Snails and Blue Pea

An update on the last few weeks

Hi Friends,

I apologise for my absence here, and for it, I shall try to explain.

These past few weeks, my mind has been everywhere, and nowhere all the same.

Our daily life paints a picture already so familiar to us; the blue pea plant that wraps its thin twines on the metal fence that separates the neighbour’s garden with my father’s is still there, still growing, still encircling the embroidery of the metal with its thread-like strings. When we look out the sliding doors, through its tinted glass that won’t allow light in, that keeps everything inside inside, away from prying eyes, we see the blue pea plant and we know everything is as it should be.

A few weeks ago, I found a lump in my breast. I won’t go into details here, but for the week whereby the doctor had us wait for the results, was the worse. Seven days later, we went back, and although the lump is still there, there is nothing to worry about.

Life continues on as it does. Today, we found a snail curled up under the bowing branch of the overgrown cactus plant. My father tells his gardener to leave it there, nothing to worry about.

My children, although seemingly annoying and rebellious all the time, which might count for the fact that I haven’t noticed it as much, is growing. When the baby makes a mess out of her sister’s clothes because she wants to play dress up, I let her. When the older one tells the same jokes over and over, I listen, and pretend to laugh, pretend to get it. I, too, am growing old, for tomorrow shall be my 42nd birthday. We plan to go out for lunch, and have one plate of dish each. That’s what we do for every one of our birthdays. Birthdays are for splurging.

I am reading

Tanya Shadrick

’s The Cure for Sleep, savouring every word, so it lasts. It was a gift from a friend I met in the writing workshop we’re both taking, one I did not expect, but fully and utterly appreciate. We have so much to read for said workshop, and I was afraid I wasn’t going to be able to afford it. But since Malaysia is the land of counterfeit, I shamefully bought e-books in order to catch up and hide behind my hunger for knowledge, for learning, so I don’t feel so bad. But I do feel bad. I made a promise to myself that when I don’t have to worry about having enough money for food again, and when I have the space to put them, I shall buy all of these books in hardcovers and softcovers so the authors can get their earn. When that time comes, books shall be for splurging too.

We have been painting with the watercolour pad my daughter received for her birthday in February, every day. My face lights up when she mentions casually the names of painters we have also been studying together, via the internet, mostly when she is trying to stop her sister from destroying the paper. She says, don’t touch my Jackson Pollock, it needs to dry properly, and I laugh. She doesn’t get my jokes either.

My baby is still not talking. At every 11.11s and 12.34s, her sister and I make a wish that she would soon talk. But she hasn’t, not yet. Like the snail, nothing to worry about here either, she shall do it at her own pace.

Like Pollock’s artwork, life is messy, but beautiful. There are splotches of reds amongst greys, blurs where you didn’t mean it to be, but it is full, and we continue to make our wishes, our prayers, and intertwine the magic amongst the mundane, in the hopes that we can finally stand back to look at it as a whole again, someday.