Healing not striving

A woman in church came up to my mother to say, "As your sister in Christ, I just wanted to let you know that you've put on weight." When my mum told me about that, laughing, I felt so much inner rage. I know my mother's own insecurities about her middle-aged body, and particularly about her weight, especially as a white woman in an asian society. Her body that has birthed three children and lifted my father's arms and legs in physiotherapy exercises after his stroke. In my eyes she is so incomparably beautiful, and someone had the gall to say something that suggested her body wasn't good as it is.

Our bodies are sacred, intricately created things. But there are so many ways you can hurt a body even when you think you're doing the right thing.

Earlier this year Jacob and I started to train for a half-marathon together. We would go on three runs a week, and I pushed my body to go faster, further, and to keep up with my long-limbed husband. A month or so before the race, my left knee started to complain, then ache, then hurt and I had to stop running and see a physiotherapist who observed that I had weak hips and had done more running than my body had the strength to take without over compensating. The pain was my body telling me in no uncertain terms that this was all too much. 

I rested, did my physio exercises, and then doggedly did the half marathon through a mixture of walking and running. And then, I stopped running for two months. I missed it terribly: running makes me feel free and strong. It has always been something I could do, easily. But when I stopped running I also felt relieved. I hadn't realised how much of a strain running had been taken and how exhausted I'd been, because I was still managing to carry myself through my days somehow. I couldn't believe that I'd been unknowingly hurting myself for a long time, thinking that I was making myself stronger. Not running felt like a breath of fresh air, and I found other ways of feeling free and strong that gave my body a gentler way to express itself.

As my body healed and grew stronger, I looked forward to the day I would begin my recovery runs. I started out with a minute of running interspersed with a minute of walking, five times. Then two minutes running, and one minute walking five times. I was elated - and I was running quickly, clocking paces quicker than before my injury. Four or five recovery runs in, and I felt an ache in my right foot, which returned every time I ran and sometimes emerged when I walked. I'd injured myself again, and have been resting for another two weeks. That was very demoralising, but after a big cry over the frustration of it all, I've tried to, as Katherine May says, "treat myself like a favoured child". 

This season, perhaps, is about healing and soothing, not striving. 

I've also noticed how my body needs recovery from fear or stress. Jacob and I have finished reading Burnout by Emily and Amelia Nagoski, in which among other things they detail our natural responses to stress: fight, flight and freeze. The first two are relatively well known. They describe the last response as the most desperate of stress responses, performed by animals who think that their best chance of not-dying is by pretending to be dead. Their bodies freeze, or faint, and if by some miracle they do escape the danger, they shiver and shake and wake up, and keep going. This hit me - my body does this. I recognise it in a sensation I get when, feel very anxious, I cannot turn my head. It is like my head and neck are frozen, and I cannot move. Oddly enough, I usually do still manage to keep going, doing whatever I was doing, whether it's singing or speaking in front of a crowd or holding a difficult conversation. I sometimes have this feeling when I sing in church, I don't know why, and when I get home I feel exhaustion all through my body and I don't feel like myself again until I sleep. 

Today I had to introduce myself in an unfamiliar setting, and I felt so nervous, and when I received the microphone the freezing feeling settled onto me, I managed to say something, and smile and pass the microphone on. When we got home we had our meal, then I went straight to bed. I woke to Jacob gently holding me, soothing my body and loving it back into a remembrance of itself. 

I was talking to my Mum recently, and we reached the realisation that Dad only really started working when he was 27 years old; before that he'd been studying, travelling the world, and doing his time in the army. It reminded me of a conversation around a table with my extended family last year in Reading, where my uncles and aunties shared their first jobs. These people, who I'd always seen as so established and professional had started in sometimes completely different fields. An uncle who is now doing something with investments started off painting walls, and an auntie who is a teacher started as a housekeeper for a rich family. All this felt very comforting for me, and brings me back to the fact that life, really, is still at its beginning. 

It's been a very intense period for Jacob, and as we went on our monthly relationship walk-and-talk yesterday (in which we talk about what we're thankful for in each other, and other things that we could work on or plan for in our marriage), we mulled over what other jobs he might do. Many were education related - teaching teachers how to teach, consultancy work. Others were more general skills in management, or writing and editing. Then we talked about absolutely wild possibilities: a tree surgeon! A plumber ("but I don't want to be a plumber")! A farmer ("now that's a job that takes over your whole life")!

(Unrelatedly?) Dad has this way of looking at you as if you are the most delightful being to ever walk this planet.

I wish I could capture it. 

The wisdom of children

 Yesterday my family had an eleven year old over for lunch. She's in Singapore trying to learn English (and doing pretty well at it), and the lunch conversation was an opportunity to practice. Over the course of the meal we explained what 'walnut', 'otter' and 'chickpea' were (the latter probably being her most hated food) and she told us about her family and school. At one point, Hannah suggested that she try asking me and Jacob some questions and she turned to me, a glint in her eye and asked, "Do you like your husband?"

(The answer is still, happily, yes.)

Mother's day flowers

On Sunday it was Mother's day in Singapore, so after church Jacob and I went to a florist in Holland Village (the same florist Dad frequents every time it's Mum's birthday or their anniversary) to pick up some flowers. 

The bouquet was large, with bright red ginger flowers, lilies in bud and purple chrysanthemums nestled among green leaves. I held them on the bus that took us to Mum's home, and as we went along suddenly heard a small voice from the back of the bus:

"Dad, why - why - why - why does that girl have so many flowers?"

It was a boy of probably about 5 or 6 years old, feet dangling above the floor and looking at me with great curiousity. His Dad must have given some sort of explanation, because he then said:

"Yes, but why so many flowers??" 

And he continued to ask that question for the roughly 7 minute bus ride, to my great amusement.

Mum loved the flowers, and the little boy turned out to be a neighbour. He came over later in the afternoon and delivered one orange flower to her, to add to her bouquet of so many flowers.

April is the cruellest month

On the Thursday before Good Friday, the train station smelled like hot cross buns, and I was on the last chapter of The Gap of Time by Jeanette Winterson as I walked to the museum. The book is based on The Winter's Tale which has always been one of my favourite Shakespeare plays for it's redemptive arc and that painful human desire for something that seems irrevocably broken and ruined to come back to life. I've been feeling a weight of hopelessness for a while now, and sections of the (overall rather bleak) book reminded me, in a stoic sort of way, that life can go on even when it feels grey, and that things can change. 

“And the world goes on regardless of joy or despair or one woman’s fortune or one man’s loss. And we can’t know the lives of others. And we can’t know our own lives beyond the details we can manage. And the things that change us forever happen without us knowing they would happen. And the moment that looks like the rest is the one where hearts are broken or healed. And time that runs so steady and sure runs wild outside of the clocks. It takes so little time to change a lifetime and it takes a lifetime to understand the change.”

― Jeanette Winterson, The Gap of Time

I have been so thankful for books. Ann Patchett's Tom Lake was magnetic and tender, and it made me text my Mum and ask her out for brunch (which turned into breakfast and a massage). I'm completely absorbed by Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan novels now, which express the competition and love between friends so well, while also unveiling the wretchedness of poverty. The front cover of the second book I'm reading says: "Imagine if Jane Austen got angry and you'll have some idea of how explosive these works are." I keep a Mary Oliver's poems beside my bed, and two days ago read The Other Kingdoms and it's line about the creatures with their "infallible sense of what their lives are meant to be" twisted in my heart. Life sometimes seems so complicated. I don't really know what my life is meant to be, and sometimes I feel like I made some sort of big mistake as I moved through it, hurtling with arms outstretched towards the next thing only to find myself here, at twenty seven, wondering why?

Yesterday I came home and felt fragile. The night before I'd tried to do too many things, and consequently messed up the process of installing a tempered glass screen protector on my phone. The following morning, inexplicably, the phone stopped working, which felt like a punishment for my incorrigible sin of trying to do it all. I came home and J was making pasta for dinner and asked if I wanted to go out and do some hill sprints. What I really wanted was to be held, and I said so in a sideways way. I could tell J really wanted to run, and he thought about it for a while. Then he came over to where I was on the sofa, changed into my sports clothes, and said "I choose you. You are more important than exercise."

Do you know what that is like? To be told you are chosen when you feel like you've messed up? 

After dinner, and after the slice of courgette and marmalade cake I'd made the night before, and after I washed up and made the next day's breakfast while J hunched over scripts in the living room (this is what it is), J crawled into bed beside me.  

I'm sorry you've been feeling fragile.

I think it was last night - the phone. And I think when it stopped working today it felt like punishment. I makes me feel like I break things, like I keep messing up and can't learn that lesson of slowing down and not rushing. And I feel like a burden in our marriage because you have so much work and instead of being out there you're in here comforting me.

And J reached over and held me with his arms and his words as he reminded me why I matter to him, to our marriage, and to this world. 

Thank you for saying such nice things.

They're not nice, they're true. Do you believe they are true.

I think so, most of the time. I'm glad they're true for you.

Well, that's human I guess. They're true to me, and true for God.

Again, I had that feeling I sometimes have of things adrift being knitted back together.

My thoughts on the pill

 

Diary entry in March 2021:

I went in a run this morning. At about 2km in I am very sweaty, much sweatier than usual and feeling uneasy and anxious. I am beginning to get a dull pain in my abdomen. I stop and sit down for a while, Mum comes to walk me back, I drink water and walk back feeling better.

I start work, feeling a bit sore especially in my lower back and abdomen. My abdomen feels like it’s being pressed with a heavy weight and also feeling oddly hungry. I drink lots of water but feel dry mouthed.

It gets worse at lunch time. I feel tired, I need to poo, I sweat a lot and it’s cold sweat now. The pain is bad. Lying down helps a little but not much, then not at all. My face feels slack. I’m sweating so much. I’m turning to try to ease the pain. My legs hurt. I want to faint to be out of here. My breathing sounds like this: “Hannah, hnhhh, hnhhhh.” I feel like I’m slipping away, but I also feel so much pain. I try to sleep to escape, eventually I do. 

I feel better when I wake and the pain has passed but left me weak. I sleep again and wake up feeling weak but no longer crampy. I eat some bread.

————————————————————————-

It's been over a year now since I started taking the oral contraceptive pill to manage period pain. I wanted to write about my positive experience with the oral contraceptive pill to add balance to the conversation, because sometimes it is the most extreme and negative responses are the ones that get magnified. These are legitimate experiences: the pill is a hormonal medication that will create change, which could be positive, or it could be negative. But it is worth a try, and if the pill has negative effects it is possible to stop and see an end to the effect of the pill. For anyone thinking about the pill, I recommend watching this video. I’ve learnt that the pill benefits anyone suffering with endometriosis for the following reasons:

- It reduces pain.

- It directly addresses the problem, reducing the growth of endometrial tissue and therefore reducing inflammation and the development of scar tissue because of cycles of growth and shedding.

- Prolonged use of the pill increases rather than decreases the chance of being pregnant.

- After stopping the pill you usually get your period back in 32 days.

- There are multiple sorts of pills, and a doctor can advise on the best one. If one doesn’t work, there might be another option out there that will.

I started experiencing pain connected to my period to the extent that I was unable to function in 2020. It would typically come on the first day of my period, usually without warning. I wrote a list of what the pain was like for a visit to a gynaecologist:

- I sweat a lot

- Cramping in my abdomen, which comes in waves

- Pain radiating down my legs

- My vision goes blurry and I feel like I'm going to faint

- I feel weak and dizzy

- Sometimes the sounds around me go muffled, like I'm underwater

- Sometimes I vomit because of the pain

- Usually the pain lasts for a couple of hours, and I fall asleep.

I first went to the doctor for my period pain out of necessity rather than choice, after almost passing out on a bus, getting off, and then literally crawling on the floor to the steps of a hotel where staff then called an ambulance. The nearest hospital was SGH, which is where I went and they monitored me until my blood pressure got back to normal levels and the pain stopped. They gave me some strong painkillers (Mefenamic acid) and another pill to line my stomach before I took the strong painkillers, and a follow up appointment.

The follow up appointment was with a business-like looking woman who told me that this was a normal woman thing. I asked for a blood test to check on my iron levels or nutrition, and she assured me it was not necessary (but I didn't feel very assured - I just felt trapped and frustrated). I left, and tried the painkillers, which didn't work.

The second visit was with a young man who looked fresh out of med school. I explained the pain I was experiencing. He said it was menstrual pain (I mean, duh) and that I could take the contraceptive pill or get a contraceptive implant. I asked if he could explain what was causing the pain before I considered hormonal medication. He said it was my period (yes, but why is it so painful, when it hadn't been before?) and asked me if I'd heard of prostaglandins (I wanted to ask him if he'd heard of google; of course I'd heard of prostaglandins. I'd been reading everything I could about period pain ever since I'd had the first bad one). I started to cry. He looked stricken, and a nurse passed me a tissue box. I left and cancelled all future appointments.

At that point I thought I'd just endure things, but it kept getting worse, so I made an appointment with the polyclinic, who referred me for an ultrasound and then a follow up at Ng Teng Fong hospital. I went there at the end of 2022, with Mum coming along for moral support. We saw a male doctor who had a foldable bike under his desk, who gently explained that there was nothing unusual about my ultrasound, which meant I (thankfully) didn't have fibroids. He then suggested that while we can't be sure, the cause of the period pain seemed to be traceable to the first day when the uterine lining sheds. The intensity of the pain suggested that either I was experiencing heavy bleeding or endometriosis. He then drew a squiggly picture of a uterus and explained that endometriosis is a condition where the lining that’s meant to grow in your uterus somehow also grows elsewhere. Doctors and scientists don’t quite know why this happens, but when your period arrives and all these linings shed it can cause a great deal of pain. 

He then suggested taking the pill, which introduces “fake hormones” that mimic estrogen and progesterone into my body. This signals to my body not to produce so much of the real stuff, and as a result I don’t ovulate, my uterine lining grows much less each month, and when I have my period between pill cycles, there is less shedding and less pain.

It made such a difference to have someone take the time to explain how things worked, and to answer questions I had about the pill which I was anxious to take in case it affected future fertility, or had negative side effects on physical or mental health. I left the appointment sufficiently assured and with a bag of pills to take. 

After I begin taking the pill I saw an immediate positive change in my periods. They were far lighter and les painful. Initially I would still get cramps,  but cramps that were manageable with pain medication, and which didn’t stop me from moving or working. It has only improved; these days I can go for a run on my the first day with no consequences or fears. I rarely experience any pain, fever low grade pain. 

An unexpected benefit of taking the pill was also in regulating my moods. I'm not clear as to whether it was due to hormones, or the apprehension of pain, but previously I’d get very anxious near my period, and I’d experience what we’d come to call an ‘emotional breakdown day’ at some point which involved lots of crying. Not to mention the feeling that my body was betraying me, and the self-gaslighting of my own body and experiences, exacerbated by doctor's visits in which I was told this was 'normal', where I doubted that the pain I experienced was legitimate. The physical relief provided by the pill also offered mental and emotional relief. After taking the pill I was calmer around my period.

When I was doing my own research about the pill I came across so many terrible stories about its side effects and inefficacy. This combined with the tendency for women's health issues to be downplayed societally and even in medical circles means that it can be hard to take the step of taking hormonal medication for period pain out of fear of the effects of the pill, and doubts that one actually 'needs' it. What I experienced was pain that was abnormal, but I made it seem normal, and kept going until I was shown a way out. The thing is, if pain is stopping you from pursuing normal activities you need relief. If pain is causing you mental and emotional distress, you need relief. It was only when I could step out of the cycle of pain that I fully realised how unnecessary it was to experience it every month, how much it impacted my life, and that help was out there, I just needed the courage and assurance to try.

Little moments of joy

 

- Playing League of lexicon

- Big shell pasta

- A good design meeting

- Running to work

- Seeing an owl as we walked home from my parents house, perched on a branch and backlit by the lights of a basketball court, before it swooped away silently

- Pancake day pancakes slathered with tahini and honey, and chocolate hazelnut spread and banana

- A big bunch of lilies from my love

- A prune (called, on it's packet, a 'plump') and toasted almonds after a Chinese New Year day three walk

- Playing "Six second scribbles" and seeing my auntie double up in laughter over a stick man drawing in response to the prompt "nipple".

- Jungle gold chocolate

Looking back on 2023

 

At the start of this year, I drew myself in vibrant colours. In the picture my arms were outstretched and words surrounded me, words like: 

"Open" 

                     "Embrace"

  "Adventure" 

                                                  "Fun"

              "Joy"

 

I wanted 2023, after the wintering year of 2022, to be my spring: a year where my life opened up again to possibility, joy and adventure. It meant less stability and more flux, experimentation and journeying.

Adventures took lots of different forms. Our family went on our first trip together in February, up to Desaru on the east coast of Malaysia. Desaru has been a holiday place for my family before I was born: we grew up going to the same seaside resort, and saw it change hands three times. The people working in the hotel would recognise us every year and comment on how tall we'd grown, and at the end of the holiday we'd return to Singapore with our skin brown, our hair big with salt and the memory of being rocked by waves still held in our bodies. This visit was the first time we had been back after the pandemic. The sea was bloated and high from the monsoon storms and waves towered over us. There was no choice but to dive into them, or under them, and feel them push and pull you like a muscle. Dad no longer rolled in the breaking waves with us, but he did slowly (stick and all), step into the swimming pool. The cold water stiffened his muscles, but he kept going, walking a lap around the pool before retiring to a deck chair with sunglasses on. An old place, a new form of family; we still had a lot of fun.

The most surreal happening was in April, when for one glorious weekend I flew to the UK for Lucy and Dom's wedding. International flight is befuddling at the best of times, but the sheer magic and strangeness of stepping on a metal airborne cylinder in tropical Singapore and twelve hours later stepping off into the cold air of England was especially obvious when it happened for such a compressed amount of time. I remember the days in a series of  delightful vignettes: being lifted off the ground by a hug from Naomi, sipping hot tea in the kitchen surrounded by excited, loving people, a grateful nap in Lucy and Dom's new apartment, blowing balloons in a room full of balloons, laughing over photographs of young Lucy and Dom with Rachel. Rolling fiddly curlers in Lucy's hair the morning of the wedding, singing 'The blessing' and meaning every word and wishing with all my heart for happiness forever for these two lovely people, dancing and dancing and dancing... I did worry about such a short trip: it was a big expense and a lot of carbon from the flying. But when I was studying in London, an artist once told me that life is short and whenever you have a choice, choose the option that loves people; in this case the answer was obvious. I was so glad I went.

In May we celebrated two years of marriage and I prepared for the opening of my first big exhibition. Both collided on the 22nd of May (our anniversary date). We met on the top of Mt Faber hill, beloved because it has a beautiful view of the port and the sea, and crucially is usually empty of other people. We each brought surprise bits for a picnic, and Jacob chose things that brought back memories of past dates or moments. I felt truly, blissfully happy. When we got home, I received a call from the museum about something in the exhibition that was changing which I thought should not be changed. It was gut wrenching and after the stressful, intense days of installation prior to it. When I talked about it with my boss subsequently, he reminded me that in this job, one must strike a balance between caring for the work and not caring too much. I’m learning to find that balance at work, but the scales don't add up in marriage. In marriage the best thing is to care, and then to care more and more and more and more (but not care about things like an unmade bed or full rubbish bin). 

Jacob's parents visited in June (his Dad and sister) and September (his Mum). By the second visit both had moved into separate houses, and things were different. I read somewhere that divorce doesn't mean your family is broken, but that your family is reorganised. That was a really helpful perspective shift, and meant that when I asked Jacob who he considers his family it made sense when foremost, he maintained that he still sees his Dad, Mum and sister as one of his families, mine as another and our church small group as another. "What about me?" I asked. "You're part of all of them." At the end of the year we went back there to see them, and celebrated Christmas in two different homes. That wasn't easy: each home had it's own emotional energy and ways of being, but also had it's delights. I loved the red kites above Catherine's home and the long walks which required a certain skill of navigation. We walked them with friends too, which felt important. I loved how close Mark's home is to the river that he loves, and how the kitchen is full of his pottery projects (including some plates he considers 'failed', which Jacob and I now happily use for all our toast adventures). In a way, I am learning that there is more of family to explore and discover in this separation, rather than less.

This year my intention is to seek clarity. I imagine clarity as a clear path found through inner stillness, but with the intention to move forward (or backwards, or sideways, or wherever the path is taking you). I hope it will bring better balance between work and life (last year sort of felt like my teenage years at work, with big feelings and frustrations). I hope it will also bring more trust, as Jacob and I make bigger plans for our future. 

Smaller adventures from the year (but still big on joy):  

1. After much deliberation, I joined a choir again and sang in a concert in March. There was also one point where I looked out over the audience and saw Dad struggling to contain what would have been an almighty sneeze and had to stifle a giggle. And after the concert we asked a woman to take a photograph of us, and she cheerfully took one that had all of us in it except our heads. 

2. After the exhibition had been open for a while, Hannah and I took a weekend trip up to Kluang to hike Gunung Lambak. It was a tricky climb, and I was trying my best to keep up with two guys: one of whom was an ex-marine and the other was a canoeist and marathon runner. I just about managed, puffing and panting all the way!

3. In November we joined Emily and Wesley at the 39th Singapore bird race. There were mistakes made: I didn't bring a pair of binoculars and I was wearing bright pink shorts (no camouflage here). We saw over 30 different kinds of birds, including the otherworldly milk stork, endangered strawheaded bulbul and a lineated barbet, which I consider my personal friend since there's often one outside our window. I am looking forward to the 40th bird race!

4. Towards the end of the year some of our friends from small group started weekly badminton sessions. I am very rusty (although have I ever been sharp? That is the question...) and have a bad tendency to squeal when the shuttlecock approaches me at speed, but it is so much fun. 

Bali June 2023

 

After opening my first exhibition in May, Jacob and I took a break in June to fly to Bali with Jacob’s Dad and sister. During the flight I noticed a tiny black speck in the corner of my vision: a floater, like the dot of an ‘i’. It was only visible when I looked at the flat expanse of the great blue sky, and I wondered how long I’d missed it, staring at screens and in dark galleries? I forgot about it soon enough, when the cloud cover below the plane was broken by the tip of a mountain, and as the clouds cleared another appeared, and another.

We’d gone to Bali primarily for Mark, Izzy and Jacob to achieve their open water scuba diving qualification and for me to use mine in the clear waters off Amed (north-east Bali). The sun set about an hour earlier in Bali, and by the time we got to the dive centre it was dark and we were tired after a day of travel. We walked up the stairs to the communal garden where we were offered cold lime juice and water and we knew we were in good hands. The days that followed started with a cooked breakfast, more juice, beautiful dives in the morning and languid afternoons reading and lying down. I loved the regular rhythm and simplicity of it. 

Since I hadn't dived for over six months (when I qualified for open water diving), I took a refresher course with Nyoman where I went through a few basic theory classes with Jacob, Izzy and Mark and then some skills in the calm and shallow waters off Jemeluk beach. Unlike my diving course in Tioman, which frontloaded the theory and then had a few intense days of actual diving, the course Jacob, Izzy and Mark did with Adventure Divers interspersed theory and diving. On that first day we took a slow, wobbly dive around Jemeluk bay and saw lion fish, stone fish, goat fish, shoals of bright blue damselfish, angelfish, and in the far distance a small turtle, like a ghost. 

When you're underwater everything is silent, and you don't have the normal soundtrack of life shadowing each experience. No music through headphones creating an emotional tint, no traffic or city bustle drowning out your thoughts, just the white-noise roar of the sea drawing breath. That is what I love - so much peace.

On our second day I dived with Coco, a marine biologist from Sicily who was doing a course on coral conservation. This was my first boat dive, and we set off in a jukung (a thin, indonesian fishing boat) across calm waters under blue skies. Before we dived you could see the bright colour of coral through the surface of the water - it was so clear! 

We dived around Jemuluk West, passing coral that looked like large goblets or meadows or small antlers which fish darted in and out of. Diving is slow business; you fin along to keep yourself buoyant, not to move faster. To move fast would be to miss the world around you, and sometimes I would try to stop at one place, so I could observe a dancing family of clownfish or the lattice of a sea fan. 

My heart's wish had been to see a turtle, and I was happy on the first day to see the silvery image of one in the distance, but I was not prepared for the abundance of turtles on this diving day. We saw turtle after (hawksbill) turtle, close enough to see the algae growing on their shells and the wrinkles around their dark eyes. 

A very different sort of encounter occurred later on in the first dive. During the dive we finned near an unusual looking starfish. Coco pointed it out, and we stopped and stared as was the etiquette for when we saw something unusual or beautiful. This starfish was the orange of a highlighter, and had vicious looking spikes sticking out all over its body. After looking at it for a short while, our dive instructor took out the metal stick he used to point at objects and drove it through the fleshy middle of the starfish! I was shocked - Coco later said she saw my eyes go wide - and for the rest of the dive the starfish hung, impaled on the metal stick which the dive instructor held gingerly away from him. 

When we surfaced, Coco and the dive instructor explained that the starfish was a Crown of Thorns sea star - a carnivorous predator that feeds on coral. They aren't bad in and of themselves, but because many of their predators (larger carnivorous fish) had been overfished by humans, there are too many of them and they feed on coral. The dive instructor had impaled it - which wouldn't kill it, as these starfish are remarkably hardy and can regenerate when injured - to prevent it from further feeding on the coral. He also took pains to avoid touching it because they are highly venomous; they told me the story of someone who'd buried a crown of thorns star beneath a tree, and came back to discover that the tree had died! We left it in a sunny spot to dry out and die. 

On our last day we dived the Tulamben wreck. There were more divers here and visibility wasn't as good but it was an exciting day because it was the day Jacob, Izzy and Mark would complete the last of the three open water dives necessary to get their license! Swimming through the wreck was slightly discombobulating; things appear closer and larger in the water and so it would seem like the gaps in the ships hull that Nyoman swam through were impossibly small until we followed suit and wove through the wreck with no problem. 

The next leg of our journey was to Ubud, the apparent 'cultural centre' of Bali. In all honesty, I did not love Ubud and don't wish to return. It was crowded with tourists, so much so that when you walked the streets the few local faces you saw were shop owners, touts, or drivers, and this made me feel like I was part of a problematic part of tourism where a place becomes a contained for tourists and a home for its own people. What I did enjoy were the little things, like seeing the offerings placed on the ground each morning, filled with flowers, incense, and sometimes little biscuits or cigarettes. I think I was also feeling the after effects of the intensity of the past few months, and I felt teary and fragile on that day in Ubud.

 

So it was a relief to escape to Munduk the following day. Munduk is in the North of Bali, and we were hiking a mountain there. We met our guide, Nalom, who used to be a journalist and was inspired to set up his own travel company to provide a more authentic experience of Bali. He partnered with Komang, a village chief in Munduk, whose home we stopped by for breakfast (also where we met the sweetest little kittens.)

We were hiking Mt Lesung, which requires a local guide and so halfway through our drive there we stopped to pick up Putu, a pint-sized woman who we later found out was agile as a cat and could out pace us all on the steep and slippery slopes of the mountain. She pointed out coffee plants, avocado trees and all manner of plants as we walked. At one point, where I was clinging on to my hiking stick for dear life as we trod on loose soil and slippery leaves, Putu calmly stripped a single palm leaf off a tree, and after about five minutes of folding and weaving, had turned it into a hat! What a legend.

After descending the mountain we kayaked across Tambligan lake while the clouds threatened to pour above us, and had lunch under the shelter of a seven hundred year old tree. Before we kayaked, Putu explained the Balinese naming system to me. In Balinese families the first born child is usually called Putu, or Wayan, the second born child Made or Kadek, the third child is named Nyoman or Komang, and the final child is usually named Ketut. If more than four children are born in a family then the names just repeat in the cycle! This way, you'd know the birth order of a person just from their name. So our diving instructor was the third born child of a family, and Putu was the oldest child among her siblings.

The final stop before our long ride back to Ubud was by the entrance to a waterfall. We walked many steps down and got changed into our swimsuits and approached the water. "Is it cold?" I'd asked Nalom. "It's...fresh." he replied. I dipped my toes in and it was cold, but there was nothing for it but to wade in. Jacob took a few steps and dove in, whole body, emerging with the biggest grin on his face and his arms out wide. I took swam, frog style, for a little while, gasping with the cold. We took turns standing under the thundering weight of the waterfall, letting it pummel our shoulders and backs. Then we walked out, humbled and feeling, like Nalom said, fresh. 

Rituals

(written during Lent 2023)

1 We wake up 

and hold each other;

it is the beginning of another day.

2 You go to the toilet,

I go to the toilet,

then we sit in the lighted room and pray. 

3 Like tides we drift

in and out of rooms

unearthing keys, clothes, and books.

4 Under the same sun

we cycle from home, 

along the old railroad, along the river,

5 until like homing birds

we feel the pull 

to return to the blessing of each other. 

6 When darkness comes, 

you place your arm over my side

and in our darkened room we pray.

7 Then we rest.

We hold each other

it is the end of another day

The Prayers of our Father

Earlier this year Jacob and I tried to write a poem a week (or was it a day?) for Lent. I found myself returning, over and over again, to my father's stroke. One that I wrote (which I haven't included here) was based on the one of his early prayers, when he was struggling to find words but which resulted in prayers that were, often, just right.

Here are a smattering, of what I think will be a larger project of processing the strange grief of someone who Is there-but-not-there, himself-but-not-himself:

If a Tree Falls in the Forest, and There's No One Around to Hear It, Does It Make a Sound? 

That night you didn't snore so loudly

and later they found a blister pack for panadol 

in the rubbish bin

that masked the throbbing in your head.

In another room your wife was sleeping.

Your son was out.

I was on the other side 

of the world, frying courgettes for a dinner party.

How can it be

that a blood vessel bursting

does not make a sound?

I play it over and over again in my head

the moment you fell

in a noiseless world.

Grace before a meal

Father, thank you for this provision

and may you always be

a source of investment for good food

Amen

The butterfly

It was purple

the butterfly on a green leaf

The woman on my left took out her phone 

and flicked her finger across the screen

conjuring a camera

and all the time I was afraid

to enjoy the miracle before me

because I knew that when you don't expect it

a butterfly can fly away.

Little moments of joy in July

Sniffing perfumes in the National Gallery shop, and being surprised and tickled that my favourite scent is Pepper and Tobacco (followed by Earl Grey).

A bright yellow envelope, like the sun in my postbox.

An evening trip just to get ice cream - but what ice cream! Blue pea flower studded with matcha sponge, and black forest with decadent brownie pieces swirled in. 

After giving a presentation at 1am (time differences), I climbed into bed and Jacob - fast asleep - put his arm out and wrapped it around me. 

Hearing a friend say "we're officially close friends!"

Long slow evening runs on Sundays.

Reading.

Running home

(written a while ago)

I was cycling home on Tuesday when the idea to run home from work came into my mind. I often cycle to and from work and by the time I get home, I feel far too tired to go for a run on top of that, or if I do it's usually not a very long one. But I love running; it is a barometer of where my heart is, a reminder of the physical nature of my body and the natural fact of limitations, and almost always reacquaintance with joy.

So yesterday I closed my laptop early, changed into my running clothes, and began. I felt invincible and agile, able to hop over curbs and rough paving stones or dodge people walking in the middle of the path easily. 

Once I got to about half-way through I was tomato-faced and tired. I stopped and walked, looked at my phone and realised I'd gone much faster than I thought I would, probably because I was comparing myself to the pace I am familiar with: bicycle pace. I was used to the world passing by me much faster and when running I felt awfully slow, so I pushed myself harder as a result. 

I tried to ease off a little to take things at a more sensible pace, but my internal drive for glory kept pushing me faster. I got home 10 minutes quicker than my goal time, partly because of this competitive streak, partly because of Cece Winans singing, and partly because the route was slightly shorter than I'd initially thought. 

Would I do this again? Yes, more slowly. Running often reflects my internal state, and the relentless speed I kept driving myself to reflects an attitude I've been taking at work. Today I won't be running home from work; I'll practice slowing down until I can trust that my next run will be more measured. 

Is the world still beautiful?

First - an explanation. The whole of this year, I have felt like a bad writer. I half write things and then stop because they sounds trite, moralising or just not-very-interesting. I have also noticed myself apologising for what I say, often. 

When I was in university, writing here was easy but writing in my diary was hard. Somehow the digital world seemed like a place of experimentation and the occasional update with no bonds of chronology or form. Whereas I felt guilty for leaving spaces in my diary - I would leave pages blank for the days I missed with the full intention to go back and fill them in but I never did because my memory would fade beyond the precision and exactitude I held myself to, in order to detail a day.

"I don't want to be someone who is particular about things," I told Jacob last night, which I what I told myself back in those days and wrote on a page in my diary, in a big black pen that spilled through the pages, "I will write anything in here and it doesn't have to be perfect".

So here comes a series of imperfect, half written blog posts in no particular order, but I feel that only in getting things out can things start afresh.

(written a while ago)

Yesterday the trees were shedding pollen. It fell like tropical snow, creating a light layer of specks on our window sill. I was lying on my back on the sofa, feeling the hard edge of the arm rest under my head. So many times I have thought that this is one of the world's least comfortable sofas, with pillows that slouch toward the center and hard, angular, wooden arm rests, but on that Sunday it was the perfect place to watch the golden pollen against the leaves. It was so beautiful; this world is so beautiful.

When I was younger, I went to a Bible study on a Wednesday night. We sat round in a living room and talked about the book of Ruth, and how it starts with a famine and ends with a harvest. One evening we were asked to share of one word to describe the world. After spending some time in thought we went around the room.

"Broken."

                            "Chaotic."

        "Sinful."

When it came to me I said the only word that had thrummed away in my head like a heartbeat: 

"Beautiful."

I believe it still, but last week I felt at moments a sense of dread at the way the world is, the way that animals and ecosystems and rivers have been destroyed to make room for a manmade picture of progress. I'd be walking around and suddenly think something like: "I don't think I'll ever have grandchildren" and a big wave of sadness would settle. 

On Sunday we went to church, and sang these words: "Your plans are still to prosper, you have not forgotten us. You're with us in the fire and the flood. You're faithful forever, perfect in love. You are sovereign over us." That was comforting. 

I painted the view outside my window the week before when Jacob was away. It began as a silly thing - on children's drawing block paper and using paints I'd found discarded at a dustbin - just a way to be creative with no accountability at the end of it. I made leaves purple and blue underneath their green, and tried small dotting strokes and long swishy ones. Then I got invested, and stayed up painting till 10pm to recreate the beauty I have all around me every day. 

Finding joy in flour

 

At Lucy’s wedding in April, amidst the joy of seeing friends, dancing and celebrating a beloved marriage, someone asked me what has been bringing me joy these days. It was over a month till the exhibition then but it has been a stressful time. I was feeling so tense at work that sometimes I found it hard to eat at lunch time. I’d sit down and look at my lunch and feel sick and miserable.

So it surprised me that the first thing that came to mind was baking and cooking. Last year I felt tired and sad so often that cooking became a functional chore. Making anything that took more than an hour and multiple pans felt impossible and I stuck to dishes I knew were simple even if they weren’t the most exciting. I only baked when it was a birthday or special occasion. I also stopped tasting my food before serving it; the miniscule adjustments of salt and spice and heat just did not seem worth it. In the grand scheme of household chores I much preferred cleaning: the ruthlessness of it, and how satisfying that I could so easily make something disappear with one swipe of my hoover. Cleaning was predictable and straightforward, while most cooking seemed to require a creative organ that seemed, in me, to have failed temporarily. So Jacob took on a lion’s share of the cooking, I did most of the cleaning, and life went on.

But at the end of the year at Christmas, the first Christmas with Dad post-stroke, I gave him a card that promised lemon cake on demand and I meant it. I baked a lemon cake for his birthday soon after, and then experimented with a different lemon cake recipe for Easter, and made scones too for good measure. For Jacob’s birthday I made a coffee and walnut cake which we ate  while playing a murder mystery game and cry-laughing at how intensely everyone got into their characters. Then we went to Desaru and I packed along a chocolate brownie which he declared the best vegan brownie he’d eaten. These were all recipes I’d made before in some form or other, like faithful friends who I hadn’t spoken to for a while but who reappeared without resentment as part of my life.

Perhaps a catalyst to all this was that at some point at the end of last year, Jacob and I watched Julie and Julia, a film that I’ve watched possibly four times now. At one point in the film Julie writes: “A horrible day at work. An old grandma who looked as if she wouldn't harm a fly called me a pencil-pushing capitalist dupe. But then I came home and cooked chicken with cream, mushrooms and port, and it was total bliss.” The tiredness and sadness I felt last year was my critical-grandma, along with other factors like work stress and the usual critic in my head that picks on everything from being bloaty to saying hello in too-high a voice. Baking felt miserable because of that but this year, while the sadness ebbs and flows, and the critic in my head pipes up now and then, I’ve been able to return to some of that bliss. So much of the baking this year has involved laughter and celebration which is an universal antidote to many things.

My latest triumphs have been from experimenting further with new techniques or recipes. I stirred up a tangzong (a flour and milk mixture that makes any dough far more soft and pillowy) right after breakfast and used it to make cinnamon rolls. They were heavenly and are the thing I’ll make again after my exhibition opens and I have a bit more time. Family gave them a 11/10, except for Dad, who doesn’t like cinnamon. He gave them a 5/10 but still scoffed the entire thing. 

Last week I conjured up orange biscuits were stuffed with chocolate, altering a basic shortbread recipe to make it vegan and chocolate-containing.  I remember eating these first time I ever visited Jacob’s home. His mum baked them, and they were still warm when she put them on the table. In the same afternoon I was introduced to the fact that Jacob’s family drinks tea out of the biggest mugs I’d ever seen.

On Monday, I made a light, fluffy Japanese strawberry shortcake for Hannah’s birthday. Most vegan cakes I make have a satisfying heft to them, which works for a chocolate cake but is really not the right texture for a Japanese cake. This recipe created a really light sponge, but to make it even better I substituted half of the oil for vegan butter (for flavour) and also used the reverse creaming technique. The science-y explanation for that is that fat coats flour first to prevent gluten development, but my motivation was emotional: I wanted to replicate the delicate sponge of the strawberry shortcake from Four Seasons bakery that Dad would ask for every birthday.

There was a lot of whipped cream left over from that cake, and Jacob finishes his reports this week...it might be time for another celebration!

On cycling to work

Before the pandemic I would take the train, or the bus, to work. Some time in 2020, after our lovely neighbour gave me his 20 year old bike, I began to cycle to work. Initially I'd been hesitant. It seemed awfully troublesome and I wasn't sure of the route. Our neighbour described a simple path along the park connector, but I couldn't quite figure it out until Jacob rode it with me one (non-work) day and after that I had no excuses. I became a cyclist-commuter. 

Cycling to work has its downsides. I've fallen off my bike twice, once after I crashed into another cyclist speeding round a corner on the wrong side of the path, and another when I swerved to avoid a woman who jumped into my path away from a monitor lizard. That second one gave me a bruise the size of a large orange on my thigh. I took a photo of it and sent it to a friend, proclaiming that it looked like a galaxy. I also get to work sweaty, and skulk through the (usually quite empty) office in my shorts and sports bra to the shower. Every time I walk back in my work clothes, clean and smelling like jasmine soap, I feel like saying "Look! What a transformation!"

But oh, the gladness that it brings. I've come to recognise some of the characters along my cycle, like the woman who kick boxes on Tuesdays and the older woman who does some sort of meditative martial art/qigong with a sword. Lately a whole group of women have been meeting early in the morning to do tai chi, and as I go past them I hear a tinny voice coming from a speaker, saying, "hu.....xi.....hu....xi...." and I try to breathe along with the rhythm. Close by stands an older man with a forlorn look on his face, and I'm never quite sure if he wants to join the women and is trying to muster up the courage, or if he's someone's husband or friend and is just waiting for the whole thing to be over.

The cycle is usually intensely satisfying. It shortens my commute significantly so that within 35 minutes, or less if there aren't many people, I'm locking my bike up and walking into the building. If it has been a long day at work, the effort of peddling home flushes out the tension is a good reminder that I have a body that can move me places, including away from there. 

Sometimes I see things that fill my heart. This week I saw a boy, walking along with his mother, holding a leaf up to his eye. He seemed to be peering through the leaf like a monocle or a magnifying glass, looking out into the world. Occasionally otters make an appearance at points along the river. The sky regularly shows off just how masterfully it can blend its colours.

So I am grateful for the cycling, for the newness and familiarity brings, for exerting my body and soothing my soul.

Valentine's day, or thoughts about love

On Valentine's day morning I went out for my run. I passed a neighbour who is a trauma surgeon on his way back from (presumably) an overnight call. "Hello!" I called and he smiled and gave me a high-five as he passed me on his bike, which I took to mean that whoever it was he operated on stayed alive.

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That run was perhaps not a great idea, because later on that day I began to feel weak, tired, and was sneezing constantly. So I took the next two days off work and in bed (and cycled through a total of three toilet rolls blowing my nose - sorry trees) and decided to read through some of my parents old letters. 

A few years after Mum and Dad started dating, Dad moved back to Singapore while Mum stayed in London (with a short stint in Spain). They flew to see each other on a Russian plane service called Aeroflot which was notoriously unreliable but worked for their budget, but between visits they would write (almost weekly, it seems) and send each other cassette tapes of their voices which I like to think of as the ancestor to the Whatsapp voice messages I send to friends in Britain. Almost all of the letters I have are from Dad to Mum rather than the other way around, and reading them have shown me a different side of him. Growing up, Dad was always loving but usually expressed that in acts of service rather than words. After his stroke, when he began to get his words back, "I love you" has been a hard one to get hime to say. Sometimes I sit by his bed and our conversation goes like this:

M: "I love you, Dad."

D: "Thank you."

M: "I love you, Dad."

D: "...Thank you."

M "I love you, Dad."

D: "Love you."

In his letters, however, he expresses his love for Mum earnestly and freely. They have pet names! He also writes passionately about politics (which is something that didn't really change), with paragraphs about the dangers of communism. 

Reading that and realising that was part of Dad that I never got to experience has been helpful and healing as I continue to think of how Dad behaves post-stroke and how there are parts of him that used-to-be and might-not-be. He changes, like all of us. The stroke caused a very sudden and extreme change but just because he is changed doesn't mean he is not him. 

My family often talks of "pre-stroke Dad" and "post-stroke Dad" almost as if they are two entirely different people and to be honest, that is how it felt and does sometimes still feel: like my Dad died when he had his stroke and was replaced by himself-but-not. I still miss the Dad I knew, because there are things you learn to love and love involves growing deep roots of habit and familiarity. These are not things that heal easily when they are so suddenly cut off. 

I believe though, that in the way my Mum was in love with this letter-writing man, and continued a complicated but love-based relationship with him even when he no longer wrote letters and sometimes the language they spoke seemed to be entirely at cross-ideals, so love grows and changes. If you ask me if I love my Dad, of course I'd say yes (and I remind him of it often). It is a different love than we had, in part due to a shift in the balance of power and a new dynamic of care, but it is still love and familiarity is budding again.

Do what you want

 

It is no secret in my family that I am a physical affection person. I love big bear hugs with Tim (which I used to request, usually fruitlessly, but which he now offers - thank you therapy), and holding hands with Mum when we're in bed and talking about everything under the sun, and putting my head on Hannah's shoulder, and giving Dad a very light peck on the cheek because he doesn't like wet kisses. 

The person who is on the receiving end of most of my physical affection, however, is Jacob. (As it should be!) And so last week after we had dinner with Dad, as he was about to leave to go home while I was staying for night duty, I said "Can I have a kiss?" and he laughed and said yes.

Then, feeling happy and cheeky I said, "Can I have another one?" And he laughed and said no.

So I went up to Dad and whispered in his ear "Dad, could you ask Jacob to kiss me?" And he laughed and said nothing.

After I repeated the request, he looked at Jacob and said slowly, "Jacob, you do....what you want....with Miriam." To which Jacob walked over and gave me a hug and a kiss. So all's well that ends well really.

Looking back, looking forward

"There are gaps in the mesh of the everyday world, and sometimes they open up and you fall through them into somewhere else. Somewhere Else runs at a different pace to the here and now, where everyone else carries on. Somewhere Else is where ghosts live, concealed from view and only glimpsed by people in the real world. Somewhere Else exists at a delay, so that you can't quite keep pace. Perhaps I was already teetering on the brink of Somewhere Else anyway; but now I fell through, as simply and discreetly as dust sifting between the floorboards. I was surprised to find that I felt at home there.

Winter had begun.”

― Katherine May, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times

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Two days after Dad's stroke last year, Lucy gave me a book called "Wintering", by Katherine May. I started reading it on the aeroplane as we flew home, earlier than anticipated, to join my family for a sober Christmas while Dad was housed in an ICU unit with a 30% chance of living. It helped me understand that the year ahead was going to be different, and was going to require a different approach to the usual. Things that I'd often pushed aside as something I could do after the more exciting thing was done were going to be crucial to getting through each day: rest, reflection, vulnerability, hard conversations, prayer, boundaries. Those uncomfortable things that are antithetical to a world that says you can have it all were necessary now, but they also meant that me and my family were going to move at a different pace to the rest of the world.

Sometimes it's difficult to remember just what those first few month were like. I was working from home and during lunch breaks I would cycle to the hospital to sit for 40 minutes with Dad, then I'd cycle home and start working again. Dad was sometimes conscious, sometimes not. He hated having his left arm bound (to stop him from removing his tubes) and he didn't know my name. Sometimes I saw, or thought I saw, lucidity, like once when I was crying and he fixed his one good eye on me with a mixture of curiousity and reflected sadness, or when he said very clearly 'no!' to me putting on his wrist restraint again. Then when COVID measures tightened and hospitals closed to visitors we'd zoom call at 5pm most days. We saw him learn to eat, and slowly words came back, some smiles, and once or twice he sang back when we sang well known songs.

Dad returned home in March, thin and curiously looking at the new house fitted with ramps for his wheelchair and a hospital bed. We started a new rhythm of exercises to maintain Dad's mobility, medicines to manage his pain and night duty to bring him to the toilet in the night time. We also quickly got tired, and there were different ideas of what was best for him, a combination that meant more conflict as well. 

In May Tim started in the army, felt miserable, and went in to see a psychiatrist. He came out with a diagnosis for depression and suddenly so much of his past behaviour made sense - how did I not see it before, that my brother was not hormonal and sullen but depressed? He started going for therapy, and more quickly than I expected we saw change in him.

When we flew to the UK again in June, it felt like a milestone moment. We could mark already the progress Dad was making since we last left. We were there to celebrate our first year of marriage with our friends and family in Britain, and though the day began rather fraught after we found out Jacob had COVID, after everyone rallied around us it turned out to be a wonderful day. Perhaps it was some magic, spun out of friendship and love that day but the rest of the trip was golden. We spent 5 days in the Lake District walking and walking, eating sandwiches and chocolate, walking some more. The days grew sunny and hot and me and Izzy swam in the Victorian bathing pool and went to London for brunch, and then I went home while Jacob stayed a while with his family. 

The magic must have extended back to Singapore because when I got home, like the grandparents who exclaim how tall their grandchildren have grown, I was awed by how much Dad had improved. He spoke so much more fluently, and could walk a little way without his stick. He continued to improve over the year, learning to shave, brush his teeth, use the toilet and change all by himself. By the end of the year he could walk around the block without his stick unassisted, a far cry from the man who couldn't stand up by himself in March. Another seeming miracle was seeing a gynaecologist who listened and understood my menstrual pain, and being able to work with hospital for a treatment plan that (so far) is working. The relief of not fearing crippling pain each month is immense.

At Christmas time Jacob' Mum and Izzy visited, then Tejin, and we felt what it was like (good) to host and give generously after a year of feeling limited in that area. The combination of holidays and showing them our world opened the world up to us afresh. When Tejin suggested we watch the fireworks at Marina Bay on New Year's Eve, a year ago my instinct would have been to say no and hibernate, but this year I thought - yes, I want to welcome the year in with celebration. This year feels like hope, renewal and life. It feels like the time to be brave and say yes to new things. Jacob has started playing football and I've joined a choir. In February we have three weekends in a row where we have a social occasion (which would have been foolishness last year but is so good now). The lessons of care and rest remain, which is why I'm typing this on a slow Tuesday morning after pancakes while it rains outside, but now it feels like rest coexists not just with coping but with exploring and embracing something new.

2022 began as one long, hard winter after Dad's stroke.

2023 feels like the beginning of spring.

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"We have seasons when we flourish and seasons when the leaves fall from us, revealing our bare bones. Given time, they grow again."

― Katherine May, Wintering: The power of rest and retreat in difficult times