The Universe
Home is where the Heart is
July 31, 2009
You'd think with all the displacement experience, I would still be able to sit down and output creatively while I'm in between apartments, right?
Straight after a two-week trip down under at the end of May, visiting years of stored memories and sorting $623 worth of coins in Australian currency, I returned to Hong Kong with a top priority of apartment hunting.
I went about the task with much fervor, seeing up to ten apartments a day. At night, I resorted to playing Sims to relief decorating anxiety, which if we had to lay it out in a formula, compounds itself by units of 10 per each apartment, 50 even, if already furnished, since I had to invariably remodel all the existing furniture, then replace with suitable pieces and colour. All this was exhausting for my tumour-riddled brain, so Sims it was. I modeled homes based on properties I saw during the day, which accounts for the cluster of two-bedroom, one-level residences now on the game. I decorated them with an ideal budget, which of course offers swimming pools, pianos and hot tubs, that now exists only within the game. I even got to style the people, down to their bountiful hair, set their career paths and made sure they 'wohooed' regularly. Sims, too, have to feel at home enough in their surroundings to maintain 'comfort' and 'environment' levels.
Dear friends from Shanghai who visited me the very first weekend remarked how already lived-in my new home was, and commented that I'm not the 'piecemeal kinda gal'. A matter of course. Piece, what piece? I want the whole goddamn pie. Instantly. All of the time.
The June morning the world mourned the loss of the King of Pop, I set out on my home furnishing collection journey, riding in between truck driver and mover, on my sweet, sweaty ride to reunite with long lost shoes in storage, then onwards to pick up pre-loved pieces at five separate addresses. I swept up some pretty neat deals with all the repatriation happening in this current retrenchment rage. My new shoe caddy had to be carried up thirteen flights of stairs, since it didn't fit into the elevator. Precious.
The purging mode must have consumed me way back in February in Shanghai, since I find I only kept a selection of my vast stemware collection. Browsing online, I found used wine glasses, red even. Coloured glass and bras with double straps are things I can never resist buying. I arrange to pick up said stemware at the vendor's home, a location that I instantly recognised as the taxi pulled into the driveway. As I walked into the lobby, I slipped into nostalgic shock. When she opened the door and invited me into her apartment, I was speechless. It was once my grandparents' home, over twenty years ago. We used to come here regularly right until our grandfather passed away, after which the family moved.
I was still in awe of the Universe when I left with those glasses. Their procurement aside, I decided later I didn't like them anymore - I was fooled by the colour and misjudged the size of the goblet. I gave away the glasses but they remain with the family: my sentimental mother is hanging onto them.
With Ann staying with me these two weeks as well as my new home truly warmed by family and friends, I feel centred and earthed again. Grounded, and able to create, welcoming inspiration and prolificacy. This website, too, is settling in well with a new, local host. I even have good news that tumours in my head are reduced both in quantity and size. Happy in the Valley indeed.
Surely my landlady and I sharing the same birthday is a good sign as well?
Straight after a two-week trip down under at the end of May, visiting years of stored memories and sorting $623 worth of coins in Australian currency, I returned to Hong Kong with a top priority of apartment hunting.
I went about the task with much fervor, seeing up to ten apartments a day. At night, I resorted to playing Sims to relief decorating anxiety, which if we had to lay it out in a formula, compounds itself by units of 10 per each apartment, 50 even, if already furnished, since I had to invariably remodel all the existing furniture, then replace with suitable pieces and colour. All this was exhausting for my tumour-riddled brain, so Sims it was. I modeled homes based on properties I saw during the day, which accounts for the cluster of two-bedroom, one-level residences now on the game. I decorated them with an ideal budget, which of course offers swimming pools, pianos and hot tubs, that now exists only within the game. I even got to style the people, down to their bountiful hair, set their career paths and made sure they 'wohooed' regularly. Sims, too, have to feel at home enough in their surroundings to maintain 'comfort' and 'environment' levels.
Dear friends from Shanghai who visited me the very first weekend remarked how already lived-in my new home was, and commented that I'm not the 'piecemeal kinda gal'. A matter of course. Piece, what piece? I want the whole goddamn pie. Instantly. All of the time.
The June morning the world mourned the loss of the King of Pop, I set out on my home furnishing collection journey, riding in between truck driver and mover, on my sweet, sweaty ride to reunite with long lost shoes in storage, then onwards to pick up pre-loved pieces at five separate addresses. I swept up some pretty neat deals with all the repatriation happening in this current retrenchment rage. My new shoe caddy had to be carried up thirteen flights of stairs, since it didn't fit into the elevator. Precious.
I was still in awe of the Universe when I left with those glasses. Their procurement aside, I decided later I didn't like them anymore - I was fooled by the colour and misjudged the size of the goblet. I gave away the glasses but they remain with the family: my sentimental mother is hanging onto them.
With Ann staying with me these two weeks as well as my new home truly warmed by family and friends, I feel centred and earthed again. Grounded, and able to create, welcoming inspiration and prolificacy. This website, too, is settling in well with a new, local host. I even have good news that tumours in my head are reduced both in quantity and size. Happy in the Valley indeed.
Surely my landlady and I sharing the same birthday is a good sign as well?
Cancer Circus Pt III
May 05, 2009
Why do I keep writing about the past when the daily chronicles are dramatic and demanding enough?
Because it's only when we fully understand history can we appreciate what is happening in the present. Because I want to verbalise, to contextualise it all before I forget. Because shit piles up. Because I had a series of boring, motionless dates with the literally radiating Wall E, and it will be another two months before the next round of MRI to see whether he has delivered his promises and/or other catastrophes.
So, where was I? Refresh your minds with Part I and Part II, in case you mistake this entry as what is happening currently. I'm going through recurrence right now, but I'm recounting what transpired back from September 2007, after the initial surgery.
I was on my feet pretty soon after the operation, my hair just isn't right when I lie down for days on end. I was told that during surgery, updates were leaking out by the minute to a handful of friends via SMS and IM, much like news flashes during presidential elections. Day 3 after, I thought it time to announce the situation and requested Ann to send out an email to a small network. She wrote with such rationality and precision that I ended up forwarding her message to my entire address book — sedated or not, I couldn't possibly have done any better.
... It was really touch and go for a while. She’s coming through now though and it’s all looking positive. She’s mentally very alert (been bossing me around since the op) but the body is obviously going to take some time to heal. It was a really major surgery. She’s basically got an artificial artery inside her for the rest of her life. She’s still on morphine...
The response to Ann's email made me feel especially loved: my inbox was inundated with concerned and well-wishing messages, and the hospital flooded with floral deliveries. I even received a pink Nintendo SC to wile away the hours. If you think a hospital stay is boring, think again. I couldn't get through one single DVD from a selection that was so kindly brought to me from my Shanghai home. Doctors did their rounds before my breakfast. Nurses were at me round the clock. Visitors came to see me, but had to be hosted in unoccupied rooms since mine was packed. It was a full-time job, and I missed my freelance schedule.
Even with the low energy level, sleep was not always easy while in hospital, with a drainage unit attached to me like an untrained ayi, clumsy and awkward. She was loud as well: the continuous suction noise had me thinking it was raining the entire night at ICU, and provoked me to shut her up in layers of toweling even during the days after. Sleeping on my side is now elevated from mundane habit to luxury behaviour, one that I am thankful for every night. Lounging on an incline, my back and bottom grew sore, but lying completely flat would probably have caused more complications when a pulmonary embolism hit me five days post-operation.
I remember not being able to breathe that early morning. I sat up, composed myself and tried unsuccessfully to fall asleep again. The oxymeter moved between 84 to 89, well below the required 100% blood oxygen content. I woke Mom, who then immediately called the nurse, who then reached my surgeon urgently. It was not yet 6 AM. The emergency CT scan indicated a shower of blood clots blocking my major airways that was apparently foreseeable and even expected while recovering from such major physical trauma. Once the clots are formed, then sprinkled into the bloodstream, they are hoped to be absorbed back into the system. The doctors then increased dosage on the blood thinner I was already taking as a precaution.
Returning to my room in a wheelchair from the imaging department that morning, I crashed. The morphine euphoria had long evaporated, reality was slow, hard and heavy. I was staring at life head on, and I felt weak, defeated, broken. I cried.
The rest of my sojourn at the 'hotel' was relatively non-eventful. I savoured a transfusion of 3 full bags of blood — it coursed through my veins like V from True Blood, the sweet, invigorating life source it is — while Ann scored a photo with Josh Hartnett for her sister's entertainment in the name of cancer. To Josh, who was wrapping up filming in Hong Kong, the 'sister in hospital' probably resembled a bald twelve year-old with leukemia in flannel pajamas, frail, pale and emaciated in a room full of balloons and teddy bears. Whatever works.
PT had rerouted a company trip from Thailand to Hong Kong the day before my discharge from hospital. Seeing him, my best friend, was tremendously comforting; but seeing him, a familiar face from Shanghai reaffirmed the reality of the circumstances: this was not a parallel universe I accidentally slid into, not a surreal nightmare — this is it, there really is no escape.
The ride home from hospital was the first time I had left the building in ten days. I was tearful, overwhelmed. By the time we arrived, I wanted to unload the anxiety, but was overshadowed by my mother's own personal brand of fury. She unleashed her stress over a minor miscommunication with the medical supplier of home-use oxygen. Her yelling and frantic energy made me aware that even if I myself hadn't been on edge for the last two weeks, people who cared about me certainly were, and desperately needed relief.
Be careful what you wish for, really, because the Universe does hear you. I recall clearly that night at YY — one of our late night haunts in Shanghai where the badly mixed drinks and the smoky, bohemian atmosphere always have me drinking hot Lipton tea with a shot of vodka — when PT, Alfred and I sat around spinning yarn on piercings and tattoos. A tattoo is something serious, it's really desecrating the body... I think scarring or branding is hot, it adds texture and touch... You've always decorated your cleavage. Yes, why don't I just get a zipper on my chest?!
My favourite accessory for a decolletage since I-don't-remember-when: Swarovski crystal tattoos in black, straight down my front. I have a visual of the post-op, pre-scar staples too. Not for the squeamish, though.
Because it's only when we fully understand history can we appreciate what is happening in the present. Because I want to verbalise, to contextualise it all before I forget. Because shit piles up. Because I had a series of boring, motionless dates with the literally radiating Wall E, and it will be another two months before the next round of MRI to see whether he has delivered his promises and/or other catastrophes.
So, where was I? Refresh your minds with Part I and Part II, in case you mistake this entry as what is happening currently. I'm going through recurrence right now, but I'm recounting what transpired back from September 2007, after the initial surgery.
I was on my feet pretty soon after the operation, my hair just isn't right when I lie down for days on end. I was told that during surgery, updates were leaking out by the minute to a handful of friends via SMS and IM, much like news flashes during presidential elections. Day 3 after, I thought it time to announce the situation and requested Ann to send out an email to a small network. She wrote with such rationality and precision that I ended up forwarding her message to my entire address book — sedated or not, I couldn't possibly have done any better.
... It was really touch and go for a while. She’s coming through now though and it’s all looking positive. She’s mentally very alert (been bossing me around since the op) but the body is obviously going to take some time to heal. It was a really major surgery. She’s basically got an artificial artery inside her for the rest of her life. She’s still on morphine...
The response to Ann's email made me feel especially loved: my inbox was inundated with concerned and well-wishing messages, and the hospital flooded with floral deliveries. I even received a pink Nintendo SC to wile away the hours. If you think a hospital stay is boring, think again. I couldn't get through one single DVD from a selection that was so kindly brought to me from my Shanghai home. Doctors did their rounds before my breakfast. Nurses were at me round the clock. Visitors came to see me, but had to be hosted in unoccupied rooms since mine was packed. It was a full-time job, and I missed my freelance schedule.
Even with the low energy level, sleep was not always easy while in hospital, with a drainage unit attached to me like an untrained ayi, clumsy and awkward. She was loud as well: the continuous suction noise had me thinking it was raining the entire night at ICU, and provoked me to shut her up in layers of toweling even during the days after. Sleeping on my side is now elevated from mundane habit to luxury behaviour, one that I am thankful for every night. Lounging on an incline, my back and bottom grew sore, but lying completely flat would probably have caused more complications when a pulmonary embolism hit me five days post-operation.
I remember not being able to breathe that early morning. I sat up, composed myself and tried unsuccessfully to fall asleep again. The oxymeter moved between 84 to 89, well below the required 100% blood oxygen content. I woke Mom, who then immediately called the nurse, who then reached my surgeon urgently. It was not yet 6 AM. The emergency CT scan indicated a shower of blood clots blocking my major airways that was apparently foreseeable and even expected while recovering from such major physical trauma. Once the clots are formed, then sprinkled into the bloodstream, they are hoped to be absorbed back into the system. The doctors then increased dosage on the blood thinner I was already taking as a precaution.
The rest of my sojourn at the 'hotel' was relatively non-eventful. I savoured a transfusion of 3 full bags of blood — it coursed through my veins like V from True Blood, the sweet, invigorating life source it is — while Ann scored a photo with Josh Hartnett for her sister's entertainment in the name of cancer. To Josh, who was wrapping up filming in Hong Kong, the 'sister in hospital' probably resembled a bald twelve year-old with leukemia in flannel pajamas, frail, pale and emaciated in a room full of balloons and teddy bears. Whatever works.
PT had rerouted a company trip from Thailand to Hong Kong the day before my discharge from hospital. Seeing him, my best friend, was tremendously comforting; but seeing him, a familiar face from Shanghai reaffirmed the reality of the circumstances: this was not a parallel universe I accidentally slid into, not a surreal nightmare — this is it, there really is no escape.
The ride home from hospital was the first time I had left the building in ten days. I was tearful, overwhelmed. By the time we arrived, I wanted to unload the anxiety, but was overshadowed by my mother's own personal brand of fury. She unleashed her stress over a minor miscommunication with the medical supplier of home-use oxygen. Her yelling and frantic energy made me aware that even if I myself hadn't been on edge for the last two weeks, people who cared about me certainly were, and desperately needed relief.
My favourite accessory for a decolletage since I-don't-remember-when: Swarovski crystal tattoos in black, straight down my front. I have a visual of the post-op, pre-scar staples too. Not for the squeamish, though.
By the Law of Attraction
April 30, 2009
One of the many podcasts I subscribe to recently revealed a surprising update. By the Law of Attraction, the podcaster had attracted a woman into his life, fallen in love with her, married her, had a child together, all archived in the last two years of podcasting. And now they're going through a divorce. Does that invalidate the law of attraction itself? Was my faith in the law shaken at the core? Not at all, and with more pontificating, it has reaffirmed my belief even further.
How we experience whatever it is that we have attracted into our lives is solely dependent on ourselves: once we've ordered the soup of the day, it's up to us to enjoy it, or not. The Law does not guarantee ever-lasting love, not even promise anything more than what we actively wish for. I learnt it the fun way.
One stormy evening stuck in a hotel in Taipei with typhoon number 17 (even typhoon signals are inflated and exaggerated over there), I had already exhausted options at the tiny hotel spa, and tried to find amusement online. Crouched in the corner surfing generously unsecured wireless signal, I started chatting to an Austrian based in Shanghai. He was charming enough, albeit laden with spelling mistakes, and we flirted pleasantly for some time. He grew ardent and impatient with the fact that I was not due back in Shanghai for another few weeks, and so proposed coming to Hong Kong to meet me the following weekend. He had begun with a flimsy idea of hitching the next flight out to Taipei from Shanghai, but even if I welcomed him with open arms, it was quite evident from the forecast that Taipei airport would not.
So we toyed with the idea of his impending visit. Where would he stay? Oh, the W just opened recently. Yes, and their spa should be ready soon too, said the spa junkie in me.
There's something about the awkward timing of treatments for couples at the spa that is so delicious and tantalising. Lying bare-skinned on massage tables, aware that your partner is relaxing to the therapist's warm, assuring touch, skin tingling, because you're experiencing the same yourself; sharing a vanilla bath in a design-savvy jacuzzi intended exactly for 1.5 which allows only room enough for one body on top of the other, for that (in)delicate duration of just thirty minutes, which they announce upon exit as if to challenge any aspirations of lewd conduct; leaving you alone again to rinse off with enough nozzles and shower heads for all kinds of dirty, but once again while the clock is ticking. Some rooms even have peekaboo panels on the unlockable doors.
I didn't relate quite as much wanton detail to Mr. Vienna, but in putting the possibility of a spa tryst to him, I began casting my desires for licentious aquatic fun to the Universe. Images of the W interior and other lascivious thoughts lolled in my head for the rest of the week, even after I had swiftly forgotten about the cyber conversation and the man himself.
Instead of romancing an Austrian the following Friday night back in Hong Kong, I was heading home with an inkling of a long night out ahead of me. A girlfriend got online to see whether I was out and about, a tad tired of the thus far inane evening she herself was having. Was I up for drinks? Sure, not usually my thing to come home after dinner and head out again, but tonight, I'm game. Where should we go? The cocktails at W are potent, shall we meet there? Bingo.
I felt charged by the 'coincidence' — a fallacy in my book — and put on a dress that I had not dared to wear since its purchase, along with new Blahniks. New shoes somehow always bring me luck, maybe that's why I can't stop buying them.
We had a fantastic girl-time at the bar at W. After four rounds of serious mixology and witnessing two individual guests consorting intimately then ascend together in the same elevator (I ran after them to check, like some giddy schoolgirl), we were inspired to continue our own Friday night.
By the time we were queuing for entry at the club, we were so giggly we didn't care about waiting, and were offered more shots besides. Once inside, it was evident that the Universe as well was having fun that night. The club was packed with men, dripping with testosterone. We were still picking our jaws off the floor when my girlfriend was promptly cornered by a somewhat acrobatic dancer. I strayed from her and meandered through the throng. I was appreciating the plethora of candy around me when I felt a gentle hand resting at my hip. It lingered, and before I had time to react, came the delectable brushing of the upper arm with the back of his index finger, followed by the confident stubble nuzzle at the nape of my neck. Brazen, sensuous and typically French: touch first, talk later.
Waz yawr name, sexee? I'm Jean-Charles. Of course you are, darling. More salacious moves and lychee martinis served with prurient banter in French later, JC went for the kill: I really want to take a bath with you. Jackpot.
A bouncer gave me two thumbs up as Frenchie led me out of the club, the same one that ushered me in just twenty minutes earlier. I couldn't help winking at the sky before snuggling into a cab with the boy. I had projected the W and some scrub-tub fun, and that was exactly what fell on my plate that evening. Immaterial that the players were unexpected, irrelevant that the screenplay was spontaneous and subtitled. I attracted, then I engaged. I could've stayed in. I could've declined to meet his bath tub.
But I didn't. And what an amazing tub it was.
How has the Law of Attraction worked for you?
How we experience whatever it is that we have attracted into our lives is solely dependent on ourselves: once we've ordered the soup of the day, it's up to us to enjoy it, or not. The Law does not guarantee ever-lasting love, not even promise anything more than what we actively wish for. I learnt it the fun way.
One stormy evening stuck in a hotel in Taipei with typhoon number 17 (even typhoon signals are inflated and exaggerated over there), I had already exhausted options at the tiny hotel spa, and tried to find amusement online. Crouched in the corner surfing generously unsecured wireless signal, I started chatting to an Austrian based in Shanghai. He was charming enough, albeit laden with spelling mistakes, and we flirted pleasantly for some time. He grew ardent and impatient with the fact that I was not due back in Shanghai for another few weeks, and so proposed coming to Hong Kong to meet me the following weekend. He had begun with a flimsy idea of hitching the next flight out to Taipei from Shanghai, but even if I welcomed him with open arms, it was quite evident from the forecast that Taipei airport would not.
So we toyed with the idea of his impending visit. Where would he stay? Oh, the W just opened recently. Yes, and their spa should be ready soon too, said the spa junkie in me.
There's something about the awkward timing of treatments for couples at the spa that is so delicious and tantalising. Lying bare-skinned on massage tables, aware that your partner is relaxing to the therapist's warm, assuring touch, skin tingling, because you're experiencing the same yourself; sharing a vanilla bath in a design-savvy jacuzzi intended exactly for 1.5 which allows only room enough for one body on top of the other, for that (in)delicate duration of just thirty minutes, which they announce upon exit as if to challenge any aspirations of lewd conduct; leaving you alone again to rinse off with enough nozzles and shower heads for all kinds of dirty, but once again while the clock is ticking. Some rooms even have peekaboo panels on the unlockable doors.
I didn't relate quite as much wanton detail to Mr. Vienna, but in putting the possibility of a spa tryst to him, I began casting my desires for licentious aquatic fun to the Universe. Images of the W interior and other lascivious thoughts lolled in my head for the rest of the week, even after I had swiftly forgotten about the cyber conversation and the man himself.
Instead of romancing an Austrian the following Friday night back in Hong Kong, I was heading home with an inkling of a long night out ahead of me. A girlfriend got online to see whether I was out and about, a tad tired of the thus far inane evening she herself was having. Was I up for drinks? Sure, not usually my thing to come home after dinner and head out again, but tonight, I'm game. Where should we go? The cocktails at W are potent, shall we meet there? Bingo.
I felt charged by the 'coincidence' — a fallacy in my book — and put on a dress that I had not dared to wear since its purchase, along with new Blahniks. New shoes somehow always bring me luck, maybe that's why I can't stop buying them.
We had a fantastic girl-time at the bar at W. After four rounds of serious mixology and witnessing two individual guests consorting intimately then ascend together in the same elevator (I ran after them to check, like some giddy schoolgirl), we were inspired to continue our own Friday night.
By the time we were queuing for entry at the club, we were so giggly we didn't care about waiting, and were offered more shots besides. Once inside, it was evident that the Universe as well was having fun that night. The club was packed with men, dripping with testosterone. We were still picking our jaws off the floor when my girlfriend was promptly cornered by a somewhat acrobatic dancer. I strayed from her and meandered through the throng. I was appreciating the plethora of candy around me when I felt a gentle hand resting at my hip. It lingered, and before I had time to react, came the delectable brushing of the upper arm with the back of his index finger, followed by the confident stubble nuzzle at the nape of my neck. Brazen, sensuous and typically French: touch first, talk later.
Waz yawr name, sexee? I'm Jean-Charles. Of course you are, darling. More salacious moves and lychee martinis served with prurient banter in French later, JC went for the kill: I really want to take a bath with you. Jackpot.
A bouncer gave me two thumbs up as Frenchie led me out of the club, the same one that ushered me in just twenty minutes earlier. I couldn't help winking at the sky before snuggling into a cab with the boy. I had projected the W and some scrub-tub fun, and that was exactly what fell on my plate that evening. Immaterial that the players were unexpected, irrelevant that the screenplay was spontaneous and subtitled. I attracted, then I engaged. I could've stayed in. I could've declined to meet his bath tub.
But I didn't. And what an amazing tub it was.
How has the Law of Attraction worked for you?
Rebirth & Resurrection
April 11, 2009
In the recent years, Easter has become symbolic on numerous levels to me. A time of death and resurrection according to the biblical calendar, it has marked several beginnings of significant changes in my life.
Easter 2002: Arrival to Shanghai
Easter 2008: Return to Shanghai after an 8-month health hiatus due to cancer
Easter 2009: Discovery of more tumours in my brain
Scorpio Horoscope for week of April 9, 2009
If you ever wanted to learn how to do lucid dreams or out-of-body travel or shamanic explorations that help you retrieve lost portions of your soul, this is an excellent time to begin. You're in an astrological phase when the veil between this world and the other side is thinner than usual, and that means you could make connections that haven't been possible before. If the things I mentioned in the beginning are too woo-woo or scary for you, there are other ways to take advantage of current conditions. First, you could conduct productive imaginary conversations with the spirits of dead friends and relatives. Second, you could do intense meditations in which you imprint the future with scenarios you'd love to see come to pass. And third, you'll probably be able to incubate a highly informative dream by asking your unconscious mind a well-formulated question that you'd love to get guidance about.
Questions: if these tumours — my cancer — are only symptoms, because they just don't seem to end, then what is the real disease? Am I supposed to 'transition' to the other side before experiencing rebirth?
This Easter also happens to end Young Adult Cancer Awareness Week. I am aware, more than ever. Yet I still am not.
Thank you for your prayers, I know I am in your thoughts. Would love to hear from you, but email or text: I will be in and out of hospital in the next coming weeks and won't be able to answer voice calls.
Easter 2002: Arrival to Shanghai
Easter 2008: Return to Shanghai after an 8-month health hiatus due to cancer
Easter 2009: Discovery of more tumours in my brain
Scorpio Horoscope for week of April 9, 2009
If you ever wanted to learn how to do lucid dreams or out-of-body travel or shamanic explorations that help you retrieve lost portions of your soul, this is an excellent time to begin. You're in an astrological phase when the veil between this world and the other side is thinner than usual, and that means you could make connections that haven't been possible before. If the things I mentioned in the beginning are too woo-woo or scary for you, there are other ways to take advantage of current conditions. First, you could conduct productive imaginary conversations with the spirits of dead friends and relatives. Second, you could do intense meditations in which you imprint the future with scenarios you'd love to see come to pass. And third, you'll probably be able to incubate a highly informative dream by asking your unconscious mind a well-formulated question that you'd love to get guidance about.
Questions: if these tumours — my cancer — are only symptoms, because they just don't seem to end, then what is the real disease? Am I supposed to 'transition' to the other side before experiencing rebirth?
This Easter also happens to end Young Adult Cancer Awareness Week. I am aware, more than ever. Yet I still am not.
Thank you for your prayers, I know I am in your thoughts. Would love to hear from you, but email or text: I will be in and out of hospital in the next coming weeks and won't be able to answer voice calls.
The Power of Snail Mail
March 18, 2009
Just as I was marveling at the power of personal (postal) mail and pondering how to express my awe and wonder, I receive a parcel in the mail. I so dig it when the Universe listens to me!
In this modern age of electronic communication, of 3G, 3D, digital telephony, when legal papers may be arranged via Facebook, when a man is able to divorce his wife via SMS, when phone texting is already considered more personal than email, nothing quite beats the good old-fashioned, handwritten correspondence and packages by post.
Today, I received a thoughtful package from Delaware, USA, containing a 2-page hand-printed note that was caring and attentive, accompanied by a customised DVD of favourite films and personal playlists. Last week, it was Darrell Lea rocky road, and caramel fudge from a highschool friend in Sydney (a most well-intended surprise before I could post scribe to my previous entry that I now limit my sugar intake ) which I eagerly shared with friends. Just when I arrived in HK, this odd-eyed striped frog from Buones Aires showed up in a 'tough bag' courtesy of the Australia post. All penned notes enclosed, dispatched with love.
Over the last 1.5 years, I have received packages from afar, large and small, music compilations (direct from Warner Music HQ no less), books, lingerie (whether that works for other cancer patients, I can't say), more frogs and just enough greeting cards and letters that still leave me ecstatic with joy — literally clapping hands — every time I am the happy recipient of snail mail. The sheer surprise, the pure exhilaration from just knowing the time, effort and thought committed to the process of making it all a reality never ceases to elate me.
US First Class Mail International for postcards: US $0.94
Care package of handwritten note and/or chocolates/CD/DVD/hand lotion/book: under US $20
Intention, love, energy investment from initial idea to eventual delivery: P.R.I.C.E.L.E.S.S.
And I give as good as I get.
Some of you know I've always LOVED writing letters, even 'aerogrammes' way back when. From pen-pals in France to cousins in UK boarding schools as a teenager, and now addressing discrete PO boxes to entrusting Her Majesty's diplomatic bag to Sri Lanka, I've just never stopped writing. More to the point, I adore the sight of my own hand-writing: If I look good in print, I'm the bomb in long hand, especially love letters. Yes, the long distance kind, you know what I mean.
Through Chemo Angels, I also write at least once a week to a patient undergoing chemotherapy. Despite my increasing abhorrence for the treatment, I have only respect and empathy for those who are experiencing the effects of this toxic therapy, on top of the challenges brought on by cancer itself. With these, and once in a while, these (attitude attached), I write to my brave patients not with the expectation of a response, only the hope that my supportive messages bring a smile. Or a few.
While in Shanghai, I've especially enjoyed sending Chinese New Year greeting cards, partly because Christmas cards were never available until quite recently, but also because any one of the twelve animals for the year, in sheet metal stencil or paper cut renditions rank much higher in curio factor over the stocking, snow or Santa.
From the literal love I received today:
Be peace, be health, be the Rae of Light.
So, want to exchange mailing addresses?
In this modern age of electronic communication, of 3G, 3D, digital telephony, when legal papers may be arranged via Facebook, when a man is able to divorce his wife via SMS, when phone texting is already considered more personal than email, nothing quite beats the good old-fashioned, handwritten correspondence and packages by post.
Today, I received a thoughtful package from Delaware, USA, containing a 2-page hand-printed note that was caring and attentive, accompanied by a customised DVD of favourite films and personal playlists. Last week, it was Darrell Lea rocky road, and caramel fudge from a highschool friend in Sydney (a most well-intended surprise before I could post scribe to my previous entry that I now limit my sugar intake ) which I eagerly shared with friends. Just when I arrived in HK, this odd-eyed striped frog from Buones Aires showed up in a 'tough bag' courtesy of the Australia post. All penned notes enclosed, dispatched with love.
US First Class Mail International for postcards: US $0.94
Care package of handwritten note and/or chocolates/CD/DVD/hand lotion/book: under US $20
Intention, love, energy investment from initial idea to eventual delivery: P.R.I.C.E.L.E.S.S.
And I give as good as I get.
Some of you know I've always LOVED writing letters, even 'aerogrammes' way back when. From pen-pals in France to cousins in UK boarding schools as a teenager, and now addressing discrete PO boxes to entrusting Her Majesty's diplomatic bag to Sri Lanka, I've just never stopped writing. More to the point, I adore the sight of my own hand-writing: If I look good in print, I'm the bomb in long hand, especially love letters. Yes, the long distance kind, you know what I mean.
Through Chemo Angels, I also write at least once a week to a patient undergoing chemotherapy. Despite my increasing abhorrence for the treatment, I have only respect and empathy for those who are experiencing the effects of this toxic therapy, on top of the challenges brought on by cancer itself. With these, and once in a while, these (attitude attached), I write to my brave patients not with the expectation of a response, only the hope that my supportive messages bring a smile. Or a few.
While in Shanghai, I've especially enjoyed sending Chinese New Year greeting cards, partly because Christmas cards were never available until quite recently, but also because any one of the twelve animals for the year, in sheet metal stencil or paper cut renditions rank much higher in curio factor over the stocking, snow or Santa.
From the literal love I received today:
Be peace, be health, be the Rae of Light.
So, want to exchange mailing addresses?
Just Not Enough
December 12, 2008
At a small gathering this week, it came up that a friend's brother was killed in a car accident back home in Europe. Our friend received the news while out at a bar here in Shanghai, his reaction itself that day could only be described as 'awful, simply awful'.
A close friend of mine yesterday informed us that he found his sister dead in their mother's home in the US earlier this week. She had died in her sleep, proper cause unknown at this point. She was in her mid-thirties.
How are we supposed to reconcile with life's injustice and cruelties? How does one begin to accept that life can indeed be unfair, and be at peace with that when there's still so much pain to wade through? Where do we find the strength and courage to trudge ahead? Why didn't our loved ones have enough of the same strength and courage to make it through in the first place? Why simply isn't there enough of it to go around?
Bloody full moon again, the biggest of the year. I can't stop crying.
My grandfather died today twenty years ago.
A close friend of mine yesterday informed us that he found his sister dead in their mother's home in the US earlier this week. She had died in her sleep, proper cause unknown at this point. She was in her mid-thirties.
How are we supposed to reconcile with life's injustice and cruelties? How does one begin to accept that life can indeed be unfair, and be at peace with that when there's still so much pain to wade through? Where do we find the strength and courage to trudge ahead? Why didn't our loved ones have enough of the same strength and courage to make it through in the first place? Why simply isn't there enough of it to go around?
Bloody full moon again, the biggest of the year. I can't stop crying.
My grandfather died today twenty years ago.
Full Moon
November 14, 2008
Two people meet in New York in April, 2006.
There's instant chemistry, but she lives in Shanghai, China. He is a photographer from Brooklyn. They scarcely keep in touch after she leaves New York.
She goes about her life and develops a tumour in her lungs. One night after her first surgery, around November of 2007, he appears online out of the blue. They chat and she discovers that he, too, is fighting cancer - lymphoma - and has been undergoing treatment after surgery as well. Her heart goes out to him. He was the first person of her age group that has developed cancer in the time she has known him.
She wants very much to stay in touch, to be there for each other as they both deal with the mental as well as physical challenges that life has dealt them. But again, he disappears into cyber oblivion. He is not available, not even after her second surgery in January, 2008.
Resentful and resigned to him being not communicative, she chooses not to contact him when she once again travels to New York in May. She relishes in the city as usual, and even enjoys an intense, all-consuming week-long fling in Brooklyn, unknowingly, just ten blocks away from him. He is also a photographer.
Life continues with its usual and expected vicissitudes. After her U.S. trip in the Spring, she returns to Shanghai for two weeks only, before heading to Europe for a second attempt at the family reunion that got rerouted to the hospital the previous year. She feels refreshed and regenerated through her travels, the contact and exposure to new environments offer her a much needed change of scenery from the past months of cancer circus.
Long after she forgets about him completely, he surprises her online one mid-August afternoon when she is just returned to Hong Kong from the desert in Morocco. He announces that he is heading to Shanghai for work for two weeks and would love to see her. He has not been in touch sooner because he too has been traveling, partly for specialist treatment in Japan for his health. He wants her to know that he has been thinking about her often, knowing that she has been going through rough times with her health as well.
The Olympics in Beijing were coming to a close. She would have returned to Shanghai by now, well before his arrival, but she is bound by family affairs in Hong Kong after the sudden death of a dear uncle. From Shanghai, he tells her he misses her.
After more of life's circumstances, she finally returns to Shanghai by early October, eager to begin life again after so many months away. Once again, he magically appears, telling her that he shall return to Shanghai for work again soon and hopefully will get to see her this time round. The resentment she had felt is softened by his eagerness and persistence. She gracefully accepts to see him, but is also weary of disappointment. Knowing herself, she is careful not to invest too much energy on the matter.
She has always known they have no method of communication apart from instant messenging online. There may have been emails exchanged long ago, that did not endure computer viruses or laptop upgrades. She has also learnt to accept that their communication is very one-sided - he gets in touch at his whim and fancy, she never knows when that will be.
She leaves him her contact number online around the time he is supposed to have arrived in Shanghai, but does not hear from him until a week later, on Halloween. He also leaves her a number, one that has too many digits, which confuses her, but manages to reach him. They finally speak, after over two years. She has forgotten how comforting his voice can be. She caught him at a shoot, however, and he promises to call later, in about two hours. Half expectedly, she doesn't hear from him that day.
He apologises online two days later, from Singapore, for not returning her call, explaining that his schedule just got out of hand, and that he will be back in Shanghai in four days. He admits as well that he hasn't called before because he couldn't retrieve the number she left for him on messenger.
Four days came and went, and there is no word from him. On the sixth day, Sunday, he texts her on her mobile saying he just landed back in Shanghai, when can he see her. At first he thought they could meet in the evening after his shoot, then later he discovers he had client servicing duty over dinner and drinks. He sounds hopeful and engaged on the phone though, and she could tell he was indeed sincere about wanting to see her. They ring off, tentatively making plans for Wednesday. He is due to leave on Friday.
Tuesday evening came, and another round of schedule matching later, they decide Thursday lunch it was. Definitive. If something comes up then, that's it, he would be off on a flight the following day. By now, she cannot help but sense the underlying futility of the situation. She even mentions that she is prepared for the best laid plans to be ruined. He assures her that he is in charge of the plans for Thursday and there should be no surprises.
She considers whether she should call him by 2 in the afternoon on Thursday, since she has not heard from him at all that morning . She leaves him a message online. Annoyed, but determined not to be upset, she goes about her plans for the afternoon, and meets up with girlfriends at 5 for drinks that were scheduled the week before. Just as she is venting about the situation to the girls by 5:30PM, she receives a text from him.
'Morning sunshine. What time do you want to meet today?' Morning?
She calls him back immediately. He sent that text before noon, but she only receives it six hours later. He is now on his way to a fashion shoot at the Park Hyatt in Pudong. How unfair can this be? The only free time they have, and they miss it due to a telecommunication technical failure. They have been in the same city at the same time for almost two full weeks, and they still don't manage to see each other. She has never felt so cheated by time.
Staring out at the Scorpio full moon in Taurus from the Bund, she is certain by now that the forces are clearly against this, but why? What is the wrong in them meeting, or conversely, what is the good in them not seeing each other? How can two people meet, each go have cancer and not remain in each other's lives? How badly does she want to thwart the powers at be?
Why don't you call me after your shoot later? No, it won't be too late, I might still be out. It was as if the full moon that night cast a spell on her. Leaving the Bund on the highway, the injustice of the situation infuriated her, even in the cab she feels spiteful and restless. She joins her friends back in the Concession and pounds down tequila until she is sick at home by one in the morning and passes out promptly after. He texts at 2AM asking where she is.
She wakes at eleven the next day with her head hurting so badly that she just wished he was there cuddling her in bed. The frustration built up over the last two weeks has dissolved all reservation in seeing him. Hungover and feeling weak, all she wants now was to touch him and feel his skin against hers. She tells him as much, and he wants so much to comply, but is due to fly out to Hong Kong at 2 in the afternoon. Even on the day of his departure, they negotiate with fate. Just as she thinks the signs cannot be any clearer:
Why not change the flight anyway, spend the afternoon in bed with me? Because the flight can only be changed to the following day, part of a client expensed ticket that's restricted. Perfect! Then leave tomorrow instead. But his visa expires today.
He tries to text her after talking to the airline, but his phone dies. He has to rush to the airport.
She has an invitation for a restaurant opening at the Park Hyatt that same evening.
There's instant chemistry, but she lives in Shanghai, China. He is a photographer from Brooklyn. They scarcely keep in touch after she leaves New York.
She goes about her life and develops a tumour in her lungs. One night after her first surgery, around November of 2007, he appears online out of the blue. They chat and she discovers that he, too, is fighting cancer - lymphoma - and has been undergoing treatment after surgery as well. Her heart goes out to him. He was the first person of her age group that has developed cancer in the time she has known him.
She wants very much to stay in touch, to be there for each other as they both deal with the mental as well as physical challenges that life has dealt them. But again, he disappears into cyber oblivion. He is not available, not even after her second surgery in January, 2008.
Resentful and resigned to him being not communicative, she chooses not to contact him when she once again travels to New York in May. She relishes in the city as usual, and even enjoys an intense, all-consuming week-long fling in Brooklyn, unknowingly, just ten blocks away from him. He is also a photographer.
Life continues with its usual and expected vicissitudes. After her U.S. trip in the Spring, she returns to Shanghai for two weeks only, before heading to Europe for a second attempt at the family reunion that got rerouted to the hospital the previous year. She feels refreshed and regenerated through her travels, the contact and exposure to new environments offer her a much needed change of scenery from the past months of cancer circus.
Long after she forgets about him completely, he surprises her online one mid-August afternoon when she is just returned to Hong Kong from the desert in Morocco. He announces that he is heading to Shanghai for work for two weeks and would love to see her. He has not been in touch sooner because he too has been traveling, partly for specialist treatment in Japan for his health. He wants her to know that he has been thinking about her often, knowing that she has been going through rough times with her health as well.
The Olympics in Beijing were coming to a close. She would have returned to Shanghai by now, well before his arrival, but she is bound by family affairs in Hong Kong after the sudden death of a dear uncle. From Shanghai, he tells her he misses her.
After more of life's circumstances, she finally returns to Shanghai by early October, eager to begin life again after so many months away. Once again, he magically appears, telling her that he shall return to Shanghai for work again soon and hopefully will get to see her this time round. The resentment she had felt is softened by his eagerness and persistence. She gracefully accepts to see him, but is also weary of disappointment. Knowing herself, she is careful not to invest too much energy on the matter.
She has always known they have no method of communication apart from instant messenging online. There may have been emails exchanged long ago, that did not endure computer viruses or laptop upgrades. She has also learnt to accept that their communication is very one-sided - he gets in touch at his whim and fancy, she never knows when that will be.
She leaves him her contact number online around the time he is supposed to have arrived in Shanghai, but does not hear from him until a week later, on Halloween. He also leaves her a number, one that has too many digits, which confuses her, but manages to reach him. They finally speak, after over two years. She has forgotten how comforting his voice can be. She caught him at a shoot, however, and he promises to call later, in about two hours. Half expectedly, she doesn't hear from him that day.
He apologises online two days later, from Singapore, for not returning her call, explaining that his schedule just got out of hand, and that he will be back in Shanghai in four days. He admits as well that he hasn't called before because he couldn't retrieve the number she left for him on messenger.
Four days came and went, and there is no word from him. On the sixth day, Sunday, he texts her on her mobile saying he just landed back in Shanghai, when can he see her. At first he thought they could meet in the evening after his shoot, then later he discovers he had client servicing duty over dinner and drinks. He sounds hopeful and engaged on the phone though, and she could tell he was indeed sincere about wanting to see her. They ring off, tentatively making plans for Wednesday. He is due to leave on Friday.
Tuesday evening came, and another round of schedule matching later, they decide Thursday lunch it was. Definitive. If something comes up then, that's it, he would be off on a flight the following day. By now, she cannot help but sense the underlying futility of the situation. She even mentions that she is prepared for the best laid plans to be ruined. He assures her that he is in charge of the plans for Thursday and there should be no surprises.
She considers whether she should call him by 2 in the afternoon on Thursday, since she has not heard from him at all that morning . She leaves him a message online. Annoyed, but determined not to be upset, she goes about her plans for the afternoon, and meets up with girlfriends at 5 for drinks that were scheduled the week before. Just as she is venting about the situation to the girls by 5:30PM, she receives a text from him.
'Morning sunshine. What time do you want to meet today?' Morning?
She calls him back immediately. He sent that text before noon, but she only receives it six hours later. He is now on his way to a fashion shoot at the Park Hyatt in Pudong. How unfair can this be? The only free time they have, and they miss it due to a telecommunication technical failure. They have been in the same city at the same time for almost two full weeks, and they still don't manage to see each other. She has never felt so cheated by time.
Staring out at the Scorpio full moon in Taurus from the Bund, she is certain by now that the forces are clearly against this, but why? What is the wrong in them meeting, or conversely, what is the good in them not seeing each other? How can two people meet, each go have cancer and not remain in each other's lives? How badly does she want to thwart the powers at be?
Why don't you call me after your shoot later? No, it won't be too late, I might still be out. It was as if the full moon that night cast a spell on her. Leaving the Bund on the highway, the injustice of the situation infuriated her, even in the cab she feels spiteful and restless. She joins her friends back in the Concession and pounds down tequila until she is sick at home by one in the morning and passes out promptly after. He texts at 2AM asking where she is.
She wakes at eleven the next day with her head hurting so badly that she just wished he was there cuddling her in bed. The frustration built up over the last two weeks has dissolved all reservation in seeing him. Hungover and feeling weak, all she wants now was to touch him and feel his skin against hers. She tells him as much, and he wants so much to comply, but is due to fly out to Hong Kong at 2 in the afternoon. Even on the day of his departure, they negotiate with fate. Just as she thinks the signs cannot be any clearer:
Why not change the flight anyway, spend the afternoon in bed with me? Because the flight can only be changed to the following day, part of a client expensed ticket that's restricted. Perfect! Then leave tomorrow instead. But his visa expires today.
He tries to text her after talking to the airline, but his phone dies. He has to rush to the airport.
She has an invitation for a restaurant opening at the Park Hyatt that same evening.