Walking Past

Today I took a little walk
where my youth and solitude roamed,
retraced the footsteps of my teenage years
that I have left so far behind.
The solitude remains along the paths
I wandered along so long ago,
my haven for creativity
I knew all those years ago.

My legs may not be as sturdy
as my youthful legs once were,
but they took me along paths
holding memories of years before.
My mind had its freedom
to dance freely over everything,
gathering new ideas to formulate
for another relaxing time.
The fresh air is something I have longed
for....
Along with the comfort of just being myself.

Abah Little Girl

Buat anak perempuan abah...
Jatuh bangun, pedih pilu mu
Selagi ada abah
Abah lah pembela mu
Peneman setia
Walau kau salah berjuta..hahaha
Abah maafkan semua,
Tak harap banyak dari mu,
Kau jaga lah hak Allah,
Aurat, maruah, kehormatan dan rukun agama..

Abah love you so much..my talking/argue buddy, my bubbly money bank, my Bizness Partner but most of all my daughter who's a friend when the odds are always against Abah...

Talking to the Moon

Amidst the flowers a jug of juice,
I pour alone lacking companionship.
So raising the glass I invite the Moon,
Then turn to my shadow which makes three of us.
Because the Moon does not know how to drink,
My shadow merely follows the movement of my body.
The moon has brought the shadow to keep me company a while...
Many many moons ago
I stretch out on the shore
And think of you
Had I told the sea
What I felt for you,
It would have left its shores,
Its shells,
Its fish,
And followed me.

For some odd reason our conversation was about how you see someone well and then later you hear they are no more. The phrase Men Don't Cry is as silent as you can get at this moment. The only sound you hear are occasional cries in silence. It is the time to keep one's own deep painful sorrow to oneself for sad reasons and cry in silent solitude. It is a moment we shed tears alone in solitude. The wound is so deep that pushes our emotions down into our gut stifling any other emotions.
It was only yesterday that we all laughing about our last assignment. Ramli had his balls grab by a girl while rescuing her from drowning. We can't help talking about it the whole day so much as Ramli keep reminding us by the way he walks. But yet despite the pain he was jovial, sharing the story at the mamak stall we frequently hangout. You need guys like him in your team because they make you happy doing the things you do. They give you happy memories and moments that tickles you after a hard day's work. I am glad he is apart of my team even though sometimes he's a pain in my butt.

It's been a long week filled with travels in catching up with family and friends apart from the drop by business rendezvous that's been occupying my days lately. Sometimes you get the urge to cram so many things in one go because you feel time is short. It's not that you have a timeline with deadlines but when I retired recently, I had this 'fear' that l be lying around doing nothing until the D-Day. All your life you have been waking up to doing something, then all of a sudden you're looking at wall and ceiling. That's not my thing. I am not going to be a dead man walking. I am that guy who live with the belief that 'Great things happen when l am around' hahaha. But I was wrong...
You thought when you retire you got time to yourself. Man, you are dead wrong. You imagine of days sitting at your corner of your 'mini library' reading and reflecting or doing some gardening with the little space available around the house..well that's a lot of hogwash. I recall one advertisement where this guy said, 'I got time'..Big lie!. So when I open my FB account and saw a message from my Guru of TulisCerpen101 giving an assignment to group members to write about our favorite book, I said to myself 'OMG Where got time?', even though the instruction was you freewrite for 10 minutes. It does sound like it doesn't take too much of a time since you got 24 hours in day. Getting started is the one consuming the 10 minutes and sometimes it's forever. Well...it's 3am now..all alone at peace in the corner of my mini library trying to get some shut eyes. I am still trying to figure out about the assignment. How do I begin to tell the story of how great a love can be..Wait a minute that sounds like the lyrics of a song playing in my head. It kinda reminds me of project assignments during my working years - deadlines and commitments. The long and late hours trying to complete them to ensure the desired objectives were achieved. The only difference between now then was, I work in teams. Writing is a lonely team. So as I look around to see all the books that I have accumulated over the years, I can't help but noticing the kind of books I have read..pretty predictable base on the kind of work I did - DBII Database for Big Data & Analysis, Business Intelligence, The Blue Book, Business Process & Management Tools, Systems of Insight, PC'S Programmer Bible etc..Wow that's no life. I guess the kind of work you do dictates the books you read. So the question I ask, is there a favorite? As I scour through the shelf to find something out of the ordinary, I came across a few which seem out of place..Elephant Can Dance, Napoleon Hill series of books, collection of poetry/poems books (I am a fan of poetry) and a paperback book of Ellen Degeneres 'Seriously...I'm Kidding'..seriously I can't believe I have that book. I recall I bought that book at some book sale at a shopping mall. I think at the time, I was looking for some poetry books especially those with illustrations..Chris Riddell is my favorite. But coming back to Ellen Degeneres Seriously..I'm Kidding, when I first saw the book, I was just flip flopping like everyone when buying a book, you know read the reviews, front and back pages write up, acknowledgement, author's note etc.. I know what you're thinking, Ellen Degeneres the celebrity who openly declared her sexual orientation..Why would you want to buy and read her book. I do not agree with her choice of sexual lifestyle but putting that aside, the more I read into the book, I realized she's just as normal as any other working people. She writes about her working life, how she got to where she is now, there's no substitute for hard work to be successful, be all you can be and be happy doing them. Along the way, she also wrote about the people who have influenced her - family and friends, colleagues and peers, people she invited to her shows on the path to her success. All these were written in a free and easy way with humor and humble but real in a world she builds her success story. Come to think about it, It's somewhat a lesson in freewrite. You know, for some reason as we get older, we lose that sense of wonder. We get jaded. I find some of it inspiring and some I can relate during my working life. Is it my favorite? I don't know but I have read it 3 times over so far with highlighters and pencil marks all over the book. No matter who we are, what we do, where we come from, what color our skin, what language we speak, what clothes we wear, we all want the same thing: HAPPINESS. I think that's the message in the book. We live a lifetime of moments. Cherish the happy moments.

I don’t wish to suggest people cannot have opinions, but they need to be open-minded. This especially true in fields like economics and public policy, where belief systems and political affiliations can have an outsized impact on objectivity.
Now of course, we should consider the argument that our economic growth has been so strong that it overwhelms any negative effects from the higher minimum wage. No one should ignore that possibility and we will be among the first to acknowledge that this could be the case. We may never know for sure, because in economics you don’t get a chance to run control experiments; you only have the facts at hand.
The problem occurs when we are confronted by facts that are at odds with our belief systems. The options are to either rethink your ideology or alternatively ignore the data. Most seem to have done the latter.

Little Girl and The Moon

Once upon a time there was a little girl.
She liked to sit outside at night and talk to the moon.
Every night she kept the moon company.
One night she noticed the moon seemed tired,
So she climbed upon the roof,
To tell the moon a secret.
The old moon smiled, so she reaches up
Takes the moon in her hands and puts him in her pocket.
Then she climbs down and goes into her house to her room
There she takes the moon out and let lay on her bed
For hours they talked, told secrets and giggled.
Then they heard people asking where the moon was..
Outside was so dark, they couldn't find their ways...
The old moon says to the little girl
'maybe you should put me back into the sky,
So the people can find their way home at night'.
The little girl agreed...
So she picks up the moon,
Puts him back into her pocket.
and goes outside.
It was very dark, but she wasn't afraid,
She had her friend the moon to help
show her the way.
she climbs back upon the roof, takes the moon out of her pocket
Holding him with both hands
She tells the moon 'i love you,
We will still talk every night, but you must go back
Give people light at night time'.
She leans over kisses the moon goodnight.....

I don't like clutter. I firmly believe that there is a place for everything and everything should be in it's place. And I know there's a name for people like me: neat. It is astounding to me how much stuff we all have in our office drawers and around our desk. We keep accumulating more and more stuff over the years and we never want to let go of anything. Nowadays people are a little more aware of how much stuff they have  because there's a bit of a social stigma if you have too much stuff. There's even a name for the people who have the most stuff. They're called hoarders. Back in the day they were just called grandmothers. If you want to clean out your office desk and get rid of stuff, you can always do a good 'spring cleaning'  or do what I do - Request for a Transfer. I can't remember how many times I have moved office. There's a saying if you moved more than 7 times, you'll be bankrupt..So far it hasn't happened...in the corporate when they do clearing stuff it's called Downsizing coz I just an email memo for a Town Hall Meeting..and so it begins

Oh God I found her or was it she found me...After all these years of searching and looking at the stars for a sign, I finally found her. I cannot describe the feeling and the emotion that goes with it. It is as if I have crawled out from a deep hole and free at last from the anguish of despair. The thought of being able to see and meet her again is so overwhelming that I cannot hide the tears of joy. Imagine finding that missing piece of a puzzle that you put on the wall and looking at it everyday and you have been trying to find the missing piece and it hurts when you can’t complete the puzzle without it, that’s how I felt that day. All sorts of feelings and emotions were rushing inside of me. You can tell from the few ramblings above, I am out of sorts, I am just writing without any coherent coz the words are just coming out right at you. There’s no thinking, no grammar, no phrasing.. Guess I just flew over the cuckoo nest.
As the emotions starts to subside, it dawned on me; What do I do next? What am I going to say when I call her or should I text her first> Can I call her? Or will I be intruding? Its been almost 8 years. Will she still remember me the way I remember her? Will she even want to meet or speak to me? Suddenly all the questions that I haven’t thought of starts to pop up. I don’t think I can hold back. I have been holding back far too long. To hear her voice and get a glimpse of her is so overwhelming. Its like a do or die mission. I just wanted a moment with her even it means nothing is spoken coz sometimes the silence means more than the words spoken. First love never runs dry....

So you think you’re lonely, well I’m lonely too……
I remember the moment I started working at my current place it is like a lonely planet> I am among people whom I cannot relate and does not have the same motivation that I have. I chid myself in believing that they can be my friends but they are nowhere near the concept of friendship I adhere to. To me they are just shadows that passes by me as I see no reflection or substance in their presence. I am just going through the motion like the metaphor I subscribe to- I am that ghost from a wishing well. I do not know how long I can keep it up but I know they find me strange that I am among them. Yes, definitely I don’t belong among them but as I see them as shadow, I guess they see me too as a shadow that gives them a glimmer of light to their god forsaken life. I know they want to be lifted to a better place despite their life predicaments. Sometimes you need inspiration in the oddest of places to find that path back that frees yourself from the chains that’s holding you back.