About Me

"Tackle the most challenging task first." Often, this is the advice given to those of us immobilised by procrastination or overwhelm. So, here goes. 

My internal landscape seems to me a constant whirl of words and thought, surging to be let out, but always suppressed, swallowed as though it would erupt as an indecorous burp in the middle of a formal dinner. I'll be honest and admit that I've felt much discomfort from trying to keep in the reflux. 

No more of this. I'll write if I have to. 

What has kept me from writing?  I have no reservations writing anonymously, but there is also little impetus for doing so. Perhaps as a kind of exercise or practice it may be worth something, but there is also something inauthentic about writing behind a mask. There is the secret desire that someone out there would find my words worth reading. There is, at the same time, the safeguard - if no one reads this, nothing is lost. But, neither is anything gained. Writing needs an audience, and what is it without one?

I think it is time that I wrote as me, to an imagined audience of family, friends, co-workers, acquaintances, both present and future. Pride manifesting itself as self-consciousness prevents me from doing so. It strikes fear in the heart - mainly fear that baring my thoughts (and heart) so openly before others would mean I am judged. This is fuelled by some illusion that I could otherwise be untouched by man's opinion. But the truth is that no one is safe from the judgements of others. Attempting to keep myself safe from the judgement of others has only meant greater isolation - I am somewhat kept from man's opinion, but I have also given up chance to possibly connect in a greater manner with others. 

What if, through my words, others are come to know me in greater measure? What if our friendship is deepened by openness, authenticity and a greater measure of freedom? What if future friends are drawn to connect with me by what I write?

If not, nothing is lost, but the burden of words I bear.

And so, welcome, friends and future friends. It is to you I am writing - as honestly as I can. 

Reservations are now being accepted

Day after day, I have left the pages of this blog virtually blank. Can't I even find something to say?

It is a mixture of doubt, confused purposes, poor organization and conflicting priorities that has led to its neglect. Unlike an overgrown garden, however, this feels more like a boarded-up beach house, which calls out daily for summer and guests, guests, guests. This blog wants to be lived in. 

Re-reading my favourite blogs recently, I found myself wondering why I am so often drawn to them, whilst others make their way into my blogroll, but are not often more than glanced upon. 

Of course, there is that connection and resonance with my values, likes, style, concerns. But there is also these : authenticity and lifelikeness. I find myself reading and re-reading, anticipating blog entries when what I read makes me feel This is real! Things are told as they are. I like especially to read about days as they are, moments captured and somehow conveyed to me the reader intact such that they arrive almost untarnished (but can they ever be?). 

And, I've come to realize, that although blogs with recipes (not food blogs per se!) occupy a large part of my blogroll, I favour those which share recipes which were part of a real meal, intended to feed real people, not so much cooked so that they could primarily feed blogrolls. 

I love reading blogs which are full of the miscellany of life. If I wanted Perfect Pictures of Airbrushed Cakes, I'd read a cookbook (I love doing that, by the way). If I was on a quest for the Best Croissant Recipe, I may trust one that's on a blog, but I would be reading the blog not as a blog-genre blog, but as an informational test-genre blog, which is a strange thing that I am convinced actually exists nowadays. 

But if it is a blog I am reading, I'd love it to contain bits of this, and bits of that, which remind me of all the bits of this and that in my own life that would usually belong to the realm of triviality, and thus the Realm of the Unnoticed and Unimportant, and even the Unseen.

Why is triviality so attractive, I often wonder? Perhaps it is that life cannot be lived without trivialities. Perhaps it is a fight against labeling some things as important and everything else as not. What's worth words, and what's not? 

I don't really know, honestly. And perhaps, that not-knowing is precisely what's kept this little beach house so tightly boarded up, all these months. 

It's time to unscrew those boards. Boldly. Welcome in, reader. 

Just so you know, patient reader

It is so much easier to dream, than to do. Each day, almost every waking hour, my mind is inspired by ideas and more ideas - more than I could ever keep track of, especially since keeping track has never been my forte. Ever since that last post two weeks ago, determined to revive this little blog, I seem to have been thinking in terms of posts - and there have been many, ranging from the latest kitchen tips and tricks, to a growing pile of children's books to introduce, to more serious musings from recent life lessons. 

At first, it was fun, but now that the adrenaline has worn off, and the pressure of some impending real-life deadlines draw near, I just feel like I'm now left with a pile of rubble. To honest truth is, I have just not been able to find the time to write posts, when I did have things to say (no matter how frivolous they seemed). Hours are spent at work, keeping house or cleaning, spending time with loved ones, attending dance classes, grocery shopping, eating, or reading. Taking time out to write amidst all that, almost feels like a waste - like I am forgoing real life for something insubstantial. Time spent writing = less time available for real life. What's worse, some of the ideas about which I had wanted to write have become so over-rehearsed in my mind, that they feel like a loaf of stale bread, no longer fit for eating. 

So here I am, writing this, instead of a post about the adventures with baking chocolate marbled bread and marble butter cake, instead of sharing with you my thoughts after Sunday service last week, instead of uploading blow by blow pictures of how we pruned our basil plant yesterday and ended up making and giving away jars of delicious pesto. 

It might have been easier to keep radio silence - after all, hasn't that been more the norm than the exception since the unannounced appearance of the first post? Yet somehow, I feel a sense of unexplainable accountability to my most-likely non-existent readers. 

Wasn't that a really beating-round-the-bush way of saying "I'm lagging!" or "I'm on a hiatus!"? Yet, truth be told that neither of those truly describes what's happening here. 

'Cos I'm still writing, just more slowly than I'd like. And I'm not lagging, just having trouble deciding on what to write about, and what's worth writing about.

As is the case for growing Kaffir Lime leaves. No amount of rushing will do.