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