NEVER ANNOY A WRITER UNLESS YOU WANT TO FEATURE IN THE NEXT STORY THEY WRITE...

You're on thin fucking ice my pedigree chums, and I shall be under it when it breaks. Now fuck off!

- Snatch

What do I see when I look outside of the bedroom window...

I sat in the car with my father, waiting for the school to end to pick up a student, and I looked up just in time to see a toddler hauling a broken cement stone to a place by the chain link fence. To us adults, it may seem like she's just making herself tired for no reason. But in her mind she's probably imagining building a house. I kept my eyes on her, wondering why this scene is so familiar.

Then I remembered.

In a flash it brought me to my childhood home in Kudat. We lived next door to a community hall that also double as Tadika Kemas. I was probably three or four years old at the time, because I remembered staying home and had to be fed bottles of milk whenever I wanted. The house we lived in had this old school style window that reaches to the floor. I also remembered this detail because when I was spying on the kindergarteners, I was sitting on the floor.

The last kindergarteners to leave Tadika Kemas were usually in groups of four or five people. There's an oil palm tree growing by the fence, just one. It's old enough to grow fruit, but not too tall because all the kindergarteners had to do was stand of their tip toes to pick the fruit out.

I found it fascinating. One of them pick a sharp stone the size of their palm and will gently knock the stone around the oil palm fruit to prise it out of the bunch. They usually pick just one fruit for each of them. The picker would hand the fruit they successfully extract and hand it to their friend. I remembered the picker said, 'Put it in our fridge'. There was no fridge of course. Just a little place on the fence's cement that they suddenly decide will be their "fridge".

In a group of four to five people, when only one of them was picking oil palm fruit, what were the others doing?

They crowd around under a tall guava tree, where another friend was climbing it. The fruit was so far up the tree that the said friend even had to stand on the community hall's garage roof top for a bit. They crowd around under the tree to be the eyes to the climber. I remembered they excitedly screaming at their friend 'to reach a little over on the left'. They pick any guava they could find, albeit unripe.

When they're done, they took turns biting into the guava, not wanting to lose to their friends by admitting that it's too bitter to consume. Or maybe, they already used to the taste, so they don't care. They did not forget to pocket the oil palm fruit. I loved it when I watched them pretending to open a fridge door, each of them took it from the "shelves" and put in in their kindergarten uniform. One of them chose to bite into it instead. 

I remembered thinking, 'Lucky kid'. After watching so many episodes of them playing pretend, I remembered telling someone (perhaps my nanny?) that I want to eat it so much, but the adults at my house said it will give me stomach ache.

Spoilsport...

I loved watching them whenever they played pretend. As a kid, I have no concept of time of course, but somehow my body knew when the Tadika Kemas ended, and I would rush into the bedroom, sat by the window and watch them.

It was one of my favourite memories as a kid.

Hundredth Day of Year Two Thousand Nineteen

Inspiration can come from anywhere - an image, a comment, something that's happened to me or someone I know. It's hard to know exactly.

- Nicholas Sparks -

Years ago, by my own standards, I was a very active blogger. I once reached a peak of creativity and I published a post once a day, almost every day of the week. I cannot afford a smart phone with Internet access like my peers back then, but I do owned a laptop and a USB broadband (Goodness, remember the USB broadband?). But then again, I can't very well lugged it around with me everywhere I went. So when I got an inspiration, I grip it tightly in my mind so I won't forget, got home and wrote it in my blog.

Those were the good days, it seems. I certainly hope that that wasn't the peak of my life and that I'm still climbing. Realising the stark comparison between the number of posts in my early years of blogging, I decided to start fresh: Build a new blog and delete the old one. Which you are reading now. But as you can see, even in the new blog, the posts were very few and far in between.

I lived a rather introverted life. I had very few friends who I hesitate to contact, just in case I bother them, so I am not really without friends I stayed home a lot, not doing much. I picked up some sewing skills, which I might share with you one of these days. But mostly I just watched TV shows these days, whether on the actual TV itself or on my phone. By living such life, my daydreams probably exceed that of an average person, so for me inspirations really can come from anywhere. Even when I was at a post office waiting for my number to be called, my head can spout a dozen of ideas to write, however ridiculous. Each and every one of my ideas, can fill at least a few pages.

With apps and websites being developed each day, in this day and age, inspirations are scattered everywhere waiting to be harvested. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, Instagram and many more, are abundant with raw ideas to develop.

Unfortunately, though inspirations really do can come from anywhere, the process of really executing it into something people can enjoy reading is an entirely different story.

So let's cut to the chase of the matter. I haven't been writing much lately not because I'm uninspired. It's because I'm unbelievably lazy.

And that's what made me disheartened.

Even so, don't think that I am giving up on myself. In fact, it was far from that.

I can't help but wonder though, where's the girl in me with the passion for writing. Was she upset that I pushed her out of the board room and replaced the writing team with TV shows. I hope she doesn't completely abandoned me. I want her back with a triple raise of salary.

And since we're talking about non-existent entities of imaginary corporation in our heads, I also want to call back the reading team. I only read a handful of books last year, why was that? I used to read a book a week, remember? Pull yourself together...

Anyway...

A few years ago, I had drawn up a blogging plan; with pre-picked topics, and meticulously spaced dates for posting. I didn't get to do it that year, so I moved it up to the next year. But the next year came and went, and I still did not hold up to my self-expectations. If you think the blogging plan were moved to this year, then you're so right. When I missed a few scheduled post in January, I remembered thinking, 'It's okay, it's free-trial month'. Then February came, but it was March when I finally come to my senses.

I cannot keep breaking my own promises.

It was also March when I scraped my blogging plans, compose myself and promised to return to blogging with a healthy and ready mind. Rather than following a list of topics to write in numerical order it came with, I decided to just write freely with whatever topic I want to write at the time. I will treat my return to blogging as I did (or at least tried) with everything else - stress-free.

And today is that day. Today, on the hundredth day of two thousand nineteen, I am publishing my first official post of the year. 

I'm still keeping the blogging plan. It might be useful in a few years, after another lengthy revision of course.

With that said, I'm saying goodbye for now. I'll be celebrating my return to blogging with a feast. See you in a few days.