Dance With Me [I]: Keep Moving

I recall the first time I was told to go across the floor. I was a wee child of about eight. the music was fast and the dance hall was huge. The task was daunting but I knew that I had to move along or hold everybody else back.

Not a natural, I hated dancing at that age but if there was anything that dance taught me, it's about pushing through with what you loath, falling into familiar rhythm, locking it into muscle memory and spinning lithely around every obstacle that's in your path.

My love-hate relationship (mostly love) with dance has gone on for 24 years and anyone who has gone through formal dance training would be able to empathise with getting bruised and broken along the way. I found myself flat on the butt doing tours en l'airs many times and I can never ever seem to perform an axel jump without feeling the fear of falling (I still can't do the axel). I recall hearing my own hamstring tear like a broken guitar string once whilst I did a split and felt my own blood drain.

Like every dancer, both pro and amateur, I give myself the permission to keep trying. It's not about making the same mistakes again and again but to keep reminding myself that it is alright to make mistakes, plunge, pick myself up again, fall back into rhythm and be tougher than before.

The idea is to keep moving, be it forward or sideways. Sometimes, one may even err by taking one step forward and two steps back. But still, we move with the music because motion can alter the mind and sometimes, motion can also make one feel better about the unavoidable missteps of life.

There Is Season For Everything...

For everything there is a season,
And a time for every matter under heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
A time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
A time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
A time to embrace, And a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to seek, and a time to lose;
A time to keep, and a time to throw away;
A time to tear, and a time to sew;
A time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate,
A time for war, and a time for peace.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

Strength

Some weeks back, I wrote about my late mother. April 19 this year would have been the tenth anniversary of her death.

I'd always envied my friends and people around me who still have their parents around still.

God works in strange ways sometimes. I took a trip back to the land of my alma mater, Melbourne last August, to visit friends and my aunt, who is more like a second mother to me. The desire to go back to my second home was always there but I'd found numerous excuses not to return in the last six years, citing work load and lack of leave as excuses. But I was glad that I made the trip back and spent some time with my aunt for this morning, I'd just received the news that she's been sent for tests for possible cancer of the pancreas.

Being a process driven person, my initial reaction was to tell her not to panic. But knowing me so well, she actually told me NOT to panic and to pray for her, to have faith and - never to underestimate the power of prayer and faith. The women in my family are indeed tough.

I hope that I can be as strong as all of them.

Ps. Please keep her in your prayers.

Revisit

It's been about two years since I lost my inaugural blog. The first Yellow Canaries blog was about three years old before I accidently deleted all of its contents. I do miss my old blog, which started off as a travel diary of sorts.

On the bright side, it's not a bad thing, for the old blog was full of negative memories and I am quite determined to keep this one positive and honest.

I Choose To Be Happy

It's been about four years since I'd last stepped into a pair of bindings in attempt to manoeuvre the wakes and daunting rollers in the sea.

Once upon a time, I’d never have dared to venture out at such short notice. But that once upon a time was part of a lifetime long gone and today I embraced the sun, sea (and rollers) with an open heart. Today, as I sat at the marina and gazed up at the cotton-like clouds set against the clear blue sky, as I soaked in the sun and the warm sea breeze, I felt very lucky, very alive and very very free.

It was an “a-ha” moment, a moment of realisation. That my life is good – I am not a woman caught in war in Afghanistan, not a woman who lives in a country with socio-economic situation that does not allow equal opportunities. I have been fortunate. I am a woman with choices.

Today is the day that I give thanks for life and for everyone, every incident – the negative, positive and neutral – that shaped me into the person I am today.

I still can’t swim, but I dare say that I’d once been crazy about wakeboarding and had tried most of the surface tricks that I could manage and because of the invention of snug life-vests, I’d been fortunate enough not to drown while I marvelled at sea creatures while I snorkelled.

It's taken me many years but I now understand – that happiness is a choice.

I choose to be happy.

A Note From My Mother's Daughter

In the blink of an eye, a decade has passed

April 2010 would mark the tenth year since I saw you last

You have influenced me much of my life, through my growing years, my terrible teens and as a young adult, you’d seen me with a mortar board on my head

I’d missed you so, as 520 weeks passed and I wished you were around, to watch me grow, into the person you’d always wanted me to be – focused and tough, one whom no man would now dare rough

Some mornings I awake, to hear a faint voice in my head, one that sounds just like the sing-song drawl of your voice hollering my name – to get up, get set and seize the day

I’d pass your old Singer, parked at a corner, of the home you’d created and wonder if I’d ever have your talent to plan, cut, sew and put things together in such patient manner

When problems arise and I need a sounding board, how often I wished I still have you here

If there ever is a virtual world, up where you now reside, I hope that this reaches you to let you know how much I miss you...

Sing Sing Sing!

The debut of my new Jazz shoes :)

Lessons from My Family

I am the epitomy of a cultural hybrid - Chinese thoughts, Western ed. Someone who barely spoke a word of English until I turned eight. These are the lessons that my family, including my parents, who are Chinese educated through and through, taught me:-

Lessons from my father:-

1) You can scrimp on anything except food and footwear - they help you go the extra mile.

2) Be a good judge of character; choose the right people, use them right and treat them well so their hearts stay in the right place.

3) Never let me hear you say that you need to depend on a man. It defeats the purpose of money spent giving you an education

4) A man needs to have drive

5) Marry your own kind, for you will share a common background (sure dad, if I can find one)

6) I'd rather teach you how to fish than provide you with fish everyday

7) Commenting on cosmetics:- Beauty is but skin deep. Colour comes from character

8) Always give an elder a red packet. It warms their heart.

9) Told to me in 1993, when I was 16: "I am sending you back to the village in China so that you can learn about your heritage"

10) Told to me in 1987 in Katong: "These are Peranakan houses. I am showing them to you so that you know that these are part of your lineage. Never forget your roots"

Lessons from my late mother:-

1) If you want to be upset over a boy, I will get you married off straightaway. There is no point in giving you an education

2) Never judge another person until you turn 40 (this is one lesson I haven't learned).

3) If the task on hand is hard, take it one step at a time. You will get there

4) You had insomnia last night? No problem. At least you slept for a couple of hours

5) Never break a promise. Your word is your bond

6) Take care of other people's property when they are in your hands

7) Never dress over the top. It's pretentious

8) Bear in mind that 'money can never buy class'

Lessons from my Grandma (the Bibik):-

1) Why bother marrying young? Ever heard of the word "problem"?

2) Gay? So what? He is still blood!

3) Commenting on a sequinned tube top I picked up at Tangs: "Nice! go try!"

4) Travel while you are still young. Money can be earned. Learning and experiences are what money cannot buy.

Lessons from my sister:-

1) You need to consider if you can wake up next to this person for the rest of your life

2) Being opinionated runs in the family (this, I must agree)

Fair to Cry Unfair

Life is not fair. That is the truth.
Slap me hard on the head and remind me not to muse.
Life is unfair. Something dear gets wrenched from you.
A lesson to remind me to stay on my toes.
Life is never fair. That much I know.
For that is one lesson that I have lived thru.
Life is sometimes fair. That I am aware.
But only when I have no grievances to bare.
What’s fair, what’s square, what do I do?
Live with it, get bashed by it, go with the flow.
Going against the tide may just acquire you more woes.

Tribal Beat

I'd just watched FAME and I love this!