The Beat Goes On

Posted on July 2, 2024 by hafong

I surely miss wakening up to those early sundrenched mornings of past summers. I have taken so many things for granted – that they will always be here. Now comes the hard lesson. It isn’t so and they’ve never been. I’m realizing the value and the pleasure of those simple/ not so simple ordinary/not so ordinary things. So far this summer I’m still waking up in darkness in July and slipping into my warm fuzzy housecoat. What I now know is, nothing is for sure.

Let me not cry my blues and whine about the weather like I usually do. I want and am leaning towards it. Let me see if I can change my thoughts and words. It’s another day and the beat goes on. It is what it is. I have to join the band. How I play in it is my choice, but at least I’m participating, being actively involved. I’m doing the best I can. It’s all I can ask of myself.

I’ve always found words magical and healing. I inhale and exhale words and thoughts. They’re oxygen and medicine for my heart and soul. They soothe and smooth me. They can help me find the way out of the deep dark woods of my thoughts. It’s a good reason for me to show up here daily. It’s a good mental health practice, similar to brushing our teeth. Both benefit our physical and mental well being.

Today is the second day of the Ultimate Blog Challenge. Having broke the ice yesterday, it isn’t quite as difficult coming to my keyboard. The effort yesterday gave me a little extra gas for catching up on daisy yellow index-card-a-day challenge. I was stuck at day 27 and had no desire to go on. I was able to push myself to do a few more cards – day 28 – 30. I’m almost caught up. Halfway through the index card challenge.

A New Day, A New Challenge

Posted on July 1, 2024 by hafong

Photo by ALLAN FRANCA CARMO on Pexels.com

So it is July 1, Canada Day, signifying 157 years since the passing of the Confederation Act, and the country’s formal creation. This day is supposed to be filled with celebrations – parades, fireworks, picnics, concerts, etc. As one whose nature is not bent towards being celebratory, I’ve never looked forward to all this but have felt obligated to participate and enjoy. But at long last, I’m okay to annouce that I have no plans for this long weekend of Canada Day celebrations.

Today is also the first day of July’s Ultimate Blog Challenge. The rules are simple. You write a post a day, publish it on your own website, then share on the UBC page. If you decide to participate on the daily thread, you read and comment on the 2 posts immediately above yours. It’s a great way of meeting other bloggers and getting new knowledge and ideas. It’s a good way of building community. I’ve been participating in the UBC for quite a few years now. I have always been eager to start but I’m feeling a bit stuck this time around. However, I will give it my best shot.

The beginning of anything is diffcult. Bringing myself to the chair in front of my keyboard was a huge effort but I am here. My reasons for writing have always been for the pleasure it gives me since I don’t have a business or anything else to promote. Now thinking about it, I also write to be heard and seen. This time I’m writing to cheer myself up and to motivate myself in putting one foot in front of the other and carry on. Maybe it can help me to finish my other projects that I have dropped by the wayside.

Momentum

Posted on May 3, 2024 by hafong

It is the merry month of May though its beginning has been cloudy and cool with rain and snow. I think it is a good beginning. The moisture is much welcomed by me and many others. Though the Ultimate Blog Challenge is over, I still want to come to my writing space to tap out a few words and ideas. I like to keep my fingers and brain limber. Wiyh the UBC still fresh in my mind, habit is the momentum to keep me going at least for awhile.

Every new day and month is an opportunity to begin a new, to change and make new goals and pursuits of what I desire for myself and the world. The world is too big a place to begin so I will begin with myself. On this new day and month, I crave clearness of mind and order in my surroundings. When I think of change I feel the immediate weightiness of what that means. It is difficult to get out of the comfort of my ruts. Comfort feels good and who wants to give that up, eh?

May may not be a month of merriness after all. There’s work to be done for change. I have to suck it up, buckle up and move it to keep the momentum going.

A Month of Words

Posted on April 30, 2024 by hafong

It’s here – the last day of the Ultimate Blog Challenge. All good things and bad ones, too, come to an end. This one has been more of a pleasure than others in the past. I can’t say it was effortless. Some days were difficult to get the words out. Those days I had to work and push hard to get past the block. Doing so gave me more confidence. I’ve learned that if I come to the keyboard, the words will come.

What have I learned? I’ve strengthened my stay-with-it muscle by continuing and finishing when I I felt blocked, dull and bored with it. I felt not as motivated when others fell off their writing block. It always felt better with others’ company. But it builds character to carry one’s own torch and not mind what others are doing. I am inspired by others who also carried the torch through their difficulties. I have much gratitude for their shining examples.

Much thanks to Paul Taubman for leading us through another Ultimate Blog Challenge. He is a powerful leader of the pack. Thanks to everyone for sharing their thoughts, knowledge and interests.

Self Talk – No Laters

Posted on April 29, 2024 by hafong

It’s the second last day in April, the second last day of the Ultimate Blog Challenge. I’m coming late to the keyboard. I’m also coming tired. I like to say I’ll do this later. But there is no later. Later might be too late. Lately I’ve been coaching myself to do it now. Now is the time to do it because when I put off things for later, I forget and then it’s another day and another later. Sometimes I have to make a list the night before. It works and things got done.

I would put no more than 3 things on my to-do list. I would more likely succeed with a few. Success has a way of making us feel good. It would encourage me to try it again. So I talk to myself to do it now. And here I am, tapping on the keyboard, making words for the second last day. It feels good to finish well what I have started. To each job there’s a beginning, a middle and an end.

Walk On By

Posted on April 28, 2024 by hafong

I woke up to a cloudy morning with raindrops on the windows. Looking out, I see that one of our tubs for catching runoffs from the garage roof is laying on its side. Well, that’s doing alot of good, I said to myself. The second thought was the season of what’s-her-name has started. I went out and righted it. The large rock to weigh it down was still in it. Must have been a mighty wind or a push. Our neighbour has dumped our rainwater into the back alley in the past. She complains it breeds mosquitoes. So we put a screen over the tubs. We try to empty the tubs as soon as possible before she does.

I have moved past getting angry and crazed by my neighbour’s antics. Being angry was not very effectual but very harmful to my physical and emotional health. It made me look like the one with the problem. Of course, I have tried to do the neighbourly thing – given her some of my plants, talking to her. It was an impossible task. She would not allow me to talk. Even the community police officer had a hard time getting in a word edge wise.

After many years of trying different ways, giving her no response is the best solution. Being human, I am not 100% foolproof. Sometimes I do lose it. I always pay for it. Then I learned some more on not reacting. I just have to keep on walking by with no eye contact, not saying hello. It’s not the neighbourly thing but a very wise thing to do.

Saturday Morning Thoughts

Posted on April 27, 2024 by hafong

A beautiful sunny Saturday morning. It is cool though at 0℃. Just when I think we’ve past all the cool, it comes back to remind me. The only sure thing is that there are no sure thing. There’s no it’s in the bag. Looking ahead, I see that there are a couple of 0s and -2℃ lows for next week. I have to remember that we’ve had snow on Victoria Day – the long weekend in May. It’s the gardeners’ date to put in the garden.

I’ve been patient and heeding that date this year. I’ve been holding back and not rushing things. Most of my seedlings are relatively small compared to other years. They’re easier to handle. We’ll see how the harvest is in the fall. The greenhouse is in its 4th year. I no longer try to get things going in late February/early March. Late March is soon enough. That also have saved me work from covering and uncovering, worrying and fretting. I’m learning to be a little more thoughtful in how and when I tackle stuff.

The best time is, of course, the moment when I see the need. Procrastination and pushing things to the back of my mind and closet will only create much hassle sooner or later. With that knowledge, I’ve just spent a couple of hours defrosting and cleaning up the stand up freezer. All the shelves and jars have accumulated a very thick layer of frost from the door not properly closed overnight. Defrosting the freezer was a snap. The frost melted quickly when the power was shut off and the door opened wide. Cleaning the frost off the jars was a chore. It’s all done. A big sigh of relief.

Three more posts left for the Ultimate Blog Challenge. I have done well, having missed 2 so far. I took the day off yesterday. I was tired and taking a day off is good for me. Sometimes I am too dogged about these things. I need to let go a little and then come back. I don’t have to be a dog with a bone. It’s not a to do or die. I know my priorities.

Hallelujah!

Posted on April 25, 2024 by hafong

I’ve done my income tax and I get a refund. It’s a good reason to sing Hallelujah with K. D. Lang. It’s my favourite rendition of Leonard Cohen’s song. K. D. in barefeet and no ads on the video either. What a treat! I want to do a Lia hallelujah pumping my arms. Hallelujah, hallelujah!

I like to do another rendition of her when time permits. My tax return has been sitting heavy on me for the last month or so. That’s the whole trouble. I allowed it to sit on me, weighing me down, gnawing on me. I couldn’t or didn’t want to do anything until time was running out. I was frozen with dread and procrastination.

The weight is lifted. I am left with a headache. I hope I can learn from this and get my act together. I have a pile of paper crap to sort, shred and rid. I will not say never again. It didn’t work many times before. Saying it will not help. I will save my breath and try something else – another day. I’m keeping it simple on day 25 of the Ultimate Blog Challenge.

You Can’t Go Home Again

Posted on April 23, 2024 by hafong

A beautiful sunny April 23 morning to you. I’m looking down the last week of the Ultimate Blog Challenge. I’ve been successful in showing up almost every day, having missed just once. Coming to the keyboard early in the day makes the words flow better. My mind is still relatively fresh, not corrupted by the events, thoughts and feelings accumulated through the day. Writing about things that I am familiar with and passionate about makes it that much easier.

My head and thoughts are still on The Woman in Gold, the movie about Maria Altmann, an elderly Jewish refugee living in Los Angeles. She was 82 when she embarked on recovering her family’s paintings by Gustav Klimt. They were stolen by the Nazis during WW11. Two of them were portraits of her aunt, Adele Bloch-Bauer. Though the odds were against her, she did win. The movie was a great interest to me because of the history and the art.

It reminds me about my family’s journey out of China. I was 6 at the time. My paternal grandfather and father were already in Canada then. When we(my grandmother, uncles, my mother and I) left China for Hong Kong, there was no thoughts of us not returning home. All our worldly possessions were left behind. These included all the gold jewellry in my mother’s dowry, gold gifts on my birth plus my grandmother’s gold were left behind in the safe keeping of our relatives. My grandmother had always wanted to return to the house my grandfather had built for us.

Life got in the way. We never went back to China. We ended up in Canada. Our relatives kept and spent what we left behind. Now they have immigrated to the U.S. They have visited us a few summers ago. My cousin’s wife talked to my mother about how beautiful her jewellry were. I think they still have some of it but did not offer to give any back to her, not even the gold hairpin she described so vividly. My mother didn’t ask for any.

It was always my dream to visit our village one day. I got as far as Hong Kong and a bus ride away. It was not to be. I was there at the wrong time of the year, when everyone was going back and I couldn’t get a bus. Then I had plans on another time. Politics got in the way. Now, I do not have any interest. Sometimes you just can’t go home again.

Stories From my Mother

Posted on April 22, 2024 by hafong

Day 22 of the Ultimate Blog Challenge. I got sidetracked by Gia Carangi’s story enroute here. What a sad tale about a beautiful woman who had it all in a couple years and to lose it all equally fast. Then to die of AIDS at age 26. It sucked the energy right out of me. I could have done without the story. I am so easily sidetracked. I am so human. Not much will power today.

But if I was having coffee with my mother, her stories would be more uplifting even if they were sad. I never get tired of her stories no matter how many times I have heard them. I’ve learned alot about our family’s and China’s history from her stories. There were stories of hardships during the Japanese invasion. Then there were the times of Mao’s communism when my grandfather escaped with his life to Hong Kong. My grandmother was arrested and jailed in his place. Too many stories of that time to recount here today. My mother and her siblings always talk about those times whenever we visited them in New York City.

She has happy stories, too, of them growing up. There were 7 of them. My aunt was the oldest, followed by 3 brothers, then my mother and then 2 more brothers. I think that my aunt had the best childhood, being in peace time and no wars. She had more schooling. My mother was not so lucky. She loved school but only got to grade 3 because of the Japanese invasion. My grandfather was a teacher and principal of the school. He was also the mayor of the village. Because of that some people who were jealous accused him of corruption when the opportunity came.

When my grandmother was dying, she was angry with him. Because of his work, she had to suffer. I think she was 71. She had lung cancer. She and my grandfather were in New York then. I missed the funeral. I was in Saskatoon going to university. My mother said the funeral procession was very long.

onethousandandtwo

Looking at Infinity

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