TICKING OFF THE YEAR'S LIST OF REGRETS

Before the year runs out, I need to tidy the garden and let it rest. This is literally putting the garden ‘to bed’ as a thorough clean up means a healthy and vital garden next spring. The declining light and dropping temperatures inhibit plant growth and once most of the crops are harvested, a layer of mulch or compost is added before the beds are covered.

It feels so strange that 2014 is drawing to a close as it feels like only yesterday when we were making resolutions as we ushered the year in. I am awash in a spirit of sentimentality as I reflect on the events that left me happy, sad, shocked or amused.

Churches in Malaysia usually have  a watch night service on 31 December where we share about the blessings that we have received throughout the year or the trials that we have undergone and overcome. I remember never missing one. Even when the children were young, we would go armed with pillows and comforters, until the clock struck 12 and the countdown to another year began.

With the new year just around the corner, it is a time of reflection.

What have I done? What have I not done? What should I have done? How could I have avoided that mistake made? How could I have prevented that relationship fallout?

It is that moment in time where I step back and honestly say ‘Did I contribute to that situation? Was I party to the crime?’

In any difficult situation, we always feel that we have been wronged against. In a group meeting which I facilitated on pride and humility, each of us had a checklist. All of us ticked yes to the many times we felt that someone owed us an apology or a word of thanks. We ticked yes to the times when we felt that we were not given due recognition or the times when we thought we deserved more.

While there are many who appreciate us, there are people who rub us the wrong way and bring out the worst in us. Ignorance and fear of the unfamiliar gives rise to prejudice and judgement.

Recently I was invited to a baby shower and that was both a challenge and an eye opener. We are used to the culture and people that we grow up with but we really do not know what to expect when we are in another community or in the midst of others from a different nationality. I find it strange to feel that way especially when I have lived in a multicultural society all my life. Yet whatever is new can be rather scary.

So I went with an open mind and an open heart.

I have not seen so much food served and how relaxed, hospitable and amiable everyone was. When we are among friends, beneath a different skin colour is a heart of warmth and generosity. I felt I was back in Malaysia among Malaysians.

Nicholas Copernicus (1473 –1543) believed that the earth moves round the sun and not the other way round as his contemporaries did. He believed that the centre of the earth is not the centre of the universe. His beliefs did not go down well with the society of his day and drew the ire of religious bodies and the like.

Likewise, if we remove ourselves from the elevated position of being in the centre of everything, it helps us to understand others better and have a ‘bigger’ heart and mind. We will not be overly sensitive and think that everyone else is talking bad about us and wanting to hurt us. We will learn how to step out of our comfort zone and embrace another culture, another person, another perspective.

Mark Twain said, "Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter."

Life is not all about me. It is about what matters most.

Roll on 2015.

This article was originally published by New Straits Times. You can  read the original article here .:http://www.nst.com.my/node/66609

The Spirit of Caring

I never imagined myself saying this but my recent visit to Nenagh General Hospital in County Tipperary was a pleasant one. I do not think anyone fancies going to a hospital unless she really has to. Other than the happy occasion of welcoming a new born baby, most of us associate hospitals with emergency cases, blood and all its gore.

This time round I went for a routine colonscopy on a Wednesday morning and the anxiety drama started on the Monday prior to that because I had to go on a soft diet followed by a liquid fast. Then on Tuesday I had to drink two litres of Moviprep and one litre of water. It wasn’t exactly the most fantastic drink but the flavour had improved greatly since the last time I took it.

When the day came, I was surrounded by lovely and very friendly hospital staff – right from the admissions desk to the day ward. Nurses like Peggy, Helena and Dierdre and Aine fussed around me and made me forget what I was in there for.

That is what I call the human touch.

What a difference good bedside manners make. You are surrounded by total strangers and yet they treat you so well, as if they have known you for some time or you are the next-of-kin.

There were a number of elderly patients around me and I observed that the staff spoke very nicely to them and cared for them with great respect. Although respecting the elderly is a golden rule, to actually see younger people putting that to practice is something else.

A far cry from what I used to experience in hospitals before.

I had nurses shouting at me in both private and public hospitals.

When I was at a private hospital delivering my first born, a nurse made snide and uncouth remarks when I was writhing with labour pains. Because it was so traumatic, I can still hear those remarks even though my daughter is well in her adulthood.

Then on another occasion, the daughter was sick with croup and had to be hospitalised in a public hospital known for its state-of-the-art facilities for a week. She was four at that time. As I could not take time off from my lectures, I had to sit by her bedside and prepare my lessons while she slept only to be sarcastically told off by a nurse that the children’s ward is not a market where I could bring in my ‘wares’ and do my work there.

Often times we blame it on the environment, on the lack of staff or on staff being overworked. I guess when we want to find something to blame, there is always something to blame.

Dealing with humans is a calling. There are those in people-related professions, medical or otherwise, who should not have been there in the first place. We also hear of awful stories of carers who abuse their senior patients who are not in the position to fend for themselves. In the absence of the closed circuit television which can reveal the horrors of abuse, I wonder how many patients are silently suffering for fear of retribution?

So back to my experience at the Nenagh General Hospital day ward. When I finally woke up after the procedure, there was no lack of attention either. I was given a can of seven-up, followed by a pot of hot piping tea and two slices of toast with butter and marmalade. (Just like Paddington bear, marmalade is my favourite jam)

I felt like it was home away from home.

                          A blessed Christmas to one and all

Source: http://www.nst.com.my/node/62289

Getting a Kick in Taking what's not OURS!

Now that December is here, all the Christmas street decorations are up and what a sight to behold indeed. This reminds me of a 60ft inflatable snowman that vanished from a shop roof overnight in November 2012. Officials at Wicklow town issued a public appeal for the safe return of ‘Snowy’.  Snowy was one of the centre pieces of Victorian Wicklow but it disappeared less than 48 hours after the launch of the Christmas festival. A few days later, the Gardai (Police) got an anonymous call to say that Snowy was in Wicklow Fitzwilliam Square. It was a much deflated Snowy that was recovered alongside a note which said ‘sorry’. In another unrelated event, a drunk was caught stealing an inflatable reindeer and walking with it about town.

Then there was this other report that a college graduate, had sent a box of 80 toilet rolls to repay the school for loot taken from a dormitory. Eastern New Mexico University says it received the gift box and a written apology. The box contained five packs of 16 rolls of two-ply, septic-safe tissue for a total of 80 rolls.

I honestly do not know whether to be amused or horrified

Call it a prank or a theft but sometimes we just cannot resist flicking a few cute and irresistible ‘souvenirs’. Some guests do it because it offers “mere access to a great product that’s hard to get.” If we think about it, most of us are culprits ourselves some point in time even though we are well able to purchase them if we had wanted to.

Examples abound: Flight passengers are known to smuggle out cutlery. I know a friend who even smuggled out a pillow from an aeroplane. Others steal floor mats from rented cars. Diners throw in sachets of sugar and tubs of marmalade into their Louis Vuitton  bags.

It is common knowledge that hotel guests steal towels, shampoo bottles, bathrobes and slippers. By stuffing the suitcase with as many hotel ‘goodies’ as possible they justify paying hefty hotel prices. While most hotels do not mind parting with their toiletries or stationery, there is a fine line when it comes to towels and such.

Apparently one woman in Nigeria was sentenced to three months in prison for stealing two towels from the Transcorp Hilton Abjua Hotel. Someone also wheeled out of reception a grand piano and someone’s pet dog.

TripAdvisor’s travel survey conducted in June-July 2013 reveals that 65% of global travellers and 69% of Malaysians admit to taking something from a hotel following their stay. Toiletries are the most popular pilfered items. 59% global hoteliers report that their guests often take a variety of items when they leave.

Apparently the reasons for stealing can be rather convoluted: some do it for fame, some for social justice (think Robin  Hood), some for the thrill of transgression, some as a dare and some even for a desire to be caught!

Actually, if we like to take the little tubes home, all we need to do is to ask, and far often than not, the management will give us the little tubes and even complimentary sachets of coffee and tea notwithstanding.

While some take things that do not belong to them, there are others who return what do not belong to them.

Sometime in May this year, three roommates in New York bought an old and smelly sofa from a charity shop for USD $20 only to discover approximately USD $40000 in cash stashed inside. Finders keepers would have been their justification should they choose to split the loot among themselves. But they chose to return it to the rightful owner and each was rewarded with USD $1K which was still a bit of a windfall to a student especially.

In another incident in Las Vegas, a taxi driver returned USD$300K that was left in the back seat of his taxi, to the rightful owner.

Unfortunately these are isolated incidents rather than the norm and we can say that most of us have lost our prized possessions and have never got them back.

SOURCE: http://www.nst.com.my/node/57779

Wearing My Heart on My Sleeve

With Michael Harding as he autographed his first book, Staring at Lakes

I love to read. Correction – I love to read books that are engaging. Not too short that all the significant bits are glossed over and not too long where after arriving at page 459, the end is no where near, and I have forgotten who is who in the plot. Certainly at this time of my life I am not going to read a book because I have to (as in book clubs and reading lists) but because I want to.

So having heard the news that ‘Hanging with the Elephant’ by Michael Harding has hit the bookshops, I rushed down to Limerick to get two copies – two because the bookshop was offering a deal of ‘buy the second book at half the price’ . Since I could not resist a good offer and I knew of other like-minded people who would appreciate it as a gift, I made the cashier a happier woman that day.

I enjoy memoirs. Having said that,  any drama, musical or film that is based on a true story will certainly hold my attention. In fact I once thought that Forrest Gump was real because I enjoyed the movie that much.

Harding’s style is fluid and I like it that there is no linear path to follow. This is perfectly logical as the mind is overwhelmed with thoughts of the past, present and future that are intricately intertwined and to trace and speak about them as if they are carefully arranged in an orderly manner is to do them great injustice. We are near enough to see the soul of the man and yet not that near as to rob him of his essence. We can read his thoughts and devour the book but yet we leave him intact at the end

of it.

Some say that writers are the custodians of memories but yet when I think of writing my own memoir, the greatest challenge is: would I dare to wear my heart on my sleeve? Would I dare to call a spade a spade and lay bare the traumas of my soul? Would my readers, especially if they can recognise themselves in the memoir be generous towards my writing or would they take me to court over something that I have written which displeases them? My perception of truth could be totally different from theirs.

Too often memories die with their owner. Our brain cells can only remember that much, so we forget the stories our parents had told us and wish there is some form of record that we can go back to. My father left me a pen and my mother her portrait. Both of which I treasure. But how lovely it would have been if my parents had left me their memoirs.

                                                           Map of South East Asia

My father was just a teenager when he left China in the 1900 for Malaysia. I can imagine how perilous the journey at sea would have been or how hungry he was that he had to sneak into the cargo area to scavenge for anything edible. What was it like when he first felt the scorching heat and the heavy humidity on his skin when he landed in the new country he would call home for the rest of his life?

My parents

In those days marriages were arranged. What was it like for my mother to have married a man she had never met before? How did she survive living in poverty in a wooden shack in the jungle surrounded by tigers and other wild beasts? She did tell me that she saw tiger paw prints surrounding the house. Although they narrated these stories to their children, it is strange how we remember bits and pieces but never the whole. Stranger still when different children remember different bits and pieces. And there is no one to tell us if our memories are fictional or real.

At one stage or another, some of us have toyed with the idea of writing something about ourselves and getting it printed. In the meantime, we keep journal entries that are privy to our eyes alone. We even keep public and private blogs. We write articles, poems and short stories and make someone else the protagonist.

It is always safer to create a character to speak for us, to provide the voice for what we think or feel. We hide behind the security that the stories we write are based on our experiences but we are not the story per se. Another nagging worry is would anyone be interested in our lives and are we not being presumptuous that there is a whole community out there just dying to know our story? After all, we are just living everyday lives and we have neither walked on the moon nor discovered penicillin.

Maybe I would wait until I am 60 to write my memoir. Maybe I never will. But in the meantime, I would wait for Michael Harding to come to the nearest city so I could get my book autographed.

This is as good as it gets.

Source: http://www.nst.com.my/node/53320

STATUS UPDATE: FEELING LOVED

Facebook has enhanced its status update product, which allows users to share what they are doing or how they are feeling in a structured and visual way. This is the most basic kind of sharing because it only requires the use of words or emoticons to express ourselves, our thoughts and opinions.

We have feeling excited, bored, happy, amused, sick and many more. I have not counted them but there must be hundreds of them and my personal favourite is feeling loved.

To me, it is the small things that make us feel loved and I found lots of small things at a recent festival that we went to.

I love animals in general and could not resist being up close and personal with the four-legged kind. It is not everyday that one could sneak up to a Friesian cow and look at her lovely eyelashes or give a horse some sugar lumps. Rural Ireland has its charms and against spectacular scenery, there are woolly sheep grazing and  Friesian cows unabashedly chewing their cud. 

So I look forward to farming related festivals especially the annual National Ploughing Championships.  The only problem is the weather as there could be practically four seasons in an ordinary Irish day. Even if the sun is out, there could be strong winds and it is safer to bring along an umbrella, just in case.

I need not have feared because we started out with the sun shining brightly as we made our way to Stradbally in County Laois recently. As the festival ground was a distance from the car park, we had to stand on a trailer that was towed by a tractor. The feeling of being ‘herded’ into the fair made me feel more connected than ever with the animals in the field.

There were over 1400 exhibitors and well over 200,000 visitors. After all it is Europe’s largest outdoor exhibition and agricultural trade show. In order to attract customers most of the stalls have loads of food and drink samples and freebies. A bit of cheese here and a small cup of spaghetti there could really fill one up and I am not talking about the free buns, cakes and cookies. They were giving out free car ice-scrapers as well even though winter has not yet arrived. Very generous indeed.

There was a band stand and just watching endearing old couples waltzing and jiving made me go all soft inside : farmers with their flat caps and tweed jackets and senior ladies in long skirts, red lipstick and pearls. Everyone came to revel in the festive mood – the young, the old, the babies, the disabled – and there were facilities for all.

A reflection of a society that cares.

Out of curiosity, I sauntered towards the Irish beekeeper’s stand. It was interesting to observe a glass casing which showcased live bees and the honeycomb. The joy of being educated about nature’s secrets! A tall man painstakingly explained to me what the bees were doing and added ‘If you wait a little longer and look closely enough, you can see the Queen bee.’ Feigning innocence I quipped, ‘And should I be looking out for the one that wears the crown?’ to which he responded with a loud guffaw.

When I spotted a life-sized cardboard Friesian cow with a cut out where the face should be, I could not resist resting my chin there. It was great fun watching mascots walking around in animal suits and swishing their tails and baring their teeth. I could not resist taking ‘selfies’ with them either.

A great necessity at any trade show is the toilet. Not particularly fond of visiting public toilets, I asked the person-in-charge whether it was clean. So he did me a personal service and cleaned it for me and even sprayed a huge cloud of air-freshener.

“There you are, a great strawberry fragrance for you and mind yourself now…” he said.

It is indeed the little things that make your mood – the good weather, the tractor-trailer experience, the freebies, the dancing free-spirit, the banter, the childlike antics of being a cardboard cow or hugging a mascot and the clean toilet created especially for you.

Status Update: Feeling loved.

Source: http://www.nst.com.my/node/48611

When The Giant Comes To Town

Just last month a giant came to town.

No, I’m not joking. For three days, Limerick was taken over by a 25 foot giant granny which is a marionette of sorts. Very impressive – especially with the state-of-the-art mechanism that allowed the Royal de luxe Granny to walk, sleep, talk , or sit in a very life-like way. The spectacle attracted more than 230,000 tourists and left children and adults alike with a huge sense of awe.

That got me thinking about giants, not that I have not thought about giants since Jack and the Beanstalk. There are fictional giants and metaphorical giants.

Fictional giants are those portrayed in storybooks. They normally have a foul dispensation and are monsters associated with chaos. They are the regular antagonists with the exception of The BFG (Big Friendly Giant) by Roald Dahl.

Metaphorical giants are symbols of strength. Such are the giants in the sporting arena. We have the San Francisco Giants,  a Major League Baseball team based in San Francisco, California that plays in the National League West Division. The New York Giants on the other hand are a professional American football team located in the New York metropolitan area.

Isaac Newton said, “If I have seen further than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulders of giants.’ These giants are the pillars of society, the embodiment of all that is powerful and impressive beyond that of the average and ordinary person.

As far as the mind can recall somewhere along the line, we have encountered giants who have impacted us -  the parent, the teacher, the leader, the influencer. These are the ones we look up too, the ones we want to emulate. We render our devoted admiration to these pillars of society and woe be to them should they stumble or make mistakes. In our dogged perception of bigger-than-life characters, we forget that they can be human too.

Metaphorical giants are also symbols of the battles that we face. These giants enslave us. They take the form of the oppressor, the bully, the corrupt or the wicked. They are the problems, pressures, pains, and persecutions that we will have to deal with from time to time   They are the unpleasant traits such as pride, hatred and unforgiveness  that prevent us from moving forward.

Such giants become even bigger when we focus on them. The more we are afraid or anxious about a giant in our lives, the more powerful he becomes. It becomes worse when we think we are fighting the giant alone. Of late, I have met with many people who are very insecure. People, both young and old, who think they are not good enough and have a low self image of themselves. Whatever you say to them, the reply is always in the negative. It is not uncommon to hear them say, ‘I cannot do this, I cannot go there or I cannot wear this’. There could be many reasons that have caused them to behave in this way – the society, their beliefs, their upbringing and the people they regularly hang out with.

It takes another person, maybe a good friend, to make some time for them, to take them out, to listen to them and help them see that the sun is still shining.

Confronting the giant is the beginning of victory. Then comes regained confidence and the courage to see that no giant has the right to defeat us unless we allow it to happen. We forget that we are made of amazing stuff and there is a deep well of strength within and without that we can draw upon.

Like any giant who is here today and gone tomorrow, the Limerick Giant Granny has left the city after her three day walkabout. Being the most amiable giant I have ever met, she has left a huge impact especially in the memories of children and we were sorry to see her go. But with the other unfavourable giants in our lives, it is up to us to chase them out because they have outlived their stay of welcome.

Source: http://www.nst.com.my/node/44288

Who is your neighbour?

Source: VOX magazine (Ireland) Issue 24/ October-December 2014

Eccentricity or Creativity?

Recently I was facilitating a discussion on the blueprint of our lives. To make the discussion interesting, I created a giant film roll out of an oatmeal canister and embedded a long written message inside the canister for the participants to pull out of the canister. 

To mirror the actual film, the embedded message was divided into frames. As the film roll took shape, the seconds became minutes and the minutes became hours and before I knew it, it was 3 in the morning.

That state mirrors Dr.Seuss’ lament - ‘How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before it’s afternoon. December is here before it’s June. My goodness how the time has flown. How did it get so late so soon?’

So call it eccentricity or creativity but when the brain goes into active mode and the more ideas are being churned, the more satisfaction it derives. Period.

Seemingly  creative writers like Mary Shelley and Ernest Hemingway, composers Irving Berlin and Sergey Rachmninoff, painters Paul Gauguin and Jackson Pollock are all a bit eccentric. When Lord Byron, a Romantic poet was prevented from having a dog as a pet in a dormitory in Cambridge, he got round the rules by having a bear instead, complete with leash. Then we have Pythagoras, the Greek mathematician with all his absurdities – my favourite being ‘smooth out all bodily indents on pillows and/or beds’

We have our own level of oddities that we are comfortable with which others might perceive that we have gone off our rocker. I think this level is proportional  with age – the older we get, the braver and the more unfazed we are about  being labelled as ‘odd’. And so we become the eccentric person that lives down the road. (usually with a cat)

Interestingly enough a google search on the word eccentric renders the Medieval Latin word eccentricus, derived from Greek ekkentros, meaning "out of the centre". So, my contention is what is so wrong about being out of the centre?  Edith Sitwell, a poet wrote that eccentrics are “entirely unafraid of and uninfluenced by the opinions and vagaries of the crowd"

In fact, the people who stand out in my memory are those who are a tad different from the rest – that quirky lecturer who teaches from the heart, that student who produces the zaniest project or that whimsical child who lives in his happy bubble.

Creative difference is good.

It is a breath of fresh air, a departure from the same old, same old. Now this is different from mental illness.  Psychologist Dr David Weeks says that there are distinct characteristics of an eccentric, the top five being: having a nonconforming attitude, creative, intensely curious, idealistic and being happily obsessed with a hobby or hobbies.

Take painting on a canvas for example. Painting is a unique activity that is not associated with other routine activities. When we paint, we become immerse in the activity itself and when we paint on a regular basis, this becomes a repetitive action which is very enjoyable indeed.

So I decided to get a side of the wall painted with black magnetic chalk paint which allows me to stick magnets as well as doodle on it with bright fluorescent liquid chalk. There is nothing wrong with black except that we do not usually equate walls with the colour black.   Again, doing that took me way past midnight because I just had to finish it.

Apparently creative difference is triggered by uniqueness and emotional intensity. The black magnetic wall has evolved into quite a conversation piece indeed.

And the last time I heard, someone else is going to paint her wall black as well.

Source: http://www.nst.com.my/node/40111

3 Words that Kill a Conversaton

When I was in teaching practice my mentor gave me one tip that I found very useful – Do not let any student get into the habit of saying ‘I don’t know’ every time you ask a question. Thus,  I would usually make a list of things that the students should do or not do, the first time I enter a class at the beginning of a semester. Among the items listed is ‘Avoid using “I don’t know” immediately when asked a question. Think first.’

Ingesting the tip, I found myself learning to avoid the words ‘I don’t know’ as a convenient way out of a conversation

When we genuinely do not know something, it is then most noble to say that we do not know. We should go and find out more about it and not just remain in the state of ignorance.

However, I find that saying ‘I don’t know’ may actually be a habit that we have picked up along the way. Perception plays a huge part in a conversation. Once these three words are used often enough, the person is perceived as ‘not interested’ or ‘too lazy to think’. So, if that is an automatic response, than we cannot blame others when they think that we are so dull that they have nothing to talk to us about. After all, what is the point of asking us anything if the answer that comes up often enough is ‘I don’t know’. These words are a conversation killer.

Habits start once we are accustomed to it . It usually takes someone else to  point them out.

A web search on why people fall into the habit of saying ‘I don’t know’ is because of apathy. It is easier to slide into the familiar rather than having to wreck our brains to search for answers or possibilities that we might know something remotely connected to what is being asked. Or we are just not interested in getting deeper into topics that are new or that we do not find engaging.

Perhaps we have learnt this habit in our childhood. When asked a question in the classroom it is easy to say ‘I don’t know Sir’ and hope that someone else will answer it. Perhaps we have learnt it in our adulthood where it is easier to blend in with the crowd by feigning ignorance then to be seen as Mr Smarty Pants who knows all the answers. Perhaps it has become a conversation filler, because we do not really know what to say in moments of silence, so we just use these words again and again.

As in every habit learned there are ways to unlearn it. WikiHow renders simple steps to overcome this conversation killer.

Firstly, it is important to admit to the fact that it is a bad habit to respond to another person with an automatic ‘I don’t know’. Once we see the problem as it is, then we note down how many times we use these three words in a day or in a week. When we write down the number of times we do it in a notebook, we become more aware of the habit. This conscious effort of observation informs the brain that this habit has gone on for too long and we are doing something about it.

The next step is to listen carefully before replying. To ‘train’ the brain to react differently, use other replacement phrases like ‘I’m not quite sure, but I’ll look into it..’ , ‘maybe’, ‘that’s possible’ or something that will make us think for a second.

Ask questions so that we can have a better idea of the subject matter and we can see how we can contribute to the discussion. We can also buy time to mull over the matter by saying ‘I’m not very sure but I’ll get back to you on this’. At least in that way, the conversation partner will know that we have actively listened instead of just blurting out the habitual response.

Finally, persistence triumphs in the end. As in any habit, it takes time to break one.

Source: The New Straits Times - http://www.nst.com.my/node/35588

Life's Scrapbook Through Storytelling

I picked up scrap booking as a hobby not too long ago when a good friend showed me how to put memories together on paper. If anything, I get to create pages that tell stories. Stories of celebrations and milestones achieved. Stories of my life intertwined with that of others.

Ireland is famed for the art of storytelling. The seancaithe and scéalaí, (the Tradition Bearers and Storytellers), passed the old stories down through the generations.

Ancient Celtic culture also had its own form of scrap booking. The history and laws of the people were not written down but memorized in long lyric poems which were recited by bards.

When Michael and I received complimentary tickets to The River, we were all thrilled to bits. Not only do we like plays but the fact that it was staged on board a 90 foot Dutch Barge in Custom House Quay located at the back of The Hunt Museum in Limerick gave it an added charm.

We were there on time. We were among strangers and friends as the performer entertained us with stories and memories of real people about the River Shannon as it flows through Limerick.

It was not any ordinary story teller but award winning playwright Helena Enright who wrote and performed this multi-sensory theatrical experience using verbatim first hand testimony. The River Shannon plays an integral part in the folklore and literature of Ireland and Helena collected stories about how much it featured  in the lives of the people in Limerick – stories of life, death and hope. Directed by Ciarda Tobin, this was performed in conjunction with the Limerick City of Culture 2014 celebrations.

I thought she was very brave to stage a play on a barge. With such a venue, there were safety regulations to be adhered to. Having to don life-jackets before entering the barge added to the excitement.

We do it all the time. When we hear a good story, we will tell someone about it. Or for us who cannot live without facebook, we click share and make a good story public fodder. Well and good if the story is about someone else, fiction or non-fiction, home or abroad.

This time round however one of the stories in The River is ours. (Michael and myself)

When the call for stories for the event was published, I put a small fraction of our lives on paper and submitted it. The next thing I knew it was selected and Helena came over to our house to interview me.

For me it was a total reversal of roles. In the process of interviewing other people for my articles. I was usually the one holding up the microphone to someone else and then transcribing the recording. So it was quite an experience hearing my own voice being recorded.

Having told our story and seeing it being performed was something else. There was this nagging anxiety: How would my friends and relatives react to the performance?

I need not have worried because in the hands of a professional, the stories were woven together seamlessly like an intricate piece of tapestry. Helena captured the essence of the stories by giving them a voice rich in nuances and complete with local flavour.

There were sights and sounds that accompanied the narration of stories as well.  When it came to the part where I wrote ‘ As I watched the ducks waddling on the river bank making webbed imprints in the mud, I knew that Michael had made imprints on my heart’…there were computer generated images of webbed prints projected on the ‘wall’ of the barge. I thought that was very well done.

To me it is a privilege and an honour. It is a reminder of how things do not happen randomly but that we are part of a bigger plan and second chances. Memories fill our personal scrap books and The River is our cherished keepsake.

** Watch The River online at  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTvbGVMQVhI
The play starts at 1:25:12. Our story (1st half) is at 1:56:40 and the conclusion (2nd half) is at 2:21:25. Hope you'll enjoy it as much as we did. **

Source: The New Straits Times, 7 Sept 2014..........http://www.nst.com.my/node/30791