Evening. There’s a chill in the air. I don’t know if this is the usual weather this time of year. I could check in my diaries from past years but I’ve stored them away and I’m not inclined to dig them out right now.
It’s just me, Nene (Mum), my sister Lis, and our aunt Nat in the house. They’re at the kitchen table; Aunt Nat has come down from Suva, and Lis and Nene are updating her with the latest happenings in the village.
A lot has happened here within the past fortnight: Someone threw stones at Aunt Alice’ house, Uncle Buka’s house, and at the Vatawa’s (Pastor’s) house. Two young women who recently relocated to Nadi and staying with Aunt Sita were mugged at the bridge over our village pond one night on their way home from work; the muggers disappeared through the backroad. Cousin Sala’s new smartphone was taken along with its charger from their home. ‘Oni, one of my nieces, was in the shower at their home one night when she was startled by someone holding a phone at the window through the louvre blades. She cried out and alerted everyone at the house who also alerted the neighbours. The men and boys ran out in all directions trying to find whoever that was but no one was caught. As of today, when I’m writing this, none of the perpetrators have been caught.
I watched the film “Julie & Julia” earlier today on Goojara and I thought about my blogging journey and how it has changed from when I first started to what I envision now. I think I’m allowed to blog the way I feel helps my walk of faith, and helps strengthen my writing as well.
I bought and finished the novel ‘The Wife and the Widow’ by Christian White yesterday. I bought it at Bargain Box, Nadi Town on marked price ($4), with two other books, ‘Memories, Dreams, Reflections’ by C. G. Jung ($4), and ‘Cracks in My Foundation’ a collection of essays and stories by Marian Keyes ($3). I already have a copy of Jung’s book but it’s a small book with small text which I found difficult to read comfortably. This new copy is bigger in size and with bigger text size.
I don’t know if I’m going to write a separate post on ‘The Wife and the Widow’ – it’s one of the many retelling of the human dilemna of how well do you really know the ones you love, and how far will you go to protect them? The part where the widow, Kate, finds out that her missing physician husband, John, has not worked at the palliative care facility for three months, reminds me of the scene from the TV mini-series ‘The Undoing’ where Grace Fraser (Nicole Kidman) finds out very much the same thing about her husband Jonathan Fraser (Hugh Grant).
The parts of the book that bothered me were the depictions of the women, Kate and Abby, and the homosexual element between the two teenaged boys, John and Ed, which was too graphic and I think written to shock. When reading some of the of the descriptions of the two women, I wondered whether White hated women, but in hindsight, he reminded me of some married women I’ve met or have worked with, some of them preferring not to know what their husbands get up to when they’re out with their friends, and some can’t even talk to their husbands about serious matters.
Yesterday, after returning from town, I watched ‘The Devil Wears Prada 2’, and I can only shake my head when thinking about how that film is based on the fashion industry and its operators. How empty their lives must be when it’s all taken up with work. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought about my job and how it’s taken over my life for the past thirty years, and how pretentious the industry has become. Now, the part of the travel industry I work in is not luxurious or prestigious, far from it, but I’ve met my fair share of unfair bosses, backstabbing co-workers, and greedy demanding customers. Is any industry, any workplace, any job safe from such people?
It’s Yom Kippur, a time of repentance, and renewal, and I’m excited about my writing and my journey with God.
Writing, or blogging doesn’t make sense, I think unless you write about what you like and want to write about. And it can be anything, as long as we like it, enjoy it, and it holds out attention and our interest long enough.
I started out wanting to blog about being a middle-aged introverted Christian spinter, and I wanted to write about how to remain faithful in being single, and give introvert-friendly advice on how and what to pray, on keeping a diary, on solitude.
I thought that if I published posts like ‘5 Things to Do When…’, or ‘Surefire Ways to Beat…’, I was sure I would draw adoring readers from around the world and I’d build an online community of like-minded souls. I struggled through every post, and soon enough I couldn’t sustain any interest in being a source directory for introverted spinters (I think that I might be the only middle-aged introverted Christian spinster alive right now), and that’s when, after many heart-felt prayers, I got the strong prompting to try a different direction. And that’s the blogging and writing journey I’m on now.
It’s a bit more personal. And, because it’s a little more personal, readers (if there is any real person out there reading this, and not just bot from Singapore as shown on my G-analytics) will find personal essays and anecdotes, poems and photos. It might all look scattered and incoherent in some ways, but each speaks of the life I’m living before God.