ampulets

[Trigger warning: this post mentions death and suicide.] I stopped wearing a watch soon after J died. It wasn't conscious at first. I thought I could wear one of his, but it didn't feel right. I have since given all of his nice watches away except for a $25 Casio and a GShock Frogman he bought soon after we got together.  Before he died, I would refuse to wear a watch on weekends. It was a sign that I was "off" from work - my time was mine - and his.  What is your relationship to time? Some of us are horrible at keeping time. We are constantly late. Some of us pack too much into a day, and we fail to understand how much time is needed for most of living. Some of us just work away - giving ourselves to whatever it is that demanded our attention at the present. Some of us live in a kind of diseased nostalgia, unhappy with our present and not seeing much of a future. And some of us are always making plans. And if we are not making plans, we are dreaming, constantly dream

The word “nurture” is often used as the antithesis of “nature”, as if it is artificial, a forceful intervention. This weekend, I watched two of my couple friends, one with their 3-month old baby and the other with a 2 year old toddler, care for their child. I think of “nurture” instead as “care”. To nurture is to care, and vice versa. It is to give labour to looking after the welfare of another, to give attention to what will best help or serve another. It is not artifice. It is not the imposition of your own will. Because we often cannot determine the outcome of our “nurture” and “care”.   It is now midnight and I have just spent the last hour watering several sets of plants, and changing the water for some cut leaves and flowers. I remember J sometimes “complaining” to me how much work is involved in looking after his plants - a complaint I mostly ignore because “Eh, you asked for it what.”. I empathise more fully with him now. It is a lot of work indeed - not that it takes up large

T his guy waxes and wanes. He represents your heart, my heart or nothing.     This is one of those days I wonder how at 45 I still have this surfeit of emotion? Surely it must be spent by now.     On my walk tonight I see hell money strewn about the pavement; I imagine diabetic ghosts imbibing rows of Yakult, Ribena and those carb-heavy offerings the PM would nag about in his National Day address; I think what inconsiderate and frankly filthy habits disguise themselves as tradition and worship - I admit, no amount of romanticizing Toa Payoh tonight will take away this realization that, no it is not hell but yes, it looks like a freakin’ ghetto. This is not righteousness. It is just defeat.   At 45 surely I cannot still feel as when I was 25. So I try to keep my eyes looking up instead. And there is that moon. That guy waxes and wanes. He represents your heart, my heart or nothing.

Because we needed a distraction, a friend suggested that we exchange short written reflections on beauty, titled "Because Beauty". She wrote 2 and I wrote 2 too. Then COVID happened and we stopped. Other things took over to distract. Because it started to rain just as I was about to go for my post-dinner walk, I sat down before my laptop and saw this folder "Because Beauty". So let me share the 2 short pieces I wrote from that time instead - BECAUSE BEAUTY Dec 2019 I cut my hair a month ago, and realised this meant you can see the scar from the surgery in Oct18. A couple of surgeons / doctors who have seen the large bur faint scar have praised the skill of my neurosurgeon - in a professional sense they may have described his handiwork as beautiful!  In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be lig