Urban Wildlife

Kuala Lumpur, October 26, 2009, 9:14 am

This bird perched outside my window during office hours. It flew away when I moved closer.

What Did They Do?

If anyone dropped by our place today, they'd have been surprised to find no welcome and an empty house. K2, baby E and I went out to town with our domestic helper. What did the residential geckos, house spiders and pesky ants do in our absence? Did they all vary their daytime movements and routines?

The Comparison Game

My feathers get ruffled whenever anyone makes a negative comment about E's looks, or thinks I'd be a much better mother if I follow their "my way is the only way" advice on babycare.

But this really soothed me - a mother's loving words to her daughter (who is a new mother):

"It's not easy to take, is it ... your baby being evaluated by others. People more often than not say what they think. He'll always be compared to someone else. That's life in a competitive world. ... people observe how you do things, how you care for your baby. They will ask if he sleeps through the night, if he's getting enough to eat, if you don't think he needs a supplemental bottle, if the doctor thinks he's gaining enough weight. It goes on and on. You just have to take it in stride. Sometimes people have good advice, and sometimes they just like to talk. ...Accept your little one as he is and love him unconditionally. Take what others say about him with a grain of salt, and turn up your nose at judgmental remarks about your care for him. I know you will do your very best."

- Excerpt from Mildred Tengbom's "Devotions for a New Mother"

The Peregrine

"A falcon peregrine, sable on a white shield of sky, circled over from the sea. She slowed, and drifted aimlessly, as though the air above the land was thick and heavy. She dropped. The beaches flared and roared with salvoes of white wings. The sky shredded up, was torn by whirling birds. The falcon rose and fell, like a black billhook in splinters of white wood."

- Excerpt from The Peregrine by JA Baker

Firefly

One night, a firefly decided to visit us. When K2 climbed up the flourescent-lit stairs in our home, he came across the small insect. He thought it might be a slender cockcroach, but a bright-green torch at the end of its tail lit up when he moved it.

We took some photos of the firefly before releasing it into the garden.

E was fascinated by the firefly :)

I Understand You, You Don't Understand Me!

Vivian Gornick captures so well what often happens in a mother-daughter interaction:

"Oh, Ma! What a day I've had," I say. Mary Cassatt, Mother and Child

"Tell me," she says. "Do you have the rent this month?"

"Ma, listen ... " I say.

"That review you wrote for the Times," she says. "It's for sure
they'll pay you?"

"Ma, stop it. Let me tell you what I've been feeling," I say.

"Why aren't you wearing something warmer?" she cries. "It's nearly winter."

The space inside begins to shimmer. The walls collapse inward. I feel breathless. Swallow slowly, I say to myself, slowly. To my mother I say, "You do know how to say the right thing at the right time. It's remarkable, this gift of yours. It quite takes my breath away."

But she doesn't get it. She doesn't know I'm being ironic. Nor does she know she's wiping me out. She doesn't know I take her anxiety personally, feel annihilated by her depression. How can she know this? She doesn't even know I'm there. Were I to tell her that it's death to me, her not knowing I'm there, she would stare at me out of her eyes crowding up with puzzled desolation, this young girl of seventy-seven, and she would cry angrily, "You don't understand! You have never understood!"

- Excerpt from Vivian Gornick's memoir Fierce Attachments as reproduced in Deborah Tannen's book You're Wearing THAT?: Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation

On E

A sketch by E's ee (auntie):

she had no material substance until very recently - conceived
about a year ago now, hitherto ? - o the mystery!

and then slowly she took form, a little swelling, a little sonographic image, a little fluttering, a little kicking... a little baby!

a creature whole, self-contained, such a strange combination of fragility and indomitable existence. Once released onto this world, to be part of it forevermore.

and she has pierced hearts, her innocent fingers ploughing
into our substance and staking a claim, an ownership that will brook no defence.

will she justify this possession - will she try to live as her mother lives? a heart so soft, and so good.