Sometimes I am immobilized by those ‘light bulb moments’, when I see the truth staring at me in glaring black and white.  You know those Kodak moments, don’t you?  I am blessed/cursed with them at the same time.  I do not want to see the raw naked truth.  I rather not be in the know.  And that is the honest truth.  Is there any other kind?

I am a bit melancholy with a bit of wine and the truth.  Life looks better through rose-tinted glasses or in the dark sometimes.  I am talking through my yin yang, of course.  You would have to take what I say with a grain of salt.  Do you know that I knew time before electricity?  Yes, that is correct.

I saw my first electric light bulb when I was six.  My mother and I were overnighting in a hotel in Canton, en route to Hong Kong.  I had fallen asleep early in the evening.  When my mother shook me at dawn, I opened my eyes to a bright light dangling from the ceiling.  It was truly an Oprah light bulb moment

Do you know that I see ghosts, too, that is, when I was a child.  I no longer see them now that I am all grown up.  But I feel them still.  They are my friends, my angels.  I have learned to trust them, that they are here to look out for me.

I remembered seeing them when I was playing on our rooftop in China.  I saw them standing beside my bed at night before I went to sleep.  I asked my mother, Who are all the people?  My mother saw that there was no one there.   She said, “They’re our ancestors.  Do not be afraid.”

I wasn’t afraid until I grew up.  Then I started to cross my slippers by my bedside.  One of my friends told me that would keep them away.  And it worked!  They visited me only on those nights I forgot to cross my slippers.

They do not visit me any more in the same way.  I sense them when I am quiet and still.  They let me know their presence when I am in need.  I am no longer afraid as an adult.  I am truly grown up.

It is now almost the bewitching hour.  Time to stop babbling about light bulbs, ghosts and such.  It is time to put the memories away and get ready for sleep and sweet dreams.