31-ish days

For the perfectionist in me, not being able to see this challenge through, every single day, has been a real learning edge. I wrote for many of the days, not most, and often had to take a break if I was just too exhausted or screen weary to go on. Hopefully next year I will have finished my big study, defended it and will have the luxury of ‘only’ writing the March challenge. I look forward to that for so many reasons!

Thank you to the many writers, poets, thinkers who diligently wrote every day. Gratitude also, to those who posted on mine. I am so inspired by so many things I read and so grateful I got to take part. Thank you to all those who read and left messages. A timely reminder for me was that quick writes can be just as impactful, sometimes even more than pieces I have laboured over.

Thank you TWT and this beautiful community of writers.

The storm before the calm

We were rudely woken up at about 3.30 am with the most ferocious sounding, thundering, storm. Typhoon season is usually in full force in July and into August. This year our first major storm was on the 30th March. Something’s afoot. There were huge cracks of lightening, growling thunder and then pouring rain. Heavy downpours that lasted at least the next three hours. The cats were petrified, the children got into the same bed and I could not go back to sleep. I got up to check on the children and if there were any leaks and stumbled back to bed. After the first hour or so it calmed and then just as I began to doze back off, the second innings began. Again huge loud cracks of thunder, this time followed by hail stones. Hail stones!! In Hanoi… in March! At one point, in my half asleep state, I literally thought it was raining inside our house. (Now, it did actually rain inside our house last September but that is a whole different post and an experience I hope I never relive). As we got ready to get to school our road was flooded with almost calf deep water. It felt like Ground Hog day taking me right back to September 2025 when we were homebound for days with flooded streets. Getting to school was a messy affair today and required lots of foot disinfecting once I got to work.

It is just past 1.00 pm now and already the temperature is 34 degrees Celsius or 94 Fahrenheit. If I hadn’t been awake through the thunder and lightening and non stop rain, you would never have known there had been such tremendous movement at day break. It is hot and sticky and sweaty.

I know geographically why storms and typhoons happen. I understand about the rising heat and the conjunction with the high humidity. Still, its unsettling when it happens out of schedule.

I am giving myself grace today as I navigate a dull headache from being up for the better part of 10 hours. Only another 8 to go. Bring on bedtime.

The joys

I have loved every phase of motherhood. Secretly I always thought I would love the infancy phase the most. My babies were perfect and precious and life affirming. But of course, my own mother was right. It does go in a flash and suddenly I am on the brink of not one but two teenagers. What? How?

This weekend we were gifted the joy and luxury of 4 days off from school to break up the long stretch from mid Feb to end April. We decided to stay home, rest, hang out, take naps (me) slow things down and maybe even spring clean. I am happy to report we did all of those things. But something I was not expecting was the surprise of getting to enjoy my children in their new avatars and being reminded how much I love this phase we are in. I was able to get very good advice on which pair of jeans I should purchase with one. I was able to go to the gym with the other. We watched a very silly movie together, the next episode of our favourite thriller, shared tiramisu and chocolate tart. And then, the older teen brought over her analysis of ‘When I Am Among The Trees’ by Mary Oliver and her assignment to compare and contrast it to a documentary by David Attenborough. I mean, there is so much to love about talking poetry with your child, getting to be the listener as they gently put their ideas out and talk vulnerably about what they think.

So many hidden joys and so much to love about gentle surprises and reminders.

Slow days

We are in day one of a four long weekend. After a hectic few weeks at school, a couple of working weekends thrown in, lots of multi tasking at work, lots of late nights and early mornings spent studying, I am so grateful to be sitting at the top of four days of calm and time at home. Long, slow days with some naps, a couple of runs and some home cooking thrown in.

A job I wanted to do this weekend was to clear the cupboard under the stairs. It’s been on my mind for an embarrassingly long time and so I knew it needed to be taken care of first this before being horizontal truly took over. I took an anticipatory anti allergy pill ( after all, we are still in moldy March here), put my mask on and had both unwilling teenagers at my side. In the end it wasn’t quite as bad as I had pictured. We sorted, made a pile to give away and a pile to discard, found some old framed pictures to dust off and hang up ended up with a less cluttered space. The trusty hand-me-down golf clubs didn’t make the give away pile- apparently we will use them, someday.

There is something calming from decluttering. From getting rid of the weight, metaphorically and literally. From being able to see through the murkiness and have larger amounts of negative space around the objects than objects themselves. Mission accomplished.

Photographs

My parents moved into their beautiful new home late last year and have just got to the point where they are sorting and putting away all their books. Inevitably, they came across many old family albums and so the last few days have been a delightful burst of messages on our family WhatsApp chat of beautiful old pictures -some familiar and some a delightful surprise. Old photographs, many black and white, some sepia toned, filter free, are like windows to another life. I love the one of my grandmother, standing in a swimming pool, in her black swimmers, looking up and laughing. It must have been in the 1940’s. Or the other one of my grandfather in his Air Force fatigues, cool and suave, cigarette in hand. That one dates even earlier- likely the mid 30’s. Or the 1983 photo of all us cousins- squirming, smiling, so little and all wearing very floppy hats in the Delhi winter. My cousin, as a toddler, sitting in her father’s lap, particularly poignant as we bid him farewell not three weeks ago.

I often think about what my own children’s perspective must be of photographs that look old and faded and yet memories for me that are vibrant and vivid. I want them to know that time and those people and who they were and what we did. We haven’t spent enough time looking at them together and weaving the narrative of our histories. There is so much richness there. The story of who we are. The people and places that lit up our lives. The laughter and the sorrows. The times and the history. So many stories.

With the long weekend coming up, it might be a great way to spend an evening.

Not so hot

I live and work in a hot, humid, tropical climate. While summer is not here in full blast, yet, it’s coming. If you know you know. That kind of heat where you step out of the shower and you begin to perspirate just drying off and putting some clothes on. Or when its so hot you feel like you could definitely cook an egg on the curb. Or when wearing my high vis vest on duty outside feels like I just put on a fur coat in a sauna. I am talking HOT and SWEATY.

Anyway, in the mean time, over the last few weeks, we have transitioned from the cooler winter weather ( luckily it does cool down sufficiently here) to ‘summer’s coming’. Cotton clothes, beads of sweat during bike ride to work, a gentle reminder that we should enjoy the last few cool mornings before the heat really turns on.

Every morning when I enter school, I park my bike, pick up my bags and walk across the Arts Center and into the Early Childhood Center, across the soccer pitch and past the staff lounge towards my office. Usually I step in and it feels a couple of degrees warmer. Just the bit stuffier. Just that bit ickier. I put things down, plug my machine in and usually look for the air conditioner remote fairly quickly. I usually turn on the AC and then have to leave the room for 5 or so mins to cool down.

This morning I stepped in and it was cool. Someone had put on my air con for me. It is quite quiet when I come into school so I knew it had to be be chi Hang. She does a round of cleaning before the hustle bustle begins. She has been our ECC cleaner for the 10 years I have been here. We have developed a quiet, gentle, respect for each other over the years and she always looks out for me.

I just had such a moment of gratitude this morning that chi Hang had been so thoughtful. Now to pass the kindness on.

Talent and passion=joy

Once a year the High School Honour band comes to perform at the Elementary School assemblies. It is my favourite assembly of the year.

There is so much to love about that. I love that its become a yearly tradition. I love that I helped make a one off nice-to-have into an annual must have. I love live music and I especially love the impact it has on your minds and bodies.

The Band Director is a spirited, energetic and passionate teacher. He has 47 High School students playing in the band this year. Between them, they play about 15 different instruments. The repertoire for the assembly moves from each individual section of the band playing a few bars to the whole band playing a magical piece together.

I loved watching our little ones instinctively move to the music. There was spontaneous clapping, lots of big smiles and a thunderous applause at the end.

And then the pièce de résistance came about half way through. The Band Director stepped aside and handed the baton over to a young clarinet player. She took over the conducting and led the band through the rest of their piece till they ended with a flourish.

It took my breath away. So much talent and such poise in one so young. So much promise for what these children have the potential to do. Make beautiful music, lead with courage and show everyone around them what it takes to work together.

A different modality

SOLC 17Download

Taking a Pause

So, over the last few days I have not posted to SOLC. Usually, I would be beating myself up- giving myself a hard time. Feeling bad about not posting, bad about not keeping up, not being able to keep up with the commitment. Not this weekend. This weekend I took an intentional pause.

Since January, I have been juggling full time work, my Doctoral studies, children, family, trying to work out, an emergency trip back home. Long days, constant to-do lists, never ending series of deadlines. It’s been a lot. Too much.

So, after trying to do it all, I decided to take a pause. I recalibrated my timelines, put the computer away, decided to breathe, went to the cinema (and didn’t fall asleep- amazing!) and even fitted in a couple of naps.

Sometime self care is calming down. It’s taking a breath, not feeling beholden and taking back some control.

Today I feel like I am back in the drivers seat.

There is no crazy rush. It will all get done.

Empathy

I find myself swinging on a continuum from bristling, hurting to feeling angry and dejected at the thought of so many schools, teachers, leaders and students who are having to face online learning again for an unspecified period of time. I was taken back in a flash to the sinking feeling and dull ache in my chest as I thought about our three years of interrupted learning and weeks and weeks of online learning, through the pandemic.

What did we learn then, that we can apply now?

Young children are not meant to learn through a screen. Early childhood education should be about playing in the sand, getting wet filling up pails of water, its about crouching down to look at a lady bird scurry across a leaf, discovering the magic of holding your friends hand, about listening, looking, learning, being. Children and adults alike in early childhood spaces learn through pouring and emptying, making, tinkering and questioning.

The endless hours spent online are exhausting, dysregulating and don’t help little bodies learning about how we function in a group, how to share or take turns.

May they return to school, safety and peace, soon.