1991), I couldn’t stop admiring this stammering and shy mathematician who dig wonderland out of a rabbit hole. And how different both of us are! He with children; me with old things.

I’m sorry; I have to say things because I love old things–books, magazines, coins, maps–more than old people. Of course, she (the love of my love) is way older than me but I’m not sure how old in a human being is defined nowadays. 60 years of breathing on this planet is still considered not old if you look around you.

We are getting short of old people.

Old people? They are not that different from children, aren’t they? All of us will come to a stage when we need to be fully taken care of by someone just like the way small children are. But, of course, you say it’s different and I beg to differ because if only old people were as cute  and adorable as babies you’ll have less complaint–for sure!

As Newman points out in her article about the wonder of children, ” …a story that reminds us laughter is the gleam of light in the dark–and the loveliest laugh of all is that of children,” I totally agree with her but why can’t we see that the saddest cry of all is that of old people–who are forgotten and neglected after all that they have sacrificed for the well-beings of the youths (who are mostly, their own children)?

However, I think that I’m being overtly worried here as if we are still living in the sixties. How many of us started to take good care of our health since we were young to avoid the doom of unhealthy old us? And of course, give the medical sector a few more years and many old people can walk down the street sporting cute and adorable face like a baby.

But then again, to define old and young is subtle. It is unfair to point out that old people want to look younger without admitting more children nowadays are forgetting to be children. Switch on the black box and you’ll see children with heavy make-up and stuffed bra singing and dancing lewdly. I remember waiting alone, many afternoons, at the playground near my rent house for children to come and play the swing but none came at all. I didn’t meet with the two Indian girls anymore too which was sad.

Mr. Dodgson was lucky to live in the world where true children live and his love for them seems to preserve his youthful looks. Children loved him too but it was love that bloomed out of his sincere love for them. And he wasn’t even childish which is a great bonus, I presume, since children aren’t pretentious wonders of this world.

To Mdm. Lim Wai Fun whose creativity and humility introduced me to Jabberwock on one wonderful night.

As I read the last sentence in Newman’s article, I can’t help but smiling at myself. This lovable mathematician who loved children all his life died looking wonderfully young at the age of 65. So… how about the owner of this blog? If I were to die before my age reaches 40, maybe I could blame my undying love for old things as the doctor who broke the news, told my siblings:

How awfully old your sister looks!

*Author’s note: My literary acquaintance with Mr. Dodgson started a

Jabberwock!

year ago with Jabberwock–not Alice–which was a pity. My Creative Writing lecturer, Madam Lim Wai Fun distributed the poem in class and asked us to write our interpretation of it in our journal. I even drew my own rendition of Jabberwock which was a hybrid of Barney and Big Bird. According to Newman’s article, Dodgson once wrote to his friend, actress Ellen Terry: “One of the deep secrets of Life…[is] that all that is really worth the doing, is what we do for others,” and I was stunned for a moment because in the journal where I made my interpretation and a drawing of Jabberwock, I quote this saying from Peyton Conway March:

There is a wonderful mythical law of nature that the three things we crave most in life–happiness, freedom, and peace of mind–are always attained by giving them to someone else.

Coincidence. Can you tell me?

Original photograph by Sam Abell (NG/Vol. 179, No. 6/June 1991).

*Song: Laura Marling – Failure

Lustless Moneyless

“Classic.”

That was my thought when I first saw her. Her mesmerizing beauty caused me such throbbing pain that I couldn’t take my eyes off her beautiful face. Her grace, tall figure made her stood out amongst the crowd who had waited at the bank for hours.

A few guys eyed her from head to toe and looked away. Some even passed her without noticing her slender figure and glowing skin under her transparent but stylish white kebaya that she donned in with a pair of navy blue jeans.

I was stunned. Were they blind? Or had they turned asexual? These men?

“Nombor 2338″

Ah. The robotic female voice brought me back to the reality. No wonder beauty pageant wasn’t held at the bank. Money and lust. They just don’t walk hand in hand together, do they? At the bank, especially.

But then, a few younger (and moneyless) teenage boys who came to the bank with their mothers noticed her instantly. One boy would definitely break his neck as he continued to look at her surreptitiously from his seat by dangerously positioning his neck at 180° while another one tried unsuccessfully to brush his wrist against hers as he followed his mother to the bank exit entrance.

There you go. Beauty is something that we should all cherish together, don’t you think?

But as I left the bank, it wasn’t her beauty that bewitched me but a baby girl with dark and thoughtful eyes. Where money and lust were just meaningless words formed by scattered alphabets.

*Song: Selena Gomez & The Scene – Naturally. Enough with sad songs already! Surprisingly, this song was stuck on repeat since yesterday after listening to it from my brother’s mobile phone and so far hadn’t caused me headache.

Everything comes naturally? I don’t know. Do you?