Tag Archives: tradition

BEING BRAVE – BAH HUMBUG!

Posted on by
3

I am myself again, ruminating and ranting. I find myself still dwelling over things I’ve said or shouldn’t have said. I see myself wringing and twisting my hands in my mind. Oh, I’m rude! I’ve hurt their feelings! Why couldn’t I have kept my mouth shut? But I’m talking back to this voice in my head. It doesn’t really matter! It’s only my obsessive over-inflated ego thinking what I say have any importance to anyone, especially to three learned professors. Just stop it!

I stopped the voice in my head. The thoughts echo and ricochet off  the edges of my mind. I sat back in my chair and sipped my decaf. It tasted pretty good with coconut milk. I travelled back to yesterday. The room was noisy with music and people chatter, the sounds of what Christmas luncheons are made of. Our salads arrived, then the pork tenderloin. They are making draws for door prizes. My name is called. I won 2 tickets to Persephone Theatre. Someone said that the play Treasure Island is very good. It is being held over.

I’m trying to drown out life’s miseries. They tend to come out and multiply with weddings, funerals and Christmases. I’m feeling very bah humbug this year. This feeling has been increasing each year. Now I’ve reached that crescendo – BAH HUMBUG! I’m exhausted listening to all the complaints of consumerism, blah, blah, blah. Complaints! Complaints! Complaints! And yet with all these complaint the practices are continued year after year. This year I’m stopping all that. I’ve stopped going to church because of all the bad stuff about religion. Now I’ve gone all the way. Now I’m truly brave.

Not that I’m feeling totally comfortable with my new bravery. I see certain looks on people’s faces after I’ve come out – those shifty eyes and uncertain careful voices. People betray alot with body language and facial expressions. I imagine I do, too. I can’t see myself but sometimes I catch my own reflection in others’ reaction. I could be happier if I was dumb and dumber. Ah, you can’t have everything in this world.

If you’ve caught a whisper of sarcasm and bitterness in my words, you got it. I am feeling that. It is my own sarcasm and bitterness, not directed at anyone else. There’s no harm in acknowledging my own feelings. The harm comes from holding them in and squishing them in my own body. There is nothing wrong with not celebrating Christmas. It is not a Chinese tradition though we’ve adopted it over the years. It’s truly a Charlie Brown kind of Christmas and not authenitically ours. I’ve felt like an imposter all these years.

If Christmas is about peace, goodwill and love towards all, I’m all for it. It should be celebrated every day. But do we need all the trappings? If you love ‘all that is Christmas’, it is okay with me, too. I have no objections to how others’ celebrate. I respect that. But the controversies and arguments about Christmas have killed some of that joy for me. That is not to say that I am a total joyless heathen. There is a tiny spark of hope for joy in me. I will bring out my own Bodhi tree. Sheba and I found it in the park last year. I had to fight her for it. There’s history here. It was already dead and no chopping down necessary. We didn’t pay any money for it either. Measuring up is not in our vocabulary.

 

 

THE CHANGING OF THE CLOTH

Posted on by
2

IMG_5794

Christmas is over.  My table is empty of food but my heart is full.  I have been silent this last while, resting and catching my breath.  It is not just from the holiday season but maybe from my whole life.

Sometimes it is good to be silent and let things be.  Let the dust of life settle on its own.  The picture might be clearer in the end.  But I can see that it’s slightly askew.  No matter.  It is still a pretty picture.  A little touch will straighten it out.  We all need those little touches.  We want those touches, those caresses, hugs and pats on the head.

The mornings are still so cold and dark even though the days are suppose to be getting longer.  In the darkness before I rise, dark thoughts come into my head.  I know they are not real and yet sometimes they drag me down.   I try not to linger in its gloom.  I get up and begin the routine of another day.

My qigong movements do not feel smooth and flowing.  It is difficult to be in the moment with the breath but I do my best anyways.  It is -30 C this morning but I put on my winter gear and head out of the door with Sheba in tow.  The sun is out, the air chilled but no wind.

And now, here I am, a cup of hot chocolate beside me, tap, tapping away.  I have found my voice again.  The darkness is gone and I am bathed in sunlight.  2013 is almost gone.  To welcome the new year, I have put out something new and bright.  It is the tradition of my ancestors.  Let us look forward to happiness and prosperity.  Gong Hey Fat Choy!

IMG_5796

THE SPIRIT OF CELEBRATIONS

Posted on by
Reply

IMG_1364I’m thinking of past Christmases and New Years as I awake in the dark this morning.  I’m thinking that it would be much easier if it was in July.  There would be no snow, heavy coats, scarves and boots, coughs or runny noses to deal with.  Life would be lighter and easier…would it not?

I’m also thinking back to my childhood in China, of New Year’s Eve.  Seems to me that is the only memory I have of a true celebration ….. a welcoming in of the new year and paying homage to the one past.  That is my interpretation of the rituals,  for I was but a child when I left my homeland.  That is how I like to remember it.

I’m feeling my loss, as a child of immigrants to this country….the  loss of my Chinese-ness, my culture, my heritage.  But I have spent many more years here than there and I can never go home again.  I am a stranger in both lands.   Sometimes it is necessary to feel our pain and losses in order to move ahead.  I have felt that pain many times.  But I also have gained much because of that sense of loss.

I really do not want to dwell on pain and losses.  They are not always real, but things our mind grab onto, maybe because of something someone said or done.  Who knows what is in another’s mind or heart.  And you cannot understand it so you write your own interpretation.  You allow yourself to doubt and you let poison in.  You hurt.  How does that help?  Better that we celebrate, however we can, to let in the light.

I like the Chinese ways of ushering in the new by cleaning and clearing out stale and stagnant chi.  Gung Hee Fat Choy! Happy New Year! Chinese tradition is to bring the new year in with clean house, new clothes and to receive/give red envelopes of money ..symbol of prosperity. My childhood memory is of our house being warmed by the fires tended by the women in our family as they made sweets and dim sims in the night.  Perhaps one day I will learn how to make some of them.

18867_233516165886_4365268_n

I’m sweeping out the debris of my mind, letting go of past grievances and hurts, opening my heart to receive all the goodness that there is in the universe.  I am baking bread, , making soup, blessing our home.  I am wearing the colour red, the colour of good fortune.

I am no longer a lost child. looking for my identity.  I have found my Chinese self, Hafong, alias Lily, the born again Catholic,  who admires the ways of Buddha .  I am a Chinese woman living in Canada, a country in the Universe.  And I am celebrating my life.