“The Heron” by Sarah Bessey

I have been feeling creatively empty. It’s a combination of a few things that are real: the baby won’t sleep, I have four children and there aren’t enough hours in the day for everything to get done, I have obligations and duties and work and requirements demanding all of my attention and my time just like everyone else – trust me, I’m no special snowflake.

But it’s also the unreal, the unseen, the you-feel-it-but-can’t-say-it of times of creative quiet: I’m empty and I’m tired, I have nothing from which to pull the water out of the well, there isn’t a bucket or a scooper and even if I could find one, I suspicion that there isn’t much in the bottom of this old well right now. I hope it’s not death, I hope it’s gestation of winter sleep but whatever it is, I’m feeling the failure of it, the loneliness of it. I’m unable to write and this inability is both an indictment and a fear.

What if I never write again? What if this is it and my time of creativity is gone? What if I’ve lost my voice and my passion? What if I am being submerged and sucked under by a tidal wave of obligation and regular life? diapers and meals, breastfeeding and navigating preteen dramas, spreadsheets and budgets, phone calls and toilet scrubbing, and good gracious how are these laundry bins full again? how is that conducive with a life of the spirit and a baptized imagination and a hankering for goodness and the mind embodied in ways of, well, even art?

Read the full article here. 

Kranji: Singapore’s secret backyard – CNN.com

Singapore made it onto CNN! 😀

Kranji, Singapore (CNN)

In a country that measures just 30 miles across, what do you do if you want to get away from it all?Singapore’s answer to the Argentinian pampas or the U.S. prairies is in the northwest corner of the island, as distant as it’s possible to get from the city center’s towering skyscrapers and statement architecture.Kranji is home to a patchwork of farms that look as much to the future as to Singapore’s rural past, and promise a surprise around every corner.Looking for anything from orchids to crocodiles, beansprouts to goats?Kranji has it covered.The farms themselves are half hidden by the jungle, and mostly tiny, as befits their location on the edge of a city state.In a world where agriculture is supersizing in pursuit of profit, Kranji’s farms look like the work of hobbyists — but most are in fact thriving businesses.

Source: Kranji: Singapore’s secret backyard – CNN.com

5 Courageous Things You Can Do On the Darkest Days | life{in}grace

Just discovered an amazing blogger, Edie Wadsworth. Read more below!

We had our boy this weekend which meant it was legos and books and golf cart rides and running and screaming through the house all the live long day.  The best kind of chaos in my humble opinion.

It also meant that I took a much needed weekend break from internet world.

Don’t worry, it was screaming at me when I woke up out of the blue at 3am.  I was missing my boy.  I couldn’t sleep so I scrolled through the newsfeed— more awful stories, the worst horrific tragedies, more terror, more death, so much hate.

It’s easy on mornings like today to become paralyzed by it all.

The world is dark.  Sometimes it’s so hard to know what to do with this gift of today. Is it even a gift, after all?

Source: 5 Courageous Things You Can Do On the Darkest Days | life{in}grace

2015.

2015 was a life-changing year, literally.

I started it a senior in a Spelman dorm with no idea how my thesis was going to get done. I ended it a high school teacher in a special needs foster home halfway across the world.

The year began with a confusing January. I was home at Waterloo and getting confirmation from books that mysteriously showed up to finances that miraculously appeared that the next step was China. The internal battle that ensued involved tears, the song “Oceans”, and more tears.

Being the type A I am, I made a bucket list when I got back to Princeton of all I had to get done before I graduated. This included completing Prospect 11 before Ben Tien, holding a picnic at Battlefield, ringing the bells of the Graduate College, and playing the Princeton Chapel Organ. 

I stayed up many late nights with Sunny and Ben working with the temperamental modelling program, ASPEN, design an oil plant that produced 5,000 barrels of oil a day.

I tramped through much snow from Spelman to EQuad many times a day in order to finish an experiment. I splashed Nile Red dye onto my favorite silky white shirt and had to send it to the laundromat. I learned that labcoats are actually useful.

I alternated knitting our Spelman 75 scarf with singing High School Musical and typing out my thesis. I spent many hours in front of the Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) searching for magnetic nanoparticles, and learnt that doing science really makes you humble. 

I spent almost all of my free time in the Spelman kitchen, experimenting with various recipes found through my blog network. This habit proved useful for the 2 bridal showers, multiple girls’ nights (nail-painting, smoothies, banana bread :D) and Spelman Society dinners our room organized. All this cooking did result in several visits by the police, however, when the fire alarm was set off by excessive smoke. Two out of four of our burners also decided to retire due to overuse.

I held a Wintersession class on Asian desserts, including but not limited to egg tarts, bor bor cha cha and banana fritters! I had the privilege of being a bakery assistant to my favorite baker of all time, Edredge. He showed me how to pour love into almond croissants.

When the weather turned nice, I dyed my hair with Koolaid with Min and laid out on the Spelman Lawn with “California Girls” turned up. We gave Vic a ticket to the wine-tasting festival and ended up all making the trek out to the vineyard.

I auditioned for Naacho with the girls but ended up doing “Dancing to Christ’s Beat” which was the best decision ever. I performed a CBE rendition of “Rather Be” and a Disney mashup in 5 different languages at the Manna Coffeehouse.

I graduated from Princeton.

I went on a 1-week educational trip to Israel. 

I returned to Singapore, the land that raised me, and cafe-hopped while visiting old friends. I attended New Creation’s young adults and celebrated Singapore’s 50th anniversary. I also saw rats getting their corneas removed. This is when Project Shalom took place and I re-discovered the concept of wholeness.

I flew off to China and fell in love a second time with the family here.

I started teaching high school to kids that wouldn’t be able to go to school otherwise. Many ask me how my life is right now, and so I tell them that sometimes, it’s tiring and other times, it’s absolutely wonderful and a lot, I miss my family and then, lovelies like Sarah Bessey remind me to take joy in the moment. 

And as Elise Blaha makes goals for the new year, I too look forward to the new year with anticipation. I look forward to teaching Biology and the history of China to my kids. I look forward to starting dance classes next Tuesday and hopefully a creative arts program with music, dance and art therapy for our kids. I look forward to growing and challenges and adventure.

Because as my friend Leah likes to say – it’s going to be the best year yet.