IT'S ALL ABOUT THE OVER

As this season is officially the staying at home season, we stayed at home dutifully. No more running around, no more escapes to warmer climes. So day and night I tended to my garden. I sowed the seeds into plugs and put them in a vitopod heated propagator on February 26. There was great growth and I pricked them out, moving the stronger ones to trays. And then I watered and watched. If fact I watered, and watered and watered just because I was around. The inevitable happened. To my horror, some of them  gave up the ghost.

What had just happened?

In the past when we could go for short trips now and then, the plants were healthy and strong. There was space and time for them to grow, to be liberated. It was as if, knowing that the gardener was away, they rose in unison and clapped their hands, stretched out their roots to available water sources and reached for the sunlight.

So over caring had been disastrous. And you would think that there would be no harm in being overly concerned, after all it is in a gardener's nature.

When I think about the word 'over' I can find more words and phrases that have negative connotations rather than the positive: overeat, overweight, overdo, overdrive, over-the-top, overkill, overzealous, overdone, over-the-hill, it's all over, bending over backwards, fork something over...

So I purposefully search for words that bring about positive notes instead. Not an easy task though. I chose 4.

1. Overwhelmed
2. Over the moon
3. Over and above
4. Starting over with a clean slate

OVERWHELMED

I am always overwhelmed by the kindness of others. A family member or a good friend who would go  the extra mile just to bring some cheer into my life. I can always remember the time when I was in Primary School and had just recovered from fever.  In those days, public transport was not a reliable thing so my mother walked about a mile to the school just to make sure that I had some nourishing soup during recess time. And more recently, just when the Restricted Movement Order started in Malaysia, a friend asked whether she could do some food shopping for my son as he had not stocked up the fridge? And the random visit from a friend who would just ring the doorbell and say 'hey, I baked a cake for you?'

OVER THE MOON

Sometimes an old story is still very refreshing. I don't know how many times I have regaled the tale (to interested individuals, and only when asked)  of how Mike and myself reconnected after more than 30 years apart. Each time I tell it, it is as exciting as the first time we reconnected in 2008. I am still as pleased as punch and grinning from ear to ear.

OVER AND ABOVE

It is nothing like doing something to the best of your ability. I like the phrase over and above especially when I make something for someone. Because she/he is in my thoughts before, during and after  I have made a craft or baked something. There is so much pleasure in giving. The sparkle in the recipient's eye says everything.

It's also nice when there is an understanding that those living under the same roof should help each other. Whether or not they are working out of home.  Sesame street will call it COOPERATION. Over and above. The floor needs to be swept and cleaned. Pots and pans need to be washed. Clothes need to be hung out to dry and folded or ironed. The grass needs to be cut.  And it is not someone's job. It is everyone's responsibility.

STARTING OVER WITH A CLEAN SLATE

Now this is very difficult. But doable.

It takes great resolve to forgive someone else or to forgive yourself and start all over again. Some studies state that most people hold on to  bad memories more than good ones. Other researchers suggest it could be that good memories persist longer than bad, thus helping us to be more resilient.

Whichever theory, I want to remember more of happy memories. So what I do is to write down short notes about good, significant moments and stick them to a magnetic wall along the staircase. (for those who are interested: you'll need 4 coats of magnetic chalk paint for the wall). In that way, every time I feel sad, I just have to look at all the happy memories and my spirit is lifted again. 

Life is about living today. You can't go back to what things were. How you perceived they were. All you really have is now. 

Like Merida in Brave, I will take hold of my dream. I will ride, I will fly. I will chase the wind and touch the sky.

UNIQUE CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCES

When I heard that Judith Kerr was at the Mountain to Sea book festival in Dún Laoghaire/Rathdown area, the name rang a bell. After all I was once a school librarian and why of course she is the author of a number of children's books. The one that stands out in my memory is ‘When Hitler stole the pink rabbit’.

I can still remember the rows and rows of the said book on the library shelf. It is strange that I didn't read them as a child, only as an adult.

When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit is a semi-autobiographical story of a young girl and her family escaping the Nazis and the journey they made. Basically it is about the experiences of childhood that remained edged in her psyche.

What are my experiences of childhood? Simple pre-internet fun that I still hold dear.

Things like the VCR player and the diskette or floppy disk are quite alien to the current generation. We played more outdoors and our friends were few but real as compared to virtual friends. Even the food we consumed was simple – I hardly heard of the terms sugar-free, gluten-free, fat-free or dairy-free.

In fact when I visited the Shannon Hydro electric dam recently, the tour guide said one young visitor was more amazed by an object on the table than the actual dam itself. The object in question was an actual telephone. He had never seen one before and thought that mobile phones have been in existence since the last century.

I miss speaking and hearing my own dialect. Other than my family members, I don’t have anyone to converse with in that dialect. There are so many ditties, proverbs and phrases peculiar in every dialect and when I recall them they are usually in my mother’s or father’s voice. It is very strange but I can remember my parents’ voices so clearly, as if it was only yesterday that I saw them last.

Even ear piercing was so different thsse days.

I remember as a child we had to wait till the goldsmith made his rounds. Then all the female children would gather in a neighbour’s house. We were excited and afraid at the same time. The grandmas present there told us it was nothing more than an ant bite. When it was my turn, I sat on a stool. The goldsmith held a gold earring that was open like a fish-hook. He rubbed some alcohol on the ear-lobe, held a thumb-size piece of ginger behind the ear and very swiftly jabbed the fish hook through. Then he pulled the ginger away and with a pair of pliers bent the straight end that had gone through the ear lobe into a curve. It felt like an ant bite alright. A big nasty ant.

Then there was this experimentation with audio equipment and photography. I bought my first Sanyo tape recorder and Kodak camera when I was 13. The tape recorder was so magical and I remember recording my own voice and then sending the cassette to my pen-pal. In those days snail mail correspondence was novel. 

The camera had wound up film inside. I had to bring the used roll to the photo studio for developing and then wait for a week to see how the photos would turn out.  Initial shots were either over exposed or under exposed. There was no instant viewing or deleting or photoshop.

I bought a handheld dymo label maker and took great pride labelling my personal possessions, even my tumbler. No one called that Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

There wasn’t a week that couldn’t be enhanced by the Princess Tina magazine. A random browsing through e-bay showed that some of these are still around! I had a good collection of vinyl records as well and album covers were works of art to be admired. Even the sleeves of the records had printed lyrics. In terms of fashion, flares and platforms were the order of the day. Wide collared shirts and tie-dye t-shirts were fun too. I even had my hair done like Sandy’s in Grease.

I loved the Bazooka bubble gum, pink soft stuff that could be coaxed to become big balloons. The only fear was my mother telling me that swallowing the gum would bring about a possible death.

Then there was this must-have: macramé plant pot holder!

For every generation childhood experiences are different. I could only imagine what my parents’ childhood would have been through the stories they told me. Likewise my children would have a totally different set of childhood memories too.

THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PRINTED THE NEW STRAITS TIMES MALAYSIA 9 APRIL 2017  http://www.nst.com.my/news/2017/04/228616/unique-childhood-experiences