FUNNYACCENT

WOW

The weekends have been pretty much the same for the past few weeks. Cloudy in the morning and the sun light cracked the balmy day around noon, but wind was merciless.

I braved myself to go out and enjoyed the sun despite the chill air. The man made pond at Boston Garden was frozen, but I wasn't brave enough to walk across to the other side.

I inched myself about six feet away from the edge of the pond, just enough space to convince myself I was standing on a frozen pond.

Ever since I was a kid I've been fascinating with walking on water story . It's like my fascination  with mermaids, giant mushrooms, seahorses and frogs and toads.

So, standing on a frozen pond was as close as walking on water I could get.

Perhaps 25 or 26 years ago I read a book called, When You Can Walk On Water Take a Boat. I thought the man was really walking on water. Only many years later when I read the book for the second time I got his message. It was about a spiritual journey.

Ever since, I've been using walking on water metaphor to remind me of my struggle of myspiritual journey, my self reflection (melihat ke dalam diri), my effort to identify my ego hidden between my cheerful and outgoing personality.

My father always said never feel safe and comfortable in our spiritual journey. Once we feel safe, he said, we'll stop and shift away our attention. I find it is a huge challenge to continue the journey without stopping, but sometimes I convince myself I need a nap, and a nap turns into a sleep. And when I wake up I find myself have shifted away, and I have to start again. So, standing on a frozen pond wasn't that bad even for a few minutes.

Book Shelves 101

    A bookslut like me always looking for reasons to keep the books after I read them.

"I feel connected when I read this book."

Who didn't feel connected with one of many characters we've come across if we love reading?

"I love the main character. She reminded of me when I was in high school. A rebellious. Always got into trouble."

Who were not rebellious when they were younger?

Bla...bla...bla.....bla..........

I choke myself with excuses to keep them until they take over my tiny apartment. They were all over the place.

I think I sold almost a hundred books on ebay since 2006.  I read those books but they didn't move me, so I didn't have separation anxiety everytime I mailed one or two books  to a respective buyers.

Between a long Christmas lweekend ast year and a new year holiday I built two book shelves. I asked the housing management about their regulations. They gave me a thumb up.

While holiday shoppers rushed to Macy's, TJ Max, Marshalls and Filene Basement, I was pushing a shopping cart up and down on aisles at Home Depot with a list in my hand.

I bought my first toolbox when I moved into my apartment many years ago. A few years later I bought a Black &Decker cordless drill that came with high torque screwdriving and high speed drilling when I wanted to do some fixing around my aparment.

I wanted to build something simple, something didn't require too much of my time but it would last.

Shopping at Home Depot turned out to be a lot of fun. Besides getting a bunch of gracious offers from guys (shoppers)to help me to choose types of drill bits, anchors I learned that shopping for tools could be confusing (for me) too.

A young man who adivsed to get 1.5" anchor looked perplexed when I insisted to sales person to get me blue anchor instead of grey.

"Why?" he asked.

"Because I like blue."

His friend who asked me if I already had a stud finder rolled his eyes goodnaturedly when he heard my response.

"Young man, don't you roll your eyes at me." I pretended to scold him.

They chuckled and continued their shopping.

By the end of first week year 2009, I got tw0 book shelves on the wall. Up until now, they are still up there on the wall.

Missing You

On Monday morning I woke up with  knots in my stomach, a lot of knots, a dry throat, aching joints and the feeling I'd just wanted to curl up like a fetus back in my mother's belly. I knew I didn't have that feeling for three years. For three years in a row I didn't get sick during the winter. This year my body gave in.

I went to work thinking I could defeat the bad cold. How silly. By 10:00 am my supervisor sent me home when he heard me coughing like a sick dog when he entered the building.

I called the doctor's office hoping some miracles. Miracles or not I wasn't sure but the front desk girl told me there was an open slot at 2:00 pm.

I went home, made a cup of lemon tea. By this time I felt like all my joints were being pulled apart. It was almost 1:30 pm and I walked up to a health center for my appointment.

When the nurse called out my name, I knew I had a fever besides a terrible cold. I was right. My body temp. was 99.9.

The doctor came in. We chatted while he did his routine. She told me the center has been slammed with patients since the past few days. Everybody complained about aching joints, sore throats, high fever and cold.She prescribed me antibiotic, cough meds and benadryl for running nose and sneezing.

I walked to a pharmacy at The Shaw's Supermarket, 15 minutes away from the health center. Tran, a pharmacist greeted me with, "Ana, you look awful."

"Thanks Tran, you look gorgeous too," as I blew my nose.

She looked up my last name in her computer system and found my prescriptions.

The usual 10 minutes walk from Shaw Supermarket to my apartment turned into 15 minutes walk. By the time I walked through the door, I felt like all my muscles were being folded and flipped like roti chanai .

I took the meds, called my supervisor and told him I won't be coming to work for the next two days. He said he was glad I became less hard headed and decided to stay home for the next two days.

I changed my clothes into jammies, wrapped myself with my old favorite quilt my mother handstitched for me eight years ago and went to bed.

I think I tossed around for another 15 minutes before the meds took over. One thing that stood out during the  fifteen minutes of agony of muscles and joints pain was the overwhelm desire to have my mother sitting next to me and lovingly rubbed my head, hands and feet. as she always did when I was sick.

Mak, I miss you.

Growth

 LensDay: Growth