I’ve not felt much like blogging since starting my new role in Sept.. it’s an exciting opportunity and a big change of direction in my career, and I’ve felt like it’s taken up more of me than I initially expected. It’s been 2 months and I’m feeling much more settled, so in a bid to get back on the hobby horse (oo triple pun score! :)) I’m squeezing in an October post.
September was mainly taken up by my Rhino painting which I have finally finished! I am really quite pleased with it and think it deserves its own post. I also baked a batch of brownies (calling that #21) which were a little less successful as the recipe was a tad sweet, and made 2 sets of blackout curtains for our bedroom and the girlcave (#22).
October has been a funny month. There has been the thrill of finishing the Rhino and inspiring conversations about the viability of art as a career somewhere in the future. I have hosted my incredible sister and brother-in-law and my wonderful nice and nephew, and in doing so experienced in some small measure the joys and terrors of parenthood. I know I am not ready for that responsibility yet (eek!), but it is a piece of a future I hope we will be blessed with.
I have also watched a lot of Great British Bake-off, cooked 3 meals ( I think that collectively counts as #23?) and started a new painting.
When I was little we would go back to my father’s kampung (hometown) every Chinese New Year. It was a 5-6 hour drive before the highways/depending on the traffic, and I remember how my paternal grandmother, Ah Mah and all my aunties would conspire to keep my paternal grandfather, Ah Gong in the dark about when we would actually be arriving. This was before the days of mobile phones, so Ah Gong spent many an hour sitting on the porch waiting for our return. One of the many highlights of Chinese New Year was the fireworks. It meant staying up way past bedtime, and we would file out in our semi-pyjamas made by my aunt and joined our cousins and half cousins in a pyrotechnic extravaganza. There were pop-pop (screws of explosive powder – I used to think it was gunpowder!) that you would throw on the ground – it was a favourite game of the boys to throw them at your feet to make you jump; sparklers in slim blue packets with a black cat with large eyes on the front; spinning tops that, once lit, would spin round in a widening gyre. daring you to come near and jump away shrieking as they spun in your direction; and the magic wands that you held up the sky from which coloured balls of light would shoot out in a shower of sparks and light up part of the night sky.
The wands were particularly exciting since you held on to them for the entire performance and unlike the sparklers, there was a sense of conjuring since you never quite knew how many sparks there would be and what colour they would take. I have vivid memories of my Dad holding my hand over the wand and directing it away from us. As I write, I feel I can smell the mix of matches, joss sticks, mosquito coils and what I assume is gunpowder ( or perhaps cordite?) wafting around me. I remember how the wand would get hotter and hotter as it spewed ball after ball of light. I remember the thrill of excitement married with the certainty that with Daddy holding my hands, I would not get hurt.
It’s not finished yet, but this one is for you Daddy.
