family rules

growing up there were things we called john-isms, they were little pearls of witty repartee which my father would throw out at just the right moment for a laugh. i have tried to go back and reconstruct them, but its never going to happen, i think the context has been lost. i have thought of asking my sister to help, but more likely than not we would need to be together sitting with a bottle between us drunk and laughing to remember most of them. i mean “you lie like a rug” and “that’s a useless as a tit on a bull” are gems, but the rest may be lost to time.

as the kids were growing up i tried to keep a running list of family rules, the little sayings that i hoped they would carry into their adult lives. i tried to give them numbers, to show that they were real, kind of like the ten commandments. imagine the commandments if they were not numbered. they just wouldn't have the same feeling of gravitas as the "small number of commandments".

last week i was talking to a vegetarian who is going to the US soon. while discussing food i used the first family rule we had, “there is no guilt at the top of the food chain”. this was something a friend had said in an indian restaurant one night that worked years later when the kids didn’t want to eat bambi, sebastian or some other animal that disney has removed from the family table by humanizing them.

the questions that came were “how many rules are there?” and “what does the order mean?”. i started making a list, i had the first five locked down but the rest were more mixed into memories of parenting. by the time i was done listing them, i realized the list was longer than i expected, i also had to reorder the list, because guilt in the food chain was not as important as the two that now go before it in the list. the following are the rules that our family has been built to live by:

1. we love you, no matter what
2. do what you love, the rest will come
3. there is no guilt at the top of the food chain
4. they always find out
5. when in doubt, don’t
6. safety first, fun when safe (no glove, no love)
7. team, corp, god, country (family, friends, god, everyone else)
8. listen, think, act, then talk
9. if you need an answer now… no
10. love is trust
11. family means no one is left behind
12. if you can’t win, change the rules
13. trying hard and failing is success (failure is never trying)
14. patience is a long awaited virtue
15. god judges, friends help
16. life is short, enjoy it

okay, so these do not have the color of my father’s sayings. they are more targeted at giving the kids something of substance to remember when they hear my voice coming out of their mouths someday. or was it to give them a voice to their conscience, solid words which they would remember from years before, maybe along with a lesson in life. number four for example went along with our oldest son running an illicit po-ke-man black-market, and using the proceeds to fund the winning of a charity fundraiser. it’s always easier to not lie when you know that “they always find out”.

the amazing thing is how often these little sayings can be used. better, i have heard the older kids use them over the past few years. knowing these sayings got through to them, and that the little man will grow up hearing them even though i am not there to say it helps.

having this list does not mean that my fathers saying were useless as teaching models. he also used to tell us “we don’t care if you’re a garbage man, as long as you are the best garbage man you can be”. that was something i carry with me everyday.

it also does not mean that we don’t have a few modernized -isms, these are little saying that the kids and i trade around a table while we are laughing. usually, someone just says it and everyone laughs, no explanation is needed, we all know the context.

• if someone asks you if you’re a god, you say YES.
• i love this plan, i’m excited to be a part of it.
• i think we've established that "ka ka" and "tukki tukki" don't work.
• ohhhhh, i hate mummies.
• no, i didn't bring it. you know why? because you said, "you won't need that man, we'll be back in a half-hour.

and finally one rule that didn’t make the list, one i was surprised to hear our daughter say on vacation last year when the little man had fallen, “unless there is a compound fracture or arterial bleeding, you’re fine”. it may sound insensitive, but when someone little has skinned a knee, sometimes it’s better to just help them get up and get moving again.

running the family with rules helps. it gives us a chance to always remember what we agree is important.

missed writing

the last month has been fast, it’s like it never stops. trying to mix travel, review season, compensation updates, hiring, visits from executives, jetlag, missed guitar lessons, emotional distance and now a strange lingering feeling of sickness has really gotten in the way of writing.

i have been reading a memoir written by a british expat living in pre-merdeka malaya. the book is made of letters and diary entries which have a consistent thread of apology for not writing sooner, for not keeping up to date with those expecting him to send news. his writing is supplanted with other activities which are described for their tedium and which hold no strong affection to the writer. yet, they are the things which take the majority of his time, and which come first before writing.

selecting a book describing expat life in malya at a time without long-haul airlines, internet phones, email, satellite television or “affordable” DVDs as a conscience choice. standing in a book store in indonesia looking for titles i may not find in KL shops, the cover with a photo of a matsaleh bermalas-malas with a machine guy lying on the floor almost out of frame piqued my interest. the back cover describing the chinese brothels in penang and pillow dictionaries, both gone but in some ways echoed in KL today, added to the choice to purchase.

this blog was originally created as the contemporary equivalent of letters and diary that makes up the book. the stories and thoughts that come from being dropped into new cultures can be things you want to write down. although I constantly say, “that’s something to blog about”, and although i write down notes to remember what to later write, living life takes precedence over writing about it. this is odd, because writing about the thoughts is what helps me feel that it is real.

i can definitely understand the feeling of malas (bahasa malaya meaning: laziness or reluctant) that can come with living here. even things you enjoy are at times anything but simple. simple is easy, easy is boring. i know, but no matter how much this feels like the US, its not. things are different here. having tapas places, irish bars and the ability to stay connected with those at home makes it worse. it might just be better to have the complete physical, cultural and emotional separation that would come from living far way in a place where you can’t or won’t have chances to connect with the people whose life you do not share.

i need to write more, it helps to process the events. i can go back, think about thoughts and remember the moments. this is the other side of my photography. freezing an event in time, locking the thoughts down and making sure they are not altered by the haze of memory. photography is able to freeze the things that happen around me. writing freezes the things that happen where the camera can not see.

maybe that’s why i have not been writing? it’s not that i am busy, it’s that i am not sure how i really feel about things right now. i tend to not say anything when i am not sure of what to say.

i have missed writing, if i have been suppressing myself from saying something this could be the need to get it out. either way, i am not good at being quiet.

three days in NYC

the kids and i have been planning on coming down to NYC for a few months. the little one wanted to see a big hole in the ground left by a group of men who changed so many things in the world with four hijackings we watched on thursday morning a life time ago.

rather than going into detail, i thought i would break this down in summary form:

************

day one:

up and packed, picked up the girl a bit late, gas and donuts on the side of the highway, ipod and GPS driven trip to the city, hotel, cab to battery park, lady liberty and the positive brothers, walk to ground zero, walk back to hotel with a stop in a french bistro, balloon wielding magician, hotel, cab to central park, skating rink, zoo which was closing, FAO schwartz for a toy, tiffanys, rockefeller center, dean and deluca for hot chocolate, times square to see the lights, cab to hotel, trip to bodega to get drinks and snacks for room, adam sandler movie and sleep without dinner.

day two:

up early while the kids slept, little man and i having coffee in lobby, donuts on the corner, cab to empire state building, short queues and on top in under 10 minutes, back down through two gift shops, cab to the metropolitan museum, eqypt, asia, hindu, café for half a sandwich, dutch masters, impressionist, byzantine, islam (closed, hmmmm), medieval and renaissance, sculpture garden, armour, cab to times square, juice bar, toys u us for bribery payment, slice and a canoli, cab back to soho, custom bag store near hotel, america’s top model in the room, bodega (but no hot meals on sunday), mexican tacos in the chinese restaurant, drunk guy with an evil bike lock, hotel to order pizza from joe’s pizza, 16 inch pie and sleeping son.

day three:

negotiation in a dark room, coffee and a paper in the cab to rockefeller center, today show at the fense, little man shakes with al and matt, ann slips away without saying hello (she is beautiful), walk over to seventh and a cab back to hotel, coffee and computer in the lobby, trying to decide what to do now until our late checkout.

************

does that seem like a lot to you, or barely anything. the cab rides alone are more than i spend in KL in a week. NYC is a great city, read a book, have a portable GPS, be willing to go with the flow and simply duck into a place to sit and relax when you need to, dress nicely, and wear walking shoes, keep your eyes open.

i am still not convinced that i would want to live here, but it is nice to visit. staying in tribecca/soho area was a good idea. let me know if you need a good hotel, i have one now, see we are almost new yorkers already.

living alone

i have been living on my own for three years now. i have friends and family visit, the kids come for the summer. those 8 weeks or so of time that they are here, or the 4 weeks of the year i live in my condo in the US are the times during the year that i have someone to live with. these are the weeks that i need to leave work before midnight, and i have concerns which take precedence over anything personal or work related. the other 40 weeks in the year, i am living alone.

when i first moved out of the house, it has been almost 10 years since i has been alone for more than a night or two. i had traveled for work, and honestly getting away sometimes felt like a mini-vacation. i did not have to drive 100 mi home that night, i could stop working when i wanted, eat what i wanted for dinner and watch what i wanted without worrying about negotiation.

when i was confronted with the reality of living a lone, i realized i would only be forced to stop working when i wanted, eat whatever i wanted for dinner and watch whatever i wanted without worrying about negotiation. the reality of this was frightening. the things that previously were a vacation suddenly turned into things that i dreaded; a dream i wished i could wake up and realize was just some deep seeded insecurity bubbling up at night.

no such luck, it was real and it was something i had to deal with. the first thing i did was avoid the move for as long as possible. the next was to try to live like i was not alone. my kids took turns staying over. it was more a matter of them making sure i was okay than of me taking care of them, but it was a relief to not be alone.

months later, a move to malaysia was in the making. the day i took off, i had friends calling me and telling me i would be okay. i tried to be confident, but i was going to be 12 time zones away and knew no one in this part of the world. how do you start a completely new life when you are not ready to leave the one you are moving away from?

as the weeks and months passed, i found ways to never feel disconnected. i would have email and phone conversations with people in the US and europe as often as i could. it was my way of not really feeling like i lived in asia. i was here, but it was really an extended work stay. i was living in an apartment, but it was not home. rather, it was the functional equivalent of the hotel rooms i had lived in earlier when i was on the road for work. i would call home and say how much i missed them, and how i loved them.

it all felt like a temporary situation that would end soon. i went out of my way to remind people that this was temporary, as though none of it was real. it was just a rented life that would be replaced with something more permanent once i figured out what that would be.

the past few months have changed that. i am living alone. i feel it, i feel the difference. i no longer fear coming home to my apartment, i have become comfortable with it. i have been adding touches that are mine. my photography, my guitars, my books are there. i have begun to replace some of the things i left behind in the US. movies, sports equipment, clothes which were too much to carry on my “trip” have now been added. the weight of possessions and life are now here, and i think of KL as home rather than a temporary location.

as i walk toward pasar malam, drive on rain swept KL highways or sit in mamak, i realize that i really do live here. i am building a life in malaysia, i am not sure about the future but i am comfortable with the present. i no longer talk about where i will go next; i am simply enjoying being here today.

the one downside is that i am living alone, and i am enjoying it more and more as the time passes. gone are the days when i would call someone to accompany me to the ikea for shopping, i do that alone now. gone are the times that i schedule myself so that i am not alone. i have been finding that i tell people i am busy when i have no plans at all. this allows me to just be alone and do what i want to do.

i am now completely at ease that 40 weeks out of the year i can stop working when i want, eat whatever i want for dinner and watch whatever i want without worrying about negotiation.

i can grab my camera and take pictures whenever i want to, i can plan trips on short notice and do none of the things i had wanted to do while i am there. i can play my guitar badly at any time day or night and not disturb anyone around me. i can spend all afternoon in bodega, reading or working and have no one to be upset that i am not doing more. i can lay in bed with my feet in the air and blog about things around me, or random thoughts i have, and i don’t have to explain myself.

i am comfortable with the situation, and i am happy i have time to work and relax. i am lucky. the thing i feared second most in my life happened and i am alive and feeling lucky. i am alone, and i like it.

the thing is i do like it, i have given up on worrying about being alone, now i worry about not living alone. this is a good thing right? this is healthy? hmmmm, there is no one here to ask.

maybe what I need is a roommate. but then i would not be living alone.