Author Archives: hafong

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About hafong

Hello! My name is (Leung) Hafong alias Lily Leung. You always say the last name first….that is the Chinese way. That is my partner lurking behind me. Since this is my blog, I won’t mention his name. But this is a rather cool picture. You see me and yet you don’t…sort of the way I feel about myself most of my life. So this blog is a self-exploration, an archeology dig of some sort. My tools…..words of a thousand or so at a sitting. I will try for that.

HOLY SILENCE

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I shed more of doing today to contemplate on what is holy within me. I survived without being connected and doing all the time. I tried just being with me today, observing what’s around me. It was not as difficult as I thought. It felt strange at times, especially in the morning. I like the quiet, the time before the world wakes. But it’s been a long time since I’ve just sat. I usually bury myself in a book. So on this day of purposedly entering into ‘holy silence’, I’m fidgety. How am I going to get there?

To settle myself, I did my morning qigong routine that I have abandoned in my busyness. Returning to the familiar movements eased my discomfort. In the flow came the memory of my trip to Halifax in 2002. I had experienced my holy silence on the campus of Mount St. Vincent University. I was looking up at the Motherhouse and the large cross on its top. I saw Jesus on the cross and I felt his warm arms around my shoulders. A silence fell around me but I could hear birds singing and the hum of a lawnmower in the distance. It was surreal.

Maybe it wasn’t what it was. It could have been just the stress of travelling on my own. It was strange how I ended up in Halifax and renting a car. I get lost alot, even at home. But I got to Mount St. Vincent without a hitch from the airport. Strange that I couldn’t figure out how to work the radio on my rented Kia. It took some effort to figure out the wipers, but under the duress of rain one night, I got lucky or a miracle. My week was driving in silence from Nova Scotia, across the Confederation Bridge into Prince Edward Island. It was a holy trip in holy silence. Only then, I had not been aware. Now I do. Hallelujah.

What did I do the rest of the day? I hung out, just being, sitting in my sanctuary on the deck, sipping tea. I watered the garden, making many trips filling the watering can with stored rainwater. I picked some beans and peas. I pulled some weeds. Then Sheba and I picked our raspberries. There was no hurry at all. I had no thoughts. I listened now and again to see if there was any incoming messages in the air. There was none. Only silence. Maybe they’re still on the way. I did realized while I was looking around that I have been living mostly in my head. I am in this physical world but I am not often of it – until today.

Today I let go of my usual ‘doingness’. I let go of the Internet and went into my Innernet to search what is holy within me.

 

 

 

BEYOND THE CHAOS

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I am embarking on a journey of a mystic without a monastery. I’m walking the Camino Trail of my mind. Today I am contemplating the question: What is truly of value to me?  Have you given it any thoughts on it for yourself? It’s a difficult one. I’m glad to have the guidance of Caroline Myss and the company of hundreds of others like myself from around the world. We’re all travelling together in cyberspace. What a marvellous gift of technology in this energy age. I’m grateful.

For these 5 days, I’m shedding the outside world/influences/distractions as much as possible. I’m going deep within to meet the stranger residing there.  I will be happy to have arrived at the end as in Derek Walcott’s poem, Love After Love.

The time will come 
when, with elation 
you will greet yourself arriving 
at your own door, in your own mirror 
and each will smile at the other’s welcome, 

and say, sit here. Eat. 
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart 
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you 

all your life, whom you ignored 
for another, who knows you by heart. 
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, 

the photographs, the desperate notes, 
peel your own image from the mirror. 
Sit. Feast on your life. 

I am devoting today in examining the external distractions in my life. How much of what is in it is truly of value? How much is just distraction? Even though I am retired,  I have been so busy and occupied and unable to stop. Today, I stopped all the unnecessary busyness to go deep within myself. What is of value to me?

I’m still thinking on it. I am surprised that I could stop and be quiet and still. I am surprised to feel how restful it is to do so. I don’t miss the franticness of doing. I love the quietude, of deliberate slowness, of hearing my thoughts and the steady beat of my heart. I love having the time to walk Sheba in the late afternoon. Not to do just a quick poop run around the block but taking time to smell and chew grass. Then to sit on the bench in the park and gaze what is before me.

I’ve been very distracted and tired. I like the silence but need to be doing something all the time. My mind is always occupied with something and somewhere. I have deluded myself in thinking that I am in the present moment. But it is seldom here, in me and with me even though that is what I profess to strive for. I am fooled by myself because I am ‘creating’ painting, drawing, sewing. I can be/am distracting myself by all that as well as other things. I am distracted rather than being engaged when I read crime/mystery books.

So how do I come back to myself? I have to spend more slow days like today. Stop the busy doing. Pick raspberries with Sheba. Tend to the garden. It needs watering, weeding and harvesting. Maybe in the process, I will know what is truly of value to me.

 

 

PASSION UNABATED

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So here I am, in the late of the evening. I’ve wined and dined. I haven’t come up with the secret to eternal wisdom nor happiness. Needless to say, it has been a tough day, a day of clouds and cool temperatures for July. But I did the best I could. Despite the clouds, my yard and garden glowed in the early morning light. It cheered me, standing on the top step. The path led straight to the garage door. Lao Tzu and the Chinese maiden are standing on duty on each side. I’m waiting for Sheba to finish her morning business. My passion for a well lived life remains unabated.

Nothing was really wrong except for my chemistry. My mood is like the weather. The good, bad and ugly played hide and seek with each other. I let them be, but stepped in as a referee when needed. It was tough and painful at times, almost bringing tears to my eyes. But I got through the tough stretch. The bills were paid and recorded. I thought I would leave sorting and filing for another day. I rewarded my efforts with a hot chocolate and a few pages of my crime novel, Moon Music. Faye Kellerman is my new favourite mystery writer. I find mystery/crime novels soothing and calming because they engage me.

Engagement is the key for me on difficult days. I tell myself, I can, I can. I can change my thoughts and how I speak to myself. I can make lunch. I can make a rhubarb crisp. I can do my art projects. And so I did. The rhubarb crisp wasn’t quite up to par. That was because I decided to make it in a smaller pan with same amount of rhubarb. But after I popped it back into the oven for another 20 minutes, it was okay. My indexcard collage and watercolour turned out superb – in my opinion. I experimented with pureeing steamed lettuce for freezing. I put the puree into an ice cube tray. After they are frozen, I will pop them out and store in a freezer bag. I might be going overboard in preserving veggies, but I hate waste. And we have lots of lettuce. I will see how they will work out in soups and chili.

After that being done, there’s the dog to walk. It’s a pleasure after we get going. A sniff here, a sniff there. I like admiring other people’s yards, their efforts. I am sure they struggle, too. We are all trying. We all have our passions. We are all the same. We are connected by our humanity. Thus I feel comforted in my own struggles along with them .

TALKING PASSION

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Funny that I have been thinking about passions today. What’s funny about it? I was bored. Maybe that’s what led me to be thinking about passion. I was lacking and I want it back. I could say that well being and happiness are on top of my passion list. I’m sure that they are on everyone’s. Not that I am unwell or that I’m unhappy, but I have found both quite slippery and evasive. They’re always slip sliding away. I’m tired and fed up with their elusiveness.

The wind continues to blow. It sounds like some old lady whining. It sounds like me. I woke up with a bad taste in my mouth. I felt ‘unwell’ for lack of a better description. I’m tired and fed up with myself, too. It’s not how I want to be. I decided then that I was not going to put up with it. No sirree. You know what? I felt better after making the decision.Sometimes it works. Now the trick is to sustain it.

I thought I would give it my best thought shot. I’ve read Breaking The Habit of Being Yourself a couple of months ago. I must apply what I’ve learned. No point in just gathering and hording. I must use the information. I must move. I must think different thoughts. I am well and physically fit. I can work up a sweat in my exercise class. It is good for my heart. There’s no need for worry and fear. I will not break nor collapse. I will get stronger.

It’s a start. Not only am I trying to think differently. I will also try to speak differently. It will be difficult. Another slippery slope. I recognize it. After almost a life time of thinking, speaking and reacting in certain ways, it will not be easy to break the pattern. But I have a thirst for learning. I am willing. That is the purpose of life for me, to learn from mistakes. I’ve never been able to stay down for long. I never knew how. I always get up. I must have a passion for living.

It’s getting late. I must head off to bed. I find I can get to sleep easier if I go early rather than late. Perhaps I can come back tomorrow with more on passion. What are your thoughts on passion?

SUNDAY COMING DOWN

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Today the sun plays hide and seek behind the clouds. The wind is sighing heavily through the spruce trees. I am spooked by the shadowing and heavy sighs. My skin crawls. I have to do. I can’t just sit and think. Questions, all kinds of whys and how comes would creep in and invade my head and infest my mind. Yesterday, I thought about makingupdating my will and last testament. I thought about who/what causes to leave all my stuff to, whether they are worthy or not. Then I started thinking about relationships. What is and what is not. I make myself stop.

It’s better to do than to think. I took my tea out to my workstation on the deck. It was still coolish but the sun was out. The wind can’t find its way through the screen. I was warm and snug in my sanctuary. The index cards, brushes and paint were waiting for me to make a start. After the first stroke, I was away, absorbed in the process. Gone were the questions, the uncertainties and anxiety attached to them.

So what do you think of my little pouty Geisha? She kind of reminds me of my groupy self when I was little. I had those puffed out cheeks and down turned lips. Funny how I always paint myself. Perhaps it’s my alter ego wanting to come through. She’s trapped all these years and screaming to come out. Now she has an avenue through my art.

This is much better than letting the anxiety getting the better of me. Yes, I feel its creepy, crawling fingers on my skin, its stirring in my heart. I know its ways. I’m soothing and smoothing it down with my brushes and paint. I’m turning its energy in the creative rather than the destructive direction. True, Miss Pouty is not perfect. She is rather sweet though, slanted eyes and all.

I never like doing anything. If I didn’t know any better, I would rather curl up like a cat in the sun. I could easily not do anything but purr and sleep. I know that’s is not a good thing to do all the time. So I packed up my gym bag and headed out for the pool. It was wonderful. I had it all to myself. I can splash to my heart’s content. I can make a fool of myself. No one to witness except the lifeguard. What a good opportunity to practice my backstroke. I can relax with no one breathing down my back. Up the lane I front crawled. Down the lane I backstroked. I did well. I talked myself into 15 minutes, then 30 and at 45 minutes, it was good enough. It was excellent. It was better to do than to sit and brood.

THE WHYS OF MY WRITING

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Do you like to write? If you do, why?

I have this compulsion and obsession to write because I love words, the sound of them and the beauty they can create stringing them together. I love how the letters, words and sentences march across the screen as I sit here tap, tapping. I write often/all the time for comfort. I write for the sound of a friendly voice, my own. I write to find objectivity, clarity, wisdom and whatever comes up in the conversation. I write to find and love myself as this poem expresses so beautifully.

Love After Love – Derek Walcott

The time will come 
when, with elation 
you will greet yourself arriving 
at your own door, in your own mirror 
and each will smile at the other’s welcome, 

and say, sit here. Eat. 
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart 
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you 

all your life, whom you ignored 
for another, who knows you by heart. 
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, 

the photographs, the desperate notes, 
peel your own image from the mirror. 
Sit. Feast on your life.

I feel the need of comfort today. The wind blows and howls all day as if someone is suffering and crying. I feel the unease of someone walking over my grave. The sun and cloud vies for dominance, casting shifting shadows over the landscape. I hug myself for comfort. Really I would like to be in bed with the covers over my head. But I hear this voice saying, You can run but you can’t hide. So here I am, facing the music, tap, tapping away a bit of the fear. There’s nowhere to run.

 

SHAKE IT LOOSE, LET IT FALL

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The jukebox in my head is playing again. I keep hearing Kris Kristofferson’s Help Me Make It Through the Night all day. Mostly it was just the first two lines. Take the ribbon from your hair. Shake it loose and let it fall. I see it very vividly in my mind’s eye. It’s like when I hear Autumn Leaves. The autumn leaves drift by my window. The autumn leaves of red and gold. I see the leaves gently floating down.

I think they are beautiful lines that I can use as a mantra to let go of intrusive thoughts. Just singing them in my head relaxes me. It stops the obsessive chatter in my head. I can smile hearing the words and melody playing in my jukebox. I can feel the tension leaving my body. My forehead relaxes and unfurls. I can sit up straight in my chair. My thoughts are loosening. I shake my head. I watch as they fall and drift by my eyes. Music is a great healer.

 

THE WONDERS OF BEER

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Saturday

I had a good sleep last night, thanks to the beer I had in the afternoon. I was so wired from sleeplessness I didn’t feel the beer at all. It must have done something, loosened me from the inside out. At 10 pm I laid down in bed and went to sleep. That was it. No big dramas. Maybe I could make beer my sleeping pill of choice from now on. I remembered a coworker telling me she has a beer in the morning after working a night shift. Then she slept like a lamb.

Sleep deprivation is the worse thing ever. To think that I lived like that for over 30 years. I didn’t know how bad I felt till after I’ve retired and caught up on sleep. I still have those nights of sleeplessness once in awhile as I am telling you. That’s how I know how disfunctional I was in my personal life. I’m still learning from it all.

Sunday

I kind of tanked out yesterday. It takes awhile to recover. From previous research, I remember that it would take me 7 years to recover from 30+ years of shiftwork sleep deprivation. I’ve been retired for 5 years. Haven’t fully recouped and have added to my deficit by my bouts of sleeplessness.

Tuesday

I’ve been a no show for a few more days. Looks like I can’t easily recoup what sleep I’ve lost. I have to let it go and pick up the threads of daily life from here. It’s a sizzling hot one today. My body does not like what it brings. I felt it screaming even in the coolness of this morning. I took a tylenol to give it some relief. My goals are minimal. No pain or strain. Relax. Just keep cool. If only I can remember that for always. Sometimes I strive and strain too much for too much. I always suffer the consequences.

It is now 34 degrees Celius, 36 on the deck. The blooms on my newly bought Gerbera Daisy plant are suffering and drooping out there on the table. One is bent beyond rescue. It is now in a little vase. It’s quite fetching on its own.

The heat has drained all thoughts from my head. We’ve been out picking raspberries, Sheba and I. She is getting lazy. She used to pick her own on the lower branches. Now she waits for me to feed them to her. It was good picking. They’ll be good with the gelato later on. Now it’s time to sit back with a chilled beer. It’ll cool me from the inside out.

SURVIVAL FOR DUMMIES

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Egad, another sleepless night! What is to become of me? What a strange and challenging summer. I hope to survive and thrive it. Take that you devils and demons! POW!WHAM! BANG! I had such a good day yesterday, only to be disturbed by some jerk on Instagram in the evening. He caught me by surprise. Generally when someone gives my post a ‘lovely’/positive comment, I would ‘like’ it unless I didn’t see it. That’s being polite, right? So I gave his comment a ‘like’. He comments back immediately, DEMANDING why I didn’t answer his DMs (direct messages). I never answer those from men looking for women. I can tell who they are. To be polite, I commented back, Do you know how many messages I get? He agreed that it’s probably many but insisted that I must get notified about them immediately because he does. Then he demanded my email address.

He really got under my skin coming across that I should/had to answer him. Where does he come from when he had expressed no interest in my art or photographic work at all – except the one of my sexy painted fingernails? I deleted his comment and blocked him. I changed my profile photo to one with the guy. How ironic that I need a guy to ward off guys. But it was too late. The damage was done. I was disturbed. A worm got into my head and I was sleepless in Saskatoon.

It’s not new that a worm wiggle into my head and I can’t get it out. This time I can see how that worm got there despite my sleepless stupor. I am too polite for my own good. I don’t avoid or run away from issues but I don’t handle them effectively either. I hate hurting other people’s feelings but in the end that’s the result anyhow. Most of the time I absorb all the guilt. But really how can all the fault lie with one person? I lose too much energy to other people’s demands because I can’t say no, I can’t do this or that. I lose my energy because I can’t hurt another’s feeling by being direct and blunt when necessary. I try to pretty/butter it up.

I see it for the first time now. I hope I won’t lose any more sleep over something as small or stupid as some yahoo I don’t even know online. But I do thank him for making me see my ways. Maybe he is really my angel in disguise because it was strange how it happened. I’ve never had someone coming at me through comments on my posts. I do get quite a few messages from a wide assortment of men. None has got nasty at me not accepting or answering their messages. I have no idea what these men are after. Do women really fall for their flattery? I have to smile at this one I got, though. How could I not?

 I’m wired but still not sleepy. Trying not to sweat it. Resting, doing nothing only makes me feel worse. I’m tending to my life at a slow even pace – like a tortoise.

When I have days like this, it would help to have ready made meals on hand. But I don’t. I made scrambled eggs and boiled some perogies. A sliced cucumber was my vegetable. Then I made a batch of yogurt. It was not complicated, requiring no brain power. The Roomba cleaned the floors. I just moved it from room to room. I found some frozen sticky rice my mother gave me. It’s steamed and ready for me. The guy is supposed to be home in time to make supper. I might have a beer on the deck later if it cools off a bit. That should unwire me, don’t you think?

I don’t think I can do any art today. But maybe after my sticky rice and beer……

HOW TO BE HAPPY FOR DUMMIES

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If I was able to come up with a one-fit-all post/formula for happiness, I bet I would get a lot of traffic and maybe money. Alas! This dummy does not have that ability. I’m just barely scratching the surface of it for myself – like a frustrated old hen.

How does one define happiness anyways? Is it just the absence of sadness, a full belly, clothes on the back and a roof over the head? I have it all except maybe I’m a tad sad now and then. I have bouts of dissatisfaction, anger, disappointment, pain, mental anguish….I am not sure if there is an end to my list. Does this disqualify me from the happy crowd? Then there’s my childlessness and, of course, grandchildrenless. And lack of a husband most of my life. Not that I have one now. I have what is called a ‘companion.’ Somehow I feel I lack the legitimacy and respect of being a mother or wife.

There are so many things that could exclude me from the happiness club. But I feel oddly at ease and peace with myself today doing the mundane business of living amid the chaos of clutter, dog hair and a dog padding behind me wherever I went. I feel almost like I was happy. I AM happy, come to think of it. I enjoy the simpleness and slowness of my life. I have no one to answer to or impress –  except myself now that I am an adult, a senior citizen on a pension. Once upon a time, that alone commands respect.

  1. I guess the number one in my Happiness Manual would be to respect myself.
  2. Be responsible for myself. It’s not possible for someone else to make me feel ‘happy’ or unhappy. They could give me some help but I would only accept the help that lift me up. I would turn down the others.
  3. My favourite is from Regina Brett’s God Never Blinks. No matter how I feel, get up, dress up and show up.
  4. I have a Sheba/pet/plant/something living. I take good loving care of them.
  5. Bake bread, make soup, and maybe learn how to cook like Jamie Oliver. I haven’t got that kind of patience – yet.
  6. Make art, music, sew, knit, crochet…I continue to learn something new creatively.
  7. I joined an aerobics/exercise class. I do yoga and qigong sometimes.
  8. I learnt how to swim and ride a bicyle. I did both when I was well passed adulthood. I started in the Absolute Terrified swim class. Took me a whole summer to learn how to float. I was in a bad depression, too. The other morning I swam 10 lengths in 15 minutes and then went to my step aerobics class. I can ride a bike but I still need more practice to feel comfortable.
  9. Read crime thrillers and scary books. They calm me and take me out of myself into a different world.
  10. I could go on and on. There are so many ways for us dummies to be happy if we give it some thought. Above all else, we can always love ourselves more. We don’t have to go shopping or a spa to do it. I just hug myself and the fur baby.
  11. Oh, one more. I try always to speak in the first person singular. It’s all about me.

How does your manual read?