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.

September Days

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The sun rises later each morning as do I. I cocoon deeper into the warmth of the quilt and darkness though I do know it is morning. I have to coax my limbs to move, to swing myself out of bed and into life. It is a very cloudy and misty morning. The colours of autumn light up the world. The world is a bit dark now. I have to focus on the light that surrounds me. I won’t let the darkness rule me.

I do not wonder about the darkness that is in our world today. How could it be otherwise? I have the right words but sometimes I cannot live up to them. I’ve been struggling for days to come out of the mist of my mind. I have not succeeded. Every morning I say to myself later. Every evening, I say tomorrow. So here I am, still mired in the cobwebs of my mind. I am still working my way through the passing of my mother. It will be a year in a month. Then there’s the tending of my aged father. He is also working through his way without my mother.

September comes with many losses. Long days with sunshine are replaced with longer darkness. The leaves are turning gold and orange and falling to the ground. The heat of summer are cooling. A dear friend have left this earth. I am sad with all these changes. I am sad but I am ok. I am sad and yet I am fascinated with my new world. There’s so much yet to see and to learn.

Some Days

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I hate the responsibility part of being an adult. Though I live by number 46 of Regina Brett’s 50 Life Lessons of No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up, I hate it, too. Some days I rather not get up, dress up or show up. Some days I would like to hibernate in a log like a bear and wait until it is over. Have you had those days?

Some days being an adult feels like such a heavy burden. I can manage getting up, dressing up and even brushing my teeth. Showing up is the difficult part. But being the adult, the top rung of the ladder, I feel the heavy load. There’s no option of not showing up, taking responsibility, making decisions and such.

It’s been a few days since I’ve started this conversation. Some days conversations are difficult to sustain. It is damn hard to pick it up again but I am trying. It is a rainy September morning. The leaves are starting to turn colour. Autumn is on its way. The garden is still thriving. My greenhouse is finally lush with growth and harvest. I have much to do but there’s no rush. Everything will and can keep. There is a time and season for everything.

September sloth

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Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

I’m slothing through these days of September. I’m not happy about it but I try not to give myself too much grief. Though the official date for autumn is September 21/22, the days have been steadily getting shorter. It was still dark at 6 this morning. The furnace was turned on to take the chill off. I could not will myself out of bed till after 7. I am learning to accept that my battery power is less in these days of dwindling daylight. It is ok to move slower, do less and gain a pound or two. It is wise not to fight nature. I will just do the best I can.

I am happy to learn that there was no frost last night. The garden is safe. We will be busy the next week or 2 harvesting and putting the garden to sleep for the coming winter. There’s always something to do. Right now I have a pot of tomatoes simmering on the stove. I’m saucing a quart of tomatoes a day. My goal is 12 quarts so 8 more quarts to go. The bread is out of the oven and cooling on the rack. The dishes are done. There’s just the loaf pans to wash. I better get to them.

Finishing, cleaning and putting things away are just as hard as starting something. The tomato sauce is in the jar. The bread is still cooling. All the pots and pans are washed and dried, almost put away. Congrats to myself for jobs done. Now I can relax and resume slothing.

Writing Makes Everything Better

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Photo by Antoni Shkraba Studio on Pexels.com

Four days in, September has not been warm and fuzzy, the kind of autumn days we dream of. It’s cool and windy. Strains of Nat King Cole’s Chestnuts roasting on an open fire are playing in my mind. I am feeling slow and sluggish, wondering how to get myself back in motion. I stopped going to the gym awhile back. I didn’t realize that routine of getting out of the house bright and early was so motivating and energizing. Starting over is hard to do. Even though I’ve started back, my heart isn’t in it. I have to work at it.

I guess the lesson is not to completely stop the good things. Instead I can scale back, take a short rest and hop back on again. When the desire and inspiration are not there, I will have to do the hard work. And it is hard. Giving in to languishing and curling up with a blanket looks very attractive right now. But I know that will not get me out of this ‘everything is hard’ hole. I will buckle up and suck it up.

It helps to have this writing space. It helps to lay everything out on the page. I can then see the wherefores and whys of some of the things. I think that is why I love crossword puzzles and Wordle. Writing helps me solve problems. It stop thoughts whirling endlessly in my head. It stops me from berating myself and making myself feel bad. Writing is my therapist without a hefty fee. And I don’t have to wait for an appointment. I have to love all that.

Hello September

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Just like that, the sun and heat of August disappeared. September came with cooler air, clouds and smoke. What a disappointment! Disappointments, no matter how small, are so hard to swallow. My throat is tight and constricted. I feel an ache all the way down to my heart. A little melodramatic, I know. It is the way I feel. I don’t like it or the way I am. I am disappointed with the weather. I’m disappointed with myself. I will try to change how to deal with it better.

The first thing to do is to acknowledge how I feel. The second is not to take disappointments so seriously. Life, after all, is not full of guarantees. The weather is unpredictable and not in our control. Things happen, people screw up, I screw up and accidents happen. The waitress could forget you’re there. The coffee refill could be slow coming. Your order could be forgotten. And when it does arrive, it could be a bit burnt. All these things could and did happen. The streets are full of road blocks and detours. People get lost. People will be late. For sure there will be alot of fuming and swearing. But it is not serious. It is not life threatening.

The third thing to do is chill and not do anything rash. Let it all sit then do some deep breathing to dissipate the woe is me victim feeling. Then do TLC like making myself a nice breakfast to counteract the sting of disappointment. I chose not to sit with disappointment. Instead, I harvested 2 of my mad hatter peppers, sliced and diced and fried them to accompany my omelette and toast.

Disappointments do not always disappeared. They can linger on in our memory. That’s how they and we are. I choose to learn from them and not to let them sour me. I am sour enough.

August Was

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August was fleeting. It came and now it’s on the way out. I do not remember much of it except that it was hot and dry for the last half. It made a loud exit yesterday with two big and quick thunder showers leaving a stream of water flowing down the back alley. It was all welcomed by me.The air was quickly cooled and the garden quenched.

Funky as this spring and summer has been, August brought a bountiful harvest. I have been harvesting buckets of tomatoes. I’ve been blanching and freezing peas and beans. Our city allotment garden has been very productive with beets, potatoes, corn and squash. Yesterday I harvested 15 kohlrabi, 4 cabbages and a handful of goji berries. We shall have a full larder for the winter. I am grateful.

August Heat

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Another hot 30℃ August day, the kind of heat we wanted in July but never got. Makes me wonder what kind of winter we will have. So many unusual and unpredictable weather patterns. How will we navigate the future? Will our planet survive what we have been doing to it? And can/will we change our ways? We seem to be hell bent on going down the same path – fast everything, more money and more stuff.

I am not hopeful but at the same time, I am not hopeless either. I am still interested and engaged in this little life of mine. I am doing my best in not adding to the stress of the planet. Perhaps it means little to the grand scheme of things to say I recycle. But I do. I recycle and compost. I save rain water. I even save water I wash my vegetables with. Perhaps I do go a little overboard sometimes and exhaust myself. But I’m happy to have that extra water to throw on the strawberry plants. They pay back with beautiful delicious red fruits.

I feel very fortunate that I am able to do the work of growing my own food and to share some with family and friends. I am grateful that I find joy and fulfillment in working the soil. It keeps me sane and grounded when life is hard. And it is always hard.

This Time Last Year

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Another beautiful sunny August morning, the kind that you want to last forever. I know it can’t. And so I linger in it and savour, taking in as much as I can in these moments. This time last year my mother was still alive, still breathing, still getting up. This time last year, I was going to the Asian Market to get the things she wanted to cook with. This time last year my greenhouse was full of bitter melon vines and fruit. What a difference a year makes.

This year there is no mother. She has departed 10 months now. Life feels strange without her and yet it goes on. We go on. This year there is no bitter melon in the greenhouse. They would not and did not thrive. Perhaps there has been enough bitterness this year. And I did grow them for her though I love them, too. Maybe next year I can try growing them again. There is a time for everything.

No Reason At All

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Another beautiful sunny August morning. I’m on my second cup of tea. I should be getting on with my day but I haven’t been able to give up this indulgence. It’s harmless and maybe helpful and healthful. So let me indulge away. Beautiful as these August days are, I have to remind myself the days are getting shorter. The sun rises later and sets earlier. Sometimes I find my moods turning on a dime, feeling bad all of a sudden, for no reasonable reason.

I turn on myself, not being kind or generous. It takes a moment before the light bulb clicks on. I realize then that it is late August and perhaps it is my old friend, SAD, calling again. I feel better that there is a reason, a cause and that I am not just a miserable good for nothing person. I haven’t yet ascended to the level where I can accept that it is ok to feel whatever I feel without a reason. But I am better at letting these moods pass on their own. I am not so dogged at ‘fixing myself’. Perhaps I am at last learning about acceptance.

Sunrise

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It was so beautiful and comforting to see the sunrise this morning. I took a moment to give thanks to whoever/whatever is responsible for this day. I took time to sit in silence with my morning tea, for this day will not come again. The sun will still rise every day but the light and air will never be quite the same. Nor will the petunias and all the living things. I, too, will never see, hear or feel the same as I do in this very moement.

It is an astounding realization of how precious the present moment is. It brings to mind Mary Oliver’s poem The Summer Day. 

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?